#wooly torch

[kierancampire]

I accidentally knocked my cactus over and instinctually grabbed it. Yeeeeaaaahhhhh. Not my best idea ever gotta be honest

Although this is how much it has grown since a friend gave it to me 4 years ago :)

[cactguy]

Cleistocactus strausii | Wooly torch cactus

Lotusland, CA

[starogeorgina]

𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞

Pairing: Joel Miller x reader

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of child death, blood, oral sex, mentions of cancer, age gap

1.01

Thank you @justinalovee for the pretty header

Exhausted, you snuggle up on the faded green couch, your freezing feet covered by worn-out socks and a wooly blanket. The sound of gunfire and screams in the distance is muffled by the heavy rainfall battering against the windows. Settled down, you open the romance book you found a few days prior while savaging and opening it. The pages were ripped and stained, but it would be an escape from reality, one that you desperately needed. A few hours later, you're so engrossed in the story that the sound of the door of your apartment creaking open catches you off guard.

You glance up, your heart racing, as you see a shadowy figure enter. You reach for the handgun sitting on the side table and aim it at the person. “Take one more step, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

“Shit, it’s y/n, right?”

You almost shoot the intruder, but don't when you sense a familiarity about them, it was Tess’s partner in crime. “Texas, ain’t it?”

“You can call me whatever you want once you've lowered the gun.” Relief washes over you, but it's quickly replaced by irritation when he dangles a key on the edge of his finger. “Tess gave it to me. She told me to let myself in.”

You lower the gun and place it into the holster on your belt, then get up and snatch the key from him. “Mind telling me why she gave you the key to our home?”

He rolls up his sleeve, showing you the deep cut on his arm. “Tess said you could help patch me up... I can go—”

Of course Tess sent him to you; she had a tendency to volunteer you as a first aider for her criminal buddies. Scoffing, you grip his arm to get a better look at the wound. “It’s deep; you’ll need stitches. I don’t have any numbing cream left, so it’s going to hurt like hell.”

“I can survive a little bit of pain.”

—

As you carefully clean the wound on Joel's arm with a damp cloth, you can't help but feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulder. Your medical supplies were starting to run low, and with more bombings happening than before, you’d definitely need to get some more soon.

And Tess sending strays to your door wasn’t helping.

Joe winces as you gently probe the wound, his muscles tensing under your touch. He looks at you with eyes filled with gratitude and a touch of pain. He holds a torch with his free hand so you can see what you are doing without drawing attention to your apartment with a brighter light on.

“I don't know how to thank you,” he says hoarsely.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Tess is always looking for supplies to bring back to you. I’m guessing you worked in medicine before.”

“This is going to hurt,” you say, before punctuating the first bit of flesh on his arm with the tiny needle. “You smuggle guns and drugs with my sister, right?”

Joel grits his teeth and nods. “I usually just smuggle guns or other weapons.”

“Me and Tess have both picked up extra work over the next couple of weeks. If I write a list of things I need, would you be able to get them for me?”

When he doesn’t respond, you look up and see how tightly his hand is squeezing around your torch. Sighing, you take the torch from his free hand and pop it between your lips. The last thing you needed was him breaking it. A few moments later, you’re finished, and you tie off the ends of the stitches.

“Fuck!” Joel lets out a noise of relief. “That hurt more than I thought it would.”

“Meaty part of the body,” you shrug.

Joel studies the stitches in his arm for a few seconds, then carefully rolls his sleeve back down, then stands. “I'm burning infected in the morning, but you can slide the list underneath my door, Tess can give you my address. I’ll try and get what you need on my next supply run.”

“Cool. You can let me know how many ration packs I owe you once you’ve got them.”

—

Soon as you walk into your apartment, you peel your top that’s sticking to your body with sweat over your head. You sniff it before tossing it onto the heap of dirty clothing on the floor. You glance over at Tess, who is watching with an amused expression on her face.

“What?”

“Expecting it to smell like roses, huh?”

“I smell of sweat, smoke, and death.” You walk by her and into the small kitchen to start boiling a pot of water. “Anything else you want washed?”

Tess shakes her head. Washing was a luxury you didn’t always have, but since the generator was working in your building, you’d take advantage of the opportunity while it was there. Once the water was boiled, you’d pour it into the bathtub, wait for it to cool down, then clean your hair and body, then wash the pile of dirty clothes. The color the bath water would turn afterwards would no doubt turn your stomach.

“Joel stopped by earlier,” she says, holding the cup of shitty coffee close to her lips and breathing in its smell. “He dropped off a couple of first aid kits.”

“Thank god, I had hardly anything left.” You open the door to the cupboard you keep your ration packs hidden behind a slab of wood. “What did he want for it?”

“Nothing.”

You snap your head up to face her. Nobody does anything for free these days. “Come again?”

“He says your square for stitching him up.”

“Oh, that’s good,” you say.

A small smile pulls on your lips; at least you got to hold onto your ration packs for a little longer.

“What’s with the blood?”

You look down at your stomach and see the dried-in red patches. “It’s not mine. A couple of FEDRA soldiers got into a scuffle, so instead of getting a real medic, they asked me to clean them up. Nothing major, just a broken nose and burst lip.”

She chuckles. “I did try to warn you that this would happen. You made your own bed the moment you spilled on working in a hospital in your past life.”

—

As you carefully clean the wound on Joel's knee, you can't help but notice the tension between him and Tess. When you arrived home, the two of them were arguing, but all you overheard was Joel saying your sister was getting greedy, and she thought he needed to toughen up.

Tess was already a teenager when you were born, so growing up, you idolized her and have never seen her as anything other than fearless, so hearing her say Joel needs to be tougher made you question what the hell they were up against.

The threats within the quarantine zones have been getting worse lately; the firefly attacks have increased, and with the sounds of screams echoing through the walls of your apartment building, you assume one of the men who died in the bombing a few hours before was important to someone in your building. Tess was now pacing the room, her face drawn with worry. She keeps glancing at the window, as if she can see beyond the grimy glass to the dangers lurking outside. You can tell she's afraid, but she won't admit it.

Not yet anyway.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground to get a better look at Joel’s wound, you casually ask, “So what did you cut yourself on this time, Texas?”

“Cut it on barbed wire.”

“Trying to jump a fence or—“

“Don’t,” Tess hisses. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

She was right to an extent; you didn’t really want to know what lawbreaking your sister was doing; it would only keep you awake at night worrying about her. But a part of you wanted to know how Joel was involved. You wanted to know more about their relationship and if it was platonic or something more.

—

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Although you lived with Tess, you hadn’t seen much of her over the past few weeks. One of you had either been working or sleeping while the other was home. The two of you moving the bodies of the dead from the back of a truck into the fire pit was the most time you’ve spent together in a while.

“Ask away.”

“What’s going on between you and Texas? Are you guys sleeping together?”

She scoffs, her nose scrunches up with disgust. “Of course not. I don’t mix business and pleasure.”

“Fair enough.”

The air reeks of smoke and ash as you heave another corpse onto the pile. Its limp form hits the ground with a heavy thud, sending up a cloud of gray dust into the air. The acrid smell of burning flesh fills your nostrils, making your stomach turn. You readjust the bandana covering your nose to try and keep the smell out, but it has little effect. You’d definitely need to scrub hard later to try and remove the smell of death from your skin.

Tess stares at you intensely. “Y/n...”

“I was just asking because he’s always at our place. I didn’t know if you two were fucking or planning different ways to dig yourselves deeper graves.”

In the blink of an eye, Tess is standing in front of you. She pulls her own bandana down so there’s nothing muffling her voice. “Let me be clear: I value Joel; he’s a good friend. He’s the guy you want around when shit goes down, but he’s not a good person. Me, and him have both done unthinkable things to stay alive.”

“He’s the muscle; you're the brain.”

She nods slowly, “something like that. I don’t know Joel’s full story; he’s reserved. And he can stick his dick wherever he likes as long as it doesn’t interfere with our business.”

Before you can say anything else, another truck loaded with bodies pulls up. “Oh shit, it looks like it’s going to be a double shift.”

—

Joel appears at your apartment a few nights later, with an unopened bottle of whisky in his hand. “I heard you had a shitty day.”

Without saying anything, you open the door, letting him in. Tiredly, you rub at your eyes before getting two glasses from the cupboard. Joel opens the bottle and then pours the whisky into the glasses. You assumed the news of what happened earlier in the day affected him as well.

Licking at your lips, you mumble, “It doesn’t matter how tough you are; the death of kids is always hard.”

He takes a massive gulp before slamming his glass onto the table and pouring himself another. “Fuck, yeah.”

You go over to the couch, zip open one of the cushion covers, and pull out a packet of cigarettes. “Want one?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I, usually.”

You pull out one cigarette, then tuck the packet away again. You only ever smoked while stressed. “Five kids, five fucking kids lives gone within seconds.”

A bomb was supposed to be planted underneath the death square where they hang criminals, but something had gone wrong, and the firefly transporting the weapon set it off early, killing himself and anyone in close proximity, including five innocent children.

Sometime passes before you finally speak again. “Tess told you about Michael, didn’t she?”

Joel nods as he comes and sits beside you. “She mentioned you had a son who died.”

“Michael was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two; he died just before his sixth birthday.”

“I’m sorry.”

You take another shot of your drink and say, “He’s the reason I became a pediatric nurse.“

“What about his dad?”

“Probably dead,” you snort. “Paddy, my high school sweetheart, didn't like the idea of being a teen dad to a sick kid so bailed.”

“That’s shit.”

You sink further into the couch. “What about you Texas? What’s your story?”

“I’m going to need a whole lot more liquor for that.”

—

You and Joe huddle close together in the dimly lit room, the flickering candlelight casting eerie shadows on the walls. The whisky was going down far too nicely, as Joel told you how he married his ex when he found out she was pregnant, but after his daughter was born, his wife left one day, and he didn’t hear from her again until she sent him divorce papers. Joel’s daughter, Sarah, died at the start of the outbreak after being shot by a soldier.

“Who knew we had so much in common?” you whisper, your voice hoarse from the cheap whiskey. “But at least we don’t ever need to see our assholes ex’s again.”

A dark chuckle passes his lips. “You’re just always looking for that silver lining.”

As you both finish your drinks, you lean in closer to Joel, feeling the warmth of his body against yours. You close your eyes and imagine a different world, one where the outbreak never happened.

—

As the months went on, Joel would visit you more frequently; sometimes he had alcohol, other times he brought dinner. You tried not to look too much into the fact that he mainly came at night when Tess was on shift. Although he still spent time with her smuggling various items, he also liked spending alone time with you.

Tonight was different though, it was the first time you gave into temptation. Your lips meet in a passionate kiss as you straddle Joel’s waist, tongues tangling as you both lose yourself in the moment. The tension between you has been building for far too long, and tonight you both have just enough adrenaline and whisky pumping through your bodies to give into your desire for one another. Your hands roam over his body, exploring every inch of skin you have access to. Your thighs are left bare as the long t-shirt you wear to bed rides up, Joel’s fingers dig into your soft flesh as he grinds up against you. The sound of your heavy breathing fills the room, mingling with the soft sound of the wind howling outside.

You pull back for a moment to catch your breath, locking eyes with each other.

You lean in to kiss him again, but Joel gently pushes you off his lap and sits you back onto the couch. At first, you take this as a rejection until he starts kissing down your neck. He slowly gets onto the ground and kneels between your legs, his eyes fixed on yours, as he slowly pulls down your pants. You gasp as his hot breath teases your sensitive flesh, and then puts his mouth on your cunt. His tongue circles your clit, sending waves of pleasure coursing through your body.

You arch your back, unable to contain the moans escaping your lips.

Joel lightly slaps at your thigh and smirks. “You gotta be quiet; I can’t have you waking the neighbors now.”

The cocky smile on his face turns you on even more. You throw your head back, letting out a long, low moan as Joel's tongue teases your sensitive flesh. His hands grip your hips, holding you in place as he devours you. The world outside your rundown apartment fades away, replaced by the intense pleasure coursing through your body as Joel gives you the first of many orgasms that night.

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Thursday 3 October 2024

In the first year the biennial Verbascum thapsus (great mullein, Aaron's rod, beggar's blanket, cow's lungwort, duffle, feltwort, flannel leaf, fluffweed, rag paper, torch lily, velvet dock) produces a rosette of large wooly grey-green leaves. In the second year a tall, upright, woolly stem is produced bearing yellow, saucer-shaped flowers popular with pollinators.

Jill Raggett

[atomicjellybean]

Black Bismarck: Empty Your Head & Hit Rewind

Just got home. Still catching my breath from Black Bismarck—and not just because of the foam blasters and the woman in the Michelin Man suit. It’s one of those nights where I want to scream what did I just watch? into the void, but instead I’m here, whispering it into this Tumblr void, hoping someone out there saw what I saw and is also reeling.

I’m a young theater artist, newly arrived in Berlin and still riding the high of getting to see radical European performance up close. But Black Bismarck? That was a whole other beast.

Let me be real: there were whole chunks of this performance where I had to rewind. Yes, rewind—I was watching a recording, and even still I barely kept up. The stage was so saturated with overlapping images, projections, bodies, texts, karaoke lyrics, dubstep beatboxing, actors in bunny masks, and costumes that seemed half camo/half commentary, I nearly short-circuited trying to absorb it all. At one point I paused just to sit in silence and stare at my radiator.

But even in my confusion (or maybe because of it?), I’m haunted by what I saw.

[15:49] – A voice asks: “Am I the colonizer, or is the Ego the product of the colonization?”
This question hangs over the entire performance like a ghost—or maybe like that massive white blob one character later refers to as “a ghost that looks like my father.” The show isn’t interested in answering the question directly. Instead, it buries it in overlapping aesthetic choices, like the dinging bell every time someone says white, black, or dark—is this a counter? A tally? A metronome for racial discourse?

[17:10] – “That is the white privilege: to put names to things, but stay anonymous yourself.”
Reader, I gasped. The screen went completely white. The lights reflected that whiteness back into the audience, making us feel like part of the problem, or maybe part of the projection. And maybe that’s the point.

Visually, the production is absurd and maximalist to the edge of parody. But it’s parody with teeth. I keep thinking about the blue flag with the star—a supposedly benevolent emblem used by Leopold II to mask colonial violence as philanthropy. When they say, “This flag symbolizes a torch of light burning on a dark continent,” you feel the weight of irony collapse on itself. The continent is Africa. The torch is colonial fire. And Bismarck? He’s the guy lighting the match.

There’s a long stretch in which a woman lists every location of a Bismarck Tower in Germany (there are 142!) while a slideshow of tower photos blitzes past, so fast they become a smear. Meanwhile, a model tower with someone inside rolls silently across the stage. It's hilarious. It’s horrifying. It’s historical kitsch turned Kafkaesque. Add to that the schnapps tasting passed out to the audience (because of course there’s Bismarck-branded alcohol), and you start to feel complicit in the commodification of a legacy you never asked to toast.

And can we talk about the actors in wooly soot suits camouflaging against the birch tree projections? There’s something incredible happening here: these costumes both conceal and protect. As if visibility itself is a trap—and invisibility, for once, a form of power. There’s a line earlier about birch trees being “like Germans because they are white.” It’s absurd and uncomfortable and brilliant. This whole moment felt like a meditation on what it means to disappear, and whether that disappearance is survival or surrender.

By the time we reach [53:03] and hear that line—“White… hints at the heartless void and the infinity of space”—I was just holding my head in my hands. Like, yes. Exactly. That’s what watching this show feels like: peering into a white void, half expecting revelation, and getting static instead. White noise. Literally. The actors try to silence their thoughts, and all they hear is a hum.

And in the final moments—when the black woman steps out of the inflatable Michelin costume, looks at us, and says “Empty your head. We can see you,” followed by the blackout and “We cannot see you,”—I felt like I had been both accused and absolved in the same breath.

If you're looking for a play that ties everything up neatly—this ain't it. Symbolism is everywhere and often contradictory. It refuses resolution. It loops. It glitches. There’s a moment where someone says: “Black Bismarck is pure propaganda. Very dangerous!” and honestly, I don’t know if the play is agreeing or mocking or both. I was trying to connect motifs—visibility, projection, colonial nostalgia, Freud, the rabbit, karaoke lyrics nobody sings—but every thread leads back into the tangle.

At one point I found myself muttering, “They just be doing whatever, honestly.” But maybe that’s the point. Colonization is chaos in disguise. So deconstructing it—really looking—should be disorienting. Should make you want to rewind.

I'll probably watch it again. Maybe a dozen more times. Maybe I still won’t “understand” it. But I can feel it. And sometimes, that’s what makes it good theater.

[parcy-anda-but-with-actual-posts]

Holy smokes! So getting back to and finishing this took much much longer than I thought - I still haven't put together polished Dex entries for these fellas, but here's a final master post and a very quick recap/summary:

Fire & Ice variants of a bird-mimicking bug-mon; Fire takes a more fairy-esque development path, while Ice favours draconian growth. They inhabit different floating islands in a skyborne feywild accessible from secret gardens in my hypothetical Fakemon region. XD (More details under the cut)

All the $6/flowery words in the world will not hide how cringe this is, but it's making me happy to think about, and I'm glad I finally finished this, as it's hung over my head for months now. I'm trying to get away from worrying about perfection, so I don't know if these pass the imitation-Sugimori test, or look like they could be Pokémon as opposed to generic fantasy monsters but closure is closure and I have so many more of these creatures to do- Thank you and Goodnight! \o/

So the bird part can easily get lost in the shuffle here, but I based the two lines on fire hawks and the northern goshawk; hawkmoths were originally in the mix, too, but for my sanity I had to let it go. The crests on their heads look like beaks, the gemstones are false eyes, their bodies are vaguely bird-shaped, etc.

Wooly caterpillars definitely inspired that bug aspect of the fuzzy winter line, but it also made referencing hoar frost easier, and these bugs need to stay warm on their frigid island. CX

While I also leaned on kestrels for ideas in designing the fire-types visually, The fire hawk concept comes in with the "summer" line religiously torching their forest habitats every decade or so to keep the cycle fresh.

The lines are dichotomous not only in type, but behaviour. The friendly, but capricious fire fairies don't get overly attached to things and fully embrace the transient nature of their home. The solitary, predatory ice dragons must make the most of a harsh environment, and jealously guard everything from their young and territories, to various "acquisitions" that wander into their domain and are highly protective of these things. On this island, you don't catch pokémon, pokémon catch you.

Design-wise, I was lazy with the colors, mostly just tweaking the same palette across each line, though I'm quite fond of the idea of the summer-second-stage's gooey, ambery legs solidifying and taking on a matchstick aesthetic in the final stage. I have to be honest, the final stages for both threw all higher-concepts out the window and I defaulted to the rule of cool. =v=;

[poetryandthingss]

Werewolf

I'm thinking about fight or flight

Fawn or freeze

Survival dependent on running away, being small and quick and quiet

Waiting for the strength to turn and finally bite back

I am thinking about rage as fire, as destruction

And rage as protection, a shield for others to hide behind

About wolves who lie down with sheep

Needing soft, wooly edges

And rest for worn out feet

Wolves who rise as livestock guardians

When "pack" is redefined, and loyalty reframed

Wolves that harbor embers now meant to keep others warm

To light the way

No longer held out as torches and brands and "keep away" signs that hurt to hold

Wolves who learn that creation is more filling than destruction

[citycacti]

Caring for silver torch cactus is just a breeze! 🌵✨ These stunning succulents shoot up like silver flames in your space. They adore sunshine, so give them a sunny nook. When they're thirsty, offer a drink, but don't drown them – they prefer sips. With their unique beauty and easy care, they're a shining star in any collection

[scorchieart]

Right Here | AO3

Characters: Clavis Lelouch x F!Reader

Genre: Romance, Fluff

Summary: A snowy night full of schemes and surprises. If you can stay awake, that is.

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: My belated entry for @xxsycamore & @voltage-vixen's 'Tis the Season for Love CCC. My excuse for being late? I slept more hours the previous night than I did the past 4 combined. I still wanted to write something for this, even if it won't be counted ^^

Prompt: Sipping hot chocolate and then stealing a kiss

“Up… up… get up…”

The misty voice flitted in and out of consciousness, light and airy, as you battled between obeying or ignoring. While it called to action, it was also mellow and comforting, filled with solace alluring that lulled you back to dreamland no matter the words it formed, as you were more than willing to oblige.

It is most unfortunate that the voice was corporeal.

“Hey, I said get up!”

The downy comforter ripped away in an instant, ridding away with it the cocoon of heat you’d engulfed yourself in all night. Now gone, you feebly wrapped your arms around your form and brought your knees to your chest, squeezing your eyes even tighter as though it would banish the brittle cold.

For a moment, it actually seemed to be working. A gentle warmth sprouted from your arms through your chest and up to your face. You could see flutters of movement from behind your eyelids, and you opened them one at a time, blinking heavily to parse through the darkness. 

The first thing you noticed was that you were now sitting up. The second was the thick woolen sweater hanging over your neck and still-entangled arms, as though it had been forcibly thrust over your head. The third thing you saw, somehow after the other two, was Clavis’s beaming face inches away from your nose.

“Aha, at last! Hurry now, it’s just started!” he said. Leaping off the bed, he tossed you a pair of matching wooly socks and crossed to the door at the other end of the room. Curiosity powered through the grogginess, and you managed to wrestle the sweater correctly through your arms and slip on the socks before following him. 

Still unadjusted to the darkness, the short bursts of midnight blue seeping in through the high windows and Clavis’s repeated chirps of “Hurry, hurry!” played your guides down the hall. More than once you walked straight into a wall column or snagged your sock on the rug, but the increasing giddiness in Clavis’s voice kept you advancing. 

“Not your best time,” he said when you finally caught up with him. He stood atop a staircase, tapping his foot as you shuffled up the last few steps.

“If you’d told me where we’re going, I’d have made it faster,” you panted, clutching the stitch in your side. The midnight excursion took you to the opposite wing of the palace. The fact that you even made it all the way here without a torch and just out of bed surprised yourself, at least. “What time is it?”

“The time when the stodgy dream and visionaries scheme.”

“Did you just call me stodgy?”

“I have said nothing of the sort. I am only guilty of opening your eyes.” His face broke out in a conniving grin as he extended his arm. “Feel free to pass judgment after I’ve shown you.”

Even though you both knew you would accept in a heartbeat, you still allowed a few moments to pass before resting your hand over his. Your own version of a punishment, you thought, and the sight of his handsome features resting contentedly as he squeezed your fingers told you he understood.

“Right here, now,” he whispered, leading to a grand doorway and pushing through with his free arm. The ancient door scraped heavily across the uneven floor, but Clavis never lifted his eyes from yours as he heaved it open, gliding you both through when it was at last wide enough. The room itself was unremarkable, with thick sheets of dust coating heaps of forgotten furniture, peeling wallpaper and dust bunnies the size of actual bunnies limply trotting along as you passed, and a broken antique chandelier swaying ominously from above. But what immediately caught your attention was the enormous window that took up the entirety of the far wall and the glittering snowfall peering through, casting dancing shadows through the dusty air.

“Oh, Clavis…” you began, but were immediately cut off as he pulled you farther into the room. Arranged in a small section at the foot of the window, which you noticed had been methodically scrubbed clean, were two puffy chintz cushions and a large tea tray laden with various overflowing bowls and two large mugs covered with saucers. He quickly sat you down on one of the cushions, pressed a mug into your hands, and offered a bowl of what looked like tiny brown marbles.

“Chocolate-covered cherries?” he said, popping one in his mouth. “Sweet and sour, like my schemes. Or perhaps a chocolate almond — those have a nice crunch. And chocolate-filled dates just melt in your mouth…”

He was speaking in fast succession, lining bowls from the tray in neat rows in front of you. You wondered how he got the idea of covering things in chocolate, and soon felt a sinking sensation in your stomach.

“Clavis, you didn’t accidentally flood the kitchen in chocolate, did you?” 

Clavis blew a small raspberry, sat back in his cushion, and uncovered his own mug. “Preposterous. As if my genius creations could be the result of mere accident.” But you noticed how his gaze trailed out the window as he took a swig. “Try one, won’t you? Or at least warm up with the hot chocolate. Your hands are freezing.”

You kept your eyes on him as you plucked a treat from one of the bowls and bit into it. A gush of sweetness spread across your lips and you found yourself smiling unconsciously at the strawberry that peeked through the chocolate border. The same sweetness you felt as you continued to stare at him and how the snow reflected in his golden eyes. 

The room was still very cold, but your heart swelled at the sight. The cup was warm in your fingers. The hot chocolate scalding on your tongue.

“It’s cold,” you said.

Clavis’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Impossible, I just poured it. Here, switch with me.”

You giggled, inching your cushion until your elbows were touching. “Not the drink.” 

You could feel his arm tense even through the thick fabric of the sweater, but he had turned back to look out the window. “Sneaky girl,” he muttered as he raised his mug again. You set your own mug down and wrapped your hands around his left arm, gently prodding it into your lap as you too stared outside.

The snow descended in massive clumps, swirling and swerving in a hypnotic trance as a howling wind whipped across your view. Sometimes the movements were uniform, like watching paint dribble down a navy canvas, only for the scene to  jumble and shake as though the entire paint can splattered onto the window. You figured you must be up in one of the highest turrets as the misty fog was so dense you could not make out the palace grounds. Your only guess to how much had accumulated were the ever-growing lumps of pure-white piling softly on the windowsill. You threaded your fingers through Clavis’s, twiddling the silver band on his finger. He rested his cheek atop your head. Would this be how the years together would pile up in turn, you wondered.

Visionaries scheming echoed through your mind. Every day that passed by at his side, the term felt less like a threat and more a promise.

“Elysian,” you said, running your thumb across his freezing knuckles. Even after that previous sip, your mouth felt just as cold.

“I agree,” he breathed into your scalp. “A sight like this only happens once a decade, I’d wager.”

“No, you’re not seeing what I can.”

He lifted his head and leaned forward. “What, where? How can you see anythi—”

It was like kissing a block of ice. A blotch of chocolate lingered on his cheek as you slowly pulled back, and Clavis’s face morphed from frosty pink to ghost white before finally blooming into the most brilliant red as he blankly stared back. A sight, you wagered, once in a lifetime.

“Right here,” you said with a smile.

With this, I think I've reached my romance quota for the year.

Tagging:@atelieredux @queengiuliettafirstlady @violettduchess @venulus @thewitchofbooks @leonscape @rhodolitesrose @venti-tangents

If you would like to be added or removed from my tag list, please send me an ask or a message.

[cactguy]

Cleistocactus strausii | Wooly torch cactus

Cactus Garden, Lotusland, CA

Cleistocactus strausii prefers mountainous regions that are dry and semi-arid. Like other cacti and succulents, it thrives in porous soil and full sun. It is native to mountainous regions of Department Tarija, Bolivia, at 1,500–3,000 m

[hailhydrasheads]

“Fuck,” Brock sighed, letting his head droop. He had suspected, but the way the soldier talked, he was pretty sure he knew what had happened to him. A shiver going through him as he realized just how fucked he was. Even if he went back, the fact he now how one of Zola’s formulas running through his veins was bad news. The only living subject was sitting next to him. Brock didn’t know why he was still alive either and he really didn’t want to dwell on that thought, “it goes away at least a little tho, right?”

He wanted the answer to be yes. His hands were still shaking from the residual pain of whatever that stuff was. He wanted to hope that it would go away eventually. But if the soldier was still experiencing it after clearing out at least a couple bases, then that meant he had a big problem.

“It ain’t like you been like this long, right?” He asked, head lifting up hopefully. Time down in the dungeons had been pretty wooly and even more so whenever he was injected. He didn’t know how long they’d been experimented on, but they’d left detailed notes. Not that he’d thought about taking them with him or even looking for them before the place got torched, “maybe it’ll fade. I don’t know how long I was down there but it can’t be longer than a few days. Where is this place?”

Back to the Future

Brock was screwed.

He was more than screwed, but he didn’t know how else to put it. He was in a prison cell while the first leader of the American branch of SHIELD’s HYDRA puttered around the room making all sorts of noises in his nasally little tone of voice and he had no idea how to prove he was really HYDRA without majorly fucking everything up.

He blamed that asshole Strucker for this whole scenario. Scientists and eggheads always wanted to play with shit they didn’t understand and now Brock was here in a place he didn’t know with a bunch of bleeding puncture marks from landing on a tray of surgical tools and healing burns all over his face and hands from whatever bullshit weapon strucker had been trying to make from leftover tesseract power cells from the 40s.

He didn’t even know what year it was, let alone any other details. He knew that this was one of the HYDRA bases that had been hit, but he didn’t know anything other than that. He didn’t even know if Captain America was still prancing around in pixie shorts or if he’d already rescued his boyfriend.

It didnt matter, but Brock would really rather not become the winter soldier junior. He shivered when he saw the weaselly little scientist draw up a syringe full of some strange glowing liquid, but remained silent. They hadn’t seemed to understand him or care when he’d told them he was hydra, so he’d given up. Designed to being just a guinea pig until he ended up in an unmarked grave or dead.

@tormentedsoldier

[sideblogformindtrash]

CW: It’s all discussed/implied/talked about and non graphic, but themes of: loss; child death; pregnancy; forced pregnancy; infertility; implied noncon; grief; angst;

He’s received a letter, a Scorpion pressed onto the wax sigil was enough for him to know exactly what it was about. 

They had gone too far by torturing Crow, so much so he had to carry him all the way back to his home by fear of him not making it on his own and becoming food for the beasts that roamed the borders at night.

And when he knocked on the door, the woman received them with a cold rage, helping Crow in and slamming the door back on Wolf’s face.He also caught a glimpse of a white board, their plans scribbled all over it, the bird-like thing drawn over it.

So now he has a very rude letter on his hands demanding some form of compensation from The Lamb’s group, addressed to Raine himself, and Wolf takes it up to his room.

He’s about to call him, but he stops. Raine is sitting on the balcony, red robes loosely draped over him falling over a shoulder and exposing up a breast, all bathed in twilight and the torch lights in the balcony, his hands gently rubbing circles on the skin of his belly, their own golden light gleaming from his fingertips. 

As beautiful as it is tragic, the Lamb does his best at healing himself, his insides. But scars aren’t wounds, and cannot be fixed, not even when he’s the most powerful healer of the City.

He knows that well enough himself, as he uncomfortably shifts the weight of his body back to his left leg, now far too aware of the metal limb to want to weigh upon it.

He walks quietly to his side, pocketing the letter because it's not time for that now, when he’s so fragile. This scene repeats itself sometimes. Its always painful.

For a while he doesn’t speak so he isn’t sure Lamb even realized he’s there. But finally, Lamb tilts his head just slightly, flapping his ears, eyes closing to keep the tears from falling.

"Do you think I'd be a good mommy?" He asks in his little broken voice. They've done this before, but much like scars, emotional wounds are things he cannot heal, so all there is to it is… grieve. Over and over and over and over, till it stops hurting so much.

"The best" Wolf says softly, just standing close by, and for once, it’s genuine. Lamb  might really really be good, even with the cards they were dealt.

He notices the tears falling, faster than Lamb can afford to clean them. 

“Maybe one day you’ll be able to” Wolf says, very very cautious. This prompts Lamb to just stop the healing spell, the golden light subsiding, his hands pale and shaky, exhaustion drawn all over his face.

Lamb lays against him, eyes closing, sniffing and nuzzling on Wolf’s chest. He stares at Wolf’s fake leg, guilty ridden.. Wolf would never, ever hold that over Lamb’s head, and they don’t really talk about it anymore… But sometimes Lamb still seems to look so very distraught about it. More so than the wolf himself does.

“I wonder if any of them survived” He tears up again, a lump forming on his throat and strangling his voice “...They said they didn’t. But what if they lied? Are they alone now? In that awful place, just crying and wanting their mommy back? And mommy isn’t there to hold them… Do they think I abandoned them?” He breaks down, hiding his face on his palms and sobbing hard, as Wolf pets the wooly hair., Lamb keeps punishing and torturing himself with those thoughts, over and over. The idea of the babys’ death was terrible, but it's not worse than the perspective of them being alive in a world as miserable as the one Lamb originated in. 

“They are okay Lamb. One way or the other… I’m sure they are okay” he nuzzles, letting him cry it out. 

"It 's unfair. They should have survived, not me”

 Lamb looks up, staring at the torches who hold the fire, the god he chose to worship “It’s not fair”, he repeats out loud, accusatory, at the god he himself elevated and raised a cult around. All consuming, light-giving, but still mute, uncaring “Not fair”

“No. It’s not fair” Wolf agrees, even if the plea was not for him. 

“I… I didn’t even love them, back then. Or- I think I didn’t. I- It was just so cold, so dark and they kept… kept hurting me. And I hated that they were there, growing inside me… but…” he sobs “But I sang for them and I talked to them sometimes and… and whenever they took them from me… And I… It was always too late you know? I loved them, but I loved them too late and I can’t take it off my head now”

“Even if you had… that would only have hurt you more” he whispers.

“No, no. They deserved love” he sobs. 

He can’t speak anymore, just sobbing himself into exhaustion. By the time he quiets, the darkness has fallen over Patchwork City, its many disjointed neighborhoods falling silent.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Lamb asks, sniffing away and swallowing the hiccups.

“Oh-” he pulls it out his pocket, having completely forgotten about it “Scorpio sent a letter”

“Of course she did. I beat up her pet” He rolls his eyes and pouts, looking a little more like himself even when they are still watery and red from the tears “She should be glad I even sent him back alive”

He nods in agreement. He can’t really say otherwise, not when he’s already so angry about them sleeping together… And not after a moment like this.

“Something about Plague Doctors too, I’m afraid” 

“Plague Doctors?” He sounds alarmed, getting up and walking to the edge of the balcony, taking up a binocular “Where? Fuck we can’t have another infestation of those - Okay here’s what we’ll do-”

He smiles, watching Lamb frantically walk around the room, getting some paper and starting to take notes, now having forgotten his grief, at least momentarily, as he seeks to protect his part of the city.

I think you’ll see it anyways but @whump-blog​ hi lol

[contremineur]

6660.48 Ghosts which can be summoned with a mullein torch, the wooly grey-green leaves and five-petaled yellow flowers of Our Lady’s Flannel set burning

Jessie Lynn McMains, from Rust Belt Jessie’s Taxonomy of Ghosts

from here

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 160

Y’all. I am so excited for this chapter.

I know I say that a lot, on nearly every chapter.. which is fair, because as I hone my writing skills, I get more and more excited for each new thing I think I do well.

But THIS?  This is a type of chapter that this story has only seen once - maybe twice.  Because I didn’t write this chapter...

@baelpenrose did. I just edited.

I am 1000% percent willing to field any questions, but brevity is the soul of wit, so here goes!

(Guest Author: Baelpenrose, Guest Perspective: Arthur Farro)

In movies, I’d have been giving a grand speech as the enemy approached. In films, that’s what you do before a battle to keep troops from freaking out. Maybe they’d have raised their weapons and given raucous cheers as I really got into it and the enemy would have been so kind as to delay their breach until right as the cheering died down.

Yeah, that’s not how life actually works. Not even a little.

Here’s how battles aboard a massive nautilus-shaped starship the size of a city getting invaded by alien slavers actually go: You find out where they’re going to hit about fifteen minutes in advance because you have a computer whiz and a really good navcomputer that figures out the vectors on their boarding shuttles so that all the defenders can be where the enemy are going to breach. You set up the natto barrels, the capsaicin arrows, the mermaid with the opera voice - and apparently another even more violent personality - the probably-a-warcrime-but-who-gives-a-shit-at-this-point hot oil sprayer that was supposed to be used for flash-frying veggies, and you get ready to slaughter the enemy faster than they can run forward.

Then, before you’re really all the way into position, they blow the fucking walls off the place, drop the pressure to what they can handle, burn through the wall with plasma torches. No Gandalf “You’re soldiers of Gondor!” crap, no “HOLD THE LINE” rallying. Just arrival, quick burn, breach, and then suddenly you’re eye deep in eye-wateringly revolting green shrimp-men, wooly berserker rhinos, and hentai horrors, the last of which are screaming in skull-shredding loud tones that make it impossible to think and you have to roar “ARCHERS! CAPSAICIN FIRST! JOKULL, NATTO BARREL! HOLD THE SPRAY FOR NOW!” and hope your team can hear you.

The screaming was horrific, but the clouds of capsaicin erupting in the midst of the breach were causing chaos among the enemy - the rhino-berserkers seemed to be reeling under it as I screamed again “Broadheads, switch to broadheads! Moonlight, start opera, see if you can disrupt whatever echo...FUCK!” 

The enemy were returning fire in some capacity and I found my legs snared with some sort of bolas, quickly dragging me. I hauled my sword and flailed at the cord as quickly as I could even as the tentacles grabbed at my arms, forcing me to abandon my efforts at slashing the rope to focus on the tentacles before the teeth extended enough to rip through the jacket I was wearing over my suit - hell I suspected the only reason it wasn’t through the suit already was the jacket.

I was looking at the ceiling, up at a group of shrimp-men, when Jokull’s roar - fuck that shrieking was still going and those tentacles were still everywhere - interrupted them. The axe Jokull carried swept through, just as the curved blades that Nixe’s violent persona, Moonlight, had strapped to her hands, began shearing through them. I was hauled to my feet with enough force to bruise my arms. “You alright, schoolteacher?”

“I’m fine, lumberjack.” I swept my sword around me in a tight pattern in an attempt to keep the tentacles away, slashing through one viciously as Coffey joined the melee with brutal overhand swings of - was that a rebar club or a hammer? Something had been made especially for him in the workshop, and he and Conor were joining in with absolute relish, hitting savagely against the carapaces of the shrimp-men and cracking the chitin with more force than human beings would have been capable of delivering before the hypergravity of the last few years. Ivan was joining in too, focusing on lower blows with a clear technique with a blacksmith’s hammer, cracking the chitin with brutal efficiency.  It was obvious who had thought to make weapons the two larger men could use while still recovering their sense of balance.

Fuck it. Say what you want about me. Say what you want about sociopathy. Say what you want about violence or human nature, but there was something maddeningly beautiful about this, too. The screeching ached. The clouds of capsaicin were a sensory assault. But I was fighting back to back with a former enemy, the lovers of my friends, and a mad mermaid against alien invaders. All while swinging weapons that had gone out of style centuries ago, in the midst of rank soybeans being used as a bioweapon.  I felt incredibly alive, and I will defy anyone to live through this and say there wasn’t something invigorating about it.

Wait. Right. The rhinos were still reeling, and we were being pressed by the shrimp-men because they were still, sort of, able to press.

Charly’s archers sent in another volley as we slammed ourselves against a bulkhead, even as Moonlight got grabbed by the tentacles and my sword sheared through another one, alien blood staining the ancient blade. “Come on, come on.” We weren’t quite back to the line yet, but they had the sprayer set up now. “DOWN!” 

A barrage of hot oil streaked past us, between us and into the swarm of shrimp-men, towards the nearest of the hentai horrors. We heard the tentacled monstrosity scream in a whole new way this time as they began getting not only flash blinded by the heat but seared and burned by the oil. Collapsing brought them no relief as they writhed on the ground and fell into the sizzling oil, where their wounded, with cracked carapaces, were cooking. 

“Another volley!” We had a moment while the oil sizzled between us, and another wave of capsaicin clouds erupted among the rhinos, limiting further fire exchange. There was a brief moment of calm before the hentai horrors screamed again and began surging over the oil, scalding themselves on it to try to get to us Their slime might have been protecting them or their skin was thicker than I thought - or they were dumber than I thought - but those tentacles were a whole lot closer than they had any business being and Moonlight was charging forward, her mother-of-pearl bodysuit flashing as she howled and began tearing at one of them. The tentacles ripped at her as I brandished my sword and Jokull rushed in with me at the other, savagely hacking at it. A tentacle closed around my calf and I felt the pressure of the teeth on the tentacle, but - 

I grinned underneath the bodysuit over my head, the fangs couldn’t pierce the motorcycle pants that I wore over the fucking body condom. I flicked my sword down to take the tentacle off. “Before they recover, archers, keep up a steady barrage now, keep your capsaicin shots spaced, communicate with each other! Melee fighters, push on the tentacle things! I want the rhinos kept off-balance for a minute!”

 I wanted them strung out so we could focus - fucking hell, where were all these tentacles coming from? There was an unfavorable oxygen-to-tentacle ratio in this fucking corridor right now. I was trying to keep the tentacles occupied and, thanks to the dropped gravity and the endurance training, that seemed doable for now. But it was like fighting six different opponents, all flailing, with no idea what they were doing - which actually made it worse, since it meant I had no idea what they were doing. Defensive windmill sword drills weren’t designed for fighting the humboldt squid or anything else with dreams of animated adult film stardom. 

Jokull was trying to attack one of them while I defended against the tentacles and Moonlight ripped into another one, screaming madly as she did so in a language that...had she fucking invented a language for the mermaid kingdom that existed in her head? I couldn’t be sure over that appalling screaming the squid were still doing, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t any language I had ever heard before. She tore at it with her knives, and the tone it was screaming in didn’t actually get any quieter but it took on a tone that I sincerely hope was actual pain or fear as I began seeing what seemed like fewer tentacles. 

Jokull finally got an upper hand and brought his axe around in a terrifying blow that split the head of the one he’d been fighting. The tentacles spasmed, one of them finally flicking past my defenses and ripping a gash in the hardened leather of my jacket. It finally went still as that awful noise finally went down to manageable levels. “CONOR, COFFEY, IVAN! RUSH THE SHRIMP-MEN! LEAVE THE LAST SQUID TO MOONLIGHT!” 

We heard the mad mermaid laugh like the siren she very much was as she continued savaging the monstrosity she fought, the horrible creature finally going silent as we hit the formation of crustaceans that had recovered from the oil blast, arrows still firing into the midst of the rhinos. The poor things were starting to recover from the capsaicin amidst the stench of blood and natto, still wheezing from the blasts of spice. They had anticipated sound blasts but not chemical warfare, and the shrimps were fighting with some sort of baton-weapon and lobster claws. I found myself braced by one as I brought my sword down, the ancient blade planting between those creepy dead eyes, and wrenched it free and cracking the shell open. I lunged to another before finding my wrist grabbed by the claws that had been favored by evolution - on, apparently, more than one planet - and realized that my jacket wasn’t going to save me from my sword-wrist being crushed, until one of Charly’s arrows impacted an eyestalk. I got my arm back, getting the leverage to plant a kick in its center of mass and send it staggering into Coffey, who proceeded to smash the poor bastard into foul smelling goo.

Jokull must have decided to fuck with me right then, that’s the only way I can explain what happened next. Either that, or that particular class opted to curse me from beyond the grave. “NOTICE ME, SENPAI!” He made eye contact with me from across the battlefield right before he did it, and brought his axe around in a brutal scythe as he took a shrimp man’s head completely off its body and sent it flying off, leaving me howling with laughter as I lunged and cracked another one before heaving its lifeless corpse aside, holding my sword aloft and roaring with defiance.

The rhinos were starting to recover and bracing to charge as the shrimp-men finally started routing in the face of the mad onslaught - only for Charly to, with an almost evil glee in her voice, howl, “CASPACIN ARROWS, ANOTHER VOLLEY!” and send the poor things into another coughing fit. Another set of clouds burst among them and sent them heaving and collapsing yet again, their star shaped noses convulsing this time. 

“Sure, they’re great in melee, shame they’ll never get there…” I wondered, briefly, if it was possible they were going to have PTSD from a battle without ever getting to fight or actually get into the battle proper. 

Something new had come through the breach, though I couldn’t quite make out what it was. But whatever it was it had rallied the shrimp men and seemed to be passing out masks to the Rhinos, which I could not have. “Someone shoot that, whatever it is. Everyone else, get ready to charge…” 

It was wandering around on mechanical parts, and the shrimp-men began charging again before we met them. The newcomer was charging in with a massive wrench, and the Rhinos were starting to get their breath in the face of another barrage of arrows - even as we charged them and began hitting them low and hard with sword, axe, hammer, clubs, and everything else we could before they could get their balance back, hamstringing them with blows we could never have delivered before training in high gravity. We shattered bones, cleaving through muscles and severing arteries in an effort to knock them down as they swung massive, heavy limbs to send us sprawling back. 

No sooner had I found myself on my back, covered by arrow fire than I found myself having to parry a downward swung wrench by that fucking newcomer, who I had started to roll to my feet to slash at before I stopped as Charly and I both recognized what they were. 

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[wannabecatwriter]

Cactus plants at the Huntington Gardens. That fuzzy tall one is called "Wooly Torch".

[rustbeltjessie]

—6660.43 Ghosts that stand out in your yard at dusk, dark silhouettes never moving, but you can tell they’re looking back at you, and you realize that backlit as you are by the living room light from their vantage point you must also appear as only a black smudge in the vague shape of a person and you start to wonder which one of you is the ghost after all —6660.44 Ghosts that look and smell like old leather jackets, hanging on the coat rack in the back hall —6660.441 Ghosts you carry in your coat pockets like charms, that you take out occasionally and rub for good luck —6660.45 Ghosts that shoot smack and ride skateboards —6660.46 Ghosts that are small fires —6660.47 Ghosts that hang out under railroad bridges in Richmond, Virginia, wearing magnolia blossoms in their hair —6660.472 Ghosts that hang out at the edges of quarry lakes in Racine, Wisconsin, dipping their ghost-toes in the murky water —6660.48 Ghosts which can be summoned with a mullein torch, the wooly grey-green leaves and five-petaled yellow flowers of Our Lady’s Flannel set burning —6660.482 Ghosts which can be summoned with a sprig of rosemary worn in your boutonnière —6660.483 Ghosts which can be summoned with a dish of stale candy corn —6660.485 Ghosts that taste of salted watermelon

—Jessie Lynn McMains, from “Rust Belt Jessie’s Taxonomy of Ghosts”