I'll take the votes that were sent in for Leighton, he doesn't deserve this from you or anyone. A trade, his votes as mine for my secret to spill.
OH MY GOD Sofia, don’t you get it? This is exactly what I was talking about. Such a blunder... Sometimes it makes me wonder why I even bring the thunder, guys. One more vote to Leighton.
Short writing for a friend of her characters and world.
Calleigh, a secret strike team agent for a secret organization, finds herself starting a bad day with a bad news.
While some men watching her pass by may not have agreed, rain wasn’t her friend that day. For once she needed to look like a slick and stylish worker and not some byproduct of a bar. Now she could only hope she had enough time to dry herself somehow before the meeting.
Yet, she could have said she was lucky her friend at the door was waiting her with a paper bag on her hand; that is, if she weren’t holding it with an amused “I knew it” smirk.
“Take that smug look off your face” she said as she entered the cover of a welcoming roof, “It must be really good to be you with that thing ‘protecting’ you even from the rain”.
“Ha ha,” Sofia laughed unamused as she handed her the bag “you know that’s not how it works. Nothing good comes out of this thing.”
“Cry me a river.” Calleigh said closing the door behind them. They waved the guard and walked to one of the visitor toilets on the side of the hall, where Calleigh shut herself in a stall. “I hope this fits. Where did you get this from, though?” she said as she wiped herself with a towel from the bag.
Sofia shrugged from the other side of the stall door “Either you left it on the floor of the 6th safehouse or one of Troy’s escapades did”
“Great, tramp forgotten shirt” groaned Calleigh as she buttoned the clean shirt and stepped out.
“That doesn’t tell me which option was correct...” Sofia smirked as they left the toilet and walked to the guard.
“What’s the matter,” Calleigh smiled mischievously “the stuffing bursted out of your ‘daki’ again?”
The short haired face went sour in a split second, yet it lacked anger. They usually joked about like this, but it seemed this was one of those days when she shouldn’t. “‘Those days’?” Calleigh reflected on her thoughts “Really, brain? That’s sexist.”
The conversation went to a halt as they approached the guard leaving their guns on the booth and used their IDs on the scanners. Lucky for them it went smoothly now that they set Sofia’s ID to shutdown the sensor alarms when she passed; it was always messy with the alarm blaring off every time they entered.
The elevator made the perfect scenery to change topic, she just needed to use something that would easily draw Sofia’s attention. “Hmm... I wonder what would Adi want from us now...”.
“I don’t. I know.” Sofia answered stoically, drawing her partner’s attention.
Calleigh squinted, trying to figure her out. “How? I don’t recall precognition being part of..”
“Easy, she told me.” Sofia cut her out.
“And why didn’t she told me?” the blondie asked irritated, “Or told you, for the matter.”
The elevator came to a stop. “Because I told her not to, that’s why.” She said and started walking out “I didn’t want to bare with both of you bitching about it.”
The girl was puzzled again. “What? What in the worlds may make us be so bitchy?”
And then, as a sudden realization, it came to her. What could Troy and her both be so adamant to do? What did they BOTH dislike so much. “No. Not them!” Calleigh almost shouted in distress. “Don’t tell me she is making us escort them again!”
The three of them met Varsen in a routine mission to close a smuggling ring, and they have regretted it since then. It wasn’t hard to, must be admitted, since his attraction for both women was equally bothering: he fawned at Sofia’s Vindicator the same way he fawned at Calleigh’s looks. And while he respected Sofia as a mecenas only to see her armor, the poor blond didn’t have that luck: like a beehive and a bear, Calleigh couldn’t make him stop trying to get his hands on her.
While Troy couldn’t stand the guy’s lack of restraint and borderline sexual harassment to his teammate, his source of discomfort was just recently attached to Varsen in the form of a bodyguard. A man like Troy knows that only one thing can be worse than a woman scorn, and that is her family. In this particular case it was a male android by the name of Kiel, whose sister once fancied Troy, but decided to leave him and be heartbroken ever since.
“Really Callie, don’t make me babysit you too.” Sofie sternly said with a reproaching face. “We have to take them see ‘Pillar’ and will be done with it.”
Calleigh made that cute kiddie face Sofie always wondered how she pulled. “I’m sorry Miss Sinclair.” Calleigh’s child voice was perfect “Please don’t send me to the principal office. I promise I won’t complain when the kids pick on me anymore...”
“Yeah, keep doing that, maybe you’ll get me off the hook too.” A solid voice of a man intercepted them in the hallway.
“Oh don’t worry Troy;” the ex Secret Service smiled at the newcomer “you’ll have the best spot: the comfy chair in their room. It’s improper for two dames to sleep in the boys quarters.”
Calleigh smirked on the inside but didn’t give her team leader the satisfaction of seeing it. Marine boy’s face right there was a winner for ‘got owned’ category. Sofia waved her head towards the hall leading to the “train station” and both promptly followed her.
“Who told you?” Sofie asked Troy quickly.
“‘Pillar’ itself, was asking me to test a new design it made and asked me not to out it to Varsen. Caught me by surprise really.” He explained aloof shrugging it off.
Sofia stopped in front of the secured door and looked at her only male team member. “You and not me? That’s odd.”
Calleigh smiled “What was it, an empowered codpiece? There’s blue pills for that, Troy...”
“Just shut up and be done with it already” He buffed angry.
“That’s what SHE said” laughed Calleigh.
“Agents.” Said Sofia sternly giving them her back as she approached the panel. Calleigh knew the only reason she was in that position was to hide her laughing.
The light above the door turned yellow as Sofia passed the card and introduced a code. Then the standard procedure: each one set their hand on the scanner and a second code. The light turning green.
30.) And finally: Write a letter to your character, from yourself.
My dearest Sofia Mila Ivanova "Pikachu" Sinclair,
First off, I would like to apologize for calling you Pikachu. Your ability to use electricity as a weapon should not give you that nickname. You don't even know who Pikachu is. Now everyone is going to call you Pikachu.
While I'm at it, I'm sorry if I keep making fun of you for being alone. I thought-up a body pillow with an image of a half-exposed anime bishounen character on your bed to make up for my hurtful jokes.
I really hate to say that I'm really underwhelmed with the result of this one, which I apologize now for the hands, and especially for that laughable lightning effect. I had idea wtf I was doing and playing with lightning brushes in Photoshop looked worse. Not to mention I don't like the coat shading. But I asked for an opinion on the shading and heard it was alright, so maybe I'm being overly anal and critical.
What I DO like, however (outside of how the boots look), are the improvements I made to her physically from the original sketch. The sketch looked all kinds of derp (and needless to say I didn't like it), so I'm glad I managed to get some fixes on it.
But my overall opinion doesn't matter, and only Val's does, so I hope she looks okay. x_x; I'll send over the full versions later (I say 'versions' plural because I'll give one without that stupid ass "lightning effect") to you. Thank you for commissioning though! ;n;
Just posting this video to share some Continuum-related thoughts.
A while back, I found out about this Russian martial art called Systema. I'm amazed at what I saw though a bit skeptical at first. But the more I read about it, the more sense it made. There's still Systema styles out there that teaches some New Age nonsense along with the combat, but Wheeler's Systema is actually realistic. There's no kata or stances, and you use your natural movement, making it easy to learn.
Before I ramble non-sense about what little I know about the style (I only read about it, never tried it in person yet. There's a Systema school in my city though), I'm just going to say this is what Sofia uses in Continuum. Which is perfect because the Secret Service uses it, and she's Russian XD Both are Sofia related things. It's also one of the best styles for us women to learn because it doesn't rely on brute strength and aggression. The key for this style is to actually relax and strike in a way that your punches have a whip-like "sting".