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#i just i need a tablet/ipad so i can take notes right on the slides in a better way than on my computer lol

microbiologynerdd · 4 years

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Notion - BASIC and EASY Note taking system FOR STUDENTS

Hello everyone!

I hope you are well!

For this weeks #Microbiologynerddweeklytips post, I shall be sharing my university note taking and organisation system using Notion.

I have been using Notion for roughly 1 year, and have used it to organise my second year university studies, in addition to my voluntary position as the VP of my society.

So below is a very BASIC and EASY to use format you could adapt for yourselves! Enjoy😊

Contents

As a directory to everything I need at university, I have a contents page. Here I have each of my modules, as though they were chapters of a book. Each leading to a separate page of their own.

After this I have the required ‘modules’ for my placement year. I have arranged this slightly differently to my regular university notes - more details on this later.

Below this you can find pages for my summer microtalks hosted by SFAM. I attend these weekly and make notes in that subsection.

And finally I have a section for Taekwondo, to organise tasks I have to complete as the VP of Taekwondo.

Module pages:

So i have tested 2 different methods for module layout, each only having a slight twist.

- Please click the photos to enlarge -

In the photos above, I visualise the 2 different systems. Each of the systems involves having a new cell per lecture. However, in the first 2 photos (from left to right) I have separate pages for my lectures vs my lab notes. Whereas on the right, I have my lectures, labs, extra reading and questions all formulated into one table. Clicking the See All button at the top left of the table, above the search bar, you can choose to view classes by type i.e. just see my lectures or just see my lab notes for example.

The second system I have found works best, otherwise you are just clicking too many buttons to get to the area you need. However, in future I shall implement the ‘breadcrumb’ at the top the page, like i did with the first and second photos. (Breadcrumb = univeristy/ BMS2037:cellu../lecture below the page titles). Breadcrumbs make it easier to shift between pages instead of clicking the back button all the time. They are essientally hyperlinks to other pages.

Tip: to insert a breadcrumb simply put /breadcrumb and a breadcrumb will appear. This works for anything you are trying to insert e.g. a table

You can also choose to insert materials e.g. any lecture slides or resources you used within that lecture. Personally I dont find this helpful, as our VLE is clearly laid out with our lectures. But it might be something worth trying, as you can also insert pictures or any sort of media you require.

I also use the tick box function to keep track of whether I have written the lecture into Anki cards (flashcards)/ attended the lecture.

Side note: Please ignore my spelling/ how I label lectures, they make sense to me, they dont need to be 100% correct - right?

Internship/Placement Page:

I have recently been dabbling in the layout I would like to use for my internship year, however, I shall update you at a later date with any additional details, as due to COVID-19 the formate of the year and my assessments has changed. I also will find out more when I start my internship... which is soon - yay!

I’ve decided to have reminders at the top, which I inserted using /callout - you can change the emoji to anything you would like. This is for me to know instantly any important documents or tasks that I need to complete.

The external work to that provided by my internship is included in the table. This is essientally the coursework I have to complete on the side of the placement. Here i decided to note the deadlines and percentage of the year that it is worth. This is just to help me grasp the format of this year, since as mentioned above, it is slightly different.

Underneath this I have a selection of details to do with the company. This includes my acceptance letter and any insurance forms I need to send off. I just wanted to have them at hand so i can reference them at any time.

Summer 2020/Taekwondo pages:

These pages I format the same as the ‘Module’ Pages, so I haven’t included any pictures etc.

Miscellaneous things:

- NOTION IS FREE FOR STUDENTS - if you have an educational email, you can sign up for free! If not, packages start at $4 a month, which isn’t too bad for something you use frequently!

- This service is avaliable on tablets and computers, so anyone can take advantage of this organisational software!

- You can change the cover and icon at the top of each page. They include emojis and a standard image database, but you can also upload your own unique images if you desire.

- There are also template designs for pages, with different themes for different needs. So if you don’t want to start one from scratch you have lots of options to choose from. Use those as a base and edit them from there! For example, there are calendars, habit trackers, resume trackers and whole load of other things.

- Using a device for notes, such as notion, allows you access to any notes you have made at ease. It is organised, and you are unlikely to lose your notes. Paper is great until you scrunch up that important sheet, or it rains and the paper gets wet, or you are carrying every single note you have ever made - that can become heavy. Just something to bear in mind, especially if you can afford a laptop/ note taking device of some kind.

- You can create multiple pages for different aspects of your life (photo below). For example I have 2 additional pages, 1 for personal things and another for blog post ideas - to keep you guys entertained... haha! 😆

Conclusion :

What I have shared here is a very BASIC overview of how I use notion. If you desire a detailed in depth report of how notion works, it might be worth checking out Ali Abdaal, who can give you this information. As for me and what I require from the service, Notion has been working really well, keeping me organised with all my notes in one area. Knowing what I am doing, when, and being able to keep up with the speed of lectures - considering my writing speed is questionable. 😂

When you first download notion and look at all the templates, it can be a bit overwhelming/ exciting. Start with what you need, and then explore new ideas that you want to incorporate. There is no point setting up hundreds of pages if you aren’t going to use them, just like writing out pretty notes doesnt help you learn content - but more about that in a future post. Start small, being organised involves consistency, you can’t be consistent if you have given yourself too many things to do daily. Or at least you are unlikely to be.

One word of warning, Notion is not compatible with the Apple Pencil, so if you like writing notes on your iPad, this may not be the best software for you. As well as this, if you are a faster writer than you are typer, DO NOT USE NOTION. The whole basis of this app or at least how I use it, is to stay organised and write notes productively and efficiently. If you prefer writing, keep at it! Don’t just switch because suddenly you hear lots of tapping on keyboards in the lecture theatre.

Play to YOUR STRENGTHS , enhance what you are good at, not what everyone else is doing. As always, you’ve got this 💪

Let me know if you have any questions, or whether you’d like any further posts/details about my notion workflow. I’m happy to answer any queries you have.

Speak soon,

Lucinda x

542 notes · View notes

decaffs · 5 years

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university note-taking 101 ~

one of the hardest things parts of adapting to life in university is finding a note-taking method that is efficient and easy for you and your learning style.

it took me 18 months at university, experimenting with different note-taking styles, to settle on a few that work best for me. i thought i’d share all of the different methods i tried and the pros/cons of each & hopefully it’ll help you land on some note-taking styles quicker than i did! :-))

SO...i’ll start by saying obviously not all note-taking techniques are going to be included in this post because i’m just one person and these are just the styles i’ve had personal experience with and not everyone will like or dislike the same methods, it will take a little bit of trial and error to find your perfect style :-))

i’m going to split the different methods into 3 separate sections (and i’ll highlight my personal favourites):

⇢ handwritten

⇢ ipad/tablet

⇢ macbok/laptop

starting with what we all know and (kind of) love! we’ve spent the majority of our school education making handwritten notes for high school so it makes sense to start here.

1. basic handwritten notes

this type of note-taking is the most basic of all basic note-taking techniques and it’s probably what you’re used to. it involves any kind of paper - lined, squared, plained, whatever you fancy - and a single pen or pencil.

all this involves is writing down everything important you think is being said or discussed by your lecturer or your classmates! there’s nothing fancy involved, it’s all about getting down the most important points.

pros:

- you’ve already been doing this for years

- no time wasted doodling or highlighting

cons:

- can be time consuming if you’re not a quick writer

- if you’re writing on loose paper, it’s super easy to lose

- not easy to work out what notes relate to what slides / what comments were being made

- you may end up trying to write down everything on the lecture slides - waste of time when you can view them at home and you might miss important adlib!

2. annotating print-outs (*fave*)

this is a technique i adopted in second year of university! all you have to do is print out your lecture slides beforehand and bring them along with you. you can write at the side of slides or right on top of them.

pros:

- less likely to repeat what is said on slides so you can spend time listening for the nuggets of gold from your lecturer

- having slides prepared before a lecture means you can read them and familiarise yourself with some content

- easy to know what notes relate to what specific slides

- super quick to make important and accurate notes!

cons:

- it can be expensive to buy a printer/ink or to use your university’s printing facilities

- again, you can easily lose loose paper if you’re not careful

- your lecture slides may not always be available beforehand

3. cornell note-taking

cornell note-taking is something you’re probably already aware for those who don’t know - it’s a note-taking system devised in the 40s by a cornell professor.

cornell notes have to look a particular way in order for them to work (see here) and they’re geared towards helping you pass your exams.

you do your main note-taking in the right-hand box - these notes should be brief but include enough detail to act as a revision source. take these note in lectures or in classes and make sure to note down and highlight anything your lecturer emphasises.

use your left-hand column to write down potential exam questions you could be asked regarding the notes you’ve written on the right. these questions should act as test questions when you’re revising!

finally, in the bottom box you should summarise the key points to take away from that page of notes.

pros:

- excellent note-taking method for exam revision

- can be super efficient once you’re used to the style

cons:

- can take a while to set up pages if you’re doing it by hand

- can take some time adapting to this new way of note-taking

- not a flexible note-taking system, no person wiggle room

handwritten notes general pros and cons:

- hand writing notes is the most reliable way to remember important information

- you can use personal abbreviations and symbols to make your note-taking quicker

- you might lose papers here and there meaning your notes are incomplete or totally make no sense anymore

- it can be time-consuming trying to decide what is the vital information and getting it down before the topic of discussion changes

1. goodnotes for set reading annotations (app link here) (*fave*)

goodnotes is an app designed specifically for taking efficient and nice-to-look-at-notes! i personally use it for note-taking and annotating set readings at university.

i create a checklist on the first page of each module’s notebooks and write down each research paper or journal article i have to read so i don’t lose track. i then important PDFs straight into the notebook and annotate and highlight over the top of them.

pros:

- it’s super easy to have all of your reading notes and annotations in one place

- no risk of losing papers as everything is stored electronically

- the app uses icloud to sync your notes across all your devices make everything super accessible

- you can quickly share your notes with anybody through email/airdrop/imessage/pretty much anything!

cons:

- you do have to pay for the app (but it’s cheaper than printing out all of your readings)

- can be difficult to navigate at first

2. onenote for in-lecture notes

onenote is a microsoft app that lets you type and draw in one place! it works in a similar way to goodnotes.

i used onenote in first year to take in-lecture notes because it also allows for audio recording (DISCLAIMER: DO NOT RECORD YOUR LECTURES WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM YOUR UNIVERSITY AND LECTURERS) and it was super handy to have my notes and audio stored in the same file.

pros:

- super versatile and allows for many note-taking method in one app

- syncs across your devices (if you have onenote downloaded)

- allows you to collate different methods of note-taking in one place

cons:

- can be hard to organise your information! pages are blank and there’s no end to them, there’s also no grid for your items to snap to so it gets messy very quickly

- i’ve experienced personal issues with the syncing feature

ipad tablet/notes general pros and cons:

- tablets are generally really lightweight and easy to carry around - making them preferable over heavy notebooks or laptops

- having access to the internet makes note-taking super easy when you need to search terms or find photos

- you do have to make sure your tablet is fully charged if you’re taking it onto campus

- tablets can be super expensive

now for my holy grail - taking notes on a macbook or (insert laptop of choice here)!

1. brief in-lecture notes (*fave*)

i use microsoft word or pages to take most of my in-lecture notes and i fleet between using my ipad and macbook - i’m sticking it in this section because 9/10 i’m using my macbook.

with these kind of notes i set myself a specific structure and carry that out through the whole module!

first i lay my title across the top of my document - i usually just use the title of the lecture / general lecture topic. I then use my first indentations for the titles of each individual slide and bullet points for important comments made about each slide i also note particularly interesting things written on the slides themselves!

i stick to one font and one size to avoid wasting time on formatting!

i usually print out these notes so i can annotate them with any research i’ve found so it helps with my finalised notes.

pros:

- super quick if you’re a fast typer

- easy to correct notes or go back and add more detail at a later date

- easy to share and sync between devices

- simple format makes it easy to follow and a good revision resource

cons:

- notes can look a little boring and uninviting

- not easy to use abbreviations or symbols because of autocorrect!

2. extensive revision notes (*fave*)

i also use my macbook to create my finalised notes that i use to write my essays and revise for exams.

these notes take more time to make because of the formatting but they’re super nice to look at and make a wonderful resource at the end.

for these notes i start by picking a colour scheme (usually one within microsoft word) and i stick with this colour scheme for a whole module. i allocate one colour to research names and dates, one colour to titles, one colour to highlight key information with. i also use a variety of fonts! i typically use 4 fonts: one for the title of the lecture, one for subheadings, one for researcher names and dates and one for the main body of text - the main body font is usually a standard Helvetica or Arial!

i really take time to flesh out these notes so they reflect all of my learning - lectures, seminars, set reading, extra reading and knowledge i already had! i print off the notes and stick them in a ring binder and this becomes my bible for the semester!

pros:

- really inviting to look at so it makes revision a bit more enjoyable

- gives you time to show off your knowledge and create an extensive revision resource

- easy to share with friends or lecturers to get feedback

cons:

- can take a while to make these notes

- if you’re printing, this can cost quite a bit!

3. mind-map notes

finally! mind-map notes.

i use SimpleMind Lite to create mind-maps as the last part of my learning. each lecture gets its own mind-map and the nodes represent the key themes within the lecture!

it’s super important you don’t just use slide titles for your nodes as your mind-map will get crowded easily and you won’t want to use it as a revision resource.

keep your branching-off nodes short and sweet - think of them as knowledge cues! by the end of your learning you should be able to look at a node and remember the information regarding that point. these cues are also easier to remember and jog your memory in exam settings.

pros:

- good to see information presented in a new way

- you can use bright colours to make it more exciting

- great way to prep for exams

cons:

- hard to print also your canvas within the app is endless

- can be hard to share with others

macbook/laptop notes general pros and cons:

- can help you create a wide variety of notes - from short and sweet to fleshed out and fuuuuull of all the detail in the world

- allows you to correct, add to and print off your notes however many times you’d like

- you do have to make sure your laptop is always charged / you always have a charger!

- laptops can be heavy and impractical to carry to university

- if you’re not saving to a cloud you could lose some of your work (don’t be silly like me, use an external hard drive or dropbox!!!)

you made it!!! congrats :-))

hopefully i’ve given you a good idea of some of the note-taking methods you could use in university and you fancy trying a couple out!

if you have any questions or note-taking tips yourself, leave a message in the replies below.

decaffs x

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138 notes · View notes

radicallyred · 5 years

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Down for the Count

Steve Rogers is irritated.

He's been stuck in a training session for over 5 hours listening to the new recruits bitching and moaning about the heat, and if he’s honest, he’s tired of watching them run laps whenever Fury gets mad. He checks his watch as they seem to wind down. 2:30. Good. They’re done.

He really just wants to get back to the tower and see Tony. He wants to lay down on that couch across from the big window and close his eyes as he puts on a vinyl, maybe convince Tony to join him. His phone has been ringing incessantly in his pocket, vibrating fiercely enough to curious looks from his colleagues, and he'd ended up turning it off completely when Fury threatened to crush it. By the time they’re dismissed and he was able to step outside to turn it back on, he has 15 missed calls and 3 missed texts from Pepper Potts.

And, curiously enough, none from Tony.

In fact, he realizes suddenly, he has nothing from Tony, not since right after he left the tower this morning. His stomach goes cold, a heaviness settling in his gut and when his phone quiver's to life seconds later, he picks it up on the first ring.

"Pepper? What’s going on?"

Steve almost never calls her by her first name, so he can hear the woman take a deep breath on the other end. "I wanted to talk to you before you heard about it somewhere else. I don't know if you have, but I assure you, he's going to be fine..."

He turns abruptly toward one of the exits, beginning to make his way out of the facility, his free hand already in the pocket of his uniform for his keys. "Tell me where, I'm on my way."

-------

The first thing he registers is the brightness. The pure white flare of the fluorescent bulb above him makes him wince in his groggy state. He pushes back into the pillows, attempting to turn onto his side to shield himself from the light, but he finds his body somewhat unresponsive, dulled by sedatives and painkillers.

Oh, but there is some pain.

He groans out loud, squeezing his eyes shut. He feels like he's been hit by a Mack truck (in actuality, it was a Prius). He forces his eyes open, blinking slowly a few times before his surroundings begin to come into focus. Everything is white. There is a beeping. And the smell...

He swears aloud as everything crystallizes and he realizes where he is. He does everything he can to push past whatever is in his system as he tries to rise up and out of the bed, objecting audibly. He feels a hand on his arm, a hand on his shoulder, a hushing voice that is trying to calm him down but he's not feeling very calm because not a hospital, never a hospital...

"Tony, STOP, you're gonna bust your stitches!"

Pepper's voice stops him in mid-flail and he stills in place for a moment as he gets his bearing. Pepper. Not Steve. Pepper is still his emergency contact. He needs to fix that.

“Where is Steve?”

“He’s on his way.”

He allows her to lower him back toward his pillow, let's her pull his blanket up over his hospital gown and she looks down at him with something like pity as she gets up and pours him a glass of water.

"What time is it?" He asks softly. "How long have I been out? What happened?"

She hushes him gently, handing him the paper cup and telling him to take it easy. He sips at it slowly and, finding himself parched, downs the rest in a gulp. When he licks his lips, the copper taste of a fresh formed scab follows and he makes a face. Pepper has the audacity to smile a little.

"They told me it looks a lot worse than it is, but don't worry, you won't scar." She nods toward his face. "It's almost 4. You've been out all morning and afternoon, but I guess the anesthesia is wearing off."

"Anesthesia?" He gapes at her and she nods in response.

"You were crossing the street and some asshole who was texting hit you with their car. They weren't going very fast, thank goodness. But you did get thrown quite a ways. You have a broken wrist, concussion, ruptured spleen, hence the anesthesia, 2 broken ribs and bruising everywhere. But other than that, you're fine."

"Other than that." He bites. He throws his head against the pillow, arching back toward the ceiling. "Fuuuuuuuck."

"Yeah." She nods, sliding back into the chair beside him. "He's gonna be pissed when he sees your face."

He groans again, sliding his hand to grab his hair at the crown. "Thanks for that. Thanks."

He looks down at his body. He can feel where the gauze bandage is affixed under his gown near his ribs (broken, he notes, and attributes the dull throb to that) and he rolls his eyes, thinking of all the aftercare bullshit he's gonna have to deal with, and mostly, how up his ass Steve is going to be, and not in the fun way.

He hears the door to the room open and a woman walks in in scrubs with a iPad, a tired smile on her face. "Mr. Stark. I'm Amy, I'm your nurse for this shift. How are we feeling? The pain okay? You need the drip adjusted?"

Christ alive, he has an IV and everything. He closes his eyes with a shake of his head. He wants the needle out of his arm. This was ridiculous. They had taken him to surgery, they had patched him up. Yeah, he didn't feel great, but he would rather feel not great in the comfort of his own home. There, he could just stay all doped up on some pain pills and he would sleep for a couple of days straight-Steve would insist on it-and he could maybe be back on his feet by Monday, if he were lucky.

"Alright then. Let me check your incision real quick."

He suffers through the indignity of being manhandled by a stranger without much fuss and as she draws the gown back down, hums a noise of approval. She pokes around on the tablet a few times until she confirms his check up for the afternoon, and hugs the device close to her chest, smiling brightly in an overly cheerful way that irritates him, but he knows that's kind of her job, so he holds back. "We're good for now. I'll be back in a few hours to check the drip again and everything."

"When can I go home?"

"You're gonna need to ask the doctor that, but honestly, probably another day or so. They'll just want to make sure that's healing alright, but getting your spleen out is relatively routine and everything went just how it should. She'll want to talk with you about what to look out for, what to do, how to change the dressings." She nods to Pepper with a smile as well and turns to leave before stopping herself as she gets to the door. “The doctor will be in shortly as well to give you the rundown of everything. Make sure to buzz me if you need anything, okay?"

She waits for him to nod before she leaves. He doesn't hear the door close.

A woman in a white coat walks in before he and Pepper can say anything to each other, holding what is probably the same tablet as the nurse had. She assessing the information, nodding slowly, muttering under her breath and finally looks up at him as if she's just noticed he's in the room. "Mr. Stark. Welcome to GBU."

"Pleasures all mine." He responds dryly, shifting in the bed so he crosses his arms. She humors him with a chuckle.

"I want to get the shop talk out of the way. Are you alright with Ms. Potts hearing all this now as well?"

"She can stay, she knows me better than me at this point."

"Alright. We have two broken ribs, a broken wrist, contusions throughout the body, a concussion and a ruptured spleen that was removed at 10:25 this morning. As long as your incision site stays clear of any signs of infection, I wager you'll be on your way home by Sunday. We'll send you with a few prescriptions and have Pepper here makes sure you don't re-injure yourself.”

He's burning with embarrassment, a dirty look on his face as he looks between the two. He knows the doctor won't be able to tell, but Pepper is holding back a laugh. They're close enough now, and they've known each other long enough for her to know how much this is going to irritate him, and it seems to be giving her boundless amusement, especially since in the end, she won't be the one to deal with it.

He looks back at the doctor, who is motioning at the doorway. He hears it open a little more, hears the swish of a curtain being pushed aside, and he hears footsteps too heavy to be the nurse who was just checking up on him. He watches as Steve slides into view, looking at the doctor, at Pepper, anywhere but at the bed where he currently lay.

Steve looks depleted, drawn, like he's been up for 3 days straight and is barely standing from exhaustion. He keeps his eyes on the doctor, because she begins talking about work and not letting Tony push himself and that he will make a quick and full recovery if he rests like he should. Steve is nodding with spirit, and Tony knows that regardless of what the doctor was saying, his exile from everywhere but their wing of the tower is already planted in Steve’s head.

Pepper rises from his side with a squeeze to his wrist and a sympathetic glance. "I have to get going.” She says softly.

"Are you going to be alright with him, Captain?” The doctor asks. Steve nods, a small smile tugging on his lips.

"I can handle Tony." He speaks for the first time, tone placid, without any implication that something is amiss, and the Doctor nods, seemingly content with the answer. The doctor hurries out, Pepper following slowly behind, and he's pretty sure he hears the distinct sound of the lock being pushed in before the door closes. Steve has moved over to the narrow window in the corner, looking out over the city, his left side facing the bed in the middle of the room.

"Steve..."

Steve holds up a stiff hand, and Tony can see his Adam's apple working in his throat as he blinks against the sunlight. After a few seconds of silence, the hand curls into a tight fist that falls to his side as he turns to face him, meeting his gaze for the first time.

"Tony."

His name is uttered in a whisper, a shuddering breath that seems like it's been held in for hours. It's made up of both fear and relief, and his expression is pained beyond anything Tony is ever okay with seeing on that face. Steve's hands are both clenched at his side, and his entire body seems coiled tight, barely restrained.

This is because of him.

"I'm sorry." And, God, this is fucking pathetic. He’s fifty years old, damnit, why is he crying over the fact that his boyfriend looks tired?

"Tony, no." Tony hears him walk toward the bed and he feels the shift in weight towards his left side as Steve rests against it. "Baby, it's alright, I'm here." Steve responds softly. He pulls himself close to Tony's side, pulling the younger man's good hand from his face and threading his fingers through it. His free hand ghosts up along the bruises and scrapes all up his jawline, barely caressing them with a hiss. "Oh baby, your face..."

"I know, I'm sorry. I’m fucked up..."

"Tony, I'm not angry. And this isn't your fault." He reassures with a gentle hush. "That young man was texting while he was driving."

"I was definitely in the crosswalk when I shouldn’t have been.”

"Be that as it may..." He trails off, not taking his eyes off of him. Tony finally allows himself to meet his gaze fully, and his stomach flips like he's on a roller coaster to see his lover's eyes shining.

"Steve, I'm okay."

Steve doesn't respond, doesn't seem to be able to. He just closes his eyes, swallowing a few times intermittently, deep, shuddering breaths before he brings Tony's hand to his mouth. He presses a kiss to the knuckle of his thumb, working his way up to the knuckles of his fingers, just holding his hand there against his lips. When he speaks again, rubbing his thumb now along the trail of kisses, he doesn't look up at Tony.

"Pepper called me so many times and I didn't pick up until the Fury dismissed us. And when she spoke, even though she told me you'd be fine, I just..." He shook his head. "You scared me, Tony."

Bruising be damned. He lifts Steve's hand, strong and stable and safe, to his face and presses it against his cheek, turning to kiss it's heel before letting it rest. Steve curls his fingers in the strands of hair there and Tony lets himself relax for the first time since he woke up.

"Will you lay with me?"

His voice is so small, he would usually be embarrassed, but this reaction has kind of made this whole thing a reality. He got hit by a fucking car. He could have fucking died. He's always been so reckless, ever since his mother died, living like it was all on borrowed time, through binge drinking and Afghanistan, NYC and Malibu, Iron Man, all of it, because it just didn't matter.

He scoots to the far side of the bed as Steve stands and slides in to join him, molding his body to Tony's, arching his arm around his side. Tony realizes for the first time that he’s still in his Captain America Uniform. "Am I hurting you?"

"No. I don't care."

"Tony, your stitches..."

"I'll tell you if you get too close." He promises, and he would be embarrassed at how he sounded if not for the day he'd had. He may have been flippant and fiery 10 minutes ago, but the weight of the day's events reflected through Steve had changed that.

He was scared too, he realizes somewhat in surprise. He had never allowed himself to be this close to someone, to need someone the way he knew he needed Steve, had never allowed himself to be the one who was needed. Usually by this point, he'd have done something abhorrent enough to drive them away. But this was different than then. Different than Afghanistan. He feels Steve's arm tighten snugly around his midsection, and bring his left arm down intermingle with it, grasping his hand once more.

It mattered now.

"I'm sorry I scared you." His voice is small. Steve nuzzles into the crook of his neck in response, kissing it softly. He can smell the man on him now, spicy, soapy, a hint of sweat and whatever warm smells like (cause he swears it has a smell, it does).

"Just promise me you’ll be more careful from now on." He smiles as Tony snuggles into the pillow. "Only the sidewalk, far away from the cars."

Tony chuckles, shaking his head a little. Steve places a kiss to his temple and Tony leans into it, spooning closer to Steve's front, letting his fingers trail up and down his arm. "You aren't the boss of me." He finally mumbles.

This earns him a dry chuckle, a heavy hand sliding to his waist. "Aren't I?"

Steve presses another kiss to his temple, and Tony melts more into him, closing his eyes. "We'll talk about it later."

He feels Steve laugh again softly as he drifts off to sleep, warm, and safe, and well loved. He barely hears the response.

"I'm sure we will."

#stony #fanfic #radicallyred #steve x tony #SUPERHUSBANDS

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witchqueenofthemoon · 5 years

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BODY AND SOUL Part 29 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: Okay y’all...listen. I meant to get this part up yesterday, but the Met Gala ate my fucking soul. Billie and Cody finally together at an event since MONTHS AGO at Ryan Murphy’s Walk of Fame ceremony is a thing I have been waiting for...since then, which was back in November. NEEDLESS TO SAY I WAS KIND OF DISTRACTED. Cody looked like some kind of cerulean space prince, and Kenzie looked like a goddamn glitter princess barbie, and then they started screaming along to Cher together and I DIED and now I’m speaking to you from heaven. IT’S BEEN A HUNDRED YEARS SINCE WE GOT ANY COLLIE CONTENT. I was on cloud nine, and I still am. It’s the intense, magnetic chemistry between them that birthed Millory in the first place, and Millory, of course, birthed Duckenzie. The two of them so happy together after months of not seeing each other was just so incredibly wonderful, I feel so grateful to Leslie in particular. I still feel like I’m high off of all of it, but especially the two of them, who are just absolute royalty to me. AND NOW ON TO THE CHAPTER: This is a big one. I’ve been waiting for a long time to introduce Rosemary to all of you--who is (did you guess?) my Angela Basset/Marie Laveau AU. I’ve known for awhile that she was going to play an important role in this story, and it was as wonderful for me to meet her as it was for Duckenzie here. She’ll show up one more time before the end; and I might do a little one-shot eventually where they go to visit her in New Orleans. She makes a really mean gumbo. Her top is like this, her skirt like this, her headscarf, her boots, some of her necklaces: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. A reminder that Kenzie’s dress in this part looks like this. The Fates, at least, my version of them (certainly based on the Moirai but also on the many incarnations of Hecate, as she bestows magical powers on Kenzie and Duncan, and on the witches in the AHS universe, and all witches in all universes, at least in my mythology), were always going to be the Triple Goddess, the Goddess many witchcraft practitioners (myself included) pay homage to: once again, the Divine Feminine energy that guides true goodness in the universe. Her mythology is partially my own invention (giving her a Heaven, making her the force of Light that fights against cosmic Darkness/the Devil, rather than a patriarchal god), partially in accordance to many witch beliefs. I loved that “god” appears to Michael in APOCALYPSE as a little girl; if anyone remembers that I put Ariana Grande’s GOD IS A WOMAN way back in Part 4 (cuz y’all, even then I had plans), you get a cookie. Duckenzie’s High Destiny has long been in the works in the grace notes of my story; it’s the cosmic energy of their union bringing a balance into their world. I’d need some weed to deal with the information they’re given, hence they smoke some weed. To finally have a chance to explain the way in which Duncan and Kenzie are Michael and Mallory was a big moment for me and for this fic; and to explain that she will always be his saving grace, too. I didn’t want to focus on sadness or despair regarding Duncan’s fate as Michael; rather the joy of the redemption of Duncan’s universe. I had to put WITCH-QUEEN OF NEW ORLEANS in this part as an homage to Rosemary being Marie Laveau in another life (also, it’s a fucking jam). Had to include a nod to Purity Ring’s BEGIN AGAIN in Duncan’s thoughts when he’s eating Kenzie out in this part, the most Millory song of all time to me. A reminder that this is the Demeter/Persephone illustration. This is the one of Selene looking down on Endymion. The excerpt Kenzie reads is indeed directly from the book. This chapter marks the closure of an important arc of my fic; from here on out, I’m moving forward into the last 1/3 of the story. As ever, your reblogs, comments, asks and edits (moodboards, playlists, aesthetics, everything) mean the world to me. If you’re reading, please take a minute to reblog the masterpost, thank you.

The light was high when he finally woke; the day was half over, Duncan could tell immediately, before he even opened his eyes. We slept all morning. Oh god, that’s so fucking wonderful. I don’t remember the last time I slept all morning. Something had woken him, he knew with a vague knowledge. A loud sound.

His dream drifted off. I was in the woods, dirty, starving, tired, and a little girl was offering me an apple, but I wouldn’t take it for some reason...I was waiting for someone else...and he forgot it, moving up from sleep into the summer daylight. The room was balmy-warm, the golden sunlight past the window, coming from somewhere overhead, the wind drifting on the curtains again, the sound of a crow cawing outside somewhere over the lake. It was at least midday, but Duncan could smell the remnants of the hickory fire wafting through the window. It really was a good fire. And I made it. I pulled it out of my own heart, that fire.

There was a long, low buzzing--the doorbell, Duncan knew. Or rather, the bell for the front gate, the keypad and security feed downstairs beside the walnut-wood front door. Who the fuck could that possibly be. We didn’t tell anyone but Madeline where we were going. Maybe it is Madeline?

He stirred, his arm instinctively coming around Kenzie’s breast, his nose turning down into her hair; it smelled like the grass, the sun, her sweet sweat, and the residue of her rosy-jasmine shampoo. The bed was so wonderfully soft, the feel of her so exquisite--Duncan sent out jabs of resentment towards the sound that had woken him. How fucking dare you.

Kenzie stirred a little against him--he leaned up, brushing the hair from her cheek to kiss it. The buzz rang out again, low and insistent and bracing. Her eyes fluttered and she let out a little moan, turning her face up towards him.

“Dunny, what is that,” she murmured. “Turn it off.”

“It’s the buzzer for the gate, baby,” he replied, his own voice coming out in a groan. “Someone’s at the gate.”

Her eyes came open immediately at that. “What? Who?”

“I have no idea. Did we even tell anyone where the cabin is?”

“I didn’t. Did you?”

“No...I don’t think so…”

The buzzer rang again; Kenzie moaned, turning into him, burying her face in his bare chest. How fucking dare you, he thought again, bringing his face down, kissing beside the dip of her eye. How dare you make me get out of bed, away from her. Who could have possibly found us? He hesitated for a long moment, contemplating staying and letting whoever it was ring the buzzer until they got tired and went away--but no, he thought, with a twinge of precognition. It’s someone important. It’s someone we have to see. Oh god, I hope it isn’t Annette.

Duncan got up, pained to move away from her, sliding over the softness of the bed. He trod naked to his suitcase, feeling Kenzie’s eyes on him, her eyes falling down to the half-hardness of his sleepy cock, a pout around her mouth. We came out here to get away from everyone, and still, someone found us. Somehow. Fuck. He pulled on briefs and another pair of jersey shorts, these in dark black, and one of the plain black tee shirts, ruffling a hand through his hair, and yawned.

The buzzer. Again.

“Fuuuuck,” he breathed. “Who the fuck is that?”

“If it’s Annette, I’m going to freak out,” Kenzie said, and Duncan watched her affectionately as she kicked her legs under the soft covers in frustration. He glanced at an elaborate golden-framed clock, beside one of the laurels. It was 12:17 PM. Fuck, it’s past noon. We slept for a long time. Fuck it. We earned it. We had a perfect day yesterday, full of wonders, and a perfect, long sleep. And now what--now what.

“I’ll be right back, baby.” Duncan hesitated, then winked at her. Fuck it. I’ll move through space again. Why not. He closed his eyes and grinned as he heard Kenzie’s delighted hum towards him, felt her knowledge at what he was about to do. That’s it, Dunny, show me your magic. Then her laugh cut off--he ached at the loss of it--and before he opened his eyes again, he already knew he was downstairs, facing the inside of the front door.

There was a small iPad beside the door here, the intercom below it and remote buttons for opening and closing the gate. Duncan tapped the tablet with a finger, and the security camera feed came up, facing the outward side of the road. There was a red Toyota Camry parked there, and the woman in the front seat was pressing insistently at the buzzer--he heard it ring again through the house, heard the far-away sound of another exasperated groan from Kenzie upstairs. He couldn’t see the woman’s face very well from this angle, but he could see the chocolatey color of her skin as she extended an arm through the car window. Her nails were long and red.

Duncan switched the cameras; now the one on the feed was from straight above the outside buzzer the woman was pressing so incessantly. Now he could see into the driver’s seat clearly. He didn’t recognize the woman at all, but she was stunningly beautiful; she had sharp, slanting cheekbones, pursed in impatience, full lips in deep mauve, a dark silk titian-colored scarf wrapped around her head. Her eyes flashed out at him through the camera; they were dramatically intense and bright, brimming with secret knowledge. Her skin was warm cocoa-brown, and flawless. Duncan shivered.

Who are you?

He pressed the talk button on the program’s interface, puzzled, frowning.

“Can I help you?”

The woman started; Duncan saw her jerk back in her seat, surprised. Her expression shifted from frustration to one that seemed to be relief--it was difficult to tell on the feed, but she seemed tired, as though she’d been waiting for a long time, or had missed sleep, her expression drawn. As he watched her on the iPad screen, she pressed a hand between her eyes, then lifted her palms together skyward, as if in a silent prayer of thanks.Then she leaned over and spoke into the intercom.

“Praise be to Her, is this Duncan Shepherd?”

Duncan balked. Fuck. Shit. They found us. Someone found us.

“May I ask who you are and what your business here is?”

“I know that’s you, I can feel that it’s you, honey--and I can feel Mackenzie Stone here, too. I need you to let me in. I drove almost 17 hours with some very poor sleep in between to get here from New Orleans, pulled by the Will of the Goddess with a forceful hand, because She wants me to speak to you two and tell you what She told me, that the time is upon us. Now, if you would be so kind, I am starving and would appreciate some breakfast, and I need to park this car before I crash it into a tree, blue eyes.”

“How did you find us? We didn’t tell anyone where we were going. We’ve been here for a day--”

“Sugar, honey, listen, I told you. The Goddess. Sent. Me. She came to me and She told me where you were and She told me everything. It’s gonna take awhile to tell you everything, so you best let me in and make me some eggs and some black coffee and roll me a big joint of that strong blue weed I know you got.”

What the fuck.

“Who are you?”

The woman let out a long sigh, rolling her eyes, dipping her chin up, then turned back to the intercom, enunciating with a pointed impatience.

“I am Her Hand, and She sent me, and Her will is to reveal your High Destiny. My name is Rosemary Antigone Delacroix, and you, Duncan Malcolm Shepherd, best let me the fuck in.”

Her words came like a heavy weight against Duncan’s mind, a pressing hand squeezing on his heart. This woman was powerful; he could feel her power from here, surrounding him, pressing against him, running along the edges of his skin, brushing the sleep from his mind, stoking him wide awake. This woman is a seer, a priestess. She can see things that are happening, have happened, will happen. She’s the one who was coming--the thing on the horizon that we felt on its way. And now she’s here. It’s her destiny to come to us, it’s our destiny to receive and hear her. Okay, Fates. I get it. I’m picking it up, loud and clear. Shit.

Duncan double-tapped the button beside the intercom; OPEN GATE.

He watched the beautiful woman through the screen; she smiled, her teeth shining out from her face--he could see her eyes flash, marvelously clear despite the smallness of the iPad screen.

“Blessed be,” she said, pushing a pair of large dark sunglasses over her eyes. Then she laughed, and the laugh sent a shiver up Duncan’s spine; it was lit with a bright joy that seemed to descend from the top of his head down into every part of his body, a tingling, vibrating energy charged with prophecy. It’s here. She’s here. The thing that was coming has arrived.

He turned away from the intercom and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time; his heart was hammering and he felt far too nervous, suddenly, to try to use his still-mysterious power once more.

“Kenz,” he called as he reached the landing, sprinting down the hall. Something was lifting him up now; kindling his excitement, pitching his nerves to a high place. “Baby--” He ran through the bedroom doorway, skidding to a stop, falling onto the bed on his knees. Kenzie was sitting up now, clutching the blanket against her naked torso, her chestnut-light hair tangled around her shoulders, staring at him with an apprehension in her sleepy eyes; then she saw his face, lit with that strange excitement building in his gut, and smiled at him, nervously.

“Dunny, what? Who was it? What is it?”

“Kenzie, it’s--I don’t know who she is, but it’s her. The one that was coming. The one we felt. You know? She’s the one. She’s beautiful, Kenzie. She’s a medium--or something, I can feel it. You know how we were talking about going to see a psychic? Well--I think she came to us. She felt us. Kenzie, she said she just drove here for 17 hours from New Orleans. She said her name is...Rosemary. Something. She said--fuck, Kenzie, she said The Goddess sent me, She told me where you were--”

His words were tumbling out at break-neck speed--he slid over the softness of the bed to grasp Kenzie’s (beautiful, tiny, beloved) hands, and he could see the uncertainty in her gaze bleeding out into the excitement he felt.

“Duncan--really?”

“Really, my love. Oh, fuck. Really.”

Kenzie let the blanket fall away from her, and Duncan couldn’t stop himself--he clutched at her, under the sweet roundness of her little breasts, pulled her against him, immediately devouring her mouth in a kiss that flooded his body with tingling energy. Her divinity washed over him--the tide of her. Mackenzie Stone. We’re here, at the doorway, our Fate is on the other side. I’m not afraid. You’re here with me.

“I found you,” he murmured into her lips. “I found you, I found you, we’re here, we’re here together, I’m ready--”

“Oh, baby--” and Kenzie was kissing him breathlessly, her smell the sweetest thing in all the world, roses crushing into him. Duncan leaned away to look at her; Kenzie’s eyes were gold-flecked and infinitely bright, and her beauty was iridescent in the noon sunlight winking through the curtains. Mackenzie Shepherd, angel of my life, the part of me that was cut away, the fixed, irrevocable light of my soul.

“She said she has a lot to tell us. She’s coming now, she’s probably almost at the door. I’m going to make us all some breakfast. She knew things, Kenz, I don’t fucking know--I feel like she knows everything about us. You’ll see. Even through the screen I could feel her power. It was coppery-purple, like a sheen all over her...come downstairs when you’re ready, okay, baby? Take your time. I can feel it, can you feel it?”

“Yes, baby, yes. I can feel it so much I can hardly breathe.” Tears were in her eyes; he kissed her again, and Kenzie clung to him, her softness overwhelming to him, and for a moment he wished he could throw her down into the bed, kiss every inch of her nakedness, every tiny secret place of her heart. Then they broke apart; Duncan knew as he could feel she did that the time was upon them, and his adorations would have to come later.

The time when we find out who we really are.

Kenzie slid away from him towards the edge of the bed and he grasped her waist, helping her down--she stood there, naked and shivering in some phantom breeze, her golden hair falling down her back in a shimmering wave, then she kneeled to her suitcase, tucking the strands that fell into her eyes behind her ears, looking away from him, determined. Duncan gathered up the bag of weed, the lighter, his grinder and his gold pipe from one of the laurel mantels where they’d left it yesterday, then went to the door, looking back at her again for a moment, trailing a hand through the side of his hair.

“Kenzie, baby--”

“Dunny, I know. I know. Just go downstairs, okay? I’ll be there soon. I know. I feel it too.”

He nodded inside her gold-flecked gaze, then turned away, sniffing back the tears he felt coming, trying to stave them. I feel the hand of destiny, and oh Fate, it’s heavy. It’s fearsome to behold it, to contemplate its weight, this Thing, this knowledge we’re about to be given.

Duncan heard a sharp, determined knock on the door downstairs then, and his breath caught. He ran down the hall, throwing himself down the stairs; he reached the door, flipping the double turning locks in fumbling fingers, yanked at the long handle--as he pulled the door wide a burst of golden sunlight drifted over his eyes, caught in the dappled trees. He lifted a hand to shield his face, and saw the woman standing there, silhouetted in a golden shroud that was like a holy halo around her. A halo, like Kenzie’s, Duncan thought. And then he heard her laugh again--and her laugh was even more beautiful now that he was standing before her. A laugh the angels would sigh to hear.

She reached out for him--Duncan felt frozen inside her dark-bright eyes, intensely focused on him beneath arched, graceful brows, the sharpness of her cheeks glowing dark sienna in the sun. She was immediately imposing; regal, her posture graceful, her poise intimidating and unmistakable. Her mouth smiled that radiantly white smile he’d glimpsed through the iPad screen; his breath caught to see it in the flesh, struck by her majesty, the expression on her staggeringly beautiful features, knowing, wise, and expectant. Her burgundy-colored blouse had long, drifting sleeves that fluttered in the slight wind, and her long black skirt fell to her ankles with an intricate pattern of flowers and vines. On her feet were heeled knee-high boots in dark brown leather. Around her neck were what seemed to be a dozen necklaces, gold and silver chains mixed in with leather cords and multi-colored ropes of beads; a raven skull, the claws of unknown animals, the symbol of the waxing, full, and waning moons (like the one Kenzie has), the voluptuous shape of a woman, a huge pointed obsidian, and countless tiny quartz points.

“I see what she’s done to you, Evening Star,” she said, and Duncan felt his breath gasp, suddenly caught in his throat. That’s what Kenzie called me. Sword of the Evening Star. “Snatched you from the jaws of darkness in this world. And I am moved to see it. As I knew I would be. The time of your High Destiny has come.”

Her hand came around his; her touch was very warm and strong. As she stepped closer Duncan could smell myrrh and resin and musky vanilla. The urge of tears rose in him again--the woman clasped her other hand around his, so she was gripping it in both. Her face was about level to his chin in her heeled boots, and she looked up at him with an approving grace; she seems taller than me, though, he thought. The energy around her is so focused; so carefully, intricately controlled.

“What did you say your name was?” He asked, and heard the trembling in his voice.

“Rosemary Antigone Delacroix. High Priestess of Her Will. The Goddess, from whom all life in this universe flows; from whom the life in every universe flows. Mother of all, three-faced, infinite. Your mother, and mine, and the mother of the High Princess, the Hidden Sphere Herself, whom you are blessed to love. Infinitely blessed, sweet Prince, with whom you will heal this suffering world.”

Goosebumps broke out all over his skin, the tiny hairs on his arms and the back of his neck prickling instantly, wildly. I knew it. I felt it. That she’s divine. That she’s holy.

“Please, come in.”

Rosemary’s smile lingered as she stepped past him, scattering its light over him; she moved into the house, beyond the staircase, her steps determined, her movements refined, hands clasped together in front of her, through the front room and towards the kitchen. She seemed to know where it was without needing to ask him, and Duncan followed, mesmerized by her. As they reached the kitchen Rosemary sat at the wooden island, reaching out for his hand again--this time, he knew, for the one that held the weed. He passed it all off to her and she sighed; the sound of her voice was deeply lovely, but he could hear the tinge of tiredness.

“Make me some eggs, would you, sugar? I like ‘em a little runny, lots of butter. And some of that turkey bacon I know you have in the fridge there.” Duncan stared for a moment, blinking as she rolled a big bud in her fingers, then began to sprinkle it inside his grinder. She paused, looking up at him expectantly. “And a big-ass coffee. I’ll pack this bowl. All three of us are going to need some fortification for these revelations. Don’t you worry, your seer is here. I know you’ve been waiting, I feel it in this house, you filled it with your hopes and dreams and your confusion as soon as you got here. I feel it on your skin. You two have power unlike any I’ve ever seen, but you haven’t learned how to control it yet, that’s for certain. It’s zooming around in this space like it’s been snorting cocaine.”

Duncan turned as if waking out of a dream to the fridge, pulling out the eggs, bacon, and a stick of butter, retrieving a frying pan from a line of them against the wall, listening to the smooth clarity of her voice. Her energy seemed to be settling into the kitchen--dusky purple, warm, steady. He could almost see it, the way he could see Kenzie’s gold sometimes. She was taking the edge off him--bringing him down to her calmness, her certainty.

“So...Rosemary. Who--what--how--” He went to the Keurig that sat on the counter, starting a cup, then brought a hand absently to his chin, looking back at her again. She was deftly packing the bowl to the brim, the smile still playing at the corners of her mouth. “How did you...what did She...”

The Goddess, triple-faced, infinite.

“Shhh, blue-eyed Prince. You need to take it slow. All of this--” she gestured around the kitchen, but Duncan knew she meant all of it--the cabin, the lake, the forest with the clearing of black oaks, the field open to the stars--”this place is potent, full of your power, like a power outlet for your magicks. It’s why they’ve been so strong since you got here. This is an in-between place, and anyone who has even a little bit of the power you two have can feel it. But for the High Princess and her sweet consort, it’s like being given an electric shock--one that goes on and on. It’s the reason your lusts have been so potent, too.”

Duncan blushed at that. Lately, mine always are.

She smiled at him, knowing, then lit the bowl and breathed deeply from it, blowing out in a satisfied stream, leaning back against the wooden island.

“Hoo, that’s some good rich people shit,” she hummed. “Ooph, that’s good. Just what I needed, Praise be to Her. Thank you, Mother.”

Duncan got to work on the eggs, carefully cracking two into the pan and slipping two sides of the bacon next to them, deftly pressing the edges of the egg whites with a steel spatula. The smell made his stomach immediately begin to rumble; she’s right, we definitely need to eat before we get into all of this. All...of what?

“You two.” He could hear Rosemary laughing a little now from where his back was turned. “You two have burst upon the world like a garden. The media was not prepared. The public was not prepared. The world is not prepared, but they will get prepared--real quick. The current of time has turned towards fortune. And that, my dear Prince, is a beautiful thing. Beautiful beyond words. That I have lived to see this time is a great blessing.”

“Rosemary, what do you mean? How did you find us here?”

“Wait for her. For the Princess. The little golden goddess. Then I’ll begin.”

Duncan pulled down a plate and slipped the eggs onto it, a little runny, glassy with butter as she had asked. He flipped the bacon to let it fry for a bit longer, and brought the plate over to Rosemary, who appraised him with power drifting in her gaze. She took it, her warm hand brushing against his again; he felt the current pass through them, felt her strength, the depths of her knowledge touch his mind.

“You’ve been manifesting powers here, have you? And before you got here, too.”

“Fuck, yes. Non-stop, practically. I’ve been--transporting myself with my mind. Teleporting? I don’t know what to call it.”

“Transmutation. Salire per spatium. The ability to move, magically, instantly, from one space to another, without physically occupying the space between.” Rosemary took another long puff from Duncan’s gold pipe, then sliced into an egg with her fork, dipping it between her very white teeth. “Mm, baby. Perfect. You can fry an egg for certain.”

“Yeah. Yes. And Pyrokinesis. That’s what it’s called, right? The ability to conjure fire.”

“Create, control, manipulate. All of it. You can do all of those, I guarantee it. Try it.” She nodded to the stovetop, which Duncan had turned on manually. The bacon was sizzling, done--Duncan took a deep breath, then drifted his fingers close to the element, concentrated. Go back now. Go back. The fire went low, blue-white, and then died--the stovetop began to cool instantly.

“Mm--mm-mm,” Rosemary hummed. “Lovely. I can do a little myself, but nothing so smooth as that. That’s lovely. And I can only imagine what she’s been doing.”

“It’s so beautiful, Rosemary. She is so beautiful. I can’t even tell you…”

“You’re biased, baby blue, but I’m sure you’re right. Any other things you’ve found out you can do?”

“She can sense my emotions over long distances...I found out something I hadn’t known the other day that really upset me, and she felt my emotions even though we were on opposite sides of the city. And...we can read each other’s thoughts. You’re the first person who knows that, and I don’t even know who you are. But...yeah. It’s like colors--she looks and feels like gold...she says mine is blue. I can kind of see mine, sometimes, if the emotion is really strong. Now that she’s here. I couldn’t...I couldn’t do any of this before. Before we met.”

Duncan brought the bacon over to Rosemary’s plate and slid it down from the pan. She immediately dipped a graceful hand to it, blowing on it, crunching it in her teeth. He brought her coffee over, starting one for Kenzie now. “I can hear little bits of other people’s thoughts now sometimes, when they’re really strong. I think Kenzie can do it almost all the time. And she can heal people--their bodies, their hearts, their anger. It looks like gold when she does that, too. She can sort of...press it into people, like she’s wrapping them in a blanket.”

He started more eggs in the pan, silent for a little while as Rosemary sipped her coffee. Then he went on.

“Two nights ago there was a Gala--”

“The Shepherd Freedom Foundation Gala, everyone knows that, honey,” Rosemary cut him off. “You two are on the front page of a lot of shit since yesterday.”

Duncan winced, plating the other eggs and getting to work on more bacon. “Really? We turned our phones off before we left. We really wanted to just get away for a few days. It’s been...really intense since Kenzie and I found each other. The scrutiny’s been intense.”

“I understand, Duncan. When my task is done--that is, to tell you your destiny--I’ll be gone, for I have many duties, and you will have a little more time to be alone together. But the Goddess told me what to do, so I’m doing it. When She speaks, everyone best listen. Let me give you a warning. When the two of you go back--back to DC, I mean--the world will have changed. As if time opened a new window. You are on the path now, one heading towards a bright future, not just for you and Mackenzie, but for this universe. There are many--universes, I mean. Not all of them are kind, or light, or good, some of them have no light, and some have a depth of both. This universe has much darkness, but like clouds parting from the sun, your union here will bring transcendent light. As there is a balance of greater darkness in other universes, this one will swing to the light. A major obstacle will have passed when you return, but there will be a new onslaught of attention focused on you and Mackenzie. You will need to be her sword at every turn; you will bow to her light and others will follow your example. So gather your strength.”

Duncan’s head was pounding. What does any of that even mean? Other universes?

“Are you talking about...quantum theory? Like, parallel universes?”

At that moment Duncan heard a soft sound in the doorway--he looked up to see Kenzie coming into the kitchen on bare feet. She was tucking her chestnut-golden hair behind her ear, her face nervously turned down, eyes huge, fingers at her mouth; she wore a floor-length white linen dress, covered in a print of pale pinkish roses, with a dipping neck and short, puffed sleeves. The Tiffany moon glinted at her throat; as she moved her arm the Cartier bracelet flashed there in gold and diamond. Rosemary had turned to her, and Kenzie’s eyes were wide on the other woman. God she’s so beautiful so beautiful so powerful I can feel her lovely power like a field of a thousand violets, like the water flowing out from the sea...Duncan could hear Kenzie’s thoughts falling out of her in a long stream.

Rosemary’s face was cast into an immediate affection--a curious wonder. Her mouth dipped open, away from the black coffee cup which had been poised at her mouth a moment before, and she sighed; the sigh of relief that comes after a long, anticipatory wait.

“Child. Sweet child of heaven.”

“Hi,” Kenzie whispered. She stopped in front of Rosemary, and the woman reached out her beautiful dark fingers. Kenzie slipped her small hands against Rosemary’s; Duncan felt speechless, his heart feeling crushed by the moment, his eyes immediately blurred by tears.

“I am Rosemary Delacroix, and I am a mouthpiece for Her, the three-headed, the absolute, the Goddess. She has many names. Time. The universe. God. Goddess. Fate. Destiny. But she is the one who brought all life to be, kindled it, nurtured it, tended to it. She is the one who remakes life, rebuilds it, cycles it through every age, in every place, in every aspect. She made me; she made you and your sweet blue-eyed Prince from the stars burning like these diamonds, many eons ago.” Rosemary’s finger drifted to the bracelet; her dark eyes glanced up at the one on Duncan’s wrist, knowingly, and he shivered. “She made the thread that tethered you together, Mackenzie Stone and Duncan Shepherd, long ago, before she made Time, because you, sweet High Princess, asked her to. You loved him; you asked to be together always. And she granted your wish. Because you were--you are--beloved in the sight of heaven. You are a High Princess of Her Body, and of the Garden. You are the Hidden Sphere.”

Long, aching tears fell from Kenzie’s cheeks--she glanced over to Duncan, biting her trembling lip, her thoughts crushed gold. I do love him. I do love you, Duncan, more than anything. I do love you. I love you. This woman knows--knows I’m divine, the way you said you knew. The way I can feel it, now, and I can’t find the words.

“It’s fine to cry, honey. It’s fine. You cry as much as you want, mmhm? Come sit with me, angel baby. You come sit with me and let me bask in your sweet light. I can feel it now, like taking a bath in a pool of gold. Goddess, praise be. That’s just fucking lovely. Praise be to Her. She made the masterpiece, sweet sugar, in you--that gold, like a waterfall. What a soul.”

“Duncan’s the one who looks like a masterpiece to me,” Kenzie was laughing a little through her tears, settling down on the bench next to Rosemary, who had dipped a long arm under Kenzie’s elbow to steady her. Duncan brought Kenzie’s breakfast over to her, trying to hide the tears on his cheek with a swift hand--she looked up at him, biting her lip, nodding. “Thanks baby,” she whispered. I love you so much, he heard her thought. I’m not afraid.

“What do you mean, asked to be together always?” Duncan said, his voice trembling. “Are you saying there’s a goddess...that controls the universe, and Kenzie is...what, her daughter?”

Rosemary looked at him for a long moment, her eyes staggering with depth. For a time Duncan felt lost, mesmerized inside them; like the whirling gold galaxies he’d seen in Kenzie’s eyes in the dream, or the blue nebulas she said she saw in his, he felt he could see violet supernovas, cascades of cosmic dust in Rosemary’s gaze for a moment. Something infinite and eternal. Something constant, and huge beyond imagining.

“Make yourself some breakfast first, Duncan. You’re going to need something in your stomach before we really begin. I want both of you to know right now--there is much to tell. It will take some time. My heart is full of all of it. I need your strength, my dear one, to help me tell you everything.” Rosemary pulled Kenzie’s hand into her lap again, gripping it with strong fingers. Kenzie was nodding--a silent, secret thought seemed to pass between them, one Duncan could not see or hear in his mind. He felt immediately frustrated to be cut off from them; then he heard Kenzie speak to him alone in gold waves: be patient, baby, beloved, be patient, okay? Take a breath, the kind you showed me after my nightmare, when you held me so sweetly.

Their eyes met; Rosemary’s gaze shifted between them. Okay baby, Duncan thought, breathing in through his nose, holding it, breathing out. He turned back to his eggs, his stomach in knots.

“To be near both of you gives me strength already.” Rosemary’s face clouded with emotion; she seemed close to tears, and raised the coffee cup to her face again to gather her composure. “The Goddess has made all things in perfect balance, the light and dark, the day and night, and both of you--the perfect balance of these things, the great duality of her creations. To be here with you is to behold her Wonders. Eat, child.” Rosemary gestured to Kenzie’s plate, and Kenzie nodded, picking up a piece of the bacon, biting into it. Duncan brought his own breakfast over to the island, and sat carefully, across from her, reaching out his hand. Kenzie took it, her eyes wildly bright.

My heart feels like it’s going to burst, Dunny, she thought.

Mine too, my sweet Kenzie. Oh, god. Goddess. Whoever is listening. The Fates who have been guiding us…

“Rosemary,” Duncan said, looking into the woman’s dark eyes. “Since we met, I keep going back to this one image, of the Fates, you know, like in mythology--Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos. I keep seeing them in my mind’s eye, seeing them weaving this thread for us, the one that brought us together. Does that mean something?”

Rosemary finished the food on her plate, sighed a little, contentedly, and brought his gold pipe up to her lips again, breathing deeply. She dipped a hand under her chin, her eyes taking on a serene expression.

“It’s Her. She is the Fates. The Goddess--She has three faces. Many know Her by them, and worship Her in these aspects, She has many names. She is three-headed in that way; She is never totally the same from one moment to the next. When She came to me this time, She was very young and beautiful--Her skin like the tanned sand under a long sun--Her eyes bright in unbroken joy, her body smooth. But She does not always appear this way. Her aspect is ever-changing, the color of Her skin, Her hair, Her eyes, Her face; when I see Her, I feel it is Her, for She never appears the same. Sometimes She is very old, and sometimes She is a mother, her belly swollen, and sometimes She is not a woman at all, not entirely--She is some other great thing, made of stars and strange matter. I’ve seen Her this way, in dreams.”

She passed the pipe to Kenzie, and Kenzie took it in her small hands, head dipping to breathe in from it. Kenzie was still crying--Duncan’s fingers slid over her palm, sending the strongest wave of comfort he could into her. I love you, baby, I love you, everything is okay, everything’s going to be okay, better than okay…

“The Fates are her aspects--all three are Her. You thought of them because you thought of Her--because you knew, you know it was She who brought the two of you together. Your destiny--the High Destiny, as it has been called--was written when the stars were new. Mackenzie Stone, you are the High Princess of her Heaven. You were an Angel, once, Exalted; there is no earthly word for what you were, but an Angel is the closest word to it. You were the most divine of all. You were loved above all by Her in her heaven; and you still are. I know you feel that, child. I know you know you were loved so. And that you are loved--so much. Her eyes have looked down on you from her heaven and thought Beloved, for millions of years.”

“Yes,” and Kenzie was crying earnestly, her lips trembling as she spoke, shoulders shaking, eyes awash in tears. “Yes, Rosemary, I know. I can feel it.” Duncan gripped her hand tightly, aching to hold her; her fingers clutched him, like he was her only tether in a vast ocean.

“Before conceivable time, you fell in love.” Rosemary nodded to Duncan. “You fell in love with him. Listen to me, Duncan: you too were an Exalted being, an Angel, like Mackenzie. They called you the Sword of the Evening Star, as She has told me. You were a Knight--like a Knight, a Prince in the service of Their holy protection--of Her Holy Court; the fairest of all of her Knights, who are very fair indeed, fair beyond earthly eyes. There is a great Darkness in the universe--in the pantheon of universes. It aches to snuff out the light of Her Heaven, the love that dwells there. Some call it the Devil; Satan; Lucifer. He--It--has many names. But It is mostly the Darkness; the energy that must juxtapose her Light. It wishes, eternally, to destroy Her. But her Knights hold it at bay; her fighters, her warriors, her faithful. In that age, you fought for Her Light, and prevailed many times. She loves you very much. She chose you from many to lead the protection of her Sphere; the Heaven she made, long ago. It is Hidden from that Darkness, made safe through the power of her Grace. Get me some water, Duncan, honey.”

Duncan stood, feeling dizzy, going to the fridge. A Knight for a Goddess. A Warrior Prince. He couldn’t even feel incredulous--he was beyond disbelief. Whatever Rosemary is saying is true, he knew. She knows everything--and she has to tell us. My inability to understand doesn’t make any of this impossible. It just makes my ability to conceive it inadequate.

“Each time you are reincarnated--yes, Mackenzie, reincarnated--” Rosemary said, as Kenzie let out a tiny gasp. “The Darkness, in His cunning, tries to get at you. Sometimes, He has succeeded. As there is Feminine energy in the universes, there is also Masculine energy; there is an endless battle of wills, balance of energies. Their duality is not fixed, rather it shifts and changes from universe to universe, age to age. Yes, Duncan, quantum theory, as it’s called--there are many parallel universes next to this one. Infinite universes, in fact, beyond our ability to conceive. A version of you--both of you--exists in each universe. And as there are many universes, there are many lives you have lived before this one, in this universe, as well. There is another life you have glimpsed here, a life you lived in the past--”

“The Mirror,” Kenzie said, softly. Her eyes were staring into Rosemary’s face, but Duncan could see that her thoughts were fixated on the vast golden Mirror he knew was resting silently in the penthouse bedroom, many miles away, a relic to a past that had been unknown to them until this moment. Frederick knew, he thought. He may not have totally understood, but he knew it was special, that it was magical, and that it was always ours.

“Yes, chickadee, sweet honey,” Rosemary sipped her coffee again, cradling it in her graceful red-nailed hands. “That Mirror belonged to you in another life--you were royalty then, a Viscountess, a powerful witch--that is, a seer for Her--at that time too, with many of the skills you are manifesting now. And in that time you found each other as well, but there was an accident; you both were murdered in the Revolution at that time, in the streets of Paris. And so time turned to another place, another page--and your spirits moved on. But the Mirror has magick. It’s no ordinary Mirror. There are strands of the Golden Sphere in it; strands of the divine instrument given to you by the Goddess, Mackenzie, when you were in her Heaven, in her embrace. A gift that symbolized her love, and her Heaven, which will always be your home. When you were cast to earth when the Law of Time was written, the Sphere fell with you, but it was mostly destroyed when the Darkness tried to rend it. What remained--the fragments left over--were made into the Mirror by one of her seers of old; a disciple of her Light, as I am. And so it will always find you in this world, too, for it cannot be destroyed until this world ends.”

Duncan was standing beside the fridge, still holding it open, the water glass poised in his hand, frozen in her words. Kenzie gaped at Rosemary with her mouth dipped open, her golden hair falling around her cheeks. Rosemary glanced between them, then beckoned to Duncan, and said.

“But that is the Law for the two of you. To exist, always, and find each other, always, into eternity, until the Law of Time is over, when you will return to the Sphere of her Grace. No one knows when that will be, or if it will ever be. That I do not know. I only see small bits and pieces of the future, and their shape is always strange to me.”

Duncan’s hand was shaking as he brought the glass he’d filled to Rosemary--but her hand was steady, and she smiled up at him, reassuringly. I think for now I just need to listen, and try to understand, he thought. I can’t even imagine anything to say. Just please hold my hand, baby.

Kenzie reached out again as he sat, twining her fingers through his tightly. She brought another slice of bacon to her lips, eating despite her tears. Duncan moved his fork to his plate, resolved to the same. They ate quietly as Rosemary went on. What else can we do.

“You met, as was meant to happen, in the Garden of All Delights, where the known universes were all born. It’s a very beautiful place--beautiful beyond all conceivable beauty to our pitiful human eyes. It’s made of colors--oh, colors you can’t imagine.”

Those colors I saw in my dreams.

“Like this universe, Duncan, when you laid eyes on Mackenzie there, the first time, you knew she was your love for all time. There you stayed together for eons by our measure of time. The Goddess saw, and She smiled to see your perfect happiness--the selflessness of your love for Her Princess, Her Joy, Her Golden Child, and Her selfless love for you, the perfect embodiment of Her Grace. Your Names, in that perfect state--there aren’t words for them. She didn’t tell them to me, and if She had I could not speak of them. But you know them, in your secret, hidden hearts. They are beyond all human language. I know She’s shown you the forms you had then in a dream--and so you know those forms are beyond human comprehension, nearly beyond description. Please know that those are your true forms. There is more time before you adopt them again, but someday you will return to them again. In some other age.”

Yes, Duncan thought; he knew. Kenzie with her white-gold hair with a thousand flowers, each one a universe. Her eyes like golden galaxies. Her clothing made of impossible geometry. Her wings inconceivable and more delicate than those of any beast on earth. He could feel Kenzie thinking similarly of what she had seen of him in her side of the dream; his long golden hair and eyes like blue nebulas floating in ether, his shining aegis, impossibly slender and delicate, the strange wonder of his own wings.

“When the laws of the universe, of Time, were written, it was dictated that you--you, Mackenzie, and you, Duncan, would always find each other. In every conceivable universe, and every conceivable age. The Goddess, infinite in Her wisdom and mercy, could not spare you from the Great Law--the law of pain, death, and rebirth--but She could ensure that as the cycle of all things goes on, you would find each other in perpetuity. That you would never long be parted from one another. And Her law has been proven true, as it ever was, in Her Grace. I promise you, in every time, in every age, in every universe, you’ve found each other; for the places in which you haven’t yet, you will. And each time either of you dies--for you have both died countless deaths, as I have, as every living soul has--the cycle begins anew. You cannot long be separated. The Old Law of your love--the Great Love, true as dawn--is known and honored for all time.”

“You mean--Rosemary, do you really mean--we’ll always find each other, no matter what?” Duncan clutched at Kenzie’s fingers as he spoke, looking between them.

“No matter what, I promise you. You were the first Soulmates; in your love was written the Law.”

Duncan took the golden pipe from Kenzie’s hands, which were shaking like leaves in caught in a strong wind--he could see his own shaking too, but felt strangely removed from them, lost in the incomprehensibility of Rosemary’s words. He lit the bowl, breathing deeply, holding the smoke inside his lungs for a long moment--it settled into them, and he breathed out, counting. 1, 2, 3, 4...he handed the bowl, still lit, to Kenzie, who breathed from it again. Her tears seemed to dissipate, soften, her shaking fading into calm stillness.

“Rosemary, can we go outside? There’s a gazebo out there--it’s lovely. We can look at the lake. I think Kenzie needs some fresh air.” Kenzie glanced at Duncan with eyes filled with overwhelming affection as he said this. Rosemary nodded, her aspect calming, soothing, and seemingly unbothered by the weight of her words. This is truly a woman of exquisite power. “You bring that bowl, honey.” She reached for Kenzie’s hand and helped her up.

They all made their way out onto the deck and down the stone path, to where the gazebo lay in the pleasing solitude of the early afternoon. Duncan could see a flock of ducks swimming on the surface of the middle of the lake, beyond where the canoe creaked with a pleasant rhythm; there were more clouds in the sky today than yesterday, but it was still bright and warm, the breeze present again. Rosemary helped Kenzie onto one end of the long couch; Kenzie’s face was pale and her hands still seemed to be trembling. Rosemary moved to the other end, and Duncan knew innately she was leaving them space. Space to be together; to hold each other. He felt a wave of gratitude wash out from him towards the beautiful seer, this woman who had appeared as if out of thin air, by magic, in a car that had driven for an entire day, from thousands of miles away, to tell them impossible truths. He felt Rosemary’s drifting indigo-violet energy come against his, and knew she acknowledged his secret power, and his gratitude, as he acknowledged hers.

He slid next to Kenzie, his arms coming around her tightly, his nose falling against her hair to breathe her in. Roses, vetiver, geranium. Her own underlying musk, the heady scent of her and her alone. Kenzie’s head fell against his chest, her arms gripping him at the waist. Kenzie, we’ll always find each other, no matter what. I could die, I could shout into the sky, I could cry and never stop crying. My heart is full of you. My happiness in this knowledge is absolute. Kenzie seemed beyond words, but the drift of her gold against him was so staggeringly lovely, so intense, he fought to breathe. My Persephone. Flower of the universe.

“Now. There’s a lot more She told me to tell you. Listen carefully, my sweet moon children,” and Duncan heard Kenzie’s thought, like a memory, two moon children in love--

“As I told you a little bit ago--there is a great Darkness in the universe, in the pantheon of universes. As She is older than Time, so is the Darkness. He--It--has a far-reaching hand. You know that Darkness in this world; but this world, unlike others, does not have the depth of power that allows it full sway. The magic in this universe is not as vast as it is in others; here it exists in the hidden aspects. Your coming together has brought some of that magic to life here, but it is finite, and it has limits. There are other universes where your power is stronger, but the Darkness is stronger in those universes, too.”

“We’ve been having these dreams...” Kenzie said in a small voice. The air seemed to be soothing her; the breeze ruffled her hair as Duncan’s hands drifted against its softness.

Rosemary was nodding. “The Darkness had you in its grip here, Duncan, and it was attempting to tighten that grip. Your family in this world, its notoriety, its intentions--they have long been conspiring with the Darkness, long been courting its gifts. Your adopted mother, your uncle; they have done terrible things in the name of their own desires, and they wished to drag you into the shadows with them. They almost succeeded; you were almost fooled. But the Old Law prevailed, as it always does, one way or another. That Law is Love; that Law is Mackenzie; that Law is your High Destiny. The Goddess knew that your love would defeat that Darkness every time. And it always will. The Law she wrote is strong and it will hold. But the means by which it holds is never clear until you meet.”

Rosemary had brought her water glass out with them, and sipped at it for a moment, pausing. Her face turned to the lake; as she gazed at it, she smiled, but her smile had some sadness threaded into it. It was a smile that knew the bittersweet taste of life--knew the balance was impregnable.

“There are universes where your ending is not a happy one, I’m afraid. Despite finding each other, you don’t always get to be together this way. You suffer acutely in some; you die. But the death is written too--the death comes at your own hands, or you die together. It’s the Law; if you cannot be together, you must begin again, which means you first must be taken out of that time, the obstacle therefore removed. Duncan, I must tell you; there are universes where the Darkness claims you. And in some of them, in some of those lives, you cannot be saved but through death.”

Duncan felt a heavy hand settle on his heart--felt the breath drift out of his body as he gasped for air. Kenzie held him closer, and he heard the tiny sound of her sob against him. Oh baby, sweet Kenzie, please don’t cry so. Don’t cry for me that way. I love you. Here, we’re together. Please don’t cry. It breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.

“Is that what the dreams mean?” he asked, cradling Kenzie’s shivering body against his. He felt the terrible heat of her tears soaking through his shirt, her face turned into him, hidden, overcome.

“Yes. They are another life. Another universe. One where your ending is not a happy one. One where Kenzie’s love saves you; as it did here, as it ever does; but not to such happy ends, I’m afraid. It’s just one example of the window of infinite lives you have lived, lives you are living as we speak, in other places, in other universes. That life, that universe, is particularly potent. The magick there is much stronger than the magick here. It encircles that world like a dense fog; it surrounds it and seeps into everything. There you have powers beyond imagining, both of you. The power to raise the dead. The power to turn time backwards. The power to change the shape of things; things that should otherwise be immutable. Or destroy them entirely, completely--utterly.”

“Blue butterflies out of rose petals,” Kenzie whispered. “You making snow, Duncan.”

“Yes,” he whispered against her hair. You, Kenzie, blood on your mouth, turning back time.

“The power to travel to Hell, even, Descensum; to the pit of Darkness. Because there, Duncan, you are a being of Darkness. In that world, you are Michael, the Son of Darkness--in that world, the Darkness claimed you when you were born into it, and the Goddess cannot reach you. There, you are a powerful conjurer, a warlock, and Kenzie--Mallory, as you are called there--you are a powerful witch, in fact, the most powerful of all witches in that world, more powerful than the witches of any other world. A Supreme. Kenzie does not save you in life in that world, however; but through your death. So it is written.”

Duncan felt unable to speak; I think I knew that. I think I knew, when I had that dream on the beach, the dream where I was dying, and grandma told me to go to Hell. And Kenzie was there, her hair dark on her shoulders, she was that other version of herself, the Mallory self, and she held me, and I died.

“My nightmare,” Kenzie burst into a sob again, the wail in her voice making Duncan bury his face, his eyes closing, against her hair, making his heart clench until he felt as though he would suffocate in the agony of her sadness. “My nightmare. That man with your face, Duncan--that man was you in that place, that man was you, consumed, that was real, oh, no, oh no, no--”

Duncan couldn’t think, couldn’t speak; could only hold her, his heart pressed down with the depth of her sadness, determined to hold her as long as she needed him to. Even for that other me, the depth of her grace is staggering. The immensity of her love. I feel lost inside it; it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever felt. Whatever darkness is in me, no matter where I am, who I am, it’s nothing next to her light. I know that. Absolutely. I’d die a thousand times for you, Mackenzie Stone, High Princess of Heaven. A million times. I’ll die for eternity to be with you for just a moment. That, I promise you. I swear it. I will worship and love you endlessly, as I promised to, when we were Exalted--as we will be again one day. I know I will always recognize your soul.

“Sweet golden child of Her Grace,” Rosemary said, staring at Kenzie with violet, soothing warmth. “Do not despair--there is no need for it. You save him in every world. Your love is what saves him. Reach out with your heart into every hidden place. You know it’s true. There is no place your love cannot reach him. And death is not the end. In her Will, it is never really the end. And here--” Rosemary gestured out onto the lake, to the sky beyond. “Here, in this world, in this life, you’ve been infinitely blessed. In this world, you get to be together; truly together. And not only that. Not only have you found each other, basked in each other, found a haven hidden from the eyes of the world in which to feed each other in power and affection. In this world you have been given even more, for the Goddess does not take away in one world what she doesn’t bestow again in another. Here, you have worldly riches, too, is that not so?”

Yes.

“Fuck,” Duncan whispered. “That was our destiny all along, too, wasn’t it?”

Rosemary gazed at him, and her expression was omniscient in the stretch of this moment; it kindled his spirit up, thrilling his nerves, achingly beautiful against his soul. Yes. That was the plan all along. That not only would you heal each other infinitely, here; you would, together, heal this world, and that, too, would be your happiness.

Kenzie had begun to quiet against him; she turned her tear-stained face up to him, and her eyes glittered unbearably in the afternoon light: gold, russet forest, green like growing leaves.

“The High Destiny,” she whispered. Duncan brought his hand up, wiping under her eyes, pressing the dampness into his shirt, cradling her face.

“Yes, sweet golden honey.” Rosemary was grinning; her face was effervescent in its beauty. She reached for the golden pipe again from where Duncan had set it on the low table beside the lantern, raising it languidly to her chin. “Praise be to Her, in whose eyes all is made clear and wondrous, three-faced, sweet as blessed wine. Your High Destiny is to bring a long peace into this world. And when others in this world behold you together, that is what they see. Your divinity, your goodness, and their redemption.” Duncan continued to look down at Kenzie--she stared at him with a dawning happiness spreading over her face that made him clutch her cheek, dip his mouth to kiss her, uncaring that Rosemary watched--Kenzie, my Kenzie, oh my Kenzie--

Rosemary breathed in another long drag of the gold pipe. Then she continued to speak, her legs crossed with ease, her hand drifting against her many necklaces, thumb trailing at the obsidian, the raven skull.

“I know what’s coming, what’s at the door; by the time you return to the Capital City, Bill Shepherd will have been dead for a day. Yesterday, he signed his Will, at Annette Shepherd’s behest. Duncan: you are now the sole heir of Shepherd Unlimited and all its holdings. Bill Shepherd, as is his way, has over $15 billion dollars in overseas assets that he hasn’t been filing with his taxes. Those assets will be yours in a few hours’ time. With Shepherd Unlimited LLC and the tools at its disposal, it is your High Destiny, Duncan and Mackenzie, to heal this world.”

“Fuck,” Duncan whispered.

“Holy shit,” he felt Kenzie grip his shirt with her little tear-stained hands. “Duncan, oh my goddess. We knew. We felt it all along. We felt our destiny.”

“And Praise be to Her,” Rosemary said, and then she laughed; she laughed long and low, and her voice was like honey, and it seemed to fall into Duncan’s mind like a crashing, heady wine. Her laugh rang out onto the lake, stirring the ducks to flight; as they flapped up from the water, the sun dappled in their water-flecked wings, turning to patterns of gold.

-------

It was late now, the light growing low as it had the night before, gradually then all at once, and Duncan had conjured another fire in the copper pit. This one, if anything, was even brighter and more beautiful than the one before; it was almost transparent, burning wildly high and hot, kindled in the euphoria of his mood. Now that he knew the powers they had were real, not only real, but destined, he felt confident in the ability to strengthen them; felt confident in their reality. I’ve been blessed, and so I’ll use my blessings. I can see the shape of these powers now, their outline like a lingering vision after a bright burst of light. I was destined to have them, and so I’ll use them as wisely as I can.

They had all smoked so much of the weed through the rest of the afternoon he had begun to feel untethered from his body, lost in the softness of Kenzie’s touch, the sweet smell of the space under her ear and along her neck. Rosemary didn’t seem to mind, skillfully ignoring them as they kissed again and again, drifted their hands along each other lazily through the rest of the afternoon. Duncan felt split between his gratitude towards Rosemary and the intensity of his desire for Kenzie--he had been fighting off the urge to slide his hand up her bare leg under the dress for hours, and as he sat in one of the wicker chairs by the fire, watching Kenzie and Rosemary dance a few paces away on the lawn amid the fireflies, the strains of Redbone’s Witch-queen of New Orleans pumping through the outdoor speakers, he sent out drifts of his deep need towards her. She was spinning in the long rosy dress, her chin tilted up and the diamond moon flashing on her neck, his black cardigan falling off one of her shoulders--her hair was tossed by wind and sweat glinted at her temples, and all he could think of was how radiantly lovely she was; High Princess of Heaven, Goddess of the Golden Bower, Angel of the Hidden Sphere, my High Destiny, forevermore, everlong, no worship is ever enough. And now you’re going to marry me. And I know what kind of ring I’m going to give you. A moonstone. My moon, everlasting.

She’ll put a spell on you, she’ll put a spell on you

He tried to contemplate the wonder of everything that had happened in the past two days; of the past few weeks. It’s truly only been a few weeks? It felt like years, and also like no time at all, like hours. He tried to contemplate the immensity of time they’d loved each other, and the smallness of the time they’d been able to love each other in this present--felt too lost in it, had to move his thoughts away. He tried to conjure up the image of the Fates in his mind, knowing now that it was Her, aspects of Her, the spectrum of Her face. Too stoned, sorry. Just wanna fuck my baby. So fucking much. Forgive me, Goddess. He grinned to himself, into his hand. I know you do. I can feel that you forgive me.

Tho' she'll never return all the Cajuns knew, a witch-queen never dies

Kenzie and Rosemary were gripping each other’s arms now, whirling in a circle, both laughing uproariously. Kenzie tumbled to the ground, throwing her head back and laughing up into the sky, bleeding out into blue darkness. Rosemary clutched her belly and laughed up at the sky too.

“Oh Goddess, to be alive,” she crowed. Duncan looked up to her from his seat, grinning. Rosemary had told them the story that afternoon of how she had found the Goddess when she was young--had gone into a cave in the swamps of New Orleans as a young girl, finding a bower of strange golden flowers growing there, had had a vision of Her, as an old woman, wizened with the ages and also inconceivable, told her of her power to conjure and to incite light in others, kindle their dreams and hopes, their destinies. Another Thin Place, he thought, like that balcony, or our circle of oaks. They had made more of the chicken and other vegetables in the cooker, a charcuterie spread out on the deck table, and had been nibbling at it for a hours between the weed and glasses of wine--now the day was hazy and drifting away, and Duncan felt lost in the happiness of it; absolutely found in it. Rosemary tumbled herself into one of the wicker chairs across from him, her feet dipping up over one of the arms. She gazed into the fire, a serene expression in her eyes.

“Evening Star, you sure can make one hell of a fire,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed. “It smells so sweet and feels so nice on my poor aching bones, thank you very much. The Goddess knows I put the work in since yesterday to find y’all, now she’s giving me a break, and Blessed Be.”

“Thank you, Rosemary. Thank you for everything. Thank you for coming all this way--for telling us everything. Who we are. What we’re meant to do.” Kenzie had heaved herself up from the ground and was skipping over to him, throwing herself into his lap and lifting her mouth up to kiss him as he spoke. He cradled her little body against him; her eyes glittered, her thoughts achingly sweet. To be held by you, baby, is the sweetest and most beautiful of anything. My Evening Star. My Hades who I plucked from darkness. You owe me so many kisses.

Oh I do, do I-- He dipped his mouth down onto hers again; he could feel Rosemary’s eyes on them, slitted, an adoration and pride in her aspect that he could feel as though it were visible. He knew she thought they were infinitely beautiful--the thought was a feeling of warm violet that emanated out from her; and I agree, if only because being loved and loving her so much has made me beautiful from within, he thought. I can feel the beauty in everything because of her.

“Rosemary,” and Kenzie turned her face away, looking over at the other woman’s beautiful cocoa skin, shimmering like soft copper in the firelight.

“Yes, golden honey,” Rosemary murmured, turning her face up a little, her eyes closed from tiredness, peaceful in the quiet of the crackling fire.

“What do the thin places mean?”

“Thin places?” Rosemary’s eyes opened a little, meeting her eyes.

“In the woods there’s a clearing. It’s surrounded by these huge black oak trees, and they’re all growing together, in a weird, tight circle. Inside it are so many wildflowers,” Kenzie laid her head on Duncan’s chest, under his chin, “and they’re growing in a spiral, like, I dunno, like they mean something, time or the universe, something like that. We were there yesterday, and…”

Kenzie blushed, trailing off.

“You fucked there.”

“Yeah. And it was strange--I mean, it felt like--Dunny, how would you describe it--”

“Like we were untethered from the earth for a little while,” Duncan said, his hand drifting against Kenzie’s thigh, under her breast, holding her against him, gazing into the fire. “Like we were in some kind of between place. Between this world and another one.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose the Thin Places, as you say, have many names. I call them The Veil, because they aren’t really places as much as doorways, gateways, the between of one place and another. The Goddess has tethered every universe together with threads--energy that passes from one place to another, acting as a bridge--and sometimes the threads wear thin; I suppose Thin Place is a well-suited name. As you are so close to your divinity still, these places are more obvious to you than to other people.”

“The night we met, we were on this balcony, with all these roses, and I think it was one of those places,” Kenzie was murmuring, eyes glittering on him, close to tears again. “It was thin--I could see him, Rosemary. I could see into his soul. I knew how beautiful he was inside. It was like a lamp shining out of a lighthouse. He said hi and he was looking at me like he knew me, like he hadn’t seen me in a long time and had missed me. And my heart just--stopped. I felt like he had set me on fire, wonderful fire, like this.” She looked at the fire Duncan had made--made with my mind, my senses, my will, for you. His heart twinged, reached out for her.

“The heart knows what nothing else can tell you,” Rosemary murmured, her voice growing soft again in her sleepiness. “It was only a matter of time before you found each other again.”

“Sometimes I think I see a golden thread between us,” Duncan said softly.

“The Goddess has tethered you this way. Since you are so close to her--because she loves you both so dearly--you can see the innerworkings of her magicks sometimes. They are not conceivable to human eyes. You’re feeling them. For all her works speak to the inner self, the hidden senses.”

“Rosemary,” Kenzie started again, and then Duncan heard the tears in her voice, cutting her words off. Her face turned into the crook of his arm--he felt her cheek shuddering there.

“Shh, Kenz, it’s okay, Kenzie,” he whispered into her. She nodded.

“Rosemary, thank you.”

But Rosemary didn’t reply--she was sleeping softly now, her chest rising and falling slowly, her hand dipped under her jaw. She was magnificently beautiful in the glossy sheen of the firelight, her dark skin illuminated, her sunset-colored scarf glowing, her obsidian and quartz stones shimmering, feet bare now, and grass-stained; she looks like a painting, Duncan thought, oh that Waterhouse had painted her, Rosemary Antigone Delacroix, who has given us so much joy in so little time. Thank you, Rosemary. Thank you. Now, we’ll let you sleep. I only hope I can give you something in return--and soon. You and everyone who has surrounded us, helped us, comforted us, shielded us.

“Princess Kenzie, let’s go upstairs,” he murmured into her ear. Kenzie’s eyes turned up to him, her mouth dipping open. Her hair fell down behind his arm, a sheet of gold. He felt wildly awake; acutely aware of the softness and the scent of her. He pressed his mouth against her ear. “I want you so much. Take a bath with me, angel. Please?”

“Hmmm,” she hummed, a laugh playing at her mouth. “Okay, but I wanna read stories to each other after we fuck. You have to promise we can read stories after.”

“We can read stories for as long as you want, Mrs. Shepherd.”

“What should we do, baby--about everything? We already know what’s going to happen. Rosemary told us. When we go back--”

“Shhh,” and he pressed his mouth, shivering, aching, against hers, intent to worship her, pulling her chin up insistently to reach her, his hands falling against the sweet softness of the dress over her breast. “Tonight, let’s just think about how divine we are, and how lucky we are, and how beautiful the night is, and how beautiful everything is, the stars, the lake, and you--” and she was nodding into him, climbing up to straddle him, the firelight licking its shadows against her hair, over her skin. “And you, baby,” she whispered. “My Evening Star. Goddess, I love that--”

“I’m gonna find you the most beautiful garden house on earth, Princess Kenzie,” he was whispering into her throat, his tongue licking out to the sweet saltiness of her sun-kissed sweat there, and he knew he meant it, knew he wouldn’t stop until he found it, “and together we’re gonna plant the most beautiful garden and so many flowers you can use them for a bed, and I’ll get you as many horses as you want, and I’ll read to you every night, kiss you a thousand times every day in our bed of a hundred of the softest blankets on earth, Kenzie, my golden goddess--”

“I want so many flowers for our wedding, baby,” she was murmuring against his mouth, the supple feeling of her skin driving unbearable waves of heat into his cock now. “I want a hundred dark red roses to hang over our bed between all the wildflowers, flowers in our hair, please, baby, please?”

“Fuck, baby, a thousand flowers, as many as your heart desires, I love you, anything you want, my flower of the universe, my Princess of the Garden of All Delights--fuck, baby, I wanna see it, I wanna see that garden in heaven, where we used to love each other, for eons, Rosemary said, eons--”

Kenzie was laughing against the tickle of his mouth as he groaned into her, standing and gripping her to him under her thighs, his hands finally (fuck, finally, no offense Rosemary) on her bare skin there under the long dress. Kenzie wrapped her arms around his neck and he carried her up to the deck, eagerly turning his chin up to her where her face hovered above him, needy for her kisses.

“I never wanna leave,” Kenzie whispered into him, and he shuddered, pulling her closer, so close the pattering of her heartbeat was flush against his chest, her hair falling against his cheeks. “I wanna run away into the woods with you, into our secret circle of oaks, baby, let’s just stay here and fuck in the field and in the trees and throw away our clothes and worship the Goddess under the starlight until the world ends--”

“But She has shit for us to do, angel, we gotta save the world--” and he was laughing against her as he stumbled with her near the stairs. Kenzie slipped out of his arms (how does she do that) and ran up the stairs away from him before he could grab her wrist--”we gotta save the world, Miss Stone--”

The weed was sweet inside him still, and he thought, The Fates are the Goddess and the Goddess is the Fates, and even if I have darkness in me, so does everything, so does everyone--I know I’ve chosen the light now, and that’s all that matters, I know it was my choice all along--I’ve found my sweet Kenzie, and nothing can fucking hurt me, nothing, nothing can fuck with us, baby--I can’t wait to kiss you with a thousand roses around us and the evening light and the sweet sound of music, slip your moonstone on your little finger and kiss your sweet hands with the tattoo of all my love--

He ran through the bedroom, seeing the little slip of her shoulder, the wave of her hair, the flick of the hem of her long linen dress disappearing through the bathroom door. Kenzie slammed it behind her and he heard the lock click into place. He fell against it, groaning, jiggling the handle to no avail.

“Baby, fuck, ughhh, lemme in, please.”

He could hear her giggling, hear the copper tub’s faucet turn on, its sweet low drift and the sound of her little movements, her tiny laughter kindling a needle of heat into his groin. My angel of heaven. Have mercy.

“I just realized something, Kenzie.”

She fell silent behind the door, as if pausing--for a little while he only heard the faucet running. The bedroom was bathed in low, golden light, and his eyes fell on Cupid’s flower crown in the painting, the tenderness with which he kissed Psyche’s cheek.

“I’ve loved you for thousands of years.”

There was another long pause. He pressed his head against the door, closed his eyes. I have, haven’t I. I really have, When I saw you on the balcony that night, I felt the immensity of time. I knew that it had always been you.

The door opened suddenly and he stumbled through it; Kenzie was throwing her arms around him, making him stumble further, against her this time (oh thank Goddess), and then she was pressing him harshly into the bathroom wall, her hands insistent, demanding. He was leaning down to her, trying to wrap his arms around her, but she pressed them down, her hand drifting to his jaw, clenching there.

“You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you.”

“Yes.”

“You’d die for me.”

“Fuck, yes.”

“Would you assassinate someone for me?” She laughed at this, her words hovering between facetiousness and seriousness, and her smile melted at his heart, made him desperate for her.

“If I had to, yes.” Duncan’s answer was serious, and they both knew it; he stared at her, his eyes unwavering, and saw her lips fall from the smile, saw that she could see the ache of him, insatiable, unending, for her.

“Look at the bruises you left on me.”

Kenzie lifted the linen dress up over her head, edging out of his reach as he tried to grip her. He realized she was naked underneath it and heard the tiny reverberation of his moan, following after her. She turned, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and Duncan groaned to see the dark bruises he’d left on her asscheeks, the product of his own hands. He kneeled, aching regret pressing on him, and cupped her at the top of her thighs, drifting his mouth down to the bruises, whispering against her.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry, I love you so much--”

“I love them,” she whispered. “I love the marks you leave on me. I asked for them and I love them and I want more. I don’t care how long we’ve been together in the past, it still only feels like it’s been a few weeks now and I want more. The marks from your hands and your lips, your attention, your love--I want more, more, more--” Kenzie was leaning back into his hands now, against the wet, open dip of his mouth, her hair brushing along his head. She turned and his face hovered right over her cunt--Duncan dragged her against him, opening his lips further, cupping them into the lips of her sex, turning her hips under his hands and pressing her into the wall. Kenzie’s arms drifted above her, up the wall’s incline, hands reaching heavenward, her back arching, leaning into him; Duncan pulled her thigh up so her knee rested against his shoulder, and held his tongue to her shivering clit, eliciting a long, drifting moan from her mouth turned upward.

The scent of her was rich with summery sweat and the salty gathering of her arousal, and it made Duncan feel as though he were drifting out into some ether, unchained from the earth, as if they were back in the black oak circle, between worlds.

“Baby,” she was humming, “how are we gonna know what to do? To change the world? What are we supposed to do with the company? Like--how--unnnh--” her words bled out as he drifted his tongue back and forth between her clit and the opening of her cunt, urgent and concentrated. No more worrying tonight, Kenzie, just be here with me, let me worship you…

“Mmhmm, baby, uhhuh,” she whined, and he knew she’d heard him, felt the bluish drift of his comforting thought. I’ve missed tasting your sweetness here, angel, I wanna build an altar to your sweet cunt alone, its secret places, curves, hidden clefts, the rich singularity of its scent. I’m gonna eat you out every fucking day for the rest of our lives. He pulled his tongue back, pressing his lips around her clit, sucking carefully, strongly, looking up with languid patience to the shadow over her face as her head fell down, her hands drifting from where they had stretched along the wall to his cheeks, his forehead, the curves of his eyelids, through the sides of his hair, and Duncan had to close them now, for fear he would die inside her eyes--that his heart would simply stop with the glorious weight of her (you Kenzie you my universe and I turn around you, I am your moon spinning around your earth, and when we end we begin again, when we die, we are reborn to each other--).

“Fuck, Duncan,” and Kenzie was biting into her lip, eyes falling closed, her body smooth and hot and terribly soft under his long hands, the wetness at his mouth an insistent undoing, the telltale trembling beginning in her thighs, “I think I’m gonna come already, sorry, baby, I can’t, god, that feels so fucking good, you’re too beautiful, annhh--” and he was shaking his head, rebounding his tongue against her, hands clutching at the bruises along her ass, fingers digging against them so she gasped in the half-patina of pleasure and pain--come for me, come as soon as you want to, as much as you want, as constant, for I will worship you always and my devotion will not end, Mackenzie Stone, High Princess of Heaven, yours is the one true beauty, the gold that you hold in the center of your soul--then, with a pilling satisfaction that urged heat into his groin, he heard the high, lilting sound of her voice crying up in her ecstasy (��Dunny, fu-u-uck-k, my Pri-ince, Evening Star, my fucking baby, unnnnh--”), the sound of the water filling the copper tub crashing against her and drowning out her drawn whimpers, and he thought of Sirens, singing on rocks in the sea, mesmerizing to sailors, causing them to plunge to the depths with desire. My Kenzie, sing to me. Sing your pleasure out for my ears alone.

She quieted, her breath heaving, her legs shaking against him, her cunt twinging--he pressed another long, adoring lick between the lips, shivering with wetness from his mouth and her deep orgasm, then he stood, her hands drifting from his hair to his shoulders to his stomach, his height enveloping her, as it ever was. He brought his arms down around her and Kenzie began to work at his shirt, pushing his pants and briefs to the floor, his mouth, damp with her sex, tasting at hers with lazy need. He lowered his arms, reluctantly, letting his shirt drop to the floor, then swung them down around her shoulders and the back of her thighs, lifting her into his arms. Duncan carried her to the copper tub, the steaming water within almost having reached the rim--he lowered her into it and Kenzie sighed deeply, her eyes fluttering closed in an expression of deep, contented loveliness.

Duncan lifted away from her, turning off the faucet, balancing on the edge of it for a moment, naked; Kenzie’s hair had immediately begun to drift around her, and he thought again of Sirens in the sea, calling out to Odysseus.

“You look like a mermaid, Kenz,” he said, smiling down at her. She grinned, dipping her face under the water, blowing bubbles up to the surface, eyeing him coyly.

“Come, come to me, come to the sea and be drowned, wah-haha,” she laughed.

“By you, gladly.” Duncan stepped over the rim and settled down into the serenely hot water. The tub was quite large--larger than the claw-footed one in the penthouse, large enough that he could stretch his legs out entirely and crook them around her, drawing her into him, his cock, hardening, straining, brushing against the inside of her leg and stomach. She shivered and he moved his mouth down to her cheek, her jaw, pressing tiny kisses there.

“Remember when you put all those roses in the bathtub, baby,” Kenzie was whispering, lifting herself up to him, her nose nuzzling against his. The water felt almost unbearably warm now with her against him this way, and Duncan wanted to cry out against her hair, on her bare, flushed, damp skin. I fucking love you, my love is ever-hungry, ever-urgent, as if it wants to tear me into pieces so I can feed myself to you.

“How could I ever forget that,” he whispered. “You were so fucking beautiful that night. That dress, the half-moon around your neck. I think that’s the first time I knew--really knew--that you were divine.”

“I’m gonna ride you again like that now,” she murmured against his chin, her eyes glowing, and her little slender hand was grasping his cock, now terribly hard in her fingers, easing up and down its thickness with her hips under his fingers, her little tongue dipping out along his lower lip--Kenzie eased herself down onto him, a shuddering, high gasp falling out of her mouth into his, and he cried against her, the pitiful need in his voice ringing in his ears. She moved, slowly at first, then more pressingly, her hands coming up to dampen his hair with water that fell through it in a glistening trail.

“It feels like we woke up from another dream today,” she was whimpering into him, and Duncan was kissing her neck, his mouth tingling with her, lost in the tightness, the clenching, devouring space of her cunt around him, the water’s steam rising around them in droves. “Now we know, baby.”

“That you saved me--” he whined into the dip of her throat now, his voice shuddering as his orgasm inched closer, through his thighs and his groin. “You saved me, angel, you saved my soul from darkness here--that you save me, over and over--you are my miracle, fuck, Kenzie--”

“I am, aren’t I--” she laughed against him, then her laugh bled into a moan as she ground down onto him in the glorious heat of the water, her little hands drifting along his neck, through his curls, her head falling back, and his mouth was around her nipple, sucking with deep hunger, his heart already breaking for the moment he’d have to stop--then he felt himself, eyes blurring with heat and tears, his voice crying wordlessly to heaven (thank you Fates, who are Her), coming harshly up into the golden space of her, the depth of her, the absence of void--she was fullness, truth, reality, the essence of life, she was the beginning and end of all, the solace of his existence. My angel, my miracle, my savior, my Kenzie, for all time.

And for awhile after, they held each other in the blessed quiet and the wonderful heat of the water and the soothing feeling of one another, and he kissed the tiny tears from her eyes, and everything in all of that stretch of moments, small, brief, and somehow also infinite, was sublime.

-------

Kenzie was laying with her face towards the ceiling in the center of the golden bed, the delicate, hanging golden lamp there bowing down on her, kissing at the waves of her chestnut hair. She wore the little silken pink pyjamas and the silk black kimono, gifts from me, I want to shower you with gifts for the rest of our lives, my delight, my sweet love, and one of the downy pillows was propped under her head as she held D’aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths up to her face with her little hands. The other books were in a pile beside her on the silky spread; the ghost story books, Jane Eyre, The Golden Compass and the stargazing book from Duncan’s penthouse library. Duncan was propped up with a pillow on the headboard, facing her, wearing just a pair of black briefs, one of her tiny feet in his large hand; he rubbed it carefully, tenderly, fingers drifting back and forth along its graceful curve, over the rise of her little bones, eyes on her face as she read. The curtain was floating against the wall, and Duncan could smell the fire from the pit downstairs rising up. He wondered if he should go wake Rosemary so she could sleep in one of the guest rooms, but was loathe to move away from the bed, out of Kenzie’s warm sphere. In a little while, he thought. The night is warm and beautiful, besides, as beautiful as last night. It’s like we’re in our own little world here.

“I just love this picture so much,” Kenzie whispered, turning the book to him. The picture was the one of Persephone and Demeter rushing into each other’s arms in a golden field of flowers. “It really makes me think of me and Momby. She’s going to be so happy when we tell her. I keep imagining her face when you call her Momby,” and Kenzie’s grin clenched at his heart.

She turned the book back to herself, resting its edge on her belly, flipping through the pages. Duncan could hear the peepers out on the lake, the drift of the water obscured by them, the low crackle of the fire pit below. Kenzie stopped on a certain page, gazing at it intently, her little mouth pouting, eyes concentrated.

“What’s that page, baby,” Duncan murmured, switching to her other foot, kneading at her toes.

“Selene and Endymion,” she murmured.

“Read it to me?” he asked. I love your voice in the soft night. Singing, speaking, breathing sighs, the gasp of you when you come, the little crying sounds in your sleep.

Kenzie smiled, eyes whirling dark green at him, cleared her throat a little, and read in a clear, measured voice. Journalism major, he thought, brimming with happiness so full it was like a golden cup running over through his body.

“Selene, the moon, came out at night to light up the sky while her brother, Helios, was resting. Slowly she drove her milk-white horses across the sky, and her pale moonbeams fell gently on the sleeping earth where all was peace and quiet.”

Duncan tried to imagine what it must have been like to meet Kenzie for the first time--not on the balcony, he thought, but in that other place, the real first time, after I saw her on her throne, like that dream we had, the throne where she held the sceptre--the Hidden Sphere, the one Rosemary talked about. We met in the Garden, Rosemary said, the Garden of All Delights. Kenzie’s hair, white and shimmering, was full of galaxy-flowers. Her eyes were a golden universe. And her wings were like the vastness of heaven in an unbroken sunset.

“One night Selene’s soft light fell on Endymion, a young shepherd, who was sleeping beside his flock. She stopped to look at him. He was smiling in his sleep and was so young and handsome that she completely lost her heart to him,” and here Kenzie glanced up at Duncan, her face cast in a soft corona of light, her eyes held in the aureate bow of her lashes, and he felt her thought--that’s how I felt when I saw your smile, baby. “She drove through the night, but she could not get him out of her mind.”

Duncan was sliding down over the coverlet to her, his hands drifting up her thighs. Oh you did, did you. She smiled at him nervously, then her eyes fell back to the page and she read again.

“When her duties were over, she went to Zeus and asked him to grant Endymion eternal sleep so he would stay forever young and handsome...Zeus granted Selene’s wish and Endymion slept on and on, smiling in his sleep. He dreamed that he held the moon in his arms. But it was not a dream after all…”

Duncan was pulling her up to him, into his mouth, easily lifting her small weight against him, and the book fell from her fingers to the soft spread and her hair fell back, her eyes fluttering closed against him, the silken feeling of her all too much, and Duncan thought of her as the moon shining against him; as the goddess she once was, of what had felt like a dream, had seemed to be one in the nimbus of sleep, but hadn’t been, her, so wondrously, soul-shakingly real now, in his arms--

No, no. Not a dream after all.

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xudiroco-blog · 5 years

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Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Best Travel Purse

One of the biggest travel issues I have is how to conveniently carry everything I need without being bogged down, annoyed by, or frustrated with the unorganized mess of a travel purse I’ve put it all in. Finding the right travel purse was the best thing to happen to my travel satisfaction in a long time.

Over the years, I’ve bought many variations of travel purses for international travel that have all failed in one way or another. It’s not easy finding the perfect purse for travel when you don’t know how they’ll perform before buying it. Thus I went on a mission to find the best travel purse for international travel that I could find.

I’m going to give you a head start today, because I’ve already tried out many choices and narrowed down the winners.

To help you avoid the tribulations of finding the best travel purse, I’ve put together a guide to my top picks for best travel handbags to help you find them too!

Yes, we’re talking about travel handbags for ladies today, but we’ve also covered a few other travel issues you might be trying to solve, like how to find the best travel pants (which I now wear practically every day!) and our top carry on luggage choices for 2018. Also check out our guide on finding the best travel backpack.

How to Choose the Best Travel Purse 2018

There are definitely important criteria to look for in the best purse for travel. You’re going to be out and about most of the day carrying this bag, so you need it to be comfortable and effortless. The best travel purse holds everything you need to have with you in an organized fashion. It has a sturdy and comfortable strap that can’t easily be cut or snapped by a thief. And it’s weather proof.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when choosing the right travel purse for you:

· Comfortable to carry. If you load it up, is it too heavy to comfortably carry around all day? Does the strap dig into your shoulder? Is the weight distributed well?

· Holds everything you need. Is it too small or too big for the typical items you want to carry? Do you find yourself stuffing things in because there’s never enough space?

· Provides good organization. Are there enough dividers and pockets to organize items? Are they proportioned well and are they functional in the way you want them to be?

· Sturdy, theft-proof strap. Is the strap flimsy or thin? Could the strap easily be cut by a thief walking by? Is the strap the right length to enable you to protect the bag against your body or does it allow the purse to dangle at your side?

· Weather proof. If you were caught in a sudden rain storm, would the bag become drenched on the outside and inside? Are there adequate zippers and flaps to protect the contents?

Types of Travel Purses

To make this quest a little more difficult, there’s not just one type of purse out there. There are many. Here is a breakdown of the most typical types of travel purses.

» Crossbody Bag

If I were to choose one type of bag that’s best for travel, it’s a crossbody bag. These bags have straps that are long enough to be worn across your body, so you have the added protection of the bag not dangling off your arm. While it can still be cut and taken by a thief, it can’t be snatched off your arm. Wearing the bag this way also allows you to protect the bag against your body. (Read more about cross body bags.)

» Messenger Bag

These bags tend to be larger than I would typically take on a trip, but they hold a lot more. They are also usually worn cross body and have sturdier straps. The benefit of a messenger bag is that it has a flap that comes over the top of the bag, which gives added protection against pick pockets.

» Shoulder Bag

Shoulder bags have longer straps that are intended to hang from one shoulder. These are the least-best type of bag to carry for travel because they leave you vulnerable to thieves who are really good at zipping by and snatching or cut the bag right off your shoulder. Because they’re just hanging from your shoulder, there’s pretty much no way you’ll be able to defend against it.

Top Travel Purse Brands

I’m always tempted to check out the travel purses in bag stores in touristy areas, mostly because you can pick up the bag and look inside it before you decide to buy, and because there’s always so many of them (they know how to tempt us travelers!). However, I would highly recommend buying a trusted brand instead. I’m not saying you can’t find a good bag in a touristy bag shop in Tokyo. I’m sure you can. But you might also be getting ripped off, or be getting an inferior product. I like to stick with the brands I know can deliver.

Here are a few of the top travel purse brands that you’ll find on Amazon and in major retail luggage stores. I like to stick with these brands, but I do have a few bags from other companies, like Rosetti, Samsonite, and Kenneth Cole. I would not suggest taking a major designer purse with you while traveling, so those brands are out.

· Baggallini

· eBags

· Travelon

· Pacsafe

TRAVEL PURSE REVIEWS 2018

Our Choices for Best Travel Purse 2018

There are two charts below, for each category of travel purse. I’ve evaluated smaller, mini-type shoulder bags, and larger day bags. If you’re like me, you don’t like to carry a lot of things and have a heavy bag to lug around, so the smaller sizes will be best for you. But if you do want to carry a lot of things, be able to stuff a laptop, water bottle, rain jacket, etc into the bag, then the larger size is for you. More on the choices after the charts…

I like Amazon because they often allow free returns if an item doesn’t meet your qualifications, which can be a huge benefit when there are so many choices. Lucky for you, it’s easy to get your hands on an of the travel bags I chose through the links below (note: they are affiliate links so we receive a small bonus when you use our links).

Plambag Canvas Messenger Bag Crossbody

They call this bag “small” but to me it’s anything but small. In fact, this is one of the biggest bags on this list. It’s a messenger bag and I think it’s a good bag for men and women, because it’s not at all flashy or feminine.

The best thing about this bag is the organization it offers. There are 9 pockets (7 zipped pockets and 2 external side pockets without zipper). You can stuff a lot of things inside this bag, including a 10″ tablet and a water bottle. There are 8 credit card slots on the inside, along with a place to tuck pens, keys, etc. There’s even a little hole that you can thread your headphones through. The flap is held shut with velcro. The bag itself is made with sturdy canvas.

Pros: Amazing amount of space inside, great organization, sturdy, gender neutral Cons: If you only pack a few things, it feels enormous. The front zipper flap is a bit floppy and can be annoying.

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Baggallini Everywhere Travel Crossbody Bag

This is one of the best crossover bags for travel, in my opinion. There are two prevalant styles of purses, one that is tall and one that is wide. Depending on what you need to carry, one might be better than another. This Baggallini Everywhere bag is one of the few wide bags. It’s is 12 inches wide, versus the typical 9 inches.

There are multiple pockets in this bag, including two front pouches, one zips and one snaps. There’s a secondary front pocket, as well as the main compartment, which can easily fit an iPad and lots of other things. On the back of the purse, there is a thin pocket that spans the length of the bag that can be unzipped at the bottom that can slide on to the handle of luggage to hold it on in transport.

Travelon Anti-Theft Classic Messenger Bag

This bag has more protection against theft that includes an RFID blocker so your electronic cards can’t be read through the bag. It also has a slash-proof strap and material. The outside pockets have locking zippers. The strap is also hooked to the bag with a sturdy caribiner, so you can unclip it and secure it to something, like the table at a restaurant. For these reasons Travelon is one of the best bags to guard against theft.

The main inner pocket has a lot of space with pockets for organization. The back pocket has credit card slots and room for travel documents, including a dedicated passport pocket. There are also two side pockets. One can carry a small umbrella or water bottle, the other is good for sunglasses or a camera. I put my keys in there to keep them out of the way.

Pros: Strap can be shortened into regular shoulder-bag length, comes in tons of colors, has a passport slot, great theft-prevention. Cons: Strap may not come with the caribiner. Sizing seems inconsistent.

eBags Piazza Day Bag 2.0

Another great bag that includes RFID blocker, the eBags Piazza Day Bag 2.0 holds so much that it’s one of my favorite bags to have along on a trip when I need to have everything handy. The entire bag is lined with protective material, so everything inside the bag is RFID protected.

I also really love the soft material this bag is made of. It’s a soft nylon material that won’t get snagged or ripped easily. As I mentioned, there is a ton of space in this bag. It’s very well laid out with three exterior flat zip pockets, and two side pockets that are perfect for storing bottles of water or sunglasses. One of my typical gripes about purses is that the either the zipper or the pull tag on the zipper gets weak and breaks. The Piazza day bag has a well-made self-repairing YKK RC coil zippers, that promises not to break, and I’ve not had a problem with it yet, after many years of use.

Pros: Great RFID protection. Huge amount of space, with good organization. Convenient, slip in back pocket for easy access to mobile. Cons: Too big for some uses. Front flap can be annoying. Not available in the UK or Canada (substitution is given when you click our links).

Baggallini Pocket Crossbody Bag

The Baggallini pocket crossbody purse is just 8.5 inches wide and tall and 2 inches thick, but it comes packed with a zippered interior pocket, three exterior pockets and credit card slots for easy organization. It will fit a Kindle, but of course, not a tablet. It’s a great option because it’s streamlined and lightweight. If you’re expecting a lot of room, this is not it. The joy of this bag is how small it is.

This is one of the best crossbody bags for travel if you’re a light packer. The strap is adjustable so you can move it up or down for your comfort. It’s not an incredibly sturdy strap though, so you don’t have to be careful in certain situations. I really like that it has a removeable RFID wristlet included, so you can just carry your cards, if you want. The back pocket is just the right size to stash your smartphone so you don’t have to go through the interior pocket to get it.

Travelon Anti-Theft Classic Mini Shoulder Bag

If you’re worried about theft while carrying a purse, you can look no further than this Travelon Anti-Theft mini bag (if it’s too small for you, there’s a larger one in the next section). One of the features I love on this bag is the slash-proof strap. It has a locking main compartment and RFID card slots for added protection.

You know how you’re not supposed to leave your bag laying on the floor or on the chair in a restaurant, but it’s uncomfortable to rest it on your knee? The strap of this bag is made to be attached to a chair or small post so it can’t be stolen. This bag is also slightly larger than other bags in this category, with 9.5 inches of height, so you can fit a few more things inside. It’s not really large, but it does fit quite a bit inside, like passports, Kindle or iPad mini, smartphone, wallet, keys and sunglasses. There’s also a small LED light attached on the inside. AND the interior is a bright color so it’s easy to see what’s inside the bag.

Baggallini Triple Zip Crossbody Bag

This bag is the smallest that I’ve chosen for this list. I used to carry a bag like this one on every trip I took for more than 10 years and it served me well. It’s only 7 inches tall, so you lose an inch of space, but because it’s so small, it’s easy to pack into a backpack or another larger day bag, if necessary. The inner pockets aren’t bogged down with dividers so you can just stuff in what you need. It’s just the right size to fit a passport, a camera, keys and one or two other things.

The other unique thing about this bag is that the strap is detachable and there are belt loops on the back, so you can wear it as a side pack instead, or hook it onto another bag. Your smartphone will fit conveniently into the front zippered pocket.

eBags Villa Crossbody 2.0

This is one of the larger bags in this category at 10.5 inches tall and wide, and 2 inches thick. There is plenty of space inside for the essentials, even a book or tablet can fit inside. The bag has two zippered front pockets, a main top-zipping compartment and a u-zip rear compartments. If you’re looking for the best crossover travel bag for women, this is a very strong contender.

Inside the front compartment are two pockets that can hold your phone and sunglasses. One of them is fleece-lined, so you won’t end up scratching the face of your phone with your keys (like I’ve done before).

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allavolodinayork · 3 years

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Alla Volodina York University - 10 Phrases Great Speakers Never Say

While it’s really hard to immediately win over a crowd, it’s really easy for a speaker to lose the room within the first few minutes of a presentation.

To make sure you don’t lose your audience, here’s Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, serial entrepreneur and founder of TwitterCounter and The Next Web, with ten things you should never say during your presentations:

1. “I’m jet-lagged/tired/hungover.”

Not sure where this comes from, but one in five presentations at any conference starts with an excuse: “They only invited me yesterday,” or, “I’m really tired from my trip,” or some other lame excuse the audience really doesn’t want to hear.

We, the audience, just want to see you give it your best. If you feel like crap and can’t give it your best, maybe you should have cancelled. Take a pill, drink an espresso and kill it!

2. “Can you hear me? Yes you can!”

This is how many people start their talks. They tap a microphone three times, shout, “Can you all hear me in the back?” and then smile apologetically when it becomes clear that, yes everybody can hear them, but no one raised their hand.

It isn’t your responsibility to check the audio. There are people for that. (And if there aren’t, test the volume ahead of time.)

But if you do speak into the microphone and get the impression it’s not working, just relax, count to three, and try again. If you still think the sound isn’t working, calmly walk to the edge of the stage and discreetly ask the moderator to check for you.

Throughout, smile at the audience and look confident. Assume everything works until proven otherwise, then stay calm and wait for a fix.

3. “I can’t see you because the lights are too bright.”

Yes, when you are on stage the lights are bright and hot and it will be difficult to see the audience. But they don’t have to know about all that.

Just stare into the dark, smile often, and act like you feel right at home. Feel free to walk into the audience if you want to see them up close.

And don’t cover your eyes to see people but politely ask the lights person to turn up the lights in the room if you want to count hands or ask the audience a question. Even better, talk to the lights people in advance so they know when you will ask them to raise the lights.

4. “I’ll get back to that later.”

If you happen to stumble on an audience eager to learn and interact, grab that chance and enjoy it. If someone has a question you will address in a later slide just skip to it right away.

If someone is brave enough to raise their hand and ask you a question, compliment them and invite the rest of the audience to do the same. Never delay anything.

5. “Can you read this?”

The common rule is to make the font size on your slides twice the size of the average age of the audience. Yes, that means that if you expect the audience to be 40 then on average you are stuck with a font size of 80 points.

You won’t be able to fit a lot of text on the slide, which is a good thing and brings us to the next point.

6. “Let me read this out loud for you.”

Never ever, ever, ever in a million years add so much text to a slide that people will spend time reading it. And if you do, make damn sure you don’t read it out loud for them.

The best way to lose your audience’s attention is to add text to a slide. Here’s what happens when you have more than four words on a slide: people start reading it. And what happens when start reading? They stop listening to you.

Only use short titles on slides, and memorize any text you want the audience to read. Or, if you must include an awesome three-sentence quote, announce that everyone should read the quote and then be quiet for six to ten seconds so they can actually read it.

7. “Shut off your phone/laptop/tablet.”

Once upon a time you could ask an audience to shut off their devices. Not anymore. Now people tweet the awesome quotes you produce or take notes on their iPads. Or they play solitaire or check Facebook.

You can ask for the audience to turn their phones to silent mode, but apart from that you just have to make sure that your talk is so incredibly inspiring they will close their laptops because they don’t want to miss a second.

Demanding attention doesn’t work. Earn attention instead.

8. “You don’t need to write anything down or take photos; the presentation will be online later.”

It is really cool that you will upload your presentation later. But if it’s a good presentation it won’t contain too many words (see point 4) and won’t be of much use to the audience.

For many people the act of writing is an easy way to memorize something they’ve heard. In short, allow people to do whatever they want during your presentations.

9. “Let me answer that question.”

Of course it is awesome if you answer a question right away, but you need to do something else first. Often the question from an audience member will be clear to you but not to the rest of the audience.

So please say, “I’ll repeat that question first so everybody can hear it,” and then answer it.

Plus, when you make a habit of repeating questions, that gives you a little more time to think of an awesome answer.

10. “I’ll keep it short.”

This is a promise no one keeps. But a lot of presentations start that way!

The audience really doesn’t care if you keep it short or not. They’ve invested their time and just want to be informed and inspired. So say, “This presentation is going to change your life,” or, “This presentation is scheduled to take 30 minutes, but I’ll do it in 25 minutes so you can go out and have a coffee earlier than expected.”

Then all you have to do is keep that promise, which brings me to the last point.

Bonus tip: “What, I’m out of time? But I have 23 more slides!”

If you come unprepared and need more time than allowed, you’ve screwed up. You must practice your presentation and make it fit within the allotted time.

Better yet, end five minutes early and ask if anyone has questions. If they don’t, invite them for a coffee to talk one-on-one. Giving an audience five minutes back earns their respect and gratitude. Taking an extra five annoys and alienates them.

Conclusion: come prepared, be yourself and be professional. The audience will love you for being clear, for being serious, and for not wasting their time.

Source URL: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/10-things-speakers-should-never-say-th.html.

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bloggerjoedoe · 4 years

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The new iPad Air.

Ever since its launch in late 2015, the 12.9” iPad Pro has been my primary computer. The combination of a large display – the largest Apple makes for iPads – with software that properly takes advantage of it (see: Split View, multiwindow, multicolumn) makes the 12.9” Pro an ideal blend of laptop-like usability and tablet modularity. If you’re looking for power and flexibility, the 12.9” iPad Pro is the ne plus ultra of the iPad line.

Before the iPad Pro, however, it was the iPad Air 2 that convinced me the iPad could be a suitable replacement for a MacBook. In my review of the iPad Air 2 in early 2015, which I published just a few months before the iPad Pro’s debut, I called the device a “liberating” experience, noting how it struck a balance of high portability and versatility that enabled me to get more work done from more places. In spite of the iPad Pro’s superiority – especially in terms of display size – I’m always going to have a soft spot for the iPad Air as the device where my modern iPad journey began.

For the past few days, I’ve been testing Apple’s latest iPad Air, which comes out this Friday starting at $599 for the 64 GB, Wi-Fi model. While the 10.9” Air won’t replace the 12.9” iPad Pro as my primary machine, I’ve been impressed by this iPad for a different reason: the iPad Air democratizes the notion of “pro iPad”, bringing key features of iPad Pro to more customers, while at the same time looking ahead toward the future of iPad with hardware not seen on the current iPad Pro lineup. The iPad Air sits at the intersection of old iPad Pro features trickling down to the rest of the iPad line and new ones appearing on this model first. This makes the iPad Air a fascinating device to review, as well as a compelling alternative to another iPad of similar dimensions: the 11” iPad Pro.

Five years after the iPad Air 2, I’m intrigued by an iPad Air again. Let me explain why.

Exclusive Wallpapers and More

Wallpapers for iPad and AppStories Episode

By subscribing to Club MacStories, you’ll gain exclusive access to a selection of wallpapers specifically designed for the iPadOS 14 Home Screen, including the new iPad Air.

Created by our designer Silvia Gatta and modeled after the iPhone wallpapers we shared in my iOS 14 review, these wallpapers feature colorful gradients and a special area dedicated to widgets. The wallpapers are available in five different color variations for the new iPad Air, iPad Pro (12.9” and 11”), and iPad mini and they’re optimized for the iPad Home Screen in landscape mode.

You can find screenshots of my Home Screen with these wallpapers in the story; if you’re a Club MacStories member, you can download the wallpapers in your member area at macstories.memberful.com.

We also recorded a special episode of our podcast AppStories all about my thoughts on the iPad Air. You can listen to the episode below.

Touch ID

The 2020 iPad Air experience starts with a contradiction: Apple has adopted the same industrial design of the 2018 iPad Pro with a Liquid Retina Display that extends into all four corners of the screen, replacing the physical Home button with a virtual Home indicator; however, the iPad Air doesn’t support Face ID authentication, which in 2018 was widely regarded as the reason for dropping a physical Home button and Touch ID. In fact, the iPad Air doesn’t come with a TrueDepth camera system for the front-facing camera, period. Instead, the iPad Air offers something that only certain MacBook models have offered so far: a Touch ID sensor built into the top button.

This implementation of Touch ID is a first on iOS and iPadOS devices, which never offered a fingerprint sensor in the top button that is used for shutdown and/or Siri. On the new iPad Air, the Touch ID button is located in the top right corner of the device when held in portrait (with the USB-C port – also new in this generation – at the bottom). Compared to the iPad Pro model that this device most closely resembles – the 11” iPad Pro, which I’m going to cover below – the Touch ID button is thicker and elongated (it’s nearly twice the length of the top button on the 11” iPad Pro), features a glossy finish based on the device’s color (my review unit has a Sky Blue finish), and has a very slight bump compared to the same button on iPad Pro.

The new Touch ID button.

From a merely tactile standpoint, the longer shape and bump help in identifying the button by feel: on the 11” iPad Pro, I often find myself sliding my index finger up and down for a second to make sure I’m clicking the top button; on the iPad Air, the different texture, shape, and bump make the button impossible to miss at first touch. Speaking of clicking the button: the sound the iPad Air’s Touch ID button makes is more muted and less clicky than the top button on the iPad Pro; I’m guessing Apple went for a more muted sound signature given how many times people are going to click the button on a daily basis.1

The iPad Air’s Touch ID experience begins at setup with an updated onboarding flow that features new pages for Touch ID configuration. If you’ve ever configured Touch ID on an iPhone or iPad before, you won’t find anything revolutionary here: you’ll be asked to place your finger on the sensor for a first scan of your fingerprint, and after that you’ll have to repeat the process for a more granular scan that captures the edges of your finger. Besides the updated graphics showing the new placement for Touch ID on iPad Air, what’s different this time is that iPadOS’ setup process will prompt you to add a second fingerprint right away so you can more easily unlock the device in either orientation.

Setting up Touch ID on iPad Air.

When I set up my unit, I added both my left and right index fingers since I knew I was going to unlock the device with different fingers based on whether I was in reading mode (portrait, right index finger) or writing mode (landscape, left index finger). I think offering the option of multiple fingerprints at setup is a nice touch, and it shows Apple thought about how folks are going to be holding and using their iPad Air.

In terms of performance, I’ve found the Touch ID sensor fast and reliable in my tests and in line with the accuracy and speed we used to have in older iPhones with the second-generation Touch ID sensor a few years ago. The iPad Air unlocks in a fraction of a second when your finger is placed on the Touch ID sensor and works as expected. I haven’t run into any issues when using Touch ID authentication with the App Store, 1Password, and other apps that required my fingerprint.

I also tried using Touch ID in a different orientation from the one I used when I originally set it up, which is something I assume people are going to do since iPad can be used in all four orientations. My fingerprints were recognized in both landscape and portrait regardless of how they were initially set up, even after I rotated the device by 90 degrees. Touch ID only failed when the iPad was upside down, with the Touch ID button at the bottom and the USB-C port facing up. In that case, neither my left nor right index fingers were recognized – but I’m never going to use my index finger when Touch ID is facing down, so I think this is fine. If, for whatever reason, you want to use your iPad Air this way, I suggest adding your thumb as a Touch ID fingerprint instead. In everyday usage when working on iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard, Smart Folio, or holding it in my hands in portrait, Touch ID has worked well.

As happened before with similar biometric transitions on Apple devices, third-party apps worked with Touch ID out of the box without requiring a specific iPad Air compatibility update. The system automatically embeds a Touch ID indicator at the edge of the screen near the button’s location to suggest where you need to press; this is a UI element similar to the one we’ve seen before with Face ID on iPad Pro.

The Touch ID indicator displayed by iPadOS onscreen.

There are two different ways to unlock iPad Air while on the Lock Screen: you can either wake the display by touching the screen (or pressing the space bar on a connected keyboard) then rest your finger on Touch ID, or you can click the Touch ID button and rest your finger on it for a split second to wake and unlock the device. In either case, a ‘Rest to Open’ message is displayed onscreen near the Touch ID button, and the iPad unlocks as soon as your fingerprint is scanned successfully.

What makes the iPad Air’s new take on Touch ID interesting isn’t necessarily how well it performs (again, based on my tests, really well), but how the experience of using it compares to older iPad models with a Home button and the iPad Pro line with Face ID. This is where I’m torn on my judgement of Touch ID in the iPad Air, and why I believe it ultimately comes down to what you expect from an iPad in 2020.

If you’re coming from a previous-generation iPad Air or other iPad model with a Home button, the new iPad Air lets you keep the ability to unlock your device quickly while adding the fluid gestural interactions originally seen on the iPhone X and iPad Pro. You’re gaining a larger screen with a modern interaction vocabulary that doesn’t sacrifice the convenience of Touch ID. This is especially useful in 2020 if you’re planning to use iPad Air while out and about and wearing a mask. I don’t see any advantage to Touch ID in a Home button. The new placement takes minimal adjustment and you’re getting the real iPadOS multitasking experience entirely based on gestures in return.

It’s a different evaluation if you’re considering this iPad Air as an alternative to the iPad Pro with Face ID. I’ll cut right to the chase: I prefer using my iPad Pro with Face ID. As I wrote in my previous coverage of iPad Pro, the addition of Face ID removed the need to think about unlocking an iPad in the first place. These days, I mostly use my iPad Pro as a stationary device connected to the Magic Keyboard. When I sit down in front of my iPad Pro and open the keyboard case, all I have to do is press the space bar to leave the Lock Screen since Face ID authenticates me automatically. I don’t have to touch anything else. Here lies the aforementioned contradictory nature of the new iPad Air: it looks like an iPad Pro, and it works like an iPad Pro, but it still requires you to lift your fingers off the keyboard to press the Touch ID button. If I had to choose between Face ID and Touch ID for my usage of the iPad on a daily basis, I’d still pick Face ID.

However, my iPad usage isn’t representative of the iPad Air’s potential market, nor do I think existing iPad Pro customers are going to switch from a Pro to the new Air. For this reason, I consider the redesigned Touch ID an improvement over older iPad generations; more importantly, I’d love for Apple to bring this hybrid top button with Touch ID sensor to the iPhone line as an option in addition to Face ID next year. The new Touch ID works great, is well integrated with the device’s chassis, and it feels good not to worry about face coverings again.

The 10.9” Display and Comparisons to the 11” iPad Pro

At first glance, there is virtually no difference between the new iPad Air and the 11” iPad Pro. Both devices share the same rough physical dimensions, weigh basically the same, and look nearly identical when compared side-by-side or when held in one hand. If I didn’t know where to look, and if it weren’t for the different color of my iPad Air review unit, I’d easily mistake the 11” iPad Pro for an iPad Air, and vice versa. They look and feel like the same iPad, and, aside from performance (more on this later), the experience of holding and using them with iPadOS 14 is eerily similar.

The 12.9” iPad Pro (top), 11” iPad Pro (bottom left), and iPad Air.

The iPad Air (top) and 11” iPad Pro.

The iPad Air Home Screen.

The iPad Pro features an 11” Liquid Retina Display with a resolution of 2388 x 1668 pixels. In comparison, the iPad Air has a 10.9” Liquid Retina Display with a resolution of 2360 x 1640 pixels. The iPad Air’s slightly smaller display comes down to the fact that iPad Pro is 0.02 inches wider in landscape (7.02 compared to 7.0 inches) with slightly thinner bezels. The thicker bezels on the Air are noticeable upon a close inspection, but they’re not that much thicker, and they don’t make the Air feel like an old product. Everything about the iPad Air’s build quality feels as premium as the 11” iPad Pro; the increase in thickness (0.23 inches on the Pro; 0.24 inches on the Air) isn’t perceptible when using either device. Holding the new iPad Air feels like holding an 11” iPad Pro; the thicker bezels are the only factor that may break the illusion for the most attentive iPad owners.

The iPad Air (blue Home Screen) has slightly thicker bezels.

iPad Air (left) and the 11” iPad Pro.

As far as iPadOS 14 goes, the iPad Air behaves exactly like the small iPad Pro. As I noted in my review of iPadOS 14 and explanation of multicolumn, built-in apps such as Notes and Mail do not support three concurrent columns in landscape mode on 11” iPads. This is as true on the new iPad Air as it was on the 11” iPad Pro. While developers can code their apps to always support three-column mode in either landscape or portrait orientations, Voice Memos is the only pre-installed Apple app to support three simultaneous columns on smaller iPads such as the 11” iPad Pro and iPad Air. As a result, everything I wrote about iPadOS 14 and its implementation of multicolumn and sidebars in my review applies to the iPad Air, and I recommend reading this section if you’re curious about the technicalities involved. In terms of multitasking and multicolumn, the iPad Air, despite its slightly smaller display, lays out UI elements precisely like the 11” iPad Pro.

The principal display differences between the iPad Air and the 11” iPad Pro come down to the technology used in the high-end iPad Pro: ProMotion. The iPad Air does not offer a ProMotion display with a high refresh rate of 120Hz, and this is one of the areas where, in comparing the small iPad Pro to the iPad Air, a line needs to be drawn. Pitted against the iPad Pro’s ProMotion display, the iPad Air’s standard Liquid Retina Display feels sluggish and old. It feels like the past. Again, I don’t think most people will care about this comparison since they likely won’t switch from an iPad Pro to the Air, but if you’re in the market for a new iPad of this size and care about display fluidity, this needs to be mentioned.

The iPad Air’s display features colorful, vibrant tones (with support for True Tone and wide color) and extends to all four corners of the device, but animations on it aren’t as smooth as on a ProMotion display. If you’ve ever upgraded from an old iPad to a ProMotion-enabled one, you know what I’m talking about.2 The iPad Pro is also slightly brighter thanks to its extra 100 nits (600 compared to 500 on the Air), but, in my experience, this isn’t as noticeable as ProMotion.

In addition to the fluidity of animations and UI transitions (which you can notice right away by simply swiping across Home Screen pages), ProMotion also makes a difference in terms of Apple Pencil latency. As you can imagine, a high display refresh rate equals lower latency, which means that when using the Pencil in apps like Notes, virtual ink will follow the Pencil’s tip more closely. The ability to use the second-generation Apple Pencil with the iPad Air thanks to its flat sides and magnetic pairing is a victory in and of itself, but if you’re an artist or creative professional who wants to buy a new 11” iPad for drawing and sketching, you should keep in mind that ProMotion grants superior Apple Pencil performance on the iPad Pro.

The other differences between the iPad Air and 11” iPad Pro revolve, unsurprisingly, around the technologies and options included in the iPad Pro line that justify its higher price point. Let me break them down and make it easy for you:

Both the iPad Air and iPad Pro have the same 12 MP wide camera. The iPad Air does not offer an ultra-wide camera.

Due to its lack of Face ID, the iPad Air doesn’t come with a TrueDepth front-facing camera, which also means no Portrait selfies or Animoji/Memoji.

The iPad Air doesn’t have a LiDAR scanner.

The iPad Pro has a four-speaker audio system; the iPad Air features stereo speakers in landscape mode.3

The iPad Pro features the A12Z Bionic chip; the iPad Air comes with the A14 Bionic chip (the first built with a 5-nanometer process as opposed to the iPad Pro’s 7-nanometer process).

The iPad Pro’s USB-C port supports data transfers up to 10 Gbps; the iPad Air is limited to 5 Gbps (unless you’re a pro photographer or video maker who transfers heavy assets on a daily basis, you’re not going to notice any difference). The iPad Air supports mirroring to external 4K displays via USB-C as well, which I was able to test with my existing LG UltraFine 4K monitor.4

The iPad Air starts at $200 less than the 11” iPad Pro, but for half the storage: you can get a 64 GB Wi-Fi iPad Air for $599, while the cheapest 11” iPad Pro starts at $799 for 128 GB of storage. At the same storage size (256 GB), the difference between the iPad Pro and Air goes down to $150 ($899 for the Pro and $749 for the Air).

The iPad Pro offers up to 1 TB of local storage; the iPad Air maxes out at 256 GB.

The 2020 iPad Pro comes with 6 GB of RAM; the iPad Air is limited to 4 GB.

As you can see, even though the 11” iPad Pro and iPad Air look similar, there are a handful of differences between them that involve the additional technologies and power available in the iPad Pro line. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since iPad Pro is a machine designed for professional users, whereas the iPad Air is the new mainstream iPad for everyone.

Performance

Those who have read my hardware reviews know that I typically don’t care about benchmarks and raw numbers since they’re not representative of the experience of using an Apple device. I’m making a brief exception in this review because I find the performance story surrounding the new A14 Bionic chip interesting enough to warrant some additional comparisons with the iPad Pro’s A12Z Bionic chip.

The A14 Bionic is a new SoC built on a 5-nanometer process, which is a first for Apple this year on the iPad Air and iPhone 12 lines. The A14 Bionic is packed with 11.8 billion transistors (compared to the A12Z’s 10 billion) and has been touted by Apple with numbers such as “16-core Neural Engine that is twice as fast”, “10 times faster machine learning calculations”, and “40% boost in CPU performance”. I have always trusted Apple with these numbers, but I honestly have no idea what they mean. I’m more interested in the practical advancements that the company’s machine learning improvements have delivered in apps, such as faster indexing in Photos over the past couple years or intelligent photo adjustments powered by Core ML in Pixelmator Photo.

Numbers don’t tell the full story, particularly when it comes to tasks that are challenging to measure in everyday workflows. What I do find interesting, however, is how the A14 Bionic comfortably beats in single-core performance (according to Geekbench) both the 2018 A12X and 2020 A12Z SoCs. As you can see in the table I compiled below, the A14 is behind in multi-core performance, but not by much.

iPad Air, A14 2020 iPad Pro 12.9”, A12Z 2018 iPad Pro 11”, A12X 2018 iPad Pro 12.9”, A12X Single-Core 1583 1128 1118 1118 Multi-Core 4279 4720 4647 4561 RAM 4 GB 6 GB 4 GB 6 GB

I also ran some tests to measure performance of the A14 Bionic in a notoriously CPU-intensive task: exporting 4K video. First, I created an iMovie project on the 2020 iPad Pro 12.9” and iPad Air with a video that is 4 minutes and 30 seconds long. Here’s how long it took both iPads to export that project as a 4K video to the Photos app:

2020 iPad Pro, A12Z: 2 minutes and 33 seconds

iPad Air, A14: 2 minutes and 50 seconds

A 17-second difference isn’t too shabby for a device that doesn’t have ‘Pro’ in its name. I then doubled the project and attempted to export a 9-minute video in 4K:

iPad Pro: 5 minutes and 7 seconds

iPad Air: 5 minutes and 39 seconds

This is an example of a common task people may find themselves performing on their iPads, and I’m sure other users will find more accurate and creative ways to measure performance differences between the A12Z and A14, but these numbers sum up the iPad Air’s performance story well. The A14 is a beast, and I have to wonder about the kind of performance we’ll be able to squeeze out of the (inevitable?) A14X in future iPad Pro models (or upcoming Apple Silicon Macs?).

In terms of everyday usage, the iPad Air (lack of ProMotion notwithstanding) feels just as responsive and fluid as my 2020 iPad Pro. I haven’t yet run into any scenarios where the two extra GBs of RAM on the iPad Pro enabled functionalities that weren’t possible on iPad Air5, but this is still something you should be mindful of if you’re someone who leaves complex shortcuts running for long periods of time or cares about keeping dozens of Safari tabs preserved in memory. Generally speaking, the only difference I notice when using the iPad Air in a normal workday (browsing Safari, chatting in Slack, writing in iA Writer, programming in Shortcuts, etc.) is the lack of a high display refresh rate. Considering this isn’t an iPad Pro, this says a lot about the performance provided by the A14 in real-life scenarios.

Accessories

Apple provided me with the following accessories for iPad Air: a Magic Keyboard, second-generation Apple Pencil, and “matching” Smart Folio in the Deep Navy color.

There isn’t much to say about the Apple Pencil that I haven’t already covered in previous stories on my experience with iPad Pro. This is the same second-generation Apple Pencil that attaches magnetically to the side of iPad Pro, which can now be paired the same way with iPad Air thanks to its redesigned chassis and inner magnetic configuration. As I noted above, the only difference between using the Pencil on the iPad Pro and iPad Air is the performance granted by the ProMotion display on the Pro line. In any case, as I also wrote in my iPadOS 14 review in the Apple Pencil section, I primarily work on my iPad with the keyboard and my usage of Apple Pencil is very limited, so take my advice with the proverbial grain of salt.

The Magic Keyboard for iPad Air isn’t really an iPad Air version of it. Because of the physical similarities between devices, the iPad Air uses the same Magic Keyboard model of the 11” iPad Pro – it’s not a new version of the keyboard introduced last March. It’s literally the same product: on the Apple online store, it is listed as Magic Keyboard for iPad Air and iPad Pro 11”. The label on my review unit says ‘Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro 11-inch’. Since the iPad Air doesn’t have the same rear camera module as the 2020 iPad Pro with an ultra-wide lens and LiDAR scanner, the single rear camera looks as lonely inside the Magic Keyboard camera slot as it does when using an old 2018 iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard. You can tell the case was designed for a later generation of iPads, but it looks fine.

The iPad Air, Magic Keyboard, and Apple Pencil.

Sometimes, it gets lonely in there.

As for typing on the Magic Keyboard itself, the same considerations of the 11” iPad Pro apply here: I personally prefer typing with a 12.9” Magic Keyboard because I have relatively large hands and I find the wider keyboard more comfortable to use, but I know plenty of iPad users who are absolutely fine with the 11” form factor. Whether you’re going to enjoy typing on the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air depends on your relationship with 11” tablets and the ergonomics of this keyboard for your hands and wrists. Since Apple reused the same Magic Keyboard introduced a few months ago for this iPad, I suggest reading my story about the Magic Keyboard here and my thoughts on the system-wide iPadOS pointer here in case you missed them.

You may have noticed the quotes I put around “matching” color for the Smart Folio above. In short, I’m not a fan of the color options for the iPad Air’s Smart Folio models since there’s a clear color mismatch between the iPad Air’s hardware and the cover. The iPad Air’s new Sky Blue color is bright, fun, and subtle; I find the Deep Navy Smart Folio, well, navy and somewhat boring. That’s not to mention the cool, fresh, minty ‘Green’ variation of the 2020 iPad Air and the utter disgrace that is the ‘Cyprus Green’ version of the Smart Folio.

The Deep Navy Smart Folio.

Why are the iPad Air colors so fun and the Smart Folio flavors so dull and uninspired? Why couldn’t the iPad Air also have the same Pink Citrus, Cactus, and Surf Blue colors for the Smart Folio for iPad Pro? The Smart Folio gets the job done, and I don’t think there’s anything I need to say about it in 2020 that I haven’t already shared several times before; however, I wish the available color options matched the iPad Air’s fun aesthetic.

Everything Else

Here’s a collection of miscellaneous notes and tidbits about the new iPad Air based on my experience with the device.

Four-speaker audio vs. the iPad Air’s two-speaker system. Unlike the iPad Pro, the new iPad Air comes with a two-speaker system that doesn’t sound nearly as good as the iPad Pro’s four-speaker one. This isn’t surprising, I guess, but sound coming out of the iPad Air’s speakers isn’t as full or rich as the iPad Pro. The best way to describe the iPad Air’s audio is that it sounds washed out. These aren’t bad speakers per se, but while I would easily recommend using an iPad Pro as a decent-quality portable speaker around the house, I wouldn’t say the same about the iPad Air’s speaker system. It sounds okay, but I wouldn’t listen to a full album on it.

The iPad Air comes with a 20W USB brick. Apple didn’t remove the USB adapter from the iPad Air’s package like they recently did for Apple Watch and iPhone. Inside the box, you’ll find a 20W USB-C adapter and standard USB-C cable. Alas, as with previous iPad Pro models, this is a “thin” USB-C cable that doesn’t support fast data transfers or mirroring to external 4K displays.

The iPad Air’s USB-C port.

The Sky Blue color. I received a Sky Blue review unit from Apple, and the blue tone is more subtle than I expected. In broad daylight, it is light blue, but it doesn’t look nearly as blue as the two blue tones of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, for instance. It’s more like a light blue/grayish color. While I was testing the iPad Air indoors with standard fluorescent light bulbs illuminating my living room, my friends thought it was silver. I’m curious to see if the green model looks greener in practice.

Apple’s Sky Blue color.

Which version of iPadOS was it running? My review unit was running iPadOS 14.0 out of the box. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t able to restore from the backup of my primary iPad Pro since that was already running the iPadOS 14.2 developer beta, and there was no iPadOS 14.2 restore image for me to download from the Apple Developer portal for the iPad Air. I set it up as a new iPad and updated to iPadOS 14.1 yesterday.

The 2020 iPad Air

The 10.9” iPad Air is a fascinating new entry in the iPad lineup. On one hand, this iPad clearly resembles the 11” iPad Pro but lacks some of its more advanced features and options to hit a lower price point; on the other, because most iPad users aren’t going to require those extra niceties, the iPad Air feels like an ideal mix of mainstream and pro – a distillation of what makes the modern iPad Pro experience great, but offered in a more affordable package that covers the essentials, from support for the second-generation Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard to the Liquid Retina Display and gesture-based multitasking. And the iPad Air does all this while looking forward at the future of iPad as a computer for everyone, with new technologies such as the A14 Bionic chip and Touch ID embedded in the top button that I would like to see find their way to more iPad models soon.6

The iPad Air raises the baseline for what we should expect from iPad as a portable, versatile computer for everyone.

Using the new iPad Air begs the question: what does the future hold for the 11” iPad Pro?

As I’ve noted multiple times in this review, the comparison between the 11” iPad Pro and iPad Air is probably an unfair one given the different markets the two devices are targeting. However, it is a comparison I wanted to make because these iPads look so similar, and because I feel like a lot of readers will ask themselves whether they should purchase the new iPad Air rather than an 11” iPad Pro. Arguably, the options still exclusive to the iPad Pro are nice extras, but unless you have precise requirements in terms of performance, display quality, and size, I think the iPad Air is a better deal than the 11” iPad Pro for most people.

It’s important to note how, in relaunching iPad Air as a device inspired by the iPad Pro’s fundamental traits, Apple didn’t use the 12.9” iPad Pro as their template, but they started from the smaller, and more manageable, 11” iPad Pro. At its core, the modern iPad experience is all about striking a fine balance between portability, power, and modularity. The iPadOS experience in 2020 is rooted in the idea that you should be able to hold a screen in your hands and use it with multitouch, or scribble on it with a Pencil, or dock it in a Magic Keyboard and use it as a laptop. The inherent flexibility granted by a compact form factor made the 11” iPad Pro the ideal blueprint for a reimagined iPad Air, which, on balance, is a more flexible, accessible iPad than a 12.9” iPad Pro for all kinds of tasks, contexts, and workflows.

I wouldn’t be surprised if making the iPad Air so similar in specs and feel to the 11” iPad Pro is a way for Apple to further differentiate the iPad Pro line in the future with even larger models and additional pro options. Right now, I believe the most important consideration as to whether you should buy an iPad Pro isn’t about the technical differences between the Air and 11” Pro I highlighted in this review: it’s about whether you need a 12.9” iPad Pro in your life. Ultimately, this is why I find Apple’s new iPad Air a forward-looking device: it gives us a glimpse of what to expect from the future of the iPad family (more iPad Pro-inspired models), but it also gives us a hint at where the iPad Pro line may be headed next. With the arrival of iPad Air, I feel like the market for the 11” iPad Pro just shrunk considerably.

The iPad Air raises the baseline for what we should expect from iPad as a portable, versatile computer for everyone. If you’re looking for an 11” tablet and think you can live without ProMotion and larger storage options, this is the iPad I recommend.

Or maybe it’s just the byproduct of adding a Touch ID sensor to the top button. I’d love to know. ↩︎

When I did, I wrote about it in my coverage of the 10.5” iPad Pro in 2017. ↩︎

There’s one speaker at the top, and another at the bottom of the device. The iPad Air featured stereo speakers before, but sound was always coming from one side; now, the two speakers can properly output left and right channels in landscape mode. ↩︎

In theory, as I covered a while back, the iPad Pro supports mirroring to external 5K displays. However, I’ve never been able to find an external 5K display that supports iPad Pro mirroring over USB-C. ↩︎

But I’m also not an animal, and I clean up all my Safari tabs on a daily basis. ↩︎

Imagine an iPad mini with an A14 Bionic, Liquid Retina Display, and Touch ID. That’s the dream. ↩︎

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fromtheground39-blog · 5 years

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Our Smallest Gaming PC Build EVER!

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Why in the world, would you ever want to build your own monitor? I mean there are already a ton of good cheap monitors out there. That would be as good or better than something that you build yourself. In fact, we showed off a few of them recently. Well, the answer lies not necessarily in using this puny little screen as your main display, but rather in giving it a new lease on life as a secondary or even like tertiary display, and the best part is, if you're anything like me and you hoard a bunch Of old technology, you may already have a panel, that's just waiting to be reclaimed from an old, laptop or a tablet. So today, we're gonna show you just how easy it is to make your own monitor from just a couple of cheap parts and a little bit of creativity. Speaking of creativity. How creative is this segue to our sponsor rage, wallet Ridge wallet is a sleek way to keep wallet bulged down with their compact frame and RFID blocking inner plates use, offer code Lynas to save 10 % and get free worldwide shipping today [, Music ]. So first up here is the star of the show the panel, so ours here is probably something you've seen before it's a super common 15.6 inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1920 by 1080. Next up is something you probably haven't seen before. This right here is an embedded DisplayPort controller, which is roughly analogous to the scaler module that you would find in a typical desktop monitor. So this here converts the HDMI signal. That'S coming out of your graphics card into a signal that the panel here can understand. So we purchased both our LCD and our EDP adapter from ebay, but guys before you go out and like buy a screen, take a look on Craigslist or at local electronics recyclers like free geek and see. If you can find something that doesn't need to be shipped. You might be able to score a deal and get some of that bonus karma for keeping a perfectly good screen from going to waste wherever you get your panel once you've got it. The first thing you're gonna want to do is establish what specific connector it uses so the most common connector that you're gonna find on 1080p panels like this one is a 30 pin EDP connector, like the one I'm holding here now. If you do decide to harvest your LCD from a laptop or otherwise make sure to verify that the connector on the back matches with the display adapter that you choose another word of warning. If you plan on using an old iPad or a MacBook, do a little extra research and make sure that you can even find an adapter for it Apple. Has this tendency to use proprietary connectors for their displays? I know I'm shocked moving on now then to the brains of the operation, our display adapter. Now, in addition to acting as a signal converter here, you might notice in there. This provides our on-screen display, which hopefully will allow us to adjust things like screen. Brightness contrast and all that kind of good stuff, it's really easy to gloss over how important this little driver is and even harder to believe that it only 20 bucks. Now that we've got all the components of our display figured out here, but next thing we need to do is be responsible and boot it up and make sure it works before we assemble the whole thing, then we're gonna Visit this link put it in that frame over there And try and use it as an actual monitor. The golden end goes into the bottom of the monitor, just like that. Just be careful when you're putting these - and these are quite fragile, connectors they're not intended. You know like at like a USB plug to be unplugged and plug back in and all that stuff and then on the other side. We'Ve got a little flip up plastic piece here and then our contacts go down so that they touch the pins on the inside of the connector. We slide it in and then lock it down like that, and do it a lot more evenly than that. That'S better! We found this 12 volt 3 amp power, adapter and a bin know. All I need is my laptop Hey. Well, that was painless. Look at that. I wonder if our OSD works menu and it's in Korean, so with that out of the way all we need now is this little baggie of 256 and 440 screws and nuts. This little knife here for cleaning up our 3d prints, this screwdriver for screwing everything together and in the interest of completeness this power drill that we actually only use just to the the clearances were a little tight on the holes for the on-screen display. So you loosen them a little bit and now it's fine, but I won't actually use that on camera. So for all the details on these parts, guys, you can check out the for link in the description where we have all of the components, the 3d models, the fasteners and where you can find them. If you wanted to do something like this for yourself now, the real bulk of this project was actually getting all these parts printed. The design that we used is from Fox underscore Exe on Thingiverse, so we got to give huge kudos to him for a pretty well thought-out design, especially how the back panels interlock with the EDP adapter case with that being said, the design is clearly marked as being A work in progress, so we did find some areas needed improvements and we've uploaded the remix of his design, for you guys to enjoy so you'll need to print 17 parts in total, so be prepared to spend some time cleaning up 3d prints for this project. As between the successful ones and the less successful ones, they're, probably gonna be quite a few of them, so with all that out of the way we're ready to build so step number one for us is gonna be assembling the base. Now this was one piece that we did have to reassemble and honestly our solution - it's not perfect, but it's functional enough, so you go ahead and you pop the top of the stand in learn this here now here. Just yeah. There we go and then this loop right here kind of hooks onto it and holds it in place if you want it to hold more securely. What you could do is put a big washer on here and then screw it in from this side and thread that, through the 3d printed hole in the back it'll just kind of self tap in there, and that would hold it better. But honestly, our monitors not heavy enough that we consider that to be an issue, so we're just gonna go ahead and pop that on there boom stand just like that. Next, we're gonna lay down our display panel and we're gonna arrange these four pieces. Like so, you can tell the top pieces from the bottom pieces from the extra little nubbins that they have for the components at the bottom of the panel. We pre-installed the bottom bezel here just because it's a little bit of a pain in the butt, but with some elbow grease, you'll get it on there. I'M just gonna go ahead and pop that on there we go now's a good time to reinstall the ribbon. Cable from the monitor so we're gonna go ahead and pop that on there then we're gonna route it up here, because that's where we're altom utley gonna need it for bonus points. You can do a little bit of cable management here. Have it come out about like so that's gonna make it the finished, install a little bit tidier. Now that we're at this stage we can go ahead and insert our buttons in the rest of the front bezel. So we just go ahead and pop this puppy. On there you go look at that. Do they work, hey nice, alright! So we're gonna throw this on here. There we go and then this piece is a little bit finicky guys but yeah. Let'S make sure that our buttons are all still exposed all right. So we're using our shorter screws here, and these will helpful together our bottom bezel. So now we've put the rest of our backing back in place and we can go ahead and connect our EDP adapter. I'M sure you guys expect nothing less, but I'm gonna mention it anyway. Once again, it's a little bit finicky here as we position our port solemnly corresponding holes. You can see that actually lines up quite nicely, though, and then our ribbon cable, through this gap here in the housing, now that these are more info installed we're gonna go ahead and flip it around like this. You can see there's a little notch here, where the cables come out. One thing that will help you get this lined up. Is it's gonna be hard to see in the camera, but there's little guides to kind of lock all these pieces in place there we go so theoretically, once they're all in there. It'S not gonna move around too much and it should screw right in then. We get these parts which are gonna attach to our stand, and we put them on right here and it's finally time to screw the thing together with. Hopefully, all those holes aligned and we're gonna use our long screws this time around. So now we can pick it up. You can see it's a little floppy there. That'S why there's these clips, so these go on a little, something like that: Boop and there it is Boop and that for better or for worse, is a monitor. Now, a perfect monitor. No don't be stupid, but it's a monitor now we're gonna take one of our 440 screws and we're gonna put it through here with a nut. On the other side, we need quite a bit of clamping force, which is why we're gonna use a nut, rather than just relying on threading into the 3d filament. Tighten this up, because this is what's gonna https://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2frouterhosting.com keep our monitor from tilting when we don't want it to that, holds on there yeah now, the other side. There we go. Oh, not bad, pretty tight, alright, oh there we go. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a monitor. It'S alive, actually, I don't know if it's alive yet, okay, so let's plug our power, adapter right HDMI goes in hey. Well, that's great! That makes sense, that's cool! These are designed to have the back of the laptop on them, so you can actually see the backlight fire up here. Yeah check it out, give me a sec there. It is it's lit boom secondary, monitor. Just like that. I just note guys the original plan did kind of call for side bezels, but they were either incomplete or we couldn't find them or some combination of the two and all it would really serve to do is put a bigger bezel on us. So we just didn't really worry about it. We do have a bit of a problem, though our brightness low sucks. So fortunately oh it speaking of things that Melissa our menu ain't great, that buttons jammed up. Okay, we never said it was perfect. There we go. Okay, that's our brightness cranked. It would be really nice if I could find the English option - hey there. It is English yay, fantastic. Okay, let's have a look at what options we have here: dynamic contrast ratio, so basically it'll dim on darker scenes and brighten up on brighter ones, Eco mode, brightness contrast and that's like, basically it depending on what we're using it for for a secondary display. Maybe that's all we need so there you go guys. Is it perfect? No, but it's functional, and my favorite part of this project is that while we may have taken the easy path, just making a desktop monitor out of a laptop panel here, there are so many possibilities for these cheap panels. You can use the same hardware that we're using here to build an index Spotify screen or a smart mirror heck. You could even build a screen into the side of your computer if you want, speaking of which make sure you're subscribed, because we've got a build planned in NZXT sexy case with the screen built into the side panel. It'S finally available, but that's a topic for another day. What isn't is this segue to our sponsor? I fix it. The I fix it pro tect toolkit is designed to help you tackle any electronics repair challenge. It includes over 13 different tools, including their 64-bit steel, screw driver kit, the Jimmy a flexible steel, prying, blade, a small suction cup for removing glass panels from phones and tablets, and all I fix the tools are backed by a lifetime warranty. You don't need to be a genius to fix your electronics. You just need the right tools, so visit ifixit.com forward, slash, linus and pick up your protec toolkit today. So thanks for watching guys hope you enjoyed it and we will see you at our next video yeah. Not perfect, but functional

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immedtech · 5 years

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Apple iPadOS review: More like a laptop than ever

For the first few years of the iPad's life, Apple basically treated it like an overgrown iPhone. Yes, its bigger screen meant people would want to use it differently, and third-party developers did a fine job retooling their software to make full use of that extra screen space. It wasn't until iOS 9 when Apple really invested in tablet-specific features like Split View and Slide Over, and it was that subtle shift in priorities led us directly to the present, and to iPadOS.

Don't be fooled by the name, though: iOS and iPadOS are still mostly the same thing. Nearly every feature I've discussed in our iOS 13.1 review is present here, along with a series of changes that are helping to slowly close the gap between iPads and more traditional computers. To get a sense of iPadOS's progress, I vowed to put as much of this review together on an iPad Pro, and honestly, I'm pretty pleased with the results.

I couldn't do everything, but the fact that I could write the copy, edit and watermark my photos, address fixes in Google Docs and lay almost everything out for the site speaks to how much more capable iPads can be after an update. We're still not at the point where iPadOS turns iPads into full-blown computer replacements for most people, but the update is a big step down that path.

In use

A quick digression: I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about installing the final version of iPadOS considering how buggy iOS 13 was before its big update. After taking the plunge and updating, those fears subsided — iPadOS seemed more stable than iOS 13 even during the beta phase, and that holds now too.

In any case, the first thing you'll notice after firing up your newly updated iPad is its home screen: It's full of smaller app icons, allowing you to fit way more of them on a single home screen page. Not counting whatever you have stored in your dock, each page now accommodates 30, up from 20 in earlier versions of iOS.

This takes some getting used to, especially if your eyes are as bad as mine, but I generally appreciate the changes. iPadOS has also inherited the contextual app menus that have been part of iOS for years. 3D Touch may be long dead but Haptic Touch is here, so you can long-press app icons on your home screen to access shortcuts to actions inside those apps. (It's especially easy when you're using the Apple Pencil, which I'll get to in a second.)

If you need even more information at all times, you can now lock the Today view and all of its widgets directly onto your home screen. I always sort of forgot those widgets were available in the first place because they were always tucked out of sight; because of that, they never really became part of my workflow. I've found myself relying on those widgets more now that I can integrate them into my home screen, I'd like to see Apple take a page out of Android's playbook and let me just put those app widgets wherever I want, but who knows if that'll ever happen?

Speaking of iPad screens, I've always hated how — unless you had a physical keyboard connected to it — iOS's keyboard eats up a third of the screen. There's a fix of sorts for that now in the form of an iPhone-sized floating keyboard you can toggle from the main one. Typing while holding an iPad mini in both hands is one thing; trying to do the same with an Air or a Pro often felt ridiculous before this tiny new keyboard made it easier to peck one a letter at a time, or swipe out a message with the new QuickPath keyboard.

Apple also made some changes to how you might edit and copy/paste your text. My days often involve lots of running around with an iPad, for taking down notes and whipping up the occasional script. It sounds pretty minor, but you can now just drag the iPadOS text cursor around the screen and drop it right where you need it. (It's not quite as satisfying as the 3D Touch equivalent, but it's handy all the same.)

Selecting text is pretty easy, too: Just double-tap a word, and drag across the screen to highlight the appropriate bits. I say "pretty easy" because it still requires a bit of trial and error to pick out exactly what you needed, but it still feels much more precise than it used to. Since you're probably highlighting text to do something with it, iPadOS uses some new gestures for copying (pinch three fingers together on the screen) and pasting (the reverse). If that sounds a little awkward, well, you're right — it feels more natural on these big screens than on iPhones, but I'd still much rather long-press on the right spot and just tap "Paste".

There are, as always, other methods of interacting with iPads beyond fingers on glass. Apple has been pushing its Pencil for years, and the company claims that software improvements have brought the latency on both versions of the stylus down to 9ms. If you're anything like me — that is, a poor doodler and infrequent note-taker — the difference won't feel drastic. Still, it's there, and it does make drawing feel slightly smoother and more natural. The palette of tools that pops up when you start using the Pencil has been also redesigned, and you can flick it around the screen so it doesn't obscure whatever you were doing in the first place.

I should point out that I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test Sidecar, that feature that lets you connect an iPad to a Mac for use as a secondary display or a drawing tablet with the Apple Pencil. As of the day we're publishing this review, macOS Catalina (and therefore Sidecar itself) is only available in beta form, so I'll revisit this part of the review once all the final software is available.

Oh, and if you really wanted to, you can finally use a mouse with iPadOS. I wouldn't recommend it, though. You have to dig into your tablet's accessibility settings to enable AssistiveTouch, plug in the mouse or connect it via Bluetooth, make sure your mouse sensitivity is set to a manageable level, define what (if anything) you want your mouse's other buttons to do, and then finally get down to business. The process is slightly cumbersome, and there's no question that iPadOS — improved as it is — isn't meant to be used with a mouse yet. The thing you have to keep in mind that this is an accessibility feature, not something meant to redefine how most people use their tablets. It works, but it's not going to magically turn your iPad into a Surface Pro.

A push for productivity

Of course, iPadOS doesn't just look different — it feels different, especially when you're using your iPad for more than just movies and games. While I still can't recommend most people go all-in on the iPad for honest-to-goodness work, Apple's refined approach to multitasking makes the prospect easier to stomach.

As I mentioned earlier, Apple's path toward differentiating iPhone software and iPad software began with Slide Over and Split View, both of which have changed pretty dramatically this year. With the former, you can be putzing around in one app, long-press another in your dock and drag it to the side of the screen to stick that new app in a floating window. This year, all of the apps you stick in the Slide Over panel stay there; swiping across the bottom of that panel lets you thumb through them one by one. When you need to find something specific, just swipe up from the bottom to see all of them at once.

It's particularly helpful when you're focused on a task in the main window and need a little extra context. In my case, that usually means checking something in Slack or Gmail. Making the most of this change requires a little prep work, though. Since you can only drag apps from your dock into Slide Over, you'd better make sure the ones you use frequently have a full-time spot down there.

With Split View, you can view two apps side by side, same as always. The difference is, iPadOS lets you break out parts of some apps into a second window. Imagine you're catching up on news in Safari and you come across a link to a story that adds a little background. Just grab, drag it to the side of the screen and voila: Your original story and the new one are sitting side by side, no tab-jumping required.

Split View's new capabilities came in especially handy when it was time to sit down and write this review on an iPad. I do most of my writing in Ulysses, not because it's my favorite text editor, but because I can use it to access a pool of notes and drafts shared between Macs, iOS devices, and Android phones. As I write this, I have my long list of iPadOS observations sitting write next to this review; in the old days, I would've had to bounce in and out of different documents, and who has time for that?

Frankly, I was surprised I could use Ulysses this way because few apps seem to support Split View's big new feature. The cases where you'd need this can be pretty niche, but once I got used to running one app in two windows, I wanted to do it all the time. What followed were a few days of trial and error, jumping into apps I used frequently, seeing what bits I could pull out into a separate window, and generally feeling disappointed by the lack of support. Now that this improved Split View is a core part of iPadOS — and by extension, every iPad — I'm sure app developers will start implementing their support for the feature soon enough.

I'm glad Apple finally got around to making this work, but I'm even more pleased Apple seems to have fixed my biggest issue with the beta software. Too often, I'd find myself holding an iPad in both hands, scrolling down a webpage, grabbing a link or an image by accident, and yanking it out into a window I didn't want. Getting rid of it was never a problem, but because the software assumed so quickly that I wanted to do something with whatever my thumb was lingering on, the problem just kept happening. Thankfully, iPadOS now pauses for a moment before letting you drag content around. Those fractions of a second make all the difference.

What made early hiccups like those relatively easy to deal with was the fact that I've been testing iOS on iPads for years. If you're new to this whole thing and have spent most of your life running multiple apps on a traditional computer, this is all going to feel strange for a while. And really, that's the rub when it comes to these features — they don't jibe with our (or at least, my) ingrained behaviors. Considering the power and polish going into new models, we're fast approaching the point where you could get through your daily grind on an iPad instead of a laptop. It just takes a lot of getting used to.

Maybe that's just my inner old man talking, though. Younger generations, those who've spent more time huddled around phones instead of PCs, won't have nearly as much trouble wrapping their heads around these kinds of interactions.

There are, however, a lot of people out there who will upgrade to iPadOS and never really use these features. More immediately useful is the software's improved approach to web browsing in Safari. It doesn't matter whether you're using the biggest iPad Pro or the diminutive mini -- when you look at websites in Safari, you're always getting the full versions, not some watered-down mobile views. (The trick: iPads running iPadOS tell websites they're actually Macs running the desktop version of Safari.)

Getting to see the full-fat version of websites on your tablet is undeniably a good thing; you've presumably shelled out for another, bigger screen, so you might as well see the internet the way it was meant to be seen. What's even better is how well Safari manages to work with web apps and services that once totally flummoxed it. Google's productivity suite is a great example: We use Docs for sharing and editing drafts and Sheets to flesh out scripts for Engadget Today, Thanks to Safari's trickery and improvements to the way it dynamically interprets touch inputs, I've been able to handle most of a day's work on an iPad. It's not always easy, but it's possible, and that's a lot more than I could say before.

In my iOS 13.1 review, I mentioned that changes to the way this new software deals with downloads and file management matter more for iPads than iPhones. That's mostly because we're used to a certain degree of limitations on our phones — tablets, especially ones like that iPad that are being groomed to take over tasks from traditional computers, come with a different set of expectations.

Just like on iPhones, you can create folders, save files and organize them locally on your iPad. That's a big deal. I can't tell you the number of times I've tried to get through a day's work using an iPad and groaning at the fact that I couldn't just download a file locally and look at it again later. Yes, you've been able to store files directly into your iCloud Drive account for a while now, but not everyone wants to shell out more money for cloud storage, especially when they already use services like Dropbox or have plenty of room left on the hardware they've already paid for. Now, it's not a problem.

It's probably no surprise that managing all those freshly downloaded PDFs and MP3s is better on bigger screens, too. iPadOS's Files app has a Mac-like column view that makes it easy to dig into all your nested folders, not to mention a much larger contextual menu for moving, copying and compressing your stuff. More interesting is how Apple allows the iPad Pros to really benefit from these changes — since they have standard USB-C ports, nothing is stopping you from plugging in a thumb drive, SSD or portable hard drive, and moving files to and fro as needed. Will most people do this? Probably not, but if you shelled out for an iPad with lots of storage space, you might as well use all of it.

Wrap-up

iPadOS is a big deal for Apple's tablets — it's been smoother and more stable for me from the get-go, and the extras Apple layered on top of standard iOS 13 go a long way in making it a more nuanced, capable platform. Can it finally help your iPad replace your computer? No. Not for most people, anyway. Still, iPadOS is such a strong, substantive update that it's been making me wonder — if only a little — if I'm doing myself a disservice by clinging to old ideas of what my computer should be able to do.

- Repost from: engadget Post

#ITlive #engadget #Apple iPadOS review: More like a laptop than ever

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