#1060s ad

[misforgotten2]

Can also describe the perfect girlfriend.

Not that would ever think that, I respect all woman every persuasion everywhere. Please don't hurt me.

Saturday Evening Post January 14th 1967

[vox-anglosphere]

England's oldest door predates the rest of Westminster Abbey c.1060

[simdertalia]

🥛☕️ ACNH The Roost Set ☕️🥛

80 items | Sims 4, Base game compatible

All the items you'll need to recreate The Roost Cafe in your TS4 game. Most items came with only 1 swatch each. There are lots of items that I added extra swatches for. *See bottom of item list for links to the handful of items that have already been made in other sets. Everything is always posted with the option of pick & choose, so they are easy to find and one-click download.

This set is brought about by the lovely patrons who voted 💗

Set contains: Buy: -Amiibo Books 1 & 2 (2 items)  | 2 swatches each | 768 & 338 poly -Amiibo Phone | 5 swatches | 1076 poly -Amiibo Table | 1 swatch | 576 poly -Bar Ceiling piece | 1 swatch | 141 poly  -Bar Hanging Lamp (2 versions, longer and shorter for people who do not want to use the ceiling structure piece) | 5 swatches | 680 poly -Bar Mixer | 1 swatch | 166 poly -Bar Seat (functions as bar stool) | 1 swatch | 1060 poly -Bar Shelf (lots & lots of slots!) | 2 swatches | 840 poly -Bar Shelf Clutter (cups, towels, small milk all 1 item) | 1 swatch | 2526 poly -Bar Shelf Cups | 1 swatch | 2084 poly -Bar Siphon (2 versions: steam & no steam) | 1 swatch each | 1038 poly -Bar Siphon 2 (2 versions: steam & no steam) | 1 swatch | 1794 poly -Bar Table (functions as bar) | 1 swatch | 654 poly -Cafe Coffee V1 with saucer (steam & no steam versions) | 10 swatches | 1232 poly -Cafe Coffee V2 no saucer (steam & no steam versions) | 10 swatches | 770 poly -Cafe Sign (lights up at night) | 2 swatches | 754 poly -Change Tray | 1 swatch | 220 poly -Closet Box (single) | 1 swatch | 258 poly -Closet Boxes (2 stacked) | 1 swatch | 514 poly -Closet Gyroids 1-5 (5 items) | 1 swatch each | 1180, 1202, 1174, 1068, & 1202 poly -Closet Shelf (lots of slots!) | 1 swatch | 170 poly -Clutter Stacked Glasses | 1 swatch | 262 poly -Clutter Stacked Mugs | 1 swatch | 1814 poly -Clutter To Go Cups 1 & 2 (2 items) | 1 swatch | 578, & 1730 poly -Clutter To Go Lids 1 & 2 (2 items) | 1 swatch | 686, & 2396 poly -Clutter Towels | 1 swatch | 254 poly -Coffee bags 4x | 1 swatch | 2106 poly -Coffee Bags 6x | 1 swatch | 3158 poly -Cooking Spot (functions as a grill) | 1 swatch | 1814 poly -Dining Seat | 7 swatches | 864 poly -Dining Table | 2 swatches | 944 poly -Faux Window | 4 swatches for window "glass" | 414 poly -Fridge | 3 swatches | 4015 poly -Fridge (empty & slotted) | 3 swatches | 1429 poly -Floor Mats | 2 swatches | 676 poly -Milk Carton | 5 swatches | 86 poly -Paper Bag | 6 swatches | 220 poly -Syrup | 5 swatches | 366 poly -Tin | 6 swatches | 214 poly -Tray Glasses | 15 swatches each | 578 poly -Lamp (wall) Turn brightness down as with all of my lamp CC | 1 swatch | 1374 poly -Milk Pitcher | 8 swatches | 1110 poly -Milk Pitcher Small | 1 swatch | 1110 poly -Paintings | 7 swatches | 62 poly -Potted Flower | 6 swatches | 1486 poly -Shelf Cups 2x | 1 swatch | 1826 poly -Shelf Cups 3x | 1 swatch | 2732 poly -Shelf Jars 1-8 (8 items) | 1 swatch each | 626 poly each -Shelf Plate Stack | 1 swatch | 524 poly -Shelf Siphon | 1 swatch | 861 poly -Shelf Siphon Holder | 1 swatch | 130 poly -Table Cards 1 & 2 (2 items for each end of the bar) | 1 swatch each | 34, & 46 poly -Table Flyers | 1 swatch | 12 poly -Vintage Coffee Mill | 1 swatch | 1187 poly -Wall Flyers | 1 swatch | 73 poly -Wall Photo Trio | 1 swatch | 180 poly -Wall Speaker (functional music player) | 1 swatch | 44 poly -Wooden Wall Piece (goes behind bar seating area) | 1 swatch | 756 poly

Build: -Floors Wood | 4 swatches | Wood -Floor Carpet | 5 swatches | Carpet

Type “ACNH the roost” into the search query in build mode to find  quickly. You can always find items like this, just begin typing the title and it will appear.

📁 Download all or pick & choose (SFS, No Ads): HERE

📁 Alt Mega Download (still no ads): HERE

📁 Download on Patreon

Will be public on October 19th, 2024 💗 Midnight CET

Happy Simming! ��� Some of my CC is early access. If you like my work, please consider supporting me (all support helps me with managing my chronic pain/illness & things have been rough as of late):

★ Patreon  🎉 ❤️ |★ Ko-Fi  ☕️  ❤️ ★ Instagram📷

Thank you for reblogging ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

@sssvitlanz  @maxismatchccworld @mmoutfitters  @coffee-cc-finds  @itsjessicaccfinds  @gamommypeach  @stargazer-sims-finds  @khelga68  @suricringe  @vaporwavesims  @mystictrance15 @moonglitchccfinds @xlost-in-wonderlandx @jbthedisabledvet

-More Coffees, siphons, the siphon flames, potted tree, and the cafe walls (Coffee Stuff Set) -Cuckoo Clock (Antique Set) -Silver Coffee Pot (Big Food Set 2) -Kitchen Scale (Country Set 2) -Coffee Grinder (Harvest Set) -More Coffee Bags (individual, Christmas Set)

The rest of my CC

[just-here-with-my-thoughts]

"Just when were you planning on telling us that?"

@summer-of-bad-batch week 10 alt prompt

Fandom: The Bad Batch Characters: Wrecker, Hunter Set after season 3 when everyone is living happily on Pabu Word Count: ~1060 Read Here on AO3

Synopsis: Wrecker discovers that Hunter has been learning a new skill.

“Hunter? That you up there?”

Wrecker crested the rise of the hill, breathing slightly laboured from the climb in the Pabu sun. His stamina hadn’t been the same, not since the quick succession of injuries during their assault on Tantiss… but that was long ago now, wounds healed to silvery scars, and only the occasional tightness in his chest to act as a lingering reminder of the trauma his body had been through.

Hunter was sitting on a small promontory, and Wrecker was immediately suspicious of the flustered look oh his brother’s face, the way his arms were folded defensively across his chest.

“Yeah. It’s me. Why? Do you need me for something?”

The clipped sentences only added to the sense that Hunter was being disturbed from his lonely vigil, and Wrecker’s face creased with concern.

“No. Thought I heard music.”

Now Hunter’s cheeks coloured, and he quickly turned his face away so that only his tattooed profile showed, the dark ink on his skin hiding the effect somewhat. The afternoon breeze picked up the ends of his long hair, stirring it about his shoulders, which moved in a shrug.

“Must be mistaken. You get tinnitus sometimes. Maybe it was that.”

“Yeaah,” said Wrecker slowly, disbelievingly. “But tinnitus don’t usually sound so melodic, y’know?”

He ventured across the small distance that separated him from his brother. Hunter shifted in response, moving his body deliberately as though to block Wrecker’s path… or perhaps his view.

“What’re you hidin’, Hunter?”

“Nothing,” said Hunter fiercely, but his scowl was too petulant to be taken seriously. “Just… enjoying some time to myself. What do you want, Wrecker?”

“I definitely heard music,” Wrecker deadpanned, mirroring Hunter’s folded arms and letting the weight of his gaze settle on his squirming brother. “An’ singing.”

“I wasn’t–” came the beginnings of Hunter’s defensive reply, before he met his brother’s gaze and deflated somewhat. “–singing that loudly,” he finished, his brows twisting in a small, embarrassed frown.

“Hah!” A delighted crow escaped Wrecker as he dumped his weight next to his brother, landing a friendly if too-hard punch on his shoulder which made Hunter wince. “Knew I heard something! Where was the music comin’ from? You got a recording?”

He was leaning to look past Hunter now, not difficult with their height difference, although Hunter still made a valiant effort to block his view.

“No. Just… drop it, Wrecker.” Hunter’s voice was even gruffer than usual, the words muttered sullenly.

“Is that a guitar?”

“No!” A blatant refutation of the truth.

“You’re learnin’ to play guitar? Jus’ when were you plannin’ on telling us that?”

“Wrecker!” The sharp note of command entered Hunter’s voice, admonishing, and despite himself it had Wrecker straightening to attention.

Hunter glared for a moment more, than sighed and reached behind him, carefully lifting the small guitar and passing it to his brother.

Wrecker turned the instrument reverently, placing his large fingers on the strings and giving it an experimental strum. Then he extended it back to Hunter, beaming.

“Play for me.”

That drew an immediate scoff. “No way.”

“C’mon Hunter! Please? I heard it whilst I was passin’ down below. I climbed all the way up here to see what it was.”

Hunter’s sullen blush was firmly back, lips pursed in a thin line as he looked away from Wrecker’s scrutiny.

“I’m not very good.”

Wrecker nudged their shoulders together, swaying them both.

“Yer only gonna get better with practice.”

“I…” Hunter’s hesitation ended in a long, bitter exhale. “It’s a waste of time. It’s not a skill I can use. It���s no use to anyone on the island.”

“But?” prompted Wrecker gently, when the silence between them had lingered too long.

Hunter reached out slowly and took the guitar back, fingering the strings and then tweaking the tuning of one of them to his liking.

“But I like how it sounds.” It was a confession in a small voice, whispered in confidence to the wind and the sky and his waiting brother.

“Who’s been teachin’ you?” asked Wrecker, but Hunter shook his head.

“No-one. I’ve just been figuring it out myself.”

“Play for me,” Wrecker asked again, but this time his voice was gentle and he ducked his head to peer into his brother’s face. “Please?”

With a reluctant frown, Hunter carefully positioned his hands and picked out a slow tune. The melody lilted, a little erratic as he paused to consider where he was moving his fingers, but every note a beautiful harmony with the next.

Wrecker was beaming from ear to ear. “Hunter, you’re good,” he said, softening the brash edge of his enthusiasm to something tender and encouraging. “An’ you sing as well?”

Grimacing, but before needing to be prompted, Hunter added a low, crooning accompaniment to his playing. He sung almost under his breath, his always smoky voice rough and unpolished yet forming a perfect accompaniment for his hesitant but melodious guitar tune.

When he finished, he quickly discarded the guitar and pulled his knees up to his chest, hooking his elbows over them and gazing out distantly over the island which dropped away from their elevated position.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he said, a gruff plea.

“Why not?” asked Wrecker, bemused. “Hunter, y’know it’s okay to… to learn a skill that doesn’t feed people or put a roof over their heads, right?”

Hunter merely shrugged.

Wrecker carefully examined the tense line of his brother’s shoulders, then draped his arm around him and pulled him into a one-armed hug.

“Thanks for playing for me.”

Hunter’s exhale was shaky with nerves. “That’s okay,” he muttered, leaning carefully into Wrecker’s side.

The brothers sat together in silence for a time, watching the seabirds wheel against the cloud-strewn sky.

“You could play at the solstice festival,” he suggested after a while.

Hunter snorted a soft laugh. “What part of ‘don’t tell anyone’ did you not understand?”

“Will you at least play for me and Omega? At home?”

Hunter tucked himself sulkily under Wrecker’s arm. “I’ll think about it.”

Wrecker tilted his head, resting his cheek on Hunter’s hair

“You’re smart. And skilled. At more than jus’ war.”

He felt the shudder of Hunter’s body as he sighed out some of his tension, body uncoiling just a little.

“Thanks, Wrecker,” he said, voice low and heartfelt. “You’re the best.”

[stardriveskickstart]

Parahuman Space

While Stardrives is complete, I'm not done with TTRPG writing yet. I've been working on the @para-imperium setting for over a decade now and I'm almost ready to launch a complete RPG based on the Cepheus System derived from Mongoose's Traveller (but more open).

Parahuman Space is a furry setting, yes, of the genetically modified variety. It covers over 2,000 years, but the RPG will be focused on the period after the collapse of the big interstellar empire. When newly independent planets and systems are busy scavenging the wreckage.

Players will primarily be salvage crews venturing into hazardous ruined spaceships and stations. Braving haywire security systems, leaks of corrosive chemicals, and the dreaded Kessler Syndrome to retrieve valuable technology.

In other words, dungeon delving.

At present I am about halfway done drafting the rulebook, drawn heavily from the Cepheus System Reference Document that can be read online here. Once I'm finished and I have interior artists lined up I was hoping to bring it to Kickstarter.

Below is the setting's history, as written for the rulebook.

Timeline:

Most calendars in Parahuman Space are oriented around the launch of the first parahuman-built starship as the start of the exodus from the clade’s system of origin, Sol. On the Georgian calendar the year 0 Post Exodus (PX) would be in the early 22nd century AD. So the Federation would be founded in the 32nd century AD and collapse in the 45th century, or roughly the year 4600 AD.

-40 Before Exodus: Creation of parahumans. -24 BX: Parahumans emancipated and corporations that enslaved them dissolved. -17 BX: Events of The Pride of Parahumans. 0 Post Exodus: First Seedship, the Traveller, launched. 4 PX: Pallas launches second seedship. 10 PX: Earth destroyed by relativistic projectile, origin unknown. 14 PX: Second Pallene seedship is caught by berserker probes that destroyed Sol.  Crew commit suicide first. 45 PX: Traveller lands on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, creatively named "Secland." 48 PX: Vestan ship lands on opposite hemisphere from the Traveller.

115 PX: Ship from Ceres arrives at Epsilon Eridani to find a lifeless system. Instead of terraforming the new corporate government opts to build artificial habitats in the asteroid belts and beneath the surfaces of planets.

124 PX: A second Vestan ship discovers a garden world orbiting Tau Ceti. The crew decide to eschew technology after printing enough colonists in fear of Sol’s Destroyers.

150 PX: Sleeper ship carrying 1500 humans from Sol arrives over Secland. After an abortive attempt at invasion the survivors gradually integrate into Pallene society. 500 PX: Cold war between nations on Secland ends with the completion of terraforming.  Biological weapons leave New Pallas the sole nation standing. 950 PX: New Pallas contacts Tau Ceti thanks to the newly developed conversion drive. Triggering political restructuring among the natives resulting in the kingdom of Schwarswelt under King Hideo Fink.

1060 PX: Stable wormholes large enough to move a spaceship through are produced and launched from Proxima Centauri to Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. 1100 PX: Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and Epsilon Eridani form the Federation.

1150 PX: Centauri Grand Mayor Selkd de Argentum assassinated by Cetan partisans and succeeded by his more aggressive sister Lirdrill.

1200 PX: The Federation centralizes power in the office of the Praetor, first held by Lirdrill de Argentum.

1205 PX: The Outworld memetic quarantine and contingency program is established, forcibly relocating ideological dissidents to frontier worlds with limited technology.

1500 PX: After extensive lobbying by Centauran merchant houses and the Eridani Company, Federation Senate votes to allow limited trade with Outworlds, which now compose roughly half of all colonized planets.

1846 PX: Kershkans, the first extant xenosophont species, discovered. 1903 PX: Contact established with Kershkans. 2300 PX: Federal Guard destroys Sol with strangelet bomb, inducing a nova. Evacuation of Core Worlds begins. 2304 PX: Wormhole gates at Alpha Centauri collapsed ahead of the nova's radiation. The capital cut off, the Federation quickly begins to fragment. 2345 PX: The Emissary-Governor of the Tiere System, wracked by tensions between earlier colonists and new refugees, disables all nanotech in the system in an attempt to reassert control. He is lynched by an angry mob within weeks. 2590 PX: The self-proclaimed Imperator Ronkal launches Project Paladin, sending ships with new reactionless drives and augmentation suites to neighboring systems. 2600 PX: A Ronkalli ship reaches the Tiere System, only for interplanetary debris to kill the entire crew. The ship AI forcibly augments a crew of scavengers who come looking.

The Origin of Species:

The first parahumans were engineered from a blend of human and animal genes and bioprinted in corporate labs in high Terran orbit. They were designed to fill roles in asteroid mining that were too complex for robots but too dangerous to risk human life for. It took less than a decade for rebellions and strikes to start.

Fortunately, the parahumans found many allies on Terra and after the revolutionaries on Ceres worked out a treaty to maintain the flow of resources back to Terra they were essentially left to themselves. With their new freedom came disagreements over how to govern themselves. The guilds on Vesta formed a form of anarcho-capitalist feudalism regulated by the cloning guild that held the early parahumans’ sole means of reproduction. But then a Vestan scientist, a silver fox named Argentum, discovered a simple gene therapy to remove the genetic sterility imposed by their creators and their followers formed a breakaway colony on Pallas.

The Vestan guilds could not tolerate this loss of control and war almost broke out between the two asteroids. Luckily they found an alternative means of proving the superiority of their respective systems of governance. A space race. Exploration of other star systems had been proposed many times but there had been little interest with the abundance of resources right there in Sol system. But with the new nanofabricators it was possible for even a small asteroid outpost to construct an Orion-style starship with a small crew and the fabricators to print out an entire new colony, colonists included.

They couldn’t have timed the launch better. Just ten years after the first starship, the Traveller,was launched from Pallas towards Alpha Centauri, it received a frantic message from Sol:

“This is an automated beacon broadcasting what may well be the last message ever sent by the human race. Five years ago, our homeworld, Terra was struck by a 50-ton projectile traveling at 90% of the speed of light. The debris took out most of our habitats in Earth’s orbit, a few million of us survived elsewhere in the solar system. Then the rest of the invasion force arrived. Machines, vast machines kilometers in length that home in on any sources of radio transmissions, and annihilate them. We pray they are not intelligent and are simply weapons fired by a xenophobic alien race. But they’ve almost completed their work, we estimate that there’s only a couple hundred of us left in the system. We’re sending this message in hopes that there is someone out there who can hear it and beware. This universe is more hostile than we thought. They attack radio transmitters, dismantle whatever devices you are listening to this on before they find you.”

In total, five starships were far enough out to heed this warning. The Traveller, a Vestan ship also headed for Alpha Centauri, a second Vestan ship on course for Tau Ceti, a craft launched from Ceres to Epsilon Eridani, and the largest but slowest ship, a sleeper ark from Terra to Alpha Centauri.

Alpha Centauri: Sol’s Nearest Neighbors

Around Alpha Centauri A the Traveller found a Terra-sized rocky planet that had long been scoured of life by stellar storms from the trinary stars nearby. It was determined that this little rock could be reanimated with comparatively little effort and the crew made immediate plans to colonize and terraform the planet which they named “SecLand” (the landing on Pallas being the first land).

Just three years after the Traveller’s arrival, they were followed by their Vestan rival. Considering the horror they’d experienced since Sol’s last transmission they decided to set their differences aside and work together on terraforming SecLand, albeit from opposite hemispheres. This detente was strained at times, but the first real threat to world peace didn’t come until 150 years PX, when the ark carrying the last of unaltered humanity arrived.

By the time the sleeper ark arrived SecLand had a population of several thousand, the ark carried a mere 1500 passengers but over half were soldiers who’d entered stasis with orders to make sure that the first exosolar foothold of humanity was human, not parahuman. Or at least that was the plan, when word of what happened to their homeworld got out there was a mutiny and the victors immediately surrendered to the parahuman colonists, with most passengers integrating into the Republic of New Pallas. These newcomers brought a wide range of skills and knowledge, living knowledge, to a planet whose inhabitants up until then had primarily only known life inside their half-built habitat structures. The humans emigrated nearly equally to both colonies, over the centuries they interbred with the parahumans, with the net result being that many SecLanders have less fur or their facial features are closer to human than many further colonies. Today pure-bred humans, and parahumans (excepting uplifts), are miniscule minorities on SecLand with only a couple million individuals. The average SecLander resembles a blend of at least half a dozen species of Terragen origin.

For centuries the two colonies lived in relative peace, New Pallas breeding like rabbits while the Vestans cloned new citizens in bulk. But when the terraforming of SecLand had reached the point where colonists could breathe the atmosphere tensions re-established themselves between the two old enemies. With terraforming nearing completion some wondered what use New Pallas could have for the Vestans, on both continents. To that end the Vestans began to covertly build weapons in their Arcologies while New Pallas shifted their orbital satellites slightly. It all came to a head when the Vestans concealed a lethal virus in food shipments sent from their farms to the cities of New Pallas, thousands died in the months that followed. By the time the New Pallas government realized what had been done every Vestan arcology had unveiled surface-to-orbit mass drivers that could shoot down their enemy’s satellites. Even then, many arcologies were leveled by orbital strikes. Then the land battles began. The cybernetically augmented citizen-soldiers of New Pallas facing off against the bioprinted legions of the Vestans. The fighting raged on for months, then abruptly, it ceased less than a year after the war had begun. You see, the Vestans had underestimated New Pallas’s skill with biotechnology, crafting a virus that could be deadly to all the diverse inhabitants of the Republic had been difficult, but a dirty little secret of many 21st century regimes were the techniques to engineer a virus that had disastrous effects when it interacted with a specific gene or genes. And the Society for the Preservation of Parahuman Species had only used a couple genotypes for their army, and even fewer for their ruling priest-scientists. Once the virus had been grown any Vestan unit that came into contact with the enemy was dead within a week, in a month the ruling class had been reduced to a few paranoid individuals who had sealed themselves in hermetic bunkers. Specialized by repeated cloning into an effective caste system, and their soldier castes suddenly extinct, the surviving Vestan arcologies found themselves helpless against New Pallas occupation forces.

The medical advances achieved fighting the bioweapons led to the development of leukosynths, symbiotic microbots that could fight off nearly all microbes and repair the body at an accelerated rate. Even fighting off the advances of aging. When this “immortality” was proven to the public they clamored for the government to subsidize their deployment to the masses. Within the century 90% of New Pallas’ population enjoyed the benefits of leukosynths.

Among this chaos a new power emerged in the Pallene cities and settlements. Families all over the planet started giving birth to silver fox kits, reminiscent of their colony’s nearly-deified founder, Argentum. Some religious leaders saw this as a sign and exalted these silver foxes, propelling many into high positions in politics. The cynical suggested that the parents had modified their children’s genes in-utero, but after the plagues many people were desperate and willing to believe anything. Most of them were actually descendants of Argentum’s, but their progeny numbered in the hundreds of thousands by that point anyways.

An unintentional side effect of this bit of social engineering was a renewed interest in their origins out in the depths of space. And despite the terrors they knew awaited them they couldn’t help but wonder if any other colony ships had made it…

Epsilon Eridani

Ceres, the largest asteroid in Sol’s asteroid belt, was the main off-world base of operations for the corporation that created the first parahumans. During the revolution parahumans took over the local branch offices and largely continued to operate along the same lines. Their participation in the exosolar space race was almost an afterthought, an attempt at remaining relevant compared to the other two major asteroid civilizations in Sol system.

Upon arrival in the Epsilon Eridani system they found even fewer viable prospects for terraforming than those in Alpha Centauri. Instead, they opted to construct enclosed habitats in the system’s asteroid belts and under the surface of the larger rocky planets. Like on Ceres the colonists retained the corporate style of government that had served their forebears fairly well.

After about a century of this arrangement dissatisfaction among the lower ranking employees spread towards the shareholding class. A bloody revolution followed, after which the revolutionaries distributed the seized shares in the Eridani Company equally among the employees, granting everyone a vote in company elections and a share of the profits. Roughly a generation later a group of managers started buying up shares from others.

The third such regime made contact with a probe from New Pallas, trade began almost immediately.

Tau Ceti

The second Vestan colony ship took over a century to reach its destination, the star Tau Ceti. Along the way two generations of crew were decanted from the ship’s bioprinters to replace their predecessors. While the final crew were genetically identical to those who had set out from Vesta their commitment to the ideology of the Society for the Preservation of Parahuman Species had wavered, and with the news of Terra’s destruction some suggested that perhaps the best way to avoid sharing that world’s fate would be to lose their advanced technology.

That would require them to give up cloning as a means of reproduction, however they were unwilling to allow reckless crossing of genelines so they added genetic markers to prevent different phenotypes from interbreeding. Fortunately, unlike the other colony ships they discovered a lush world that wasn’t too hostile to Terran life which they named Schwarzwelt after the dark colors of the local chlorophyll analogue. They then settled each “species” into different “clans” in different regions of the planet. The clans grew in population rapidly, bumping up against the borders designated at founding in less than a century. War broke out.

Clans rallied behind charismatic warrior-nobles and weaker clans swore oaths of fealty to stronger ones to save their own skins. These wars continued until contact with the first probe from the Centauri system, realizing that there was another civilization out there and that they were capable of interstellar travel the clan heads held a council to decide what to do about it. The majority ruled that they needed a single man to represent their world when the outsiders came in person, they elected King Hideo Fink of the feline clan as the official ruler of Tau Ceti.

Birth of the Federation

While the first manned starships with conversion drives were still traveling to their neighbors, scientists at a research base orbiting Proxima Centauri, the small red dwarf star that barely qualified as the third star of the Alpha Centauri system, made a breakthrough. Using a newly discovered form of exotic matter a wormhole could be pulled from the quantum foam of the universe and held open indefinitely. Once they successfully sent a laser through a pinprick-sized wormhole from Proxima to Secland, the New Pallas senate approved funding for the production of wormholes large enough to send materials through.

A very expensive experiment proved that wormholes larger in diameter than a micrometer could be catastrophically destabilized by proximity to large gravity wells. It was decided that no traversable wormhole could be placed closer to a star than the Oort Cloud, but even then the potential for shortening an interstellar voyage from decades to months was too exciting. Proxima Centauri was enclosed in a small Dyson sphere dedicated solely to producing the exotic matter for wormholes and just over a century after contact the first interstellar traversable wormhole between Proxima Centauri and Tau Ceti was ready, Epsilon Eridani followed suit. Commerce and communication between the three systems exploded, and conflict with them.

While interstellar war didn’t break out, there were many in both Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani who suspected that New Pallas intended to invade them through their wormholes. Before long both planetary governments were dealing with armed insurrections. New Pallas was all too glad to provide advanced weaponry and vehicles, especially on Schwarzwelt where the military was decentralized and entire clans or houses were rebelling. Eventually Pallene troops and warships were stationed in the two systems to defend Pallene interests.

Seeing tensions rise Grand Mayor Selkd de Argentum came up with an ingenious solution, an interstellar government composed of representatives from all three star systems, as well as any new systems that would be colonized in the future. That way, everyone could theoretically have a say in interstellar politics. While visiting Schwarzwelt in 1150 to promote his vision, Selkd was assassinated by a sniper.

Selkd was succeeded by his sister, Lirdrill, who ordered the sniper’s family estates leveled by orbital bombardment as an example to the others. The ruling houses of other clans that had rebelled were rounded up and stripped of their noble ranks, then imprisoned in stasis banks. She continued her brother’s vision of a united parahuman government, but centralized around Alpha Centauri and the office of the Praetor, which would be held by her house.

Wormholes took a lot of time and resources to set up while probes were reporting back dozens of exoplanets that were inhabitable or easily terraformed, so the senate on New Pallas had been debating whether to launch colony fleets before or after traversable wormholes arrived at the potential colonies. As Lirdrill solidified the Federation, she made an executive decision. Wormholes would be spaced anywhere from 20 to 50 light-years apart, depending on resources and stellar density, and the stars between them would be reachable only by ships traveling at 80% of the speed of light or slower. Since leukosynths and cryo-stasis had become mature technologies by then the decades of travel were deemed acceptable.

Even then, there was some trouble finding enough volunteers to fill the colony ships that were being built. After a few suggestions of using rebels as indentured labor the Memetic Quarantine and Contingency program was established. The thousands of rebels held in stasis were to be shipped off to marginally inhabitable “Outworlds” light-decades from the nearest wormhole, and to make sure they didn’t draw too much attention, without any technology more advanced than the most basic steam engines. It was hoped that eventually they’d become “civilized” and submit to the Federation, or die off.

But, there was a secondary purpose to the program. The machines that had destroyed Terra were still out there, and if the Destroyers were to notice the Federation growing under their noses, perhaps they’d overlook those small Outworlds without radio.

The Traders

With the vast distances between most inhabited systems trade opportunities were limited. Most star systems had enough raw materials locally that shipping them from another star without a wormhole was simply not cost-effective. While nanofabrication meant that most manufactured goods could be produced in a small warehouse, if not a garage. For the first few centuries of expansion the only goods that were worth shipping interstellar were in the form of digital data, and most of that could be handled by laser transmissions, and the occasional courier.

Just over two centuries after the Federation was established, a courier ship operated by a branch of House Argentum decided to stop off at an Outworld. The captain decided to land a shuttle near one city-state established by the unwilling colonists to see what they were up to.

The locals were wowed by the great flying machine and the crew, having forgotten their origins already. They offered tribute to the visiting immortals, foodstuffs, sculptures, and textiles. The crew decided to take some of the tributes with them, leaving some inconsequential trinkets of Federation technology which were quickly replaced by their on-board fabricators.

When the courier next made port at a Federation starbase they showed off the unique goods they’d acquired, many of which were purchased at exorbitant prices by bored oligarchs. The Outworld’s inhabitants were rapidly diverging culturally from their forebears, far faster than the leukosynth-using worlds of the Federation. Those simple couriers had found something valuable to the nearly post-scarcity Federation, novelty.

Many houses and companies commissioned their own Outworld trade freighters while the senate debated whether it was even legal to trade with the “barbarians.” Eventually it was determined that trade would be allowed; but no weapons, vehicles, communications, or nanotechnology were to be given to Outworlders. Small starships with industrial nanofabricators would set up shop over Outworlds for years at a time, fabbing trinkets made from space-age alloys and exchanging them for cloth made with alien fibers. Many of these traders became fabulously wealthy during the next few centuries as the Federation expanded outwards and established more and more Outworlds.

It was fun while it lasted.

The Return of the Destroyers

The Destroyers responsible for Terra’s demise had made occasional appearances in the next two millennia. Zeroing in on sources of radio transmissions with relativistic projectiles followed by hunter-seeker probes that would scour the surrounding system of life. But it seemed they hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care about the Federation at large.

Then astronomers in the Federal core noticed something. Sol, Terra’s sun, was dimming. A few disposable probes sent back horrific images, a Dyson sphere, and it was almost complete. With the energy of Sol the Destroyers could incinerate the core worlds at the speed of light! A secret panel of the senate met with the Praetor to decide what to do about this unthinkable prospect.

The Federal Guard’s fleets were assembled at Proxima Centauri and dispatched for Sol. Never before had Federation technology been tested against the Destroyers, and no one wanted to underestimate them, so the fleet was loaded with the most advanced weaponry they could muster.

It wasn’t enough.

Quantum ansible transmissions reported massive ships that maneuvered without visible reactions and accelerated to impossible speeds in seconds. The Federal Guard was slaughtered in short order, but before they died one ship managed to launch an experimental superweapon at Sol itself.

A strangelet bomb, filled with the same strange matter that converted baryonic matter into antimatter in conversion drives, with catalysts for self-replication. They spread across the star in a matter of days, triggering a series of detonations that tore the star and the incomplete Dyson sphere apart.

When word came that they had a potential nova carrying strangelets in their neighborhood the Federation’s elites abandoned the core worlds en masse. Fleeing through the wormholes at top speed. As the secret mission to Sol and its destructive results leaked everyone who could afford a ship followed suit, departing for distant worlds that they hoped could bring salvation.

Then, just before the nova’s wavefront reached Proxima, the wormhole network was collapsed to prevent it from spreading to the far colonies.

The Collapse

Every star system that had a direct link to the wormhole network found itself swarmed by refugees from the Core. The remnants of the Federal Guard struggled to maintain order as refugees clashed with natives. Many refugee fleets were forced to leave for other systems that were less sparsely populated, a few even attempted to invade Outworlds. Other fleets became nomads, passing through inhabited systems without slowing down and trading for or extorting supplies as they passed.

As unrest reached critical levels many governors activated failsafe programs embedded in every Federation citizen’s leukosynth implants, rendering the star system’s entire population mortal. Most such governors were torn apart by angry mobs. On other worlds the population voluntarily gave up advanced technology in hopes of hiding from the Destroyers.

Three hundred years later the dust has mostly settled. Few star systems are politically united, with individual planets and megastructures using everything from wooden carts to gravity-manipulating starships. The Federation is ancient history, and its technology treasure waiting to be discovered.

[infiniteeight8]

I dom't know if i asked this before but:

Alpha/Alpha ironstrange meeting in a Gala pre-ironman

Anon also added:

Oh that Alpha/Alpha ironstrange in Pre-ironman if you could please make it spicy with dom/sub tones.

I debated for some time if spicy meant smut or just flirting with intent, and I thought it probably meant flirting with intent, but the idea I got was smutty, so that’s what you’re getting. LOL. It seemed the best way to get in the dom/sub tones as well.

Also, Stephen may be a sub here, but he’s also an alpha, so. Uh, also, I got a little carried away. 1060 words carried away...

Under the cut for obvious reasons.

-

Stephen laughed in delight as the bathroom door swung open under the force of his body striking it, spilling him and Tony into the small room and breaking the kiss Tony had been going for at the same time. “If you’re going to push me up against a wall,” he mocked, “better make sure it’s a wall that can hold me.”

“Big words from a man pegging his strength on a door,” Tony shot back, but he did crowd Stephen up against a wall in the vestibule of this very fancy bathroom. He leaned in and ran his nose along the underside of Stephen’s jaw, the thick scent there going straight to his cock. The other alpha had a dry, spicy scent, so sharp it almost hurt. It made Tony’s mouth water with the desire to bite.

“And you have yet to deliver on the promise you made me on the dance floor,” Stephen said. “Perhaps I should find someone who will.”

A growl slipped out of Tony and he yanked Stephen away from the wall, turning and bending him over the counter that ran along one side of the vestibule wall instead. There were no sinks, not in here, but there was a long mirror. Stephen grinning at him from the reflection, the expression broken by a gasp when Tony gave him a hard slap on the ass. 

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Tony said. He pressed his cock, achingly hard but still restrained by his pants, against Stephen’s ass as he reached around to open the alpha’s pants and belt. 

“Well, not with that to look forward to,” Stephen moaned, rubbing back against Tony’s cock. 

Tony yanked Stephen’s pants and underwear down hurriedly, retrieved the lube from his own pocket, and pushed one slick finger into him. Stephen moaned. It was all Tony could do not to echo him. Stephen was even tighter than most alphas. If it hadn’t been for his absolutely filthy mouth on the dance floor, Tony would have thought he’d never done this before. 

Glancing at the mirror to check how Stephen was doing, Tony caught his breath to see the dazed, pleasure glazed look on his face. Fuck, Stephen loved this. Tony added a second finger, maybe a little too soon, but Stephen just moaned, head dropping as he pushed back into the touch. Tony rushed the prep, he knew he did, but Stephen was moaning and squirming and fuck, if he wasn’t entirely ready then he obviously wanted it that way. 

Tony buried his cock in one long stroke and Stephen cried out so loud that Tony wondered if they could hear him, back at the gala. It didn’t make him stop, though. Instead, the very real possibility that someone might wander into the unlocked bathroom and see Metro General’s star neurosurgeon bent over for Tony only made him go harder.

“Fuck,” Tony panted. He reached up and took hold of the back of Stephen’s neck, pressing him down into the counter and holding him there as he fucked him. “You are so fucking tight.” Tight and hot, fuck, the clutch of Stephen’s body was incredible, and the scent of him, sharp pheromones rising up in what felt like a cloud of need and arousal, making Tony almost dizzy with the drive to take. 

Stephen’s hoarse words caught in his throat twice before he managed to get them out, “Don’t hold back. I can take it.”

Tony groaned and thrust in harder. “Keep talking like that and you’ll end up taking my knot.”

“Was that—” Stephen cried out as Tony fuck into him again, then caught his breath and tried again. “Was that not the plan?”

Holy shit. Tony had been with alphas before, but not one of them had ever been willing to take a knot. Fuck, Stephen was perfect. Still— “You really want to get knotted in a public washroom?” It would almost double the length of time they’d be here, and thus the chances of someone walking in on them.

“Surely you can take care of it, alpha,” Stephen voice low and rough and fuck, Tony’s knot was swelling already, not enough to tie yet but close.

“Damn right I can,” he gasped, pride rising despite the fact he knew Stephen was doing it on purpose. He gripped the back of Stephen’s neck a little tighter and gave his hips a little twist on the next thrust and Stephen made a high, keening noise of pleasure and need and fuck, Tony was going to have to keep him, Stephen was going to ruin him for anyone else. “That’s it,” Tony said, driving his cock into Stephen again and again and again. “That’s perfect, just like that, fuck, you’re perfect.”

Stephen squirmed some more and Tony’s knot throbbed and yes, yes, that was it. Growling roughly, Tony thrust hard. For one breathless instant he thought it wasn’t going to work, and then Stephen’s body gave way and Tony’s knot popped into his ass, his hole immediately clenching down on Tony so hard that he came instantly. Tony gasped for breath as his cock spurted again and again, filling Stephen with his come. He was almost shaking when the waves of pleasure started to fade.

“Alpha,” Stephen begged, voice wrecked with need.

“I’ve got you,” Tony said roughly, reaching around Stephen to take the other alpha’s cock in hand. He was so hard it only took a couple of strokes before he came, his hole spasming around Tony’s cock so tight Tony had to clench his jaw against whines of overstimulation.

In the aftermath, the room almost seemed to echo with the sound of their panting as they tried to catch their breath. Tony caught Stephen’s gaze in the mirror and the two of them broke into laughter briefly. “I can take care of it,” Tony said, “but I really hope no one needs the bathroom in the next twenty minutes.”

“Likewise.” Stephen sighed as Tony slid his hand down from his neck to stroke gently up and down his back instead. “Please tell me we can do this again.”

“Hell yes,” Tony agreed. “Preferably somewhere private, where I can take my time with you.”

“Oh yes,” Stephen murmured. Tony met his gaze in the mirror and licked his lips at the heat he found there.

Sooner rather than later, he thought.

[yudrein-aile]

updates on the wiki

oh man it's been a while since i made one of these

Orr Empire locations have been outsourced to Orr Empire (geography) for ease of navigation

a list of the official name changes has been added to the webtoon page

Shuden Trading Company has its own page now

added lots of info on the Peletta Workers from the 1060s

otherwise, we appear to have a new wiki editor whom I don't recognize but they've been adding to the character profiles so I would die for them because character pages are the ones I hate writing the most. give me imperial law and tea culture every day but not what characters look like.

[hel-the-growl]

Cultural Annotations on New Gods: Yang Jian -Part 1-

This is the companion piece to my long-ass thread about the same topic on twitter.

Light Chaser really outdid themselves with the visuals and research this time, and with Yang Jian out in NA theaters, it's totally worth seeing on the big screen.

There were so many historical references packed into this movie, I thought I'd do a deep dive into the characters, motifs and lore associated with Investiture of the Gods scene by scene.

Background

Yang Jian is the second instalment of the New Gods series of animated films (after Nezha Reborn), that are loosely based on the 16th-century Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods (IOTG). IOTG shares some canon with other Chinese classics like Journey to the West, Classic of Mountains and Seas, Lotus Lantern etc. so there may be crossovers.

The character Yang Jian, better known as the god Erlang Shen, is a figure widely regarded as heaven's greatest warrior deity. He is recognized for having a third truth-seeing eye, and in IOTG, helped bring about the fall of the Shang Dynasty in 1046 BC.

The movie however, takes place during the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern dynasties circa 5th century AD, some 1500 years after events of IOTG. We first meet Yang Jian as a rather lethargic but free-spirited individual, 12 years after losing his powers during a great disaster involving the three realms, scraping by as a bounty hunter.

A rough timeline

c. 1075-1066 BC: Yang Jian is born

c. 1060-1050 BC: Yang Jian cleaves Peach Mountain

1046 BC: Battle of Muye (Conclusion of Investiture of the Gods)

c. 9 BC-23 AD: Erlang Shen defeats Sun Wukong (Journey to the West, Chapter 7 - Havoc in Heaven)

c. 405 AD: Disaster of the Three Realms; Yang Chan is trapped under Mount Hua

c. 417 AD: New Gods: Yang Jian

c. 1920s - c. 1930s: Nezha Reborn

Breakdown

Yang Jian’s crew all have backstories. In Journey to the West, Kang Anyu (康安裕) and Yao Gonglin (姚公麟) are two of Erlang Shen’s six brothers of Plum Mountain, both supreme government officials in charge of military affairs. Maybe we’ll get to find out about the other four’s whereabouts in later instalments?

Xiaotian is Erlang’s dog sidekick who helps him subdue evil spirits and never leaves his side. The movie’s version of Xiaotian seems to be inspired by ancient paintings depicting her as a white hound.

The wanted bulletin printer seems to be inspired by a Hu Shi Ren You (虎噬人卣), a tiger-shaped Ancient Chinese wine vessel.

In Chinese mythology, Penglai is a legendary island for immortals. It has been reimagined to be the equivalent of the CBD of the divine realm.

The dice used in the casino are 18-sided Xing Jiu Ling (行酒令) from the Han Dynasty. It has the numbers 1 to 16, along with the characters for "wine" and "arrogance" engraved in gold and silver. The rat is the first animal of the Chinese Zodiac.

Shunfeng’er (顺风耳), who now goes by Old Gao and works at the casino, was usually accompanied by Qianliyan (千里眼). They are two temple guards whose names translate to “all-hearing” and “all-seeing” that could hear and see things from thousands of miles away.

Light Chaser is serious about its monkey business. The way casino monkey grabbed Yang Jian’s tally with his foot, the big ape miming and even in Nezha Reborn where the little monkey imitated Yunxiang.

Fun fact: The monkey is voiced by Yang Tianxiang, the same actor who voiced Li Yunxiang (Nezha) in Nezha Reborn.

Refresher - Primordial Spirit, known in Chinese as yuanshen (元神), is is a concept in Daoism defined to be a level of existence surpassing that of physical existence. In the New Gods universe, they manifest as giant glowing avatars.

New Gods also has a recurring theme of lost Astras - In Nezha Reborn, Wukong’s staff is nowhere to be found and Yunxiang has only recovered Nezha’s Sky Ribbon so far. Among Erlang Shen’s many Astras, three are mentioned in the movie.

Yang Jian’s headdress is designed to resemble his signature trident, the "three-pointed, double-edged lance". Hence when casino monkey asked him where his weapon was, he clinked the headdress.

This weapon was later shown in a flashback:

Another one of his Astras is a golden bow with silver bullets. According to the director, it was melted into his harmonica (although this was probably retconned as in the teaser for the sequel, it was his mother who gave it to him as a child). The harmonica not only has the powers of his bow, but is also the ignition key for his ship.

The third weapon featured is his mountain-cleaving axe (开山斧). It is the axe he used to split Peach Mountain in half to save Yaoji. He is shown wielding the same axe in the opening montage 1500 years earlier and it is currently wedged inside the Lotus Peak of Mount Hua from the events of 12 years ago. Needless to say it is a powerful Astra with earth-shattering capabilities.

The Four Diablo Brothers - Mo Lihong, Mo Liqing, Mo Lihai, and Mo Lishou - were initially antagonists in IOTG, having launched an attack on the Western Foothills. This led to the introduction of Yang Jian, who helped defeat the brothers.

By the conclusion of the novel, they were enshrined as the Four Heavenly Kings - Vaiśravaṇa, king of yakṣas (多闻天王; Duowen Tianwang), Virūḍhaka, king of kumbhāṇḍas (增长天王; Zengzhang Tianwang), Dhṛtarāṣṭra, king of gandharvas (持国天王; Chiguo Tianwang) and Virūpākṣa, king of nāgas (广目天王; Guangmu Tianwang). In the movie, only Mo Liqing was addressed by his title when Shen Gongbao met him inside the lighthouse.

There's a PSA on the noticeboard with a picture of Nezha pissing. It reads "no urinating or defecating here." This might be a piss (pun intended) at the 2019 animation Ne Zha from a rival studio, and its hilarious promo. The shade 💀

Further supporting my theory that White Snake and New Gods are from the same universe, Precious Jade from White Snake is recruiting!!! And medicine boy plugging his illegal business lol.

Jinxia Cave (金霞洞), lit. Gold Sunset Cave is Yuding’s HQ. It is located on Jade Spring Mountain in the Divine realm.

The little disciple playing the flute is a tribute to the 1963 ink animation “The Bamboo Flute” (牧笛) produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio.

Yuding is one of the many disciples of Yuanshi Tianzun, one of the highest deities of Daoism known as the Primeval Lord of Heaven. Yuding is ranked 10th among the “12 golden disciples”, and among his peers are Jiang Ziya (the main character of IOTG who led the battle against Shang), Taiyi Zhenren (Nezha’s master) and Shen Gongbao etc. They are all practitioners of Chan Daoism, also known as Kunlun Sect, founded by Laozi and Yuanshi Tianzun.

In the tale of the Magic Lotus Lantern, Chenxiang was the son of Yang Chan AKA Goddess San Shengmu AKA the holy mother of Mount Hua AKA Erlang’s sister, and a mortal scholar named Liu Yanchang. This parallels the Yang siblings’ own origin story as the children of a goddess and a mortal.

Chenxiang literally means Agarwood. It is a revered wood valued for its use in incense and traditionally burned during meditation.

The place on Jade Spring Mountain where Yuding sealed the sect brother’s Dharmakaya (the embodiment of the truth itself, a transcendence of the physical and spiritual bodies) is based on the travertine pools in and around Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan. Notably, a scene from Journey to the West, a story associated with Erlang Shen, was once filmed at one of the waterfalls here. I’ve been here and yes, it looks exactly like this irl.

Part 2｜Part 3｜Part 4

[loudestcloud]

Original date made: February 15th 2024

Song: I'll make a man out of you from Mulan

Arc: Wano (Full spoilers)

One piece edit number 30!

YouTube link

TikTok link

Instagram link

(Originally posted here)

All edits of mine can be found under #Loudestcloud

👇🏻 Editor's comment 👇🏻

Hey hey hey!!! This was supposed to be silly haha funny but as usual, it became a longer cool thing. Also that Jack eye transition? Not planned at all, little just happened by the clips being used next to each other. My process is not linear, the first clip I used was the first cos the words are what made me make it but the second was Tama, I just go all over as I please. Alao spoilers included for even me cos i am at around 1060 so I sacrificed my eyes for this but NOT THE AUDIO so the drums are still gonna be nice and new for me. Also this somehow passed the copyright check on TikTok and that is SO silly, its literally Disney AND One piece but that's okay cos YouTube would never.

Also, it was only now when adding tags that I noticed the only Big mom clip os ger being ran over so, sorry girl, didn't mean to do you so dirty.

EDIT: I forgot to say that the first ever One piece AMV I found by myself as a kid was one to A girl worth fighting for so this brought back a lot of childhood joy. It was really bad and I mostly remember Usopp as Ling and Sanji being the part for Chi-Fu then Zoro being the reply to that, it was so grainy and poorly cut but it was fun and that's all that ever matters.

[kurgy]

just paid the rent management added mystery $95 fees to before smacking me with an extra $38 service fee just to pay them totalling out to $1060 dollars for a rundown one bedroom with a draft and unfinished renovations, and if it wasnt for this giftcard that got me free fried rice i genuinely think i would have started my journey as a batman villain by now like come sunday morning id be running around committing arson and insurance fraud as the Housing Marquis laughing and screaming youll never catch me batman

[misforgotten2]

“Stop Fred!  Stop!  I’m gonna throw up!  At least slow…uhh…too late hhukk!

National Geographic Magazine - June 1960

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

To the Shadows that Cry Witch /// Chapter 7

Hello again! I just want to say thank you so much to those who have enjoyed the story so far, your support has given me the confidence and motivation to continue writing, and I really hope you all stick around for the rest. If you're enjoying it so far, do message or comment to be added to the taglist. Enjoy :))))) <3

Summary: So uhhhh...... Magic is real. Middle Earth is real. Shit goes down. Bon Appetit.

Tags: Kíli x oc/reader - Fíli x oc (POV to be written soon) - Thorin's company x ocs/reader (platonic) - fluff - angst - SUPER slow burn - crack - Bagginshield

Word Count: 1060

Warnings: Mentions of Minor and Major Injuries from last chapter, Nothing else really, just Bilbo being Bilbo.

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

PLEASE START FROM THE BEGINNING IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY OK LOVE U

Want some background music? Check out my Soundtrack Playlist!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 >

PART 1: Chapter 7 -

This is why you don't socialise

Bedlam (Definition): (Noun) A scene or state of wild uproar or confusion.

Bilbo expected to hear something, whether it was yelling or preferably a quiet conversation, but when he woke early the next morning to nothing but silence from within his home, he felt himself let out a breath.

After rolling out of bed and stretching himself out, he tied the straps of his quilted dressing gown before tiptoeing down the hall. Gently pressing his ear to the door, he listened for any signs the two girls had awoken. When nothing answered, he slowly turned the handle, cracking the door ever so slightly and peeking his head through.

The lantern had died down, so the room was bathed in only a faint glow from the cracks of light peeking through the closed curtains. Peering at the bed, he let out a silent sigh of relief. Two lumps still laid there, and he could make out the slow rise and fall of their breathing.

Bringing the door to a close, he returned to comically tiptoeing down the hall, quietly opening the curtains throughout the various rooms of the house as he made his way to the kitchen. To his relief, the weather had finally returned to normal, with the morning sun warming his face as he swung the front windows open, letting in the bird song whilst the breeze tussled his curls, the rays highlighting his dark blond tresses. He could still smell the rain though, since the ground was still very damp according to the occasional puddle dotting the path outside.

He made the unfortunate decision of looking down at his garden, and he let out a quiet ‘gah’ of complaint at the sight of a few of his bushes half squashed, the morning exposing how much damage had really been done last night.

Turning away from the carnage to prevent himself from mourning his garden any longer, Bilbo spotted the now dry clothes on the rack by the hearth. Snapping his finger, he reminded himself that he now had two guests who, by the looks of it, had one hell of a night. He then proceeded to busy himself in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for three before the hand hit 7AM on the hefty grandfather clock stood tall up against one of the many walls of the house. Happy that everything was cooking and sizzling away, he set the kettle on the stove to warm up and made his way back through the house to retrieve his – hopefully awake – guests.

Arriving back at the door, he took a moment to prepare himself, also praying slightly to Yavanna that they would not be unpleasant. Leaning his ear towards the door, he brushed the wood with his knuckles and gave it the lightest knock.

Silence.

He knocked again, slightly harder this time.

Nothing.

With a huff, he shuffled on his feet and let his eyes dart over the wood before letting out a quiet “Hello?”

After receiving no answer for the third time, he tightened the strap on his gown before he, much like last time, slowly but surely cracked open the door and peeked in, this time letting out another slightly louder hello.

The fall must have really taken a toll considering they hadn’t moved an inch since he checked up on them earlier this morning. Opening the door wider, he cautiously let himself in, because these girls were missing out on breakfast, if the whistling kettle from further in the house said anything. He made sure to leave the door open as wide as it could go just in case anything went downhill and he needed a quick getaway.

Padding up to the edge of the bed on the left side, he fiddled with his fingers. Several times he went to tap the shoulder of the copper-haired girl, but pulled back before he did each time, his nerves getting the better of him. Gnawing his lip, he came to a decision.

Striding round he opened the curtains wide and swung open the window, letting in the morning sounds and breeze. That had done something, one of them letting out a groan as they turned away from the light. Marching back to the foot of the bed, Bilbo swung his arms slightly before landing them on his hips as he went with his last resort to wake them up.

“GOOD MORNING.”

That had done the trick. Though he hadn’t prepared himself for the reaction.

The copper one shot up with a wheezing gasp, eyes as wide as saucers, causing poor Bilbo to stumble back slightly with an almost identical expression. She blinked rapidly, and her grey eyes quickly came in contact with his unsure ones. She let out a shriek at the sight of him, flailing around to rid herself of her covers, kicking her companion in the process as she ended up crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs and towels. This was certainly the last thing Bilbo had hoped for.

Her kicking had also done the trick of waking up her friend, who, to Bilbo’s relief, rose from her slumber in a much calmer (though still uncomfortable) way. She sat up on her side with a groan of pain, eyes still half closed. She faced over her shoulder towards where her friend had tumbled with a frown, and with another huff, made the move to fall back on the bed.

Bilbo quickly stepped forward, opening his mouth to get her attention, but it seemed the creaking floorboard had beaten him to it.

The brunette made a double take at the noise, leaning back up before also widening her eyes at the sight of him at the foot of the bed. She made no movement, only stared, as her friend clambered up, the towels pooling at her feet. All Bilbo could do for a good moment was stare right back, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, until he finally strung words together.

“I err—break- breakfast is in the kitchen, just down the corridor annnnd take the fourth right.” Bilbo waved his finger in those directions, suddenly finding the floorboards very interesting whilst being under the scrutiny of the two now voiceless girls. He patted at his robe, awkwardly slipping his hands in the pockets. “Tea will be ready in five… and I—yep” and with a sharp twist on his heel, he was out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

< Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 >

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Can't wait to see you on the 5th May for Chapter 8! Also please comment if you want to be added to the Taglist <3

Taglist:

@opheliasdrowningg @mrsdurin @g1gglef1t @qmabailor @jupiterrdarling @emstar07 @geewoo-ko

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[noctusfury]

What is the True Date of HTTYD? (DreamWorks Dragons)

So I know that there have been several people who’ve already discussed this topic, like, eons ago, such as @dyannehs​ , @kingofthewilderwest​ , and @avannak​ , @yv-sketches​ , @arduennas​ and others. (Here are their posts here, here, aaaaand here.) Buuut I’m gonna do my own, because this is too interesting of a topic not to dive into and blowing it way out of proportion like one of Toothless’s plasma blasts. LOL XD

Sorry to those who are wanting this old topic to just DIE already, and be water under the bridge and into the sea by now. But I need to scratch this itch. LOL XD

Please keep in mind that this article will be discussing the current timeline of HTTYD, not Hiccup’s birth.

So the general consensus is that Hiccup was born around 995 AD, though there have been those advocating for a later period in favor of the dragons leaving Berk by 1060-1100 AD (which was technically the medium range of when the Viking Age ended, supposedly). This would mean that by HTTYD 1 would be around 1010 AD, which we see in a HTTYD short here:

However, some would argue that this is based on the date that HTTYD 1 was in theaters and not a true date. By the end of HTTYD 3, it’d be 1025 AD, so meh. Of course, since most people don’t accept that film as canon, then we can skip that little tidbit. The year 1060 would be when Hiccup is 65 years old, if we accept this as a canon date. Which would fit.

Btw, for your information, here’s a fun fact for ya! 

If Hiccup lived to 1100 AD, he’d be 105 years old!!! WOW!!! He’d be ANCIENT!!! O_O 

Of course, since the Archipelago is isolated from the outside world (aside from what traders give them), there are those who’d argue that the population would continue on in their Viking ways, and the Viking Age would never truly end. Just with dragons. 

But that’s them. We’re talking about the end of the conventional, historical Viking Age — the world isn’t going to know about a population of Vikings that live on a half-frozen and isolated archipelago, so this doesn’t count! XD

So for those of you who don’t accept this time period, I’ll give you a pretty neat alternative. ^_^

In Season... 5, I guess in RTTE? In episode 1, we see this scene where Johann tells them an interesting story I never thought would be mentioned.

(This was a veeeery old pin I posted on Pinterest.) 

I checked it out, and it turns out this happened during 811 AD. This means that this date could be anywhere from then to 830 AD. Which, if you look at the due dates of the How To Train Your Dragon book in the Books, it sorta fits.

Regardless if you support the “Traitor Johann Arc” or not, the fact remains that we don’t know how recent this story is, or if this was an old story that he picked up that was decades ago. So the current HTTYD date could be anywhere from 811-850 AD, roughly. (Or it could be 1015 AD, LOL XD)

Again, though, in the film, Hiccup states that Vikings have been killing dragons for “300 years”. While this is more or less in a fantasy-like setting, the Viking characters themselves are quasi-historical, so it’s unlikely that the 800s AD would make sense if it’s been 300 years, since it’s around the time of the end of the Viking Age, in the 1000s AD. That being said, though, this could easily be whatever you wish to be since this is a fantasy setting, and since this the Archipelago, the Viking Age could’ve lasted much longer than their European kin due to their isolation. Could’ve started SOONER for them as well, such as anywhere from 500-700 AD. And it could’ve ended much LATER as of 1200 AD. 

We’ll never know. So that’ll be left up to us fans.

For those of you who want a date from the BOOKS, well, I’ll do that for ya! ^_^

The latest date on the book that Hiccup uses is 866 AD. Of course, since we don’t know when it was since this book was last rented, the current date could be anywhere from 866 AD to 1000 AD.

But for those of you who are strong advocates of the “Dragons Leave Vikings at End of Viking Age” Camp, deducting the correct numbers, the current date of the first HTTYD book that Hiccup is in right now would be... anywhere between 995 AD (if deducted from 1060 AD) and 1035 AD (if deducted from 1100 AD), since Hiccup was 10 years old in the first book, and was 75/76 years old by the series’ epilogue. That’s assuming that he died around the time period of the Viking Age’s decline, which was 1060-1100 AD.

So are you for the Film Timeline, the RTTE Timeline, or the Books Timeline? Or do you have your own timeline you follow?

Thank you for reading, my fellow Furians. I hope you enjoyed reading something old and redundant. See you in the next article!

Long Live the Night!

— Noctus Fury

[simdertalia]

💜 🎈🎡 ACNH Carnival Set - Part 2 🎡🎈

49 items | Sims 4, Base game compatible

Use the scale up & down feature on your keyboard to make the items larger or smaller to your liking. If you have a non-US keyboard, it may be different keys depending on which alphabet it uses. This is useful for the plushies in this set, you can make size variations in the game booths 💗

Always suggested: bb.objects ON, it makes placing items much easier. For further placement tweaking, check out the TOOL mod.

Set contains: -Arch | 4 swatches | 3479 poly -Balloon 1 & 2 | 5 swatches each | 1178 & 586 poly -Chair (Arcade) | 4 swatches | 1118 poly -Clock Tower | 4 swatches | 1197 poly -Clock Tower Souvenir | 4 swatches | 967 poly -Confetti Machine Decor | 5 swatches | 1197 poly -Crane Game | 8 swatches | 1202 poly -Decoration Poles | 5 swatches | 774 poly -Drum | 5 swatches | 1200 poly -Ferris Wheel | 4 swatches | 7130 poly -Fortune Cookie Cart | 3 swatches | 3197 poly -Game Ducks | 4 swatches | 5516 poly -Game Ball | 3 swatches | 194 poly -Ball Box (created by me) | 3 swatches | 2596 poly -Game Ring Toss | 4 swatch | 1218 poly -Game Ground Lines (created by me) | 8 swatches | 6 poly -Ring Toss Box (created by me) | 4 swatch | 1060 poly -Ring | 16 swatches | 210 poly -Gazebo | 8 swatches | 9208 poly -Goldfish Prize | 8 swatches | 600 poly -Ground Display (feathered vase-looking item) | 5 swatches | 1032 poly -Lockers 1 & 2 (2 items, 2 heights) | 6 swatches each | 946 & 1878 poly -Mask Decor | 6 swatches | 702 poly -Parasol | 5 swatches | 2288 poly -Pergola | 7 swatches | 9652 poly -Pinball Machines | 5 swatches | 1198 poly -Pole with Tapestry | 5 swatches | 2106 poly -Shopping Bag | 4 swatches | 964 poly -Sign (Wood) | 10 swatches (one dark brown set) | 906 poly -Street Clock (2 versions, 2 items) | 6 swatches each | 1176 poly each -Teacups | 4 swatches | 8893 poly -Tip Jars (3 versions) created by me | 1 swatch each | all low poly -Toy Beau | 4 swatches | 1500 poly -Toy Bianca | 4 swatches | 1476 poly -Toy Boots | 4 swatches | 1342 poly -Toy Cyrus | 4 swatches | 1624 poly -Toy Gracie | 4 swatches | 2212 poly -Toy Julia | 4 swatches | 1472 poly -Toy Katrina | 4 swatches | 2071 poly -Toy Marina | 4 swatches | 1376 poly -Toy Molly | 4 swatches | 1348 poly -Toy Reese | 4 swatches | 1665 poly -Toy Scapegoat | 7 swatches | 2493 poly -Toy Tiger | 1 swatch | 1200 poly

📁 Download all or pick & choose (SFS, No Ads): <HERE> https://simfileshare.net/folder/194099/

📁 Alt Mega Download (still no ads): <HERE> https://mega.nz/folder/ltgVRC6C#njn2P7agN4wzxHHxJK_3AQ

📁 DL on Patreon

Will be public on July 20th, 2023

Happy Simming! ✨ Some of my sets will be early access from now on. If you like my work, please consider supporting me:

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*Deco sims by xldkx

Thank you for reblogging ❤️❤️❤️

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This set is brought to fruition by my lovely Patrons who voted in the poll 💗 Last month this set lost a tie-breaker by the tiniest amount, so I’m so glad I got to make it this time for the people who wanted 💗

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

NBD just crying over Action Comics 1060 (in a good way but also a sad way because DC is being VERY DUMB and ending PKJ’s run in favor of a Jason Aaron Bizarro filler arc ohhhhhh how I weep bitter tears of frustration)

…Anyways, spoilers!

So 1060 is the penultimate installment of PKJ’s (stellar, spectacular, phenomenal, brilliant, top-tier) run on Action Comics and I just want to applaud him—for a lot of things, really, but in *this* specific case, I wanna stand and cheer because he’s making it EXTREMELY CLEAR that the twins (who are not actually twins) are in fact, Clark’s kids. No question, no ambiguity; Otho calls him papa, Clark refers to her as his daughter, and he’s willing to travel through LITERAL HELL to get her back.

It’s entirely possible that future writers will try to get rid of these kids, but I appreciate that PKJ has made it *very* difficult for them. XD Any retcon they’d come up with would be so messy. (Of course, saying this, I realize that the more depressingly realistic outcome here isn’t that writers actively try to erase them, but rather, will probably sideline/ignore them, trot them out for generic precocious kids stuff every now and then, and wait for the next line-wide reboot to ‘streamline’ Clark aka toss out anything mildly interesting and/or additive to Clark’s corner of the DCU.)

Right. Sorry. Salty tangent. XD

So anyways here’s some panels that tugged on my ‘Aunt Kara’ heartstrings.

‘I know sweetie. I know. It’s so hard, not knowing.’ HOW VERY DARE.

There’s also a really great page wherein Kara gets Osul to calm down by reminding him of a…I think Phaelosian legend? Or possibly Kryptonian, I know she was trying to find stuff for them in a previous issue.

(Went back and it’s actually the House of Ra fable; the House of El’s is ‘Nightwing and Flamebird’, Ra’s is ‘Red Son and Starchild’.)

I love that Lois lets Kara and Osul have that moment, that space; I maintain that while Clark has a better handle on getting what the kids went through on Warworld given that he was there, and Lois obviously has more experience with raising kids that have unique needs thanks to Jon being half alien, but *Kara* is more readily equipped to sympathize with Otho and Osul’s struggles with transitioning to Earth life, based on her current, canon characterization. (Which is, uhhhh…Woman of Tomorrow and alsoooooo…Rebirth? Maybe? WoT is def canon, the recent SG one shot visually referenced Kara’s departure from Argo.) But I digress!

Speaking of the kids’ struggles…Otho is Going Through It. The stuff with Sister Shadow (AKA Norah Stone AKA evil daughter of an alt universe Bruce and Talia) trying to tempt her to the dark side by preying on her trauma/difficulty adapting to her new home and revealing a future, tyrannical version of herself is some wonderfully juicy character work, both from the perspective of fleshing out Otho AND being additive to Superman’s roster of villains; that’s something I love about PKJ’s approach to world building overall. Yes, he’s revamped some of Superman’s established bad guys (Metallo, Mongul) but he’s also added awesome new foes, like Norah Stone, and Pyrrhos.

I really hope DC lets him do like. A mini series on his original Kryptonian/House of El characters. I would honestly love to read about all these cool new, additive elements, than deal with the Luthor cameo fest over in Superman rn. XD

In conclusion: DC once again shying away from anything interesting and new with Superman in favor of the safe status quo. -_- I mean, I hope I’m wrong. I hope the new ‘Superman Superstars’ opt to build on the solid foundation PKJ has set up. But given what happened with Bendis? Creators’ absolute refusal to incorporate any of the canon he built, because they knew DC would walk it back ASAP? (And the Superman group editor openly admitting that was his number one priority as soon as he GOT THE JOB???) Just shows a complete lack of faith in your creators, and doesn’t really give me too much hope for one of the few remaining titles I look forward to each month.

…but hey, hopefully Marilyn Moonlight will be neat??? XD

(Also LET A WOMAN WRITE A MAIN SUPERMAN BOOK YOU COWARDS.)

[quasar1967]

2000 AD #1057-1060