#spliced trunks

[rookthorne]

⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ 𝐏𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

A new tradition you introduced to Bucky took a turn you should have, at the very least, expected, but it did not mean you wouldn’t milk it for all of its worth.

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 ♕ Alpha!Mafia!Bucky Barnes x Omega!F!Reader

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 ♕ 785

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 ♕ Fluff, crack, implied spice, emphasised height difference

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 ♕ Okay, if anyone wants me, I am off dreaming of him.

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕 ♕ @rookthorne's Merry Buckmas — Masterlist

𝐑𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

It wasn’t to be said that Bucky, your alpha, didn’t give you what you wanted when you wanted it. 

And, no, you decidedly weren’t spoiled beyond belief. Having grown up frugally — in a class of wealth that made your eyes water at Bucky’s many receipts — made you grateful and even hesitant to accept Bucky’s numerous, frivolous gifts. 

But there was one exception. Christmas. 

The holiday was one of hope for you and you adored the timed and aged traditions; hot cocoa by the fire, films and music playing while baking gingerbread and numerous other sweets. 

While Bucky was a busy man at the head of the mafia — overseeing deals and contracts and things that made your head spin from the sheer level of violence — he always made time to see to you, and to every last one of desires, whether it be festive or not. 

It was how you ended up in this predicament. 

“Did you really have to pick this one?” Bucky asked. The barrelled trunk of the Christmas tree rested over his shoulder — the top of the tree trailed behind him while he walked up the steps of his sprawling mansion. “It’s huge, Bunny, you’re goin’ to need a damned ladder to get to the top.”

“That’s what you’re here for,” you mumbled, none-too-stealthily.

The tree swung to the side as he looked over his shoulder at you, his brow raised in challenge. “Is that so?”

You nodded, a coy smile on your lips. “Yeah, it’s why I have a big, strong alpha.”

Bucky grumbled something under his breath that you blissfully ignored, too intent upon the branches of the Christmas tree. The door to the mansion opened with a chime, and you breathed deeply to take in the spliced scents of happy omega and proud alpha. 

“Where do you want this?” Bucky asked, looking around at you as he walked into the foyer. You pointed towards the living room — the room with the tallest ceiling on this floor, and he started to walk towards the arched entry. 

“Wait,” you squeaked suddenly, and you rushed towards him with a proud smile on your lips. “Wait!” 

He turned to look at you curiously. “What–?” His eyes tracked the movement of your hands towards the fir branches. “Wait– What’re you trying to do, Bunny baby?”

“I want to help,” you said cheerfully, looking into Bucky’s face — his eyes were bright with amusement, and if you squinted, there was a flash of exasperation, too. 

“Bunny– sweetheart,” he laughed, and the corner of his lips pulled upwards in a wide smirk. “Honey, you’re goin’ to hurt yourself. Just let me set it down in the corner and then you can get started and I’ll help, deal?”

You frowned. “But I want to help!” The bristles of the pines tickled your palms as you made your grip more sturdy over the middle of the tree. “I picked it out; I want to help.”

The loose strands of Bucky’s hair fell into his face as he shook it, but he was smiling, endearingly so. “Alright, you can help me, you stubborn Bunny,” he said. Suddenly, he raised a brow in amusement — it was the only warning you received before he spoke again. “But please don’t fuckin’ fall from the damned thing.”

“What do– Whoa!”

Bucky hauled the tree higher up his broad shoulders, and you clung to it for dear life while he walked onwards, your feet dangling precariously above the floor. 

The toes of your shoes made a pitter patter sound over the marble tile when you desperately tried to gain your balance again, and Bucky chuckled, walking into the living room with the tree (with you still hanging from the middle) over his shoulder. 

“Alpha!” you shrieked, your hands slipping from the nestled pines of the tree. “Let me down, oh my god–” The thump of your feet landing on the sturdy, solid ground was heard in tandem with your gasp of relief.

Bucky shrugged the tree off of his shoulder — propping it up in the corner of the expansive living room right next to the entertainment unit. When he turned around, he had a smug, playful grin on his lips, and his eyes were dark with intent. 

“You know how much I love showin’ off for you, Bunny,” he said, and you gulped as he stepped closer. “And I fuckin’ wish it was you over my shoulder—let’s fix that.���

Much, much later, Bucky lifted you from the ground to place ornaments on the tree, pointedly ignoring every last one of your protests with a smirk — it was enough to make you quiet when you imagined just how he used his mouth before to silence your protests.

⠈⠂⠄ 𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱 | 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 | 𝐚𝐨𝟑 ⠄⠂⠁

⠈⠂⠄ 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ⠄⠂⠁

[sheikzine]

“In everyone’s life, there comes a lull.” (1/5)

During the applications period, we'll be posting a part of a Sheik fic every week, written by our writing mod! Enjoy part one and stay tuned for others to come!

Applications will remain open until May 9th, 11.59pm PST

In everyone’s life, there comes a lull.

Whether it’s short- or long-lived, near the end of days or the midst of chaos, peaceful moments can be found and cherished close to the heart. They are most often sporadic and out of the blue; yet as fast as they go by, one can still grasp them.

This was one such moment.

Everything was still, although not dangerously; not in the way that made the hair on one’s neck stand on end. No; this silence was comfortable, like the Goddesses themselves had hushed the land to listen.

Link had set up camp beside a stream, hidden from roadside view by the trees on the edge of the forest. Water trickled by in time with the rustling of the leaves that twinkled from the rays of sunlight that shone upon and between them.

The Hero lay on his back, hands folded over his stomach and hat folded beneath his head to ease the pressure on his ponytail. He was watching the motion of the trees above them, eyes flickering between the bright leaves at the top of the canopy to the darker ones near the trunk, then to the occasional bird and creature that switched between branches. While he didn’t want to turn and check the ground beneath him, he was sure the insects, too, were making their daily rounds, guided by the state of peace.

Well, it was peaceful until there was a sudden burning pain in Link’s leg.

“Ow!” He hissed, jumping at the pain, yet he knew better than to reach for the source. He grunted, huffed out a breath, and raised one arm to lie across his eyes. “... Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Came the voice from his company. “Just take a deep breath.”

Link did as commanded, opening his mouth to take in as much air as he could get, then releasing it through his nose. He felt better already; the flare in his chest had—

“Through your nose.”

Right. He did it again, closing his eyes as he inhaled slowly through his nose. As he did, his colleague continued their ministrations with gentle hands—well, as gentle as they could get, anyway—while Link closed his eyes and assessed the damage.

It really wasn’t that bad of an injury; it was only a bite from a Deku Baba, which he had never had much issue healing from, even without a potion. Yet this time, something had been different; he couldn’t tell if it had bit deeper than every other bite he’d gotten, or perhaps there was something else wrong, because the moment he had finished his battle and turned around to find himself face-to-face with his guide, he had retched violently and nearly thrown up.

The next thing he knew, they were on the side of the road where they sat now, and he was being forced onto his back with the demand to relax. Link had tried to protest, like always, but it never worked.

Another splice of pain shot through Link’s leg, and he tensed, held his breath, and huffed it out as he turned his head to the side, facing the other. “... can’t I just—”

“Use a potion?”

Red eyes met blue, and although the golden eyebrow that arched above them felt threatening, Link couldn’t help but grin. Red eyes rolled before returning to Link’s leg, and there was another slight spike of pain that felt intentional. “I knew you would ask that. Just settle down and allow me to get my tools.”

“Sheik, have I not been lying here the entire time?”

There was no response aside from a hum, but Link was fine with that. The Sheikah had always been quiet, observant; he felt lucky about every word that had come out of their mouth today.

As for Sheik’s tools, the word had sounded scary, but they held only a cloth, some shiny black thread, a bottle with some clear liquid, and a needle. The needle was the scariest part until Sheik poured the liquid on Link’s leg, and he soon tilted his head back into the ground while hissing through clenched teeth at the fierce, burning pain that ensued. His hands, too, clenched into fists by his side, blades of grass peeking out from between his fingers. With every ounce of his strength, he held himself back from releasing the slew of curse words that poked at the inside of his lips, and he tried his hardest to relax for Sheik as much as he could while they tried to help him.

“I apologize,” Sheik said, pressing one hand to Link’s thigh right at the top of his knee joint. The grip was barely there, but their strength was incredible, rendering his leg still. Their other hand poured for a couple more moments before setting the bottle on the ground, and as the pain lessened, Link realized there was a slight sizzling sound coming from below. He didn’t dare look. “But the Deku Baba’s poison infected your injury. It appears you will need stitches as well… this creature had rather wide teeth.”

Stitches? No, it couldn’t be that bad—and yet as Link propped his elbows up behind him, pushing through the pain to look, he realized it was that bad, as nearly the entire right side of his pants were soaked red, as were the bandage wrappings around Sheik’s fingers. It made him dizzy to look at, but he couldn’t let it get to him; instead he settled his eyes on the injury itself, and he swallowed back the shock that lodged its way into his throat. In the meantime, Sheik had expertly guided the thread through the needle, then held the needle with one hand while the other lit a flame ablaze beneath it.

“Lay down,” Sheik said once they appeared to be finished, leaning close to Link’s injury. That time he did so without hesitation, focusing on the leaves once more.

While Sheik hadn’t explicitly said they were going to use magic to ease his pain, he was confident they had. The only thing he felt when Sheik lowered their hand to his leg was slight tugging, then nothing more; yet everything else—the burning, the slight headache behind his eyes, the stiff pain surrounding the bite—was still there. Perhaps they had just masked the worst of it for him; he knew getting stabbed with a needle had to be at least somewhat painful.

“Almost done. Then I’ll have to treat your burn.”

His burn…? Oh, right; while fighting the Deku baba, he had tried using his torch to set it aflame, or at least see what it could do. Before he reached it, however, the Deku Baba had snapped its teeth at him eerily close, causing him to drop the torch, which he had then tried to grab out of mid-air—only for his hand to close on the lit end. His palm pulsed in pain as a reminder.

Cleaning a burn… how did one do that? All Link knew about how to treat a wound was drink a potion, and all the burns he had gotten at Death Mountain seemed to heal with the potions he’d taken, so… what was the big deal?

Well, as good as Sheik was at predicting Link’s every move, they were also incredible at reading his thoughts.

“Why can’t I use a potion, Sheik?” The Sheikah asked in a playful yet mocking tone. All Link had to do was look at them before they continued as if they could see him—or maybe they just knew. “Don’t give me that look; you’re highly inquisitive, Hero of Time. You cannot tell me you weren’t going to ask without lying to me.”

“Well—” Link protested, only for his voice to fade off into nothing. Sheik was right—they always were. So instead, Link just laid quietly as the Sheikah finished their work, biting back noises of pain.

Soon after, Sheik wrapped his leg tight and neat with the cloth, tucking the end underneath, then released a long sigh before moving off their haunches to sit on the ground instead. They held a hand out to Link, beckoning towards his hand, and he used his elbows and his good hand to push himself up before holding his hand out to Sheik. While his gloves had done a good job protecting his palm, his fingertips were bright red, and a couple had small bubbles on them. Sheik turned his hand over in their own, inspecting it, before shrugging and releasing his hand.

“Not nearly as bad as I thought,” Sheik said, pausing at the sight of their own hands before unwrapping the bloody bandages. “You got lucky, Hero. A moment longer and you could have been in two places of Hyrule at the same time.”

Link shrugged as well, grinning at the other. “Cool story though, right?”

Sheik rolled their eyes and shook their head, but as they turned away, he could tell they were amused. He followed their line of sight, admiring the scenery once more as a comfortable silence fell between them. Even the Sheikah was at ease, something that never happened, and so Link let his guard down and relaxed.

Silence these days was a rare occurrence, and often it was not welcome. Too often Link found himself settled in silence, ears twitching, body thrumming in pain as he settled in the smallest crevice he could fit into the sleep. Even with the clear safety he managed to find sometimes, he couldn’t find it in him to relax. So now it was just…

It felt good.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: july 2023

I don't have a cool and witty opening for this one. I read a fuck of a lot of books this month and I want to tell you about them LET'S GO

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - Black Water Sister has a very fun premise: a closeted lesbian and unemployed recent graduate moves back to Malaysia with her parents and is already having a bad enough time when she starts hearing the voice of her dead grandmother, who turns out to have been deeply involved in supernatural organized crime. our hapless protagonist becomes a medium against her will, and has to navigate to world of Malaysian spirits and superstition to lay her grandma to rest. unfortunately the actual style of the story wasn't more me; although definitely adult fiction, the prose is breezy in a way I affiliate strongly with YA, which is not to my personal taste but is still so hashtag valid. if you're one of the countless people trying to make that jump from YA to adult fiction and you like queer urban fantasy then Black Water Sister might be a great fit for you, although I should provide a warning for a pretty surprisingly graphic near-rape in the book's climax that really took me by surprise in a story that's otherwise pretty zany in its violence.

The Bride Test (Helen Hoang, 2019) - I think I said last month that Alexis Hall's A Lady for a Duke was the best so far of the romance-novel-every-month scheme I'm trying to pull off this year. the Bride Test has pretty swiftly displaced it; have I finally discovered the really good romance novels? (worry not; I know what I'm reading for August and my hopes are. low.) our two protagonists, Mỹ/Esme (her chosen American/English name) and Khai, are both genuinely charming and are pretty strong characters independent of each other, which cannot be said for A Lot of romance protags. despite the absolute insanity of how they met (yes, Khai's mother went to Vietnam and offered, uneducated a poor single mother a tourist visa in exchange for trying to seduce her autistic son. yes, that's shady. don't think about it too hard) and Esme waiting until WAY too late in the game to reveal the existence of HER LIVING HUMAN CHILD, I liked this book a lot. it's silly and heartfelt and I had fun; what else do you need? 5/5 eggplant emojis.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - there's probably nothing I can say about Giovanni's Room that I could say that someone smarter and gayer hasn't already said, but god. it really is breathtaking. I so often see this book talked about as a gay tragedy, and honestly that feels like almost too glib of a description. it's a really meticulous dissection of white male masculinity and the claustrophobic constraints there of, and our narrator's claustrophobic fear of divesting himself from the power that he's entitled to by virtue of being a white American man perceived as a heterosexual. this man would rather live in repressed misery for his entire life than risk being like those effeminate faggots at the gay club, but spoiler alert! being miserable doesn't make you better than your fellow fags; it just means you're miserable AND a fag. sharp and painful and so so so smart. also I'm going to summon @zaricats because I was supposed to tell you what I thought about this book. oops!

Lone Women (Victor LaValle, 2023) - okay so listen. did I just say Black Water Sister wasn't really for me because of the simplistic prose? yes. did I really enjoy the very sparse, straightforward style of Lone Women? also yes. leave me alone, I contain contradictions. anyway, Lone Women is a ripping piece of historical fiction spliced with supernatural secrets, based on LaValle's research into 19th century Black women homesteaders who made their lives in Montana. LaValle opens on a scene of irresistible intrigue - Adelaide Henry, lone woman, sets out for Montana with a mysteriously heavy trunk after burning down her family's California farm with her parents' mutilated corpses inside. and boy, does it escalate from there! it's a story about isolation and community and the people who are failed by so-called close knit small towns, and the ways in which vulnerable people band together to protect one another. it also makes the compelling point that maybe, just maybe, the real monsters were your local transphobe and her husband's lynch mob all along.

Black Disability Politics (Sami Schalk, 2022) - what a cool book! Schalk's argument begins with the idea that Black disability politics are distinct from predominantly white mainstream disability politics, and are therefore often overlooked in conversation, activism, and academia. Schalk analyzes the historical work of the Black Panthers and the National Black Women's Health Project to showcase what she describes as Black disability politics in action. in Schalk's conception, Black disability politics take a much more holistic approach to disability, conceptualizing as just one form (and, frequently, as a result of) of oppression tangled up with a myriad of others that cannot be meaningfully addressed when they're treated as separate issues. the book concludes in interviews with contemporary Black disability activists and organizers that shed light on ways in which the wider movement is often unwelcoming to folks of color, and an exhortation from Schalk for readers to continue the conversation well beyond the confines of the book. in a killer show of praxis, the entire book has been made available to read in PDF form, and I strongly recommend giving it a look!

The River of Silver (S.A. Chakraborty, 2022) - mentally I am kicking myself a little for waiting so long to read this continuation of my beloved Daevabad trilogy, because it did take me a minute to get back into the swing and mythology of the world and that did make me feel unpleasantly like I wasn't appreciating these character-focused short stories as much as I could be. but even having said that - man! fuck I love the world of Daevabad, and I adore these characters so much. getting to see them again, even briefly, was a delight, and I am once again congratulating Nahri and Ali on being the invention of heterosexual romance. (also, on a related note, but I ADORE the way Chakraborty writes her characters having crushes. they crush SO hard and it's very sweet. these books are such big drama all the way down.)

Men We Reaped (Jesmyn Ward, 2013) - an absolute powerhouse of a memoir, and devastating the whole way down. in Men We Reaped Ward attempts to make sense of a series of tragedies that befell her community when five young Black men - beginning with Ward's younger brother - died between 2000 and 2004. the word 'unflinching' is hopelessly played out, but it's difficult to figure out how to describe the head-on way Ward explores each young man's life and ultimate end and her own upbringing. the men in Ward's history - her brother, the friends she lost, her father and other male relatives - are never idealized; their demons, miseries, infidelities, addictions, and violence are placed on full display. but Ward is also insistent on displaying these men with dignity, compassion, empathy; showing them at their best and, most importantly, as men who were loved and deserved better than the violence that poverty and racism wrought on them. it's a furious memoir, one that will leave you mourning too.

Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015) - did I only read this so I can make more informed complaints if/when I end up watching the netflix movie with my wife? YES. but listen, it wasn't JUST petty hater behavior. Nimona is just really good, and I think I got a lot more out of it this time around that I did when I first read it years ago. this comic is wild and unfettered and so spectacularly weird; I wish more things felt the way Nimona does. I also with more things starred small girls begging to kill cops and stage a violent overthrow of the government, that rules hard. also man I love Ballister, he's SUCH a good protagonist. he's curmudgeonly, he's deeply principled, he's held a grudge for years, he's paternal, he's even gay. what a guy!

[bonefall]

So I followed the tiktok link the other anon sent, and said tiktoker HAS NO IDEA WHAT is going on EITHER. Basically she had has plants growing in like raised rows? With the Spearmint higher than the blueberries, and she's watering and notices a Spearmint plant in the blueberry section so she goes to gently pull it up by the roots (if it's not too entangled) and place it with its siblings In the Spearmint section, but when she goes to do so, it's not in the dirt it's on the blueberry plant?? So she's literally freaking out in the tiktok.

Hm, well, doesn't mint propagate from cuttings? Maybe there's a possibility that it's just a spearmint that's growing off a blueberry host. I remember reading that ash trees (also in the order) can be grafted with apples, perhaps that's what happened?

"Grafting" for those who don't know: You cut the branch off one tree, and splice a different species onto it like Dr. Frankenstein. In this way, you can have multiple types of fruit growing off a single trunk.

It's useful for apple farming in particular because you'll already know you like the taste of the fruit from the "original" tree, and it's why if you just plant the seeds from whatever store apple, it'll probably taste nothing like its parent the 10 years it takes to grow.

[radiomonkeys2]

Enekai with differing levels of bioelectricity, looking exactly like a Hóuxiān monkey (猴仙) sometimes.

Drawn by MKUchiha and Salvamakoto

Enekai was the first Yaban character I created, both predating and building off my earlier (and technically later) OC, Romaine

I have no idea why Romaine got so popular back in 2017-2018 other than the popularity of edgy OCs and Caulifla. The story of Enekai and Romaine is funny, but the truncated version is that I created Enekai at some point in 2013 for an entirely different, entirely non-Dragon Ball related story

...and recycled the basic concept of this young girl/young woman who possessed inconceivable levels of electrotelekinetic power for a few years, right up into the first Xenoverse game where I decided to adapt Enekai into a Saiyan for fun and roleplaying profit. Then that version of Enekai bounced back and forth between being a Saiyan and an elf (for yet another, separate story)

The main thing noteworthy about Enekai being that, when she was fully power-charged, she had Super Saiyan Future Trunks' hair (a trait which some artists seemed to struggle to understand)

Just because of how stupid and wild it looked, I loved that hairstyle. And helping matters was, as I mentioned before, the realization that Super Saiyan hair (and possibly even regular Saiyan hair) was so spiky because of bioelectricity

Well, because that was Enekai's standard look, I was going to go all in on adapting her into the form of a Saiyan, and this tied into the proto-Yabanverse Dragon Ball fanfic I had of there being different "tribes" of Saiyan between the elite Jinbraljin, the commoner Patotajin, and the violent demonoid outcasts Mayasaijin, with Enekai being a hybrid of the latter two.

Well, about six months after that last commission with Enekai having extreme hair, another Saiyan was introduced. A Saiyan girl with the same hairstyle as Super Saiyan Future Trunks.

This presented a slight problem because now basically no matter what I did to say otherwise, any Enekai commission would easily be accused of being a typical recolor OC, so I decided to just roll with it and commission Caulifla, but now with muscles and Hiei's clothes

And also, just for fun, I commissioned Kale with her hair down

Because look at her! Actually r63 Z!Broly, and no one seemed to realize it at that particular moment in time.

(This seems to have been the start of Salvamakoto's commission career, unless I'm mistaken)

Well that was fun, but I eventually wanted to commission Enekai in full, but again I chickened out, and decided to revisit Hiei-lifla and make some "edgelord donut steel" adjustments, and voila, Romaine

Then, it was mid-December 2017 when I decided to drop all pretenses and just make the Yabanverse a thing

"I'll make my own Saiyans! With blackjack! And hookers!"

And I had Enekai right there, so I used her as the basis for the "Yabansaru-seijin".

@nolanthebiggestnerd

Enekai's design with the elf ears and weirdly ghoulish skin is a vestigial remnant of the very early Yabanverse, back when Yabans were just similar to Saiyans but actually spliced from alien monkeys and elves and Enekai herself was still very recently an elf herself IRL.

Enekai was a fine MC for the Yabanverse, but my sentiment on her soured after I created Yulaan because I became ever more aware that Enekai was literally r!63 Son Goku. Take just about every single trait of Goku, and then add boobs, and you have Enekai. So much so that I nicknamed her "Lady Wukong"

We already have Son Goku. He's called Son Goku, and he's a perfectly fine Son Goku. Yulaan the Skullcrushing battle-crazed monkey pipsqueak forced to live in whitebread suburbia at least seemed more unique in comparison.

"But isn't Yuta also Diet Goku?"

Zip it!

I've never gotten rid of Enekai; she's still the one I feel should lead Strongest Under Heaven.

[topazadine]

Character Writing Exercises

I'm quickly hopping in on the fun writing exercise created by @davycoquette before work lmao

Rules: Paint a picture of a character by describing their bedroom while they’re not in it.

I'll do my beloved Mordrek Willets, former Sinan Intelligence Services officer and all-around ne'er-do-well!

***

Winding along the Kulniryi cliffs, the very edge of the continent, lies Thieves' Quarter. Home to the city's meanest and most desperate inhabitants, who have made their homes by burrowing into the rock faces and stealing flotsam from shipwrecks, one would never expect opulence or comfort in these rude-carved quarters.

As usual, Mordrek Willets defies expectations.

A faint whiff of must and salt hums underneath a foreign perfume rich with black pepper. Careful fumigation cannot wholly irradicate this souvenir of the sea.

Flickering electric lights - illegally spliced from Kulniryi's newly-installed power system - play over bedclothes in a heap. The top blanket is made of plain blue wool, likely the remnants of old sailors' trunks, but delving deeper reveals a luxurious bedcover, embroidered in multicolored leaf patterns interspersed with aggressive, riotously bright animals. This one, at least, was not stolen from anywhere; it was a hush present from a Koffa tribeswoman who did not wish for her infidelity to be made public.

Underneath these is a set of sheets made from shot silk; when the light hits it right, the fabric turns a brilliant gold-blue, changing its proportions when shifted ever so slightly.

Though the pillows are covered in gorgeous cotton pillowcases, printed by hand in faraway Rixia, they smell faintly of sweat and liquor. Two sharp knives, their handles carved from cow femurs, lay sheathed beneath.

The bed itself is carved with fantastical animals: two-headed cows, lions with horse faces, a cat curled into a pretzel. One might imagine this the grave good of a great ruler, and perhaps it is. Mordrek asks no questions of what he drags out of the depths.

At its foot sits a heavy sea chest with several locks, all in different styles. Picking them all would take ages - not to mention advanced knowledge of the many fastening styles in vogue across the world - but should one succeed, they would be greeted with an unusual sight.

Nestled amongst the fir bones of this sea chest are unsealed letters, government documents, taboo books from faraway lands, and mementos from former lovers. Most of whom are now married, mothers, or dead.

Pretty hair bows, bulky jewelry made from precious metals, even the fingerbones of one woman's dead relatives wired as a bracelet. Each is tucked into a white muslin bag, titled with the gifter's name and place of origin. On some, Mordrek has deigned to write something he loved about this lady he could not keep for long.

Reading them seems like a whirlwind trip through geography, history, and a man's lonely life: Rixia, Koffa, the Cow Republic, the Fuarese Union, Janailan before the civil war. Even one from the tiny island of Down Derby, known for its carnivorous sheep.

One cannot help feeling a bit melancholy, especially when they notice the half-empty liquor bottles from each corresponding nation tucked amongst the mementos. Many of the items are slightly stained from alcohol or sebum, suggesting Mordrek picks them up and investigates them on a regular basis. Remembering all the lovers he was cursed to leave behind everywhere he goes.

But quick! The front door, stolen from a luxurious Triechelle barque, may open any minute. Turn off the pilfered solar power, creep into the grand living room, and sneak past his mule, who grouses in a stable in front of the entryway.

Those of Thieves' Quarter, quite predictably, don't take well to intruders. Best that Mordrek not know you entered his most sacred, profane space. He wouldn't appreciate being caught out.

[kiatheinsomniac]

──── 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀 & 𝐀𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃 ˊˎ -

☾ ⋆ ﾟ𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 / 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒

𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: a commission from @mirroredpaladin of her OC and Alucard ♡

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: Adrian 'Alucard Tepes x Mina Belmont (OC)

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 3.6k

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: canon-typical threat, alcohol abuse

Your viridian eyes squinted in the darkness as you peered through the trees up ahead, vision spliced by branches and trunks. Were those lights in the distance? You remained wary as your hand brushed reassuringly over the hilt of the rapier at your hip, comforting yourself with the knowledge it was there and readjusting the strap of your lute over your shoulder. You knew that you had to be close to the Belmont Hold by now. But why were there lights up ahead? Shouldn’t it still be abandoned? And why was it so quiet? You hadn’t encountered a single night creature since your journey to the Hold began to draw towards its end. 

Night creatures. Those servants of Dracula’s army were the very reason why you were returning to the ruins of your childhood home. You had spent long enough away, long enough surviving in your amateur – in the eyes of a Belmont anyway – monster hunting skills. You had seen enough homes burn, enough people die and you could only help so many of them. You needed to do more; you needed to hone your skills, bring them to others, reconcile with the past that you had been running from. It had been long enough. 

Your eyes fought to see in the silvery moonlight as a cloud passed over the sky, squinting at the treetops as you continued down the path. Were those turrets? Surely not, your home never reached so high and even so it had been burned to the ground. But they didn’t look like the branches of trees either, they looked too distant. You trudged onwards with a newfound speed, eager to get to the bottom of this mystery and cursing the crescent moon for not providing you its full light. 

You stepped over the underbrush, the sound of a familiar stream trickling nearby filling your ears. The flap and hoot of an owl nearby in the otherwise silent night. You spurred onwards as you drew towards the treeline that you knew would open up into the clearing wherein the ruins of your home and the Belmont Hold resided but you froze the moment you set foot on the grass, lush from not being overshadowed by trees. 

Beside the Hold stood a great and terrible castle with pointed architecture that climbed up into the sky like a threat to breach the heavens. It stood menacingly tall, casting its shadows over the skeleton of your childhood home beside it and your eyes then caught onto the scaffolding surrounding where you knew the entrance of the hold to be. 

You had been gone for a long time, yes, but certainly not long enough for anyone to build such a towering structure. And you knew of only one castle in the world which could move as if by magic. 

Dracula’s Castle. 

You froze for a moment as you considered your next steps. Going into the castle certainly wasn’t an option. You were in no shape to fight Lord Dracula himself but you were also weary from your journey and had a job to do. Instead, you made your way around the back of the Hold, sticking to shadows and keeping low whenever necessary. 

A pulley system had been put up in order to lower anyone down into the gaping hole in the ground that now functioned as the door to your family’s hold. What a waste of all the magic that had once been put into its secret entrance. You could only assume that Dracula and his servants had destroyed the entrance as a means of bypassing its magic. But surely Dracula would know how to decipher such a lock? That didn’t add up and you took a mental note of it so that you might get to the bottom of it later. 

You used the pulley system to make your way down what had once been spiralling stairs which had seemed such a task to ascend in your childhood. Thankfully, you found that the Hold itself was not in such a state as its entrance and so you began to sweep the hold, stalking the aisles of books, weapons, artefacts and trophies upon each floor before deeming that the remains of your childhood home were safe to sleep in.

You started a small fire in the fireplace, intending for it to just warm you from the cold outside and go out while you slept, before dragging a sofa over. You took out your blanket from your pack and laid it over your body, your sword on the floor beside you in case you should be startled awake in the night. 

Your aching muscles sighed and unwound in relief at finally, finally having something other than the ground to sleep on. You had stayed at inns for the first leg of your journey but you found that it was far too costly and you had to prioritise food instead. It had been weeks since you had a pillow beneath your weary head. 

*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*

When you woke, the fire was out and it was noticeably colder in the room. The smell of wine and some other reeking bodily odour invaded your nostrils and you peered through your now messy copper hair to see a tall figure looming over you. Like a viper striking, your hand shot down to the hilt of your sword but you were unable to lift it, the man’s boot-clad food already stepping on the rapier’s blade. 

Upon seeing your fighting instincts awaken with your mind and body, the man’s hand shot to your throat in an attempt to pin you down but you swung your legs up to kick him in the side of the head, making him stumble backwards. He fell into the armchair behind him and you tried to shoot to your feet despite the blanket tangled around your legs, your rapier now in your hand with its end pointed to the man. He simply groaned as he collided with the chair and his body language, paired with his smell, told you that he was drunk. Advantage to you. 

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” You asked, not wanting to hurt him in such a sorry state if you could help it. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” He replied, rubbing the side of his now pounding head as he squinted up at you against the lights above your head. You didn’t miss the pointed fangs that peeked out from behind his lips when he spoke. He was a vampire – this surely couldn’t be Lord Dracula? Drunk and seemingly defenceless at the end of your blade. No, this couldn’t be him; so where was he? 

“I’m here because this is my home… well it was. What’s your purpose-” the tip of your blade kissed his pale cheek, “-vampire?” 

“I’ve met the last of the Belmonts and you’re not him.” His silvery eyed glared at you, the liar pointing her blade to him. Your breath hitched when a cool sensation pressed to your throat and your green eyes shifted to the side, seeing the hilt of the longsword that was hovering at your throat. Perhaps he had intended to make you stand down but, instead, your blade came to rest at his throat too. Now you were even. The sword to your neck had been such a shock that it took you a moment to process his words. 

“You’ve met Trevor?” He didn’t miss how your eyes widened hopefully. He merely hummed a yes, “Where is he now?” 

“Somewhere with his lady.” 

“His lady?” Your voice asked quietly. Had it truly been so long that you didn’t even know you had a sister-in-law now? Hell, were they even married or just together? You’d been away from your older brother for too long, that much you were sure of. Okay, so this wasn’t Dracula and he clearly knew Trevor very personally. Just who was he? You would need his trust to pry out the answers to all of these questions that were flooding your mind. “In my pack,” You nodded your head slightly in the direction of it as you lowered your sword to your side, “there’s a coat in there with the Belmont crest on it.” The vampire eyed you warily before pulling out the coat from your pack and indeed finding your family’s crest upon it. 

“How did you happen upon this?” He asked after examining it.

“Did Trevor really not mention me? Wilhelmina? Mina?” He merely looked unimpressed before recognition crossed his expression. 

“Mina whose cat ran away?” He recalled when he had poked fun at Belmont’s family Hold, suggesting he might find mummified cats between the shelves and he had scoffed before making some comment about Mina’s cat actually running away. It was the only time he had mentioned your name. 

“Yes!” You exclaimed. His sword left your throat, levitating vertically behind him instead. Now that he looked at you, he could see some similarities between you and your brother in the structure of your face, even if the colour of your hair and eyes were vastly different. He concluded that you must be half-siblings. Your face suited you more than his – or maybe Trevor was just a pain in the ass and that made Alucard a bit biassed. 

“We should talk elsewhere about what we’re both doing here. You look hungry.” You opened your mouth to protest that speaking just here was fine but your stomach interrupted you before you could get a word out. 

*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*

You looked down at your empty plate of what had been rice and fish as Alucard downed the glass of wine he had poured for you but you refused. He drank his own and yours. Trevor truly had only mentioned you once in a passing comment? Even given how much time their trio had spent together, he really hadn’t told them about you. It was your own fault for running away, you knew, and it’s why you were back in the first place – to finally carry out your duties as a Belmont and to reconcile with your past, your big brother included. You never thought you’d be sitting at a dinner table with Dracula’s son either. 

You were wary of the bodies staked outside, his reluctance to narrate who they were and his overindulgence in alcohol but he had described those bodies as ‘those who tried to betray me’. All you had to do was not cross him, it seemed. If he was as close a friend to your brother as he claimed to be, you had no intention of betraying him anyway. You were desperate to meet Sypha who sounded so collected and intelligent and who may well be your sister-in-law soon enough. 

Trevor had left him to make something of the combined knowledge of the Belmont Hold and Dracula’s Castle. You were here to protect and tutor yourself in the knowledge of your family’s Hold. You both decided that you would stay in the castle but he had laid down a few rules. You stay in your designated section of the castle at night and he wouldn’t intrude on your space. At first you had argued that it was unfair that he had free reign of nearly the entire castle but he had reminded you that it was his castle now and so you could hardly protest that fact. 

“Now that we’re both filled in on why the other is here, you should rest. I interrupted you earlier.” 

“Right…” You stood from your chair and insisted on cleaning up since he had been the one to cook for you. It was a near sorry sight to watch him cook while clearly drunk but he insisted and the food had tasted fine enough in the end. “Good night, Alucard…” You murmured in the doorway, hoping that he wouldn’t overindulge himself in the alcohol. 

*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*

Living with Alucard had started off as much more difficult than you had anticipated. After your little chat when he allowed you to stay in his castle, he became very distant and you rarely ever saw him, let alone spoke with him. Any time you did see him, it was usually stumbling around the entrance of the Castle with an empty bottle or two nearby, spewing curses in Romanian like venom to the two rotting corpses on the doorstep. He stank and often left dirty dishes behind himself in the kitchen, never properly cleaning up after himself. 

One day, when your hunger tore you away from your studies in the Belmont Hold, you returned to the castle to find Alucard passed out in the doorway. You had tried to get him to his room by throwing his arm over your shoulder once before when you found him like this but that had only earned you hostility, flashes of fangs and insults as he insisted he was fine and you weren’t to touch him as he stumbled back to his room. You couldn’t allow yourself to leave him on the doorstep but you also didn’t feel like having your kindness thrown back in your face either and so you stepped over him to collect a bucket and over him once more as you made your way to the little stream nearby to fill it. 

Upon returning to the Castle, you promptly dumped the cold water over his body. 

“Up you get.” You crouched down beside him at a safe distance, “You look a state and you smell it too. Consider this a prelude to the bath you should go and take.” He let out a long groan and glared at you from behind thick, blond lashes. “I get that you’re going through a tough time, Alucard but wallowing in stench and booze isn’t going to solve anything. Consider this me being cruel to be kind.” 

“I don’t want your kindness.” 

“You don’t want it or you don’t deserve it?” You threw back, knowing well how hard kindness could be to accept when guilt was gnawing at you. He went silent at your accurate observation, telling you all you needed to know. “How about this: you wash up so I don’t have to smell you anymore and I’ll cook dinner for the two of us? I never did get to return that favour after the first night here.” He stumbled to his feet and as much as you wanted to reach out to help steady him, you knew that he would still need a little distance. 

“Sure…” He mumbled. 

“There you go, I’ll see you in a bit, Alucard.” 

*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*

That was the beginning of you helping Alucard to heal. You would spend your evenings with him to try and curb his drinking and it seemed to work quite well. The two of you would even venture down into the Hold together and he would assist in your studies and research, learning many things himself along the way. Eventually, this morphed into the two of you grabbing some books from Dracula’s library and curling up at the foot of a sofa in front of a fireplace in some drawing room or another. On some nights, the books would be ditched completely and you would strum a tune on your lute for him, your voice filling the room. 

He washed regularly now, would indulge in your company and you had a rotation for who would cook meals that day. He was healing, it seemed, even if he had yet to talk about what had made him want to drink so heavily in the first place. You knew not to push him too and you were sure he felt the same way. He didn’t completely trust you and you understood because you felt the same way about him, no matter how much you enjoyed his company. 

Tonight was another one of those nights spent in a drawing room of the castle with a little pile of books nearby but your brain felt fried and you could no longer take in the words upon the pages, opting instead to mark your place in the book and lean back against the sofa. You reached for your lute, plucking each string to check that it had not slipped out of tune before Alucard took your hand in his, shocking you not only with his cool body temperature but the gesture itself. He himself seemed surprised at his boldness as a faint pink dusted his cheeks.

“Come with me; bring the lute.” He instructed as he rose to his feet and you followed suit. He reached for your hand again but with much more shyness this time, the back of his palm merely brushing against your before he hooked his little finger around yours and he led you through the complex corridors of the Castle that had served as his childhood home. He was being far more touchy than he ever had with you before and it made your heart flutter in your chest, pulse thrumming slightly in your ears as he finally led you to a grand dance hall. On the far wall was a short stage where a harpsichord stood and he led you over to it, pulling up a chair for you as he took a seat at the stool. 

“That song you played last week, I learned it.” He gave a small smile and you adored the little flash of his fangs within it. He usually spoke in a way that mostly kept them concealed behind his lips but it was heart-warming to see him finally letting his guard down around you. 

“Okay…” You replied, his smile spreading to your own mouth, “Let’s see what you’ve got.” Your fingers slid down the neck of the lute until they were in place and with a few taps of your foot to count down, a duet began to dance through the hall. It was incredible, that he had been so attentive to this song of yours that he had learned to play it by ear – truly also a testament to his skill but you supposed a noble like him would have had music implemented into his learning curriculum. You couldn’t erase the smile from your face as he turned to you by the time the song was done, the faint plucking of your fingers against the strings softening into silence. 

“Mina… I really enjoy your company, I just want you to know that.” He was being uncharacteristically open with you and a large part of you was relieved by that because it felt like you were finally being given that needed push to do the same. The two of you had circled around one another in distrust for long enough, distrust had given way to reluctance and now it seemed that the two of you were finally giving in. 

“So do I…” You replied honestly. You wanted to know more about Alucard, you wanted to know everything so that you could tell him everything about yourself but you knew that while tonight was a leap, it wouldn’t be the end of this prickly trust and, as long as he kept on smiling like he was now, you were more than content with that. 

“You always play such wonderful music for me. Shall I return the favour tonight?” You set your lute aside and eagerly nodded your head, getting up from your chair to instead join him on the stool, keen to see how this instrument was played. And oh, how adorable, he seemed rather flustered by your decision to change seats. 

Two hours passed like minutes and you found yourself leaning your head on his shoulder to watch his hands dance across the keys, eventually closing your eyes to just listen to the romantic melody until you could hear nothing at all. By the time the song finished, you didn’t flood him with compliments as you had with every other composition and so he turned his head just enough to see your eyes closed, lips slightly parted as you inhaled and exhaled steadily, asleep. 

“My, I hope I haven’t bored you into slumber…” He murmured quietly, rather amused. Careful to not wake you, his hand reached up to caress your warm cheek, feeling your breath fan gently against his hand. To think: a Belmont falling asleep on the shoulder of a dhampir. But you weren’t just some monster hunter, no, he had seen your mindset through all these evening conversations with you and you did not see him as a monster. You saw the good in everything before you saw the bad, you believed that it was choice that made monsters, not nature. One could not help what they are born as but they can decide who they will be. You had reintroduced optimism to his life where he had allowed himself to drown in pity, loneliness and despair. 

He didn’t know how to thank you enough. 

He yearned to be closer to you but he still found himself unable to trust, knowing it would ruin him should you break his fragile heart that he longed to just place in your palms because it belonged there, with you. You had healed many of his wounds but he knew that the one healer he must depend on now was time. Likewise for you: he knew that there was a rift between you and Trevor, even if you hadn’t explicitly explained it to him. Adrian suspected that you were here to try and reconcile with him and so you would have to wait for your brother’s return to do so. 

His hand on your cheek moved downwards to pick up a lock of your fiery-copper hair, bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss, finding that any other sort of kiss would be highly improper. You were a lady and it was his duty as a man to respect that. 

Adrian wanted so dearly to love you but he knew that he must learn to trust you first and oh the anticipation of it all could eat him alive. 

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[roachliquid]

Had a dream this morning where I conjured up an entire Pacific Rim AU. Instead of fighting kaiju on Earth, a bunch of people (mostly soldiers and scientists) were stuck on an alien world where they were repeatedly threatened by physically modified locals, sort of like Stargate: Atlantis but all on one planet.

The world, at least the parts that were relevant to the story, was a series of beautiful oceanic caves. They were split between places with air where the humans could move without special equipment (the smaller area) and fully submerged caves where the amphibious locals spent most of their time. I don't remember what the locals looked like very well, other than that they were humanoid, blue, and had short tapir-like trunks and round black eyes, as well as symmetrical ridges on the sides of their face and body. Their aquatic modifications were due to having been spliced with another lifeform, one that lived in the ocean and had telepathic abiities.

About half to 2/3 of the locals served the ones who had spliced them, a violent colonialist group of a different alien species, who had modified them for use as an army. They were currently under orders to eliminate the humans, who had been fighting them off for some time, with middling success. The remainder had formed a resistance, and had made occasional but peaceful contact with the humans, whom they also lent assistance when possible.

Recently, one of the military leaders had decided to take extra steps against the threat. He determined that in order to fight off the amphibious aliens, humans needed to undergo splicing with the same local creature, allowing them to engage with their enemy on more equal footing. Many people were against this for reasonable ethical concerns, but several of the soldiers reluctantly agreed.

Their number included Raleigh Becket, the POV character in the dream. And while he expected the modifications to make fighting easier, he was not prepared for the full implications of the splice - particularly, the telepathic ability to sense other spliced persons and the realization that they were in a way his "kin". Especially when a few resistance members arrived, having pursued a group of enemy soldiers who had started attacking the human encampment, and he realized that for the first time he could go where they could go and feel what they could feel.

Afterwards, the dream went some silly places for a while and then ended. But clearly, GdT needs to call me.

[pokemoncontestprodigy]

[A video is attached, which is spliced together from several clips. It begins with Michael and Justice wandering through a Fir Tree Orchard. Sam is holding the camera, as the two pokemon seem to discuss which tree to choose. With Sam's input, the trio finally settle on a tree. The camera is passed to Michael, as Justice the Iron Valiant readies his blades, and slices through the trunk of the tree in one clean motion. Sam is seen shifting into his Sylveon form, as she and Justice move to catch the tree, Justice supporting most of the weight while Sam guides it with her ribbons.

[The film cuts to a shot of the tree now set up in Sam's home. The trio are putting the finishing touches on the tree, as well as other Delibird Day decorations around the house. It's clear the trio are having a ton of fun doing so, making jokes, laughing, and having fun.

[The final shot of the video is of a generic Delibird Day Greeting Card, with two photos. First is a formal picture of the trio side-by-side. Michael on the left, Sam in his human form in the middle, and Justice on the right. The other is a shot from above. Michael is coiled up into a ring. In the center of the ring Justice sits cross-legged, with Sylveon Sam laying across his lap. These photos are displayed alongside the word "Happy Holidays" in bold white letters.]

Happy Delibird Day! Finally got the Holiday video this year together. Took longer than I expected to get everything decorated, but we're ready to celebrate! Hope you all have a wonderful Holiday!

[drag-on-my-balls-z]

Vegeta Reproducing as Transgender

⚠️I am not trans, I only know a couple trans. I am not trying to write anything offensive, this is just how I see it going with the advanced tech and Sci-Fi esc nature of Dragon Ball.⚠️

As a child, Vegeta was born female. But, seeing as their race was at risk of extinction, he agreed to being changed throughout his years to a male, so he can keep the Saiyajins alive.

He only got top surgery before Frieza knew about him. So, he knew Vegeta as a boy, just thought he was a girly-looking boy. Once he was an adult, and ready to rebuild the race, he wasn’t sure how to get to the point of physically reproducing with females.

So, knowing Vesper is a Tuffle, and his sworn protector, he asked if she could help.

She happily agreed. So, she started doing anatomy studies. She hesitated to do study Vegeta, since it meant she’d be putting her hands on his bare body.

She figured out how she’d perform a sex change surgery successfully. After the surgery, she created a hormone drug for him to take. While it slowly replaced his Estrogen with Testosterone like normal hormone therapy, she managed to splice his DNA with Goku’s in order to make working male sperm.

His DNA dominates Goku’s within the substance, so his children take his male genes, not Goku’s. (Goku’s was only a base for sperm)

It took him a while to get used to the drastic changes from the hormones, and the new appendage; but with some help from Vesper reading him books and articles about the male biology, he got used to it about a month or two before he got with Bulma the first time.

Seeing the success of conceiving Trunks, and how much he resembled Vegeta, he waited to have another child (Bulla), so he could get stronger for his new family and regrowing race. To fit the title of Prince.

Since then, he’s kept the crown Vesper presented him on his arrival to Earth at his bedside every night and his hip during the day.

[delirim]

OUT OF THE MURK, starter / @morpheusxdream

DELIRIUM stands in her gallery—if it could be called as such. The half-functional department of her realm is a whirlwind of colors and images, ever-changing and almost two-dimensional in form. Like collage, hastily configured. They float about, fish morphing into babies into broken mugs into flowers into beasts. Something is...wrong, here; out of the ordinary—what’s left of it. The colors shift too quickly, converging into messes of complimentary and tertiary hues that meld together into a great, black nothing. Or perhaps it’s a brown nothing. Or gray.

The queen of this realm stomps through its formless space. She rips irritatedly at the fish-netted fabric that covers her, and pulls at the seams of her long, dirty brown coat. Her face is twisted into a horrible, angry, confused expression.

Within the mess, each of her siblings’ emblem takes on a sort of tangible shape. Destiny’s book snaps its dusty jaws, swimming like some strange fish through the void. Death’s ankh wiggles spinelessly, and Desire’s heart swells to near-bursting; a fleshy balloon of pure want that writhes. Despair’s fishhook ring shoots through space, and splices violently through whatever creature stands in its way. The ring appears to cry as it does so, and it is no longer a piece of jewelry. Destruction has no symbol, and Delirium seems to have misplaced her own.

DREAM’S symbol— his helm— is perhaps the most monstrous of all. Its large bug eyes jut out from the ancient frame, and it’s boney trunk curls threateningly outward. It takes the form of something vaguely man-shaped, ink-colored and sharp-clawed. Rasping into the muddled cosmos of Delirium’s void, Dream’s helm stares. Its black, cloaked body warps and separates and squelches; a terrible, jelly-thing. 

Delirium has had enough of her own realm. It reflects the vexed turmoil she feels, and she hates its confrontationalism. She hates it. Hates, hates, hates. And instead of finding comfort in the swath of bright colors and the myriad of creatures that keep her company, she unknowingly transforms it into a muddy nothing.

She needs out. Now. 

And while Dream’s helm and its moving, arm-like tendrils scare her like no other thing has scared her before, she dashes forward on two bare feet and throws herself against it. Climbs it, and rips the helm from its expressionless, inhuman face. 

❝ Dream— please, answer me. ❞

Grasping the helm in her two small hands, and staring into its bug eyes, she shakes it vigorously.

❝ Answer me, now! ... DREAM ! ❞

[wrestlingcheese]

27/02 Cable junction

A mass of enormous cables link up here, before splitting out to route into either the Uplink Station for transmission, or the Data Drum for Storage. Each input cable is easily half a metre thick, and they sprout from the walls, floor and ceiling like tree trunks. The room is filled with a persistent background hum of electricity, and the room is warm, dark and crowded.

A clear hack-job has been completed upon one of the cables, with a device spliced into one of the trunk cables. Scrawled around the device is graffiti: “THE WORM TURNS”, with the circular device taking the place of the “O”.

If the device is tampered with in any way, it will release a high-frequency transmission burst, sounding a bit like a biological dial-up tone, or possibly a complex morse code message, performed by a dolphin.

The Cable Junction is one of 3 main nests for Berry, the monstrous Whale-Worm escaped from IPAc. She has a 25% chance to already be in the room, her thick, pallid body disguised as another cable. If Berry is not in the room, the booby-trapped hacking device will summon her, drawing her to the room in [1d4+3] turns.

Finding her nest occupied, she will attempt to drive intruders away, but will actively attack, seeking vengeance if there are any scientists in the party. Besides her teeth, her body is brutally strong, and the tight entryways to the cable junction only enhance her speed.

Beluga-worm:

C: 40 I: 50 W: 80 (3) Bite: 2d10DMG

Crush: 6d6DMG, targets everyone in the room, friend and foe alike.

—————

The whale-worm came to me in a dream and I’m still on the fence about commissioning some art of it because I love it so much. Just a beluga whale, but with the proportions of an anaconda. Something about reams upon reams of pallid white flesh freaks me out.

[a-temple-in-unpeopled-land]

Theseus Asks Ariadne To Give Up The Act

If he withdrew one thread of vein, could slit and grasp through the aperture just one of the blue rivulets among that network of fine life-giving filaments, could he retrieve the whole of his body’s ocean, winding it back like unspooling the sweater of himself and finally escape the blankets of flesh that bound him to questions of god like unseeing bound to the corridors of an empty labyrinth?

When you don’t write a word for ten years the coil inside unfurls so quickly. I know these thoughts are only relatable in the way you might see a drugged-out sidewalk penitent rapid-firing tonguespeak and think to yourself, “They’ve really got something to say,” before shielding the eyes of your children and walking on. 

It’ll get better with practice. Think of this as the grueling physical therapy required to relearn how to walk after trauma-induced bed riddance. There’s trauma in a decade of silence. 

(Lispector reminded me of the toothache throughout the story, of the drum throughout the story She wrote her last novel to me. I remember when she told me about the cameras she’d set up in my body. I was charmed at her dedication to authenticity; preempting the toothache and the drumming was her small curse on me)

The emulative act of art as rendering, taking from life a finite piece of likeness, must always leave the puppy bald in patches. You couldn’t look my way a hundred times without stealing my attention. The mind is more a polished mirror than ever, not an interface for the actualization of self. What self? Is a man spliced from the organs of a hundred others really a self; is a student who walks on the backs of a hundred teachers really a seeker, or just an opinionated archivist? Polish the mirror back to sand. 

(There’s some anger in me toward god about the design of teeth and knees. Plants photosynthesize while we chew with irreparable, exposed bones? Birds take flight while the nexus of our gangly locomotion rides atop a knobby, calcified lump floating in a toddler’s cross-stitching of only the most fragile ligamenture— one fray and the whole contrivance unravels? Was this part of our Fall, god, or part of the plan? I ask you for all of us sinners, amen)

He never met someone, especially never a collective, that inspired in him a belief in the supremacy of humanity. His feeling on this topic soured with time and I haven’t followed him long enough to know if he could ever be convinced to bottle kvass with the leavenings of this loss. Where does one place the story of the heart if the life this heart sustains is poisonous? so he wondered, of everyone, as a grand projection of himself. He knew people didn’t feel this. They smiled at each other with a warmth that betrayed camaraderie to the Big Secret. Even with their cursing of god they loved each blessed inch of the scarred skin, every allotted tick of the mocking clock, the last drop of blood of every needlessly spoiled innocence— thank you, lord. 

He knew that the god of the trees was not the god of corporations, so he could not feel kinship with a world that recognized the personhood of corporations without recognizing the personhood, the divinity, of trees. There was a barking voice in his era which told folks that god created folks in god’s image. 

He knew trees were people more than corporations without looking at a single trunk. This he could see in his mind’s eye, the mind of god, which he was told he was created with.

[masterdonald101452]

1960 Chevy "Biscala" Summer Splice! Trunk Floor Redo Part 2...

[suntelecomcn]

FTTA Fiber Optic Distribution Box: Ideal Solution for 5G Network Application

FTTA (Fiber-to-the-Antenna) fiber optic distribution box is used for network access points terminals in the FTTx network. It has inlet and outlet cables pre-connected, eliminating the need for closure opening and fiber splicing. All ports are equipped with hardened adapters. The operators do not need to splice fibers or open boxes during optical distribution network (ODN) deployment, which improves service provisioning efficiency. This article discusses the FTTA fiber optic distribution box.

What is FTTA Fiber Optic Distribution Box?

FTTA fiber optic distribution box is a new economic fiber distributed solution for outdoor use. It is easy to operate and has high compatibility. It is used for wall-mounting, aerial, and holding pole installations.

Features and Benefits

High compatibility: can be assembled ODVA, Mini SC, ODC, H-connector

Factory-sealed or field assembly

1200N pulling force long term

From 6 to 12 ports for single or multi-fiber waterproof connectors

Available with PLC or splice sleeve for fiber divide

IP68 waterproof rating

Wall mounting, an aerial installation, or holding pole installation

Meet IEC 61753-1 standard

Application Scenarios

FTTH

Traditional solutions use ONU or FDH (Optical Network Unit/Fiber Distribution Hub) when trunk optical cable arrives outside mansions and villas. FTTA fiber optic distribution box can replace ONU or FDH because of the fiber distribution function. Inside, it can be fixed 2-4pcs 1*8 or 1*16 PLC and can be put 24pcs fiber splice protection sleeves. After mating with a 1-48F IP67 pre-assembled waterproof connector, the FTTA fiber optic distribution box can directly connect each mansion and villa or low-voltage silo. It can reduce signal loss through the fewer connecting nodes.

FTTA

Traditionally, remote radio units (RRU) and building baseband units (BBU) connected by fiber optic cable, formed star network topology. Each RRU needs one duplex outdoor cable link to BBU. The installation will need more time, and the cost will be high. FTTA fiber optic distribution box works as an Aggregation/Demark box, linking RRU and BBU together. From BBU to FTTA fiber optic distribution box, only need one multi-fiber hybrid cable. Then FTTA fiber optic distribution box divides fibers to each RRU through IP67 pre-assembled waterproof cable assemblies. RRU can get power through assembled power connector on the FTTA fiber optic distribution box. It can avoid needless duplication.

Trunk Cable Connecting

Trunk cable is fusion welded frequently because each drum cable's length is limited. So connecting point is weak and needs to be protected very well. When the trunk cable comes into the FTTA fiber optic distribution box, it will be sealed and fixed by a torsion-proof cable gland (plastic or metal type). For 5mm/14mm out diameter cable, the FTTA fiber optic distribution box has different accessories to fit.

The torsion gland can release stress when the trunk cable bends and protects fiber to avoid breaking. Inside the FTTA fiber optic distribution box, the main cable and strength member are fixed by a fastener, ensuring that the box can stand 1200N pulling force long term.

Military Communication

Connectors and cables cannot stand frequently, and high strength pulling and reuse. Inside the FTTA fiber optic distribution box, armored cable and strength member are fixed by a fastener, so ensure that the box can stand 1200N pulling force long term. High-strength material and arc interface design make sure the FTTA fiber optic distribution box works abnormally when suffering shocks.

Conclusion

FTTA fiber optic distribution box provides waterproof protection for use in harsh environments. It reduces the total cost of operation and has high compatibility and flexibility.

Sun Telecom specializes in providing one-stop total fiber optic solutions for all fiber optic application industries worldwide. Contact us if you have any needs.

[spookywhispersluminary]

Is Tech Making server utama Better or Worse?

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Fiber cables form one of the most important parts of the networking industry today. Fiber cables are composed of one or more transparent optical fibers enclosed in a protective covering and strength members. Fiber cables are used to transmit data by the mode of light. Various types of fiber cables available are multimode duplex fiber cables, single mode simplex fiber cables, single mode duplex fiber cables, and plastic optical fiber cables.

There are many fiber optic cable manufacturers who manufacture full line of fiber cables in both single mode and multi-mode, simples, duplex and multi-strand. Several manufacturers provide low cost, quick-turn, high volume server utama fiber cables and fiber cable assembly solutions.

Cables with complete assembly of fibers, strength members and jacket refer to fiber cables. These fiber cables come in variety of forms depending upon their usability and place of use. It is important to identify the exact requirement of fiber cables whether they would be easy to install, splice or terminate, etc. This is necessary as it ultimately decides the cost of installing the fiber cables.

Fiber cables are required to protect fibers from external hazards. Thus before installing the fiber cables one should always assess the place of installation of fiber cables. Fiber cables required inside the house or a building are not exposed too much of hazardous condition thus simpler form and not-so-tough fiber cables can be used for installation. But if the fiber cables are to be installed for longer distances and outside premises then the cables should be robust. They should also be installed well beneath the ground to protect them not only from ground digging, water logging but also from prairie dogs.

Fiber cables comes in different types based on their usage patterns as well. The zip cord and simplex fiber cables refer to those used for desktop connections. Simplex fiber cables are one fiber, tight-buffered and jacketed. A zip cord is actually two simplex fiber cables joined by a thin web. On the other hand fiber cables made of several simplex cables are breakout fiber cables. This type of fiber cables is strong, rugged and larger. They are also a bit expensive but prove to be economic where distances are not too long and fiber count required is less.

Small fiber cables required for dry conduit run, riser or plenum are known as a distribution fiber cables that needs a breakout box to be broken up or terminated in a panel box. They contain several tight-buffered fibers bundled under same jacket.

Aerial fiber cables are good enough for outside installation where as armored fiber cables are used for under-ground wiring where rodents are a problem. These fiber cables have metal armoring between two jackets to prevent rodents from tampering the cabling connections.

Loose tube fiber cables are perfect for plant trunk applications to prevent fibers from moisture or water. They can be buried directly in ground but must be handled carefully to prevent damage. Ribbon fiber cables have twelve or more fiber cables packed together laid in a rows. They are also a plant fiber cables which are gel-filled and are good for water blocking.

All fiber cable manufacturers manufacture different fiber cables but their product literatures should be carefully studied so as to assess which type of fiber cables they specialize in.