Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c812IR // #c812Verbatim excerpt
She held out her hands, palms up, the white fingers slightly spread, and with a barely audible click, ten double-edged, fourcentimeter scalpel blades slid from their housings beneath the burgundy nails.

— Source: Neuromancer (William Gibson)

[Use when]

Use when arming a character. Put the weapon where vanity lives and the reveal does the work.

[Why it matters]

The threat is domesticated: nail polish and cutlery, beauty that kills. Gibson hides the weapon inside the grooming, so the menace arrives wearing manners.

More from Neuromancer

#c806The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.Use when you need to establish a world where the medium has replaced nature. Open on the signal, not the sky. #c807Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught…Use when building or explaining any shared virtual space. Sell the agreement, not the hardware. #c808The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh.Use when a character who despises the physical is trapped inside it. The punishment fits the philosophy.