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#spindle formation
tenth-sentence · 1 year
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At the start of prophase, microtubules, polymerizing on the surface of the nuclear envelope, begin to gather at two foci on opposite sides of the nucleus, initiating spindle formation (see Figure 1.30).
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"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.
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junk-jester · 2 years
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The woes of buying shit that's Amazon-exclusive. Especially if its related to Transformers.
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sciencesolutions · 1 year
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vampyrsm · 2 years
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'The Forbidden Flame.' Masterlist Prince Bakugou Katsuki x Reader
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Synopsis: In a world where royalty are born and bred to sit upon a throne built by their ancestor's aeons ago, there is a prince who is destined to sit upon the throne but there is worry amongst those of the high council. Will this Prince ever be able to shake the shackles of his ancestorial rage and become a just and rightful King? Or will he simply be another spindle in the wheel that continues to crush those of lesser importance?
Warnings: Similiar setting to House of the Dragon (the era, how royalty works) but not entirely, dragons, eventual smut, deceit, violence, blood, all characters are over the ages of 18, mentions of different religions, misogynistic themes, character deaths. No beta readers, we die like kings. (Will update individual chapters with warnings also.) MDNI.
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The Glossary
Chapter I: ['The Barbarous Prince'] [28/08/22] [5086 wc.]
Chapter II: ['The Summer Solstice'] [31/08/22] [6829 wc.]
Chapter III: ['Seeking Respite'] [04/09/22] [8181 wc.]
Chapter IV: ['Dance of the Dragon'] [10/09/22] [7677 wc.]
Chapter V: ['The Crimson King'] [15/09/22] [7469 wc.]
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credit for the background image/banner: @vampyrsm please do not plagiarise, or recommend my work to places such as TikTok. Date format is DD/MM/YY.
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cryptidclaw · 1 year
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Cryptidclaw's WC Prefixes List!
Yall said you were interested in seeing it so here it is! 
This is a collection of mostly Flora, Fauna, Rocks, and other such things that can be found in Britain since that’s where the books take place! 
I also have other Prefixes that have to do with pelt colors and patterns as well!
Here’s a link to the doc if you dont want to expand a 650 word list on your Tumblr feed lol! the doc is also in my drive linked in my pined post!
below is the actual list! If there are any names you think I should add plz tell me!
EDIT: I will update the doc with new names as I come up with them or have them suggested to me, but I wont update the list on this post! Plz visit my doc for a more updated version!
Animals
Mammal
Badger
Bat
Bear
Beaver
Bison
Boar
Buck
Calf
Cow
Deer
Elk
Fawn
Ferret
Fox
Goat
Hare
Horse
Lamb
Lynx
Marten
Mole
Mouse
Otter
Rabbit
Rat
Seal
Sheep
Shrew
Squirrel
Stoat
Vole
Weasel
Wolf
Wolverine
Amphibians
Frog
Newt
Toad
Reptiles
Scale
Adder
Lizard
Snake
Turtle
Shell
Birds
Bird
Down
Feather
Albatross
Bittern
Buzzard
Chaffinch
Chick
Chicken
Coot
Cormorant
Corvid
Crane
Crow
Curlew
Dove
Duck
Dunlin
Eagle
Egret
Falcon
Finch
Gannet
Goose
Grouse
Gull
Hawk
Hen
Heron
Ibis
Jackdaw
Jay
Kestrel
Kite
Lark
Magpie
Mallard
Merlin
Mockingbird
Murrelet
Nightingale
Osprey
Owl
Partridge
Pelican
Peregrine
Petrel
Pheasant
Pigeon
Plover
Puffin
Quail
Raven
Robin
Rook
Rooster
Ruff
Shrike
Snipe
Sparrow
Starling
Stork
Swallow
Swan
Swift
Tern
Thrasher
Thrush
Vulture
Warbler
Whimbrel
Wren
Freshwater Fish 
Fish
Bass
Bream 
Carp
Dace
Eel
Lamprey
Loach
Minnow
Perch
Pike
Rudd
Salmon
Sterlet
Tench
Trout
Roach
Saltwater fish and other Sea creatures (would cats be able to find some of these? Probably not, I don't care tho)
Alge
Barnacle
Bass (Saltwater version)
Bream (Saltwater version)
Brill
Clam
Cod
Crab
Dolphin
Eel (Saltwater version)
Flounder
Garfish
Halibut
Kelp
Lobster
Mackerel
Mollusk
Orca
Prawn
Ray
Seal
Shark
Shrimp
Starfish
Sting
Urchin
Whale
Insects and Arachnids
Honey
Insect
Web
Ant
Bee
Beetle
Bug
Butterfly
Caterpillar
Cricket
Damselfly
Dragonfly
Fly
Grasshopper
Grub
Hornet
Maggot
Moth
Spider
Wasp
Worm
Trees
Acorn
Bark
Branch
Forest
Hollow
Log
Root
Stump
Timber
Tree
Twig
Wood
Alder
Apple
Ash
Aspen
Beech
Birch
Cedar
Cherry
Chestnut
Cypress
Elm
Fir
Hawthorn
Hazel
Hemlock
Linden
Maple
Oak
Pear
Poplar
Rowan
Redwood
Spruce
Willow
Yew
Flowers, Shrubs and Other plants
Berry
Blossom
Briar
Field
Flower
Leaf
Meadow
Needle
Petal
Shrub
Stem
Thicket
Thorn
Vine
Anemone 
Apricot
Barley 
Bellflower
Bluebell
Borage
Bracken
Bramble
Briar
Burnet
Buttercup
Campion
Chamomile
Chanterelle
Chicory
Clover
Cornflower
Daffodil
Daisy
Dandelion
Dogwood
Fallow
Fennel
Fern
Flax
Foxglove
Furze
Garlic
Ginger
Gorse
Grass
Hay
Heather
Holly
Honeysuckle
Hop
Hyacinth
Iris
Ivy
Juniper
Lavender
Lichen
Lilac
Lilly
Mallow
Marigold
Mint
Mistletoe
Moss
Moss
Mushroom
Nettle
Nightshade
Oat
Olive
Orchid
Parsley
Periwinkle
Pine
Poppy
Primrose
Privet
Raspberry
Reed
Reedmace
Rose
Rush
Rye
Saffron
Sage
Sedge
Seed
Snowdrop
Spindle
Strawberry
Tangerine
Tansy
Teasel
Thistle
Thrift
Thyme
Violet
Weed
Wheat
Woodruff
Yarrow
Rocks and earth
Agate
Amber
Amethyst
Arch
Basalt
Bounder
Cave
Chalk
Coal
Copper
Dirt
Dust
Flint
Garnet
Gold
Granite
Hill
Iron
Jagged
Jet
Mountain
Mud
Peak
Pebble
Pinnacle
Pit
Quartz
Ridge
Rock
Rubble
Ruby
Rust(y)
Sand
Sapphire
Sediment
Silt
Silver
Slate
Soil
Spire
Stone
Trench
Zircon
Water Formations
Bay
Cove
Creek
Delta
Lake
Marsh
Ocean
Pool
Puddle
River
Sea
Water
Weather and such
Autumn
Avalanche
Balmy
Blaze
Blizzard
Breeze
Burnt
Chill
Cinder
Cloud
Cold
Dew
Drift
Drizzle
Drought
Dry
Ember
Fall
Fire
Flame
Flood
Fog
Freeze
Frost
Frozen
Gale
Gust
Hail
Ice
Icicle
Lightening
Mist
Muggy
Rain 
Scorch
Singe
Sky
Sleet
Sloe
Smoke
Snow
Snowflake
Soot
Sorrel
Spark
Spring
Steam
Storm
Summer
Sun
Thunder
Water
Wave
Wet
Wind
Winter
Celestial??
Comet
Dawn
Dusk
Evening 
Midnight
Moon
Morning
Night
Noon
Twilight
Cat Features, Traits, and Misc. 
Azure
Beige
Big
Black
Blonde
Blotch(ed)
Blue
Bounce
Bright 
Brindle
Broken
Bronze
Brown
Bumble
Burgundy
Call
Carmine
Claw
Cobalt
Cream
Crimson
Cry
Curl(y)
Dapple
Dark
Dot(ted)
Dusky
Ebony
Echo
Fallen
Fleck(ed)
Fluffy
Freckle
Ginger
Golden
Gray
Green
Heavy
Kink
Knot(ted)
Light
Little
Lost
Loud
Marbled
Mew
Milk
Mottle
Mumble
Ochre
Odd
One
Orange
Pale
Patch(ed)
Pounce 
Prickle
Ragged
Red
Ripple
Rough
Rugged
Russet
Scarlet
Shade
Shaggy
Sharp
Shimmer
Shining
Small
Smudge
Soft
Song
Speckle
Spike
Splash
Spot(ted)
Streak
Stripe(d)
Strong
Stump(y)
Sweet
Tall
Talon
Tangle
Tatter(ed)
Tawny
Tiny
Tough
Tumble
Twist
Violet
Whisker
Whisper
White
Wild
Wooly
Yellow
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skelebellie · 1 year
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FIRST MEETINGS
million knives [stampede] x plant?reader drabble
synopsis: you meet knives for the first time. he thinks your someone else.
content warning: mentions of sharp weapons, blood, and physical altercations
this an equal household. i pine after all siblings equally. [aka i think knives is a goofy dude and his characterization in stampede is kiss kiss].
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it was a particularly normal day as you spent your time around town, discovering odd patterned geological formations that helped adhere the homes to the sand below it.
was it the smartest idea to go into a dark alley alone. no. did you think anything would happen to you in the middle day. also no.
you were lost in the sauce. failing to notice the screams of town folk as you observed the calcified rock. one moment you were holding it and then boom, it was dark.
when you woke up, you were shocked to be in a white room. it sent shivers up your spine, as the environment caused old memories to rise to the surface. questions could wait until later, for now you’d try to get out of here. hopefully the town was still there when you got back.
the door was unlocked, odd considering you were kidnapped.
you also didn’t have shoes on, thankfully that old socks separated the floor and your feet. you could sense your bag somewhere within the building, your body able to feel the shawl of plant material that you had been born with, always tucked into your bag.
it was like you were an assassin, peering around every corner and ears on high alert.
the closer you got to your objective, the quieter it seemed to get. an odd sense of loneliness filling the room.
you had found your bag and shawl, even your shoes (thank god, you didn’t have the money for new ones). the only downside being that some blondie covered in a robe was holding it, allowing light to shine through the transparent shawl.
you became defensive knowing he was touching something as important as your shawl, so you started making fast paces towards him. “Hey! You shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong-“. The sense of danger came first, luckily stopping you from making too much contact with the tail of sharp objects that wrapped around you. it certainly didn’t save your overalls, as a large rip formed across the front panel. damnit, now you’d have to sew it back again.
“anything plant belongs to me. im its rightful owner, a god” blondie chided at you, only causing more anger to bubble up to your throat. “J.J Doe, right? Elusive scientist who has published series of plant based experiments. No committee or board to shift through your work, your research seems to pop up in small town libraries. Never the same one.” The man stepped down from his pedestal, inching closer to you. You backed up, only for a reactive spindle of metal(?) to wrap around your neck. it swiped, leaving a sliver of blood and for the stop part of your turtleneck to fall to the ground. the more he keeps going the more work you’ll have to do to fix whatever clothes you have.
“i detest humans, a species of parasitic worms who use plants as tools for their selfish survival. however, I hate those who knowingly use their will to torture my brotheren even more.” he was too close for comfort now. a string of knives swiping close to your forehead, which you barely dodged by shifting backwards. the shift in weight caused you to fall backwards, rows of spindles wrapping around your legs, keeping you from getting up from the floor.
“should i take a finger for each sin you have committed. maybe slowly sever you limb from limb, so you may know the suffering of the plants who you experimented on. maybe-“ You were too focused on the rows of knives wrapped around your legs to notice that he now stood atop of you. crouching to straddle you as his eyes sent daggers into your mind, like a searing hot flash of static. “i should do it with my own hands. as disgusting as you vile creatures are.” his hand slowly began to approach your neck. his weapons should have instilled enough fear into you, but now you seemed petrified, tears threatening to pour at the very thought of him touching you.
“disgusting.” he muttered, looking down as you. his hand wrapped around your neck, and immediately began to squirm, your leg receiving shallow cuts as it brushed against the sharp cage around it. the contact sent an immediate blossom of heat from your neck. you wish it was another gang of badland raiders, anything but an independent plant. you covered yourself up to avoid making contact with anyone, trying to prevent the surge of information that you would receive and give which writhed out of your control.
behind closed eyes, you could see the blossom of blue, geometric shapes spreading from your chest to your neck, reaching out to the man who’s hand was around your neck. the closer it got the more erratic you reacted. It seemed like the man above you no longer intended to kill you, for now. Instead he fixated his eyes to the spread of patterns slowly approaching his hand, his own body reacting in a similair manner. the contact left your mind heavy with shocks of malice, anger, and pain? The scorching sensation caused a moan of pain to spill from your lips as fat tears fell from your eyes.
The man above you felt the fear over the connection, a dark pit of misunderstanding and embarrassment overflowing with an ebb and flow of confusion. flashes of images of syringes and scalpels as you held the blade towards yourself, harvesting your flash to run under analysis. you hadn’t been experimenting on other plants, you had been experimenting on parts of yourself.
the cage around your legs unwinded, as did the hand around your neck. you quickly moved your arms to cover your eyes, still unable to cope with the wave of information that was forced into your head. however, your action failed as another hand wrapped around your wrists to move your arms from your face, revealing puffy eyes and still falling tears. another hand came up to caress underneath your lashes, gathering the salty tears before they could run onto the floor.
“interesting. not entirely human, not entirely plant.” the contact caused a shocking sensation underneath your skin, flinching as his thumb made lazy circles on your cheek. you relaxed, feeling as if the threat of danger was finally over with. until the blunt end of a knife slammed into the already bruised skin at the base of your neck. knocking you out once more.
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subtextsays · 1 month
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Digital Music Crash Course pt1
Hardware and software
Did you know you can buy an external USB optical drive that will read and burn DVDs and CDs for about US $20?
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Look for something like this. It'll have a bazillion reviews and will probably be a brand you've never heard of and that's ok. This one is the Gotega External DVD Drive +/-RW.
USB 2.0 is fine, 3.0 transfer speeds are overkill for optical media
optical because the technology uses lasers
+/- and ± means compatible with both old + and - standards
CD-R means recordable, CD-RW means re-writable
Re-writable discs are gimmicky, avoid
Any recent drive will have acceptable read/write speeds
Upgrading to a drive that supports blu-ray might be worth the extra cost if you want to play blu-ray movies
CD-R discs in spindles without jewel cases will be cheapest
Look for 700mb/80 mins capacity
You should be able to get 50 for well under $20
Expect to make some coasters (unusable discs). It happens and it's usually not your fault, but have extra blanks on hand.
Most of this applies to DVD±R discs
Except DVD±R holds 4.7gb vs 700mb on CD
For ripping, burning, and converting, the standard among old-school bootleg traders is Exact Audio Copy. Don't be alarmed that the UI looks like it hasn't been updated in like 20 years. That's because the UI probably hasn't been updated in like 20 years.
WinLAME is a better option if you aren't looking for a steep learning curve or want some of the intermediate steps hidden from view.
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adarkrainbow · 10 days
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As I have been reblogging and looking back at Sleeping Beauty stuff around the Internet, I realized the thing that is bothering me a bit... When it comes to the you know "original" format of Sleeping Beauty.
Everywhere on the Internet you have these posts and videos and whatnot about "The dark truth behind Sleeping Beauty" or "The Horrifying Origins of Sleeping Beauty!", and they all refer to the fact that in the "original" version of the tale, she got raped in her sleep. This is the "dark fact" everybody LOVES to spread around and talk about. Except... Except the version they refer to is Basile's "Sun, Moon and Thalia".
Why does that matter? I'll explain.
Everybody depicts "Sun, Moon and Thalia" as this sort of dark, horrifying tale of a grim and gruesome crime. They will have in their video a dark background, and creepy illustrations, and they will take an ominous horror movie voice and whatnot.
But there's a big problem with that. Basile's stories were all except serious. They were humoristic tales. Or more precisely, they were farcical stories. Farces. There's a reason its "twin compilation", Straparola's fairytale collection, is called "Facetious Nights". So the very idea of presenting these stories as if they were meant to be taken seriously is completely misreading the story's tone. Yes there was a rape - but if you extract this from the entire context and storytelling, you make this tale sound like something it is absolutely not.
"Sun, Moon and Thalia" is not meant to be a horror story. It was not meant to be read as "serious" story. It has nothing to do with either the Grimm or Perrault fairytales. The entirety of the "Pentamerone" is basically a folk-sex comedy. If such a thing can exist.
Every fairytale of the Pentamerone is opened by a small recap of the story announcing what it will be about - and already from the get-go the very two lines opening this recap give the humoristic nature of the tale away. "Thalia dies because of a splinter". I mean come on - the joke is obvious. A girl gets a splinter, she dies. And if this wasn't enough the rest of the sentence can be translated as following: "she is left in a room where the son of the king penetrates and makes her two children". The choice of the word "penetrate" is to highlight the pun in the original line where the prince entering Thalia's bedroom and the prince entering Thalia's body is resumed in one same verb.
For more breakdown of the jokes of the story, see below the cut:
As I said before from the get-go the "curse" is treated as a joke. You have this king that summons scholars to make his daughter's horoscope, right? And what does it say. "She is in great danger... BECAUSE OF A SPLINTER!". This is literaly the killer rabbit of the Monty Pythons.
In this story, what does the little old woman that offered the princess the spindle does, once the princess falls dead? (Because she is dead in this version, a magical death, but dead still). Does she warns everybody and cries for help as in Perrault's version? No! "She was quick to find back the stairs [from which she came in]" and she runs as fast away as she can without warning everybody, because she's not going to get into trouble because of some random girl that wanted to see how to spin.
The whole arrival of the prince is very, VERY unprincely and part of the joke. (Well it is a king here but I'm going to call him "prince" so as to not lose people). So he is hunting, right, and his hunting falcon enters the countryside building in which the king locked up his daughter's corpse. The prince wants to get back his bird, so he knocks - because he believes the house is inhabited. And since nobody answers and he REALLY wants his bird back, he fetches a ladder and is forced to climb up a window like a vulgar thief. And he is royalty, remember.
What is the prince's first interaction with the dead Thalia? Believing she is asleep, he starts talking to her. And since she doesn't answer he kind of shakes her around in trying to wake her up. And then suddenly, realizing she kind of looks good (an that she is visibly not alive anymore), he "does his little business" and promptly puts her back where he found her and leaves. Because he is, like most men in the Pentamerone a stupid horny dog without much morals that has the most sudden and bizarre bursts of sexual desire. Cause again the Pentamerone is a sex comedy.
In fact, in the story of "Sun, Moon and Thalia", the prince is MEANT to come off as quite stupid. He is stupid. First off he didn't get that Thalia was dead when he saw her. Then, as soon as he leaves the funeral-house, it is said he "forgot all about this adventure". Like literaly, he forgets all about it - and only suddenly remembers it randomly when Thalia wakes up. (The narration itself highlights the randomness of the events - the fact the prince remembers Thalia is random and for no reason, and in the same way there are two fairies that randomly appear out of nowhere to take care of the two babies and we are never explained anything about them - they even frighten poor awakened Thalia because she doesn't know who brings her magically food every day). When he sees back Thalia, he is all joyful and happy and he is like "Let's start a family! I'm a dad, woohoo!" ; and then the narration drops the bomb that nothing had foreshadowed: "Now, his wife was waiting for him back at the palace." The randomness of dropping the fact he has a wife is meant to be the joke, since we were led to believe he was a bachelor. But given the prince's tendency to forgetfulness it is very likely that he simply forgot he had a wife.
More of the prince's obvious stupidity and air-headedness. On one side how he betrays Thalia and her children's names to his wife - because he just can't stop repeating and singing their names out loud, day and night, even when eating or sleeping, due to how silly-happy he is. On the other, the reason why he is absent while his wife tortures Thalia: he got angry at a comment of hers, and because he was furious, he literaly had to go to ANOTHER LAND just to vent his anger. Literaly, he leaves his palace and moves to another of his domain just because he got pissy. And why did he get pissy? Because his wife kept ironically singing to him "Eat, because what you eat belongs to you" when she served him his "children" - and the stupid prince, unable to understand what she meant, literaly answers "Of course it belongs to me: I'm the bread-winner of the family, while you're doing nothing and bringing nothing to the house". [Which by the way, highlights the fact that in this couple, the wife is depicted as profiting off the king's wealth and power].
Speaking of the dinner around the fake "children": this meal is another sex joke. Because the two of them, the wife and husband, are "panting with desire" around the dishes, and keep singing stuff like "Oh that's good, oh that's good!" and "Come on, eat, come on eat!" making it all an erotic scene. A ridiculous, grotesque, perverse erotic scene around what one character believes to be a cannibalistic meal, while the other just very loudly appreciates good meat.
When the queen tries to have Thalia killed, Thalia tries to defend herself by the fact she didn't know of the queen's existence, and that any sexual thing that happened between her and the prince was in her sleep - which the queen of course does not believe because of how ridiculous it all seems. I mean you catch who you believe is your husband's lasting extra-marital mistress and what is her excuse? "Oh no you see, he made me my kids when I was asleep. Well kind of dead. I didn't know. No he did not wake me up. I didn't wake up either when the kids were born. I'm a really deep sleeper. And it was because of a splinter you see..." Literaly, imagine yourself in the place of the jealous queen hearing all that.
Thalia gains time on her execution by asking the permission to remove her clothes, and the queen accepts, but as a joke she accepts out of greed because she literaly wants to take back Thalia's dress and jewels for herself. And each time Thalia removes a piece of her clothes, she screams. She screams in hope of alerting the prince. But since the prince is far away, he doesn't hear until the very last scream. Meaning that Thalia literaly strips herself in front of the queen, while screaming every time she takes off a piece of clothing, to visibly no effect (which must leave the poor queen quite confused), and it is only when Thalia gets naked and pushes the final scream that the prince suddenly arrive. You can imagine Thalia going: "FINALLY! I've been screaming for hours now!" (especially when you consider how much pieces of clothing princesses wore at the time).
Literaly one of the threats the prince gives to his wife is "Get ready to go fatten up the broccolli". As a metaphor for being dead and buried underground. Tip-top manly threat. In fact the prince is here quite proficient in ridiculous poetic metaphors: when the cook reveals he saved his children, the prince says "Get ready to move out of the small kitchen of my castle to the vast kitchen of my heart."
And of course the final "moral" of the story is also part of the entire farcical joke that is this story. "People who are lucky receive good fortune, even in their sleep". You literaly have a girl who is randomly raped in her sleep and gives birth to children in her dead-sleep, and then is almost murdered by the rapist' wife... And THAT'S the moral of the story? If you take it all literaly, then you are a fool. Or at least Basile would have called you a fool.
Again, people tend to forget that when it comes to literary fairytales (but also a lot of folk-fairytales) there is a TONE that is important. It is the brothers Grimm and other collectors after them that imposed the idea that fairytales were meant to be read "seriously". A lot, LOT of fairytales were originally humoristic - even going into dark humor or sex comedy. And whenever you go by Straparola or Basile, you HAVE to look at them under the angle of a joke or humor, and search for the puns and caricatures and ridiculousness within these tales. Because these books were meant to be read as such. They are like Rabelais' Gargantua or Shakespeare's comedies. You can of course reinterpret them as "serious" tales... But it won't remove the fact the original was humoristic.
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anna-neko · 3 months
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horror may not be my genre, but damn I am a slut for some damn fine sound design editing inna audio medium
Magnus Archives had that slight hiss of tape. a familiar sensation frm days long past of taping music off the radio, or copying cassette to cassete to make the pert mixtape
now Protocol kicks it off with another forgotten noise. That very specific sound of an old beige-monstrosity PC booting up, complete with the lil driver checks beeps. My mind's eye [ha] can straight up see black screen runnin Memory numbers & the floppy-drive light blink
and swear to fuck, there is a dot matrix printer noise in there too
anyways, all the wonderful fanartists creating a flood of awesome new images - plz remember to add shit to the monitor! you do not get to be stuck in an office staring at this beige block for hours and days w/out starting to decorate it. A joke sticker in the corners, or tiny lil figs/keychains on the very top (those fuckers are wide enuff to support something as big as a small plush sitting up there!)
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bonus points if the plush is the dumbest dumb goof evah! (the bug says Y2K on it, it made crashing noises)
anyway, yes, clutter that shit up!! Boxes of floppies (MAC or PC format), spindles of CDs, loose labels (for the disks), post-it notes stuck around monitor if cannot stickers. Bonus points for an ancient AOL CD (or similar junk soft) used as a coaster
I cannot emphasize how much real estate there is on those things for stuff!
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jq37 · 1 year
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Twice Upon a Time - Neverafter Ep 1
The Times of Shadow
What is up y’all? A new season of D20 has started and I’ve been lured back to recapping by the siren song of fractured fairy tales. Fairy tales are one of my first loves (my thesis project for school right now is a fairy tale retelling in fact) and it’s very exciting to see that the D20 crew is digging into the darker side of these foundational stories.
I hesitated in starting recapping this season because as much as I love doing these, it’s a big time commitment and I am A Busy Person BUT the premiere ep was just so fun that I couldn’t resist. So, here’s the deal. I will do my best to keep up but no promises, OK? And I’ll be messing around with the formatting a bit to see if there’s a way to make the process a bit easier for me so bear with me.
And with that we start our story in the only way we really can…
Once Upon a Time.
Rosamund Du Prix (Siobhan’s PC)
We start with Brennan mesmerizingly telling the traditional tale of Sleeping Beauty–it goes down exactly like the Disney version. Three fairies. A fourth who isn’t invited and crashes the party after the first two have given their gifts and curses the baby princess to prick her finger on a spindle on her 18th birthday, killing her. The third fairy uses her gift to soften the curse so death turns into a 100 year sleep. Parents try to protect her by getting rid of all the spinning wheels but magic’s gotta magic and on her 18th birthday she finds a spinning wheel in an old tower and pricks herself anyway. She falls into a deep sleep as does the rest of the kingdom and the kingdom–the kingdom of Reverie–is covered in briars. 
Rosamund (who I will be calling Roz) wakes up, 100 years later, unable to close her eyes or mouth because of the briars that are growing out of her body and all around her, completely encasing her. Everyone at the tables is visibly and audibly gagging at the description which I will spare you. Roz is horribly claustrophobic but also feels a weird sense that she’s holding something that feels like a troubling sort of sixth sense (not fully explained but I’m wondering if it’s some kind of Ranger ability because she is a level 1 Ranger). 
She manages to get a hand free with minimal damage to herself (one fairy did give her the gift of grace after all) and painfully pulls the briars out of her mouth and nose. As she does, she hears whispers in her own head that she can’t understand and which stop when the root of the briars are out of her stomach.
Roz shakes the Briars that surround her, looking for the prince who was supposed to rescue her from this fate and, as she does this, pricks her finger. A tendril of the massive plant pokes out and drinks her blood, giving her a vision of the hundreds of corpses of the princes who have tried and failed to rescue her. The briars seem to think they are keeping her safe from the world outside and are fearful to let her go.
Now, well past the point of uneasiness, she tries to tell the plants thank you for the hospitality but it’s time for her to go. The plants do not agree and after she fails at trying to lull them to sleep with a lullaby, the plants try to stick her with the spindle and put her back to sleep. There is a bit of a tussle which ends with her diving out of her tower window and barely making it to the bottom in one piece. When she calls out to see if anyone is around, she gets no answer and decides to make her way out of Reverie–a process that takes months of traversing the thorny landscape. The kingdom seems fully destroyed. 
By the time she escapes, she is in *rough* shape and she’s fashioned herself a bow of thorns. 
[Note: Sleeping Beauty as a ranger is an interesting take. I wonder if she’s going to go Beastmaster for the traditional Princess With Animal Companion? Maybe Drakewarden if she wants to play with the Maleficent angle from the Disney version. Would be pretty cool to take on some of the traits of your captor–and she does already have the thorny bow. Fey Wanderer is an option because she was fey-touched upon being born.]
Now, in the present, Roz is a part of a traveling caravan in a wagon that’s going to the town of Shoeberg. In her wagon, she finds something damp and unpleasant being covered by a threadbare blanket and when she removes the blanket, she finds herself a surprise.
Gerard of Greenleigh (Murph’s PC)
Ger is prince turned frog turned prince turning back into a frog. He’s at the halfway stage so he’s still human height and build but with huge bulbous human eyes and damp, mottled, green skin.
He still has the bearing of a prince though and quickly identifies who he is and insists that his situation is temporary. Roz realizes that she’s related to him via marriage (“I think we’re cousins 3 times”) and is happy to join the self-gaslighting about how everything is fine and good and will be back to normal soon enough. They’re royals after all.
Ger says that though his kingdom is taken and his wife is missing, everything is fine and the fact that he’s turning back into a frog has NOTHING to do with his relationship with his wife which is FINE–something that Boffit (the trollson manager of the caravan who tells them they’re stopping for the night) doesn’t really buy. 
From there we’re thrust into Ger’s flashback. 
It is post-curse break and he’s doing pretty well. Except, he’s starting to realize that his frog traits are coming back. First his throat swelling. Then his eyes start migrating to frog positions. Then his tongue gets all stretchy. (“We fixed this though,” he says with a pathetic but kind of charming dismayed petulance). He tries to ignore the changes, even as he has a tense dinner with his wife–Princess Elody. Elody is discussing war-time matters with three of her generals–the kingdom is at war with Snowhold, the kingdom of the ice queen–but Ger just wants to talk about the upcoming ball and leave the unpleasantness to the soldiers. 
Elody is baffled by her husband’s lack of interest in actively protecting the kingdom and his desire to hole up in the castle while others fight and die for them. It’s the Time of Shadow, she says. Never After is being overrun with giants and witches and sea creatures! Why is he so content to coast on their supposed happily ever after? Though Ger clearly isn’t the fiercely protective active ruler she is, he says he’ll try to take a look at his fencing books. And she says that she’ll try to give him what she can. But that night, she doesn’t come to bed because she falls asleep at her war table with her generals. And the next morning, Ger’s nose is gone. Bad!
[Note: Ger is a fighter. I don’t really have a good guess on his subclass. I am fascinated by his relationship drama with his wife, though. I really hope she shows up again soon because the dynamic of these two people being in love but having such opposed life philosophies is very interesting–especially when it’s having the mechanical consequence of forcing Ger to turn back into a frog. To be in denial about how things are going as you’re literally turning into a frog is so indicative of character.]
Back in the present, we shift to another carriage in the caravan–a very nice shoe being pulled by 4 white horses. Inside is the pompous Lord Bandlebridge of Shoeberg who is toasting two figures–a cat wearing a cape and boots and a puppet of a little wooden boy (with a splintered nose–I’m guessing it was removed to allow for lying without an obvious tell). 
Through a back and forth, we learn that Puss in Boots (also known as Pib to his friends–I’ll be going with Pib or Puss interchangeably) and Pinocchio are scamming this man. They’ve told him that Pinocchio is actually a prince who stole 40 pennies from a witch and was cursed to be a puppet. They just need to borrow 40 gold pieces to break the curse and then they’ll pay him back in platinum. Lord B is so desperate to believe the story that he doesn’t look too deeply into it and goes with everything they say. 
Puss finds that he is very hungry and slips into a flashback.
Puss in Boots (Zac’s PC)
Pib is living the good life in the Kingdom of Marienne. He’s straight up chilling on a pillow in a shaft of sunlight and his breakfast is brought to him–100 live mice! 
The king comes in to talk to him privately and, as soon as they’re alone, starts freaking out. This is the miller’s son–Tomas–who in the traditional Puss in Boots story–is thrust into king-ship by Puss’s trickery. That’s all well and good but now it’s wartime and Tomas doesn’t have any idea how to run a country! Giants are attacking. He doesn’t know statecraft! He can barely read! And he loves his wife but he’s been tacitly lying to her for years and it’s all getting to be far too much. 
Pib just brushes it off and is like, hey buddy. Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine.
Spoiler alert: It is not fine. 
The kingdom falls to giants and Puss flees. And he has no idea what happened to Tomas and his wife. 
[Note: Puss is a tabaxi re-skin and a rogue. Also don’t have a guess/hope in mind for subclass but I do love the bringing of the Puss In Boots story to its logical conclusion of–yeah, this guy doesn't know how to run a country. Of COURSE it’s gonna end badly the second times are bad and you can’t let the kingdom run on autopilot.]
Back in the present, Pinocchio is being a little brat and rubbing Lord B the wrong way. To calm him down, Pib calls Lord B his best friend and hugs him–checking his pockets as he does and finding a scroll which he notes but doesn’t steal. 
Now, we check in on the third carriage in the caravan. Inside are two figures–”Mother” Timothy Goose and Ylfa Snorgelsson (better known as Little Red Riding Hood). Red knows Tim because he’s an older guy who used to read stories in her village. When things “got bad” (we’ll get to that) she met up with him. 
They both get the announcement that the caravan is stopping for the night from Boffit (and that payment will be due in Shoeberg which is a problem because they don’t really have money). They have to stop in the Blackwoods (a primeval forest) which isn’t safe and they both offer to help with keeping watch (Red clearly being the more physically capable of the two). 
As they stop, they also see two notable carriages that haven’t been mentioned before (a teapot drawn by a giant rabbit–clear Wonderland ref–and an uncovered chariot drawn by a ram with an older gentleman in it). They also see the shoe carriage which sparks their interest because Tim has this magic book that he writes words in that disappear. But the word “Shoe” stuck. So it has to be somehow relevant to his quest. 
They go talk to Lord B who is going off about how much of a thriving metropolis Shoeberg is even in these hard times. While he does this, the guy in the ram chariot calls him a fucking idiot under his breath. Tim tries to respond to Lord B but is haunted by a vision of something behind Lord B and flips out, calling it a fucker and a piece of shit–freaking out Lord B so much that he runs off. 
“I saw him again,” he confesses to Red and we jump into his flashback.
“Mother” Timothy Goose (Ally’s PC)
The Lullaby Lands are a really sweet place that’s mainly farmers and animals and doesn’t need a king or a queen to rule it. 
Tim walks home with his son's bones in his arms.
His husband–Henry Hubbard–is horrified as Tim explains that their son, Jack, didn’t actually find whatever egg he said he found and was clearly mixed up with something shady. Tim said he saw Jack talking to some giant, black, demonic looking gander (a male goose) and say “I need my third wish” and then watched him age rapidly into the pile of bones he’s holding. 
Then the gander said, “Do you wish to know what just happened?” and when Tim said yes, he was trapped in his own set of three wishes. He then wished for something to get his son back and was given the leather-bound book we saw him with before. 
As a veteran bard and witch, Tim isn’t a stranger to magic. He opens the book, looking for an answer and finds the pages blank. Undeterred, he starts writing in the book and finds that everything he writes in the book disappears except for the word Jack that sticks. 
He writes all day long and in the back of his head he hears the demonic whisper, “There’s no way you’ll find them all in time, Goose.”
Eventually, he notices a stain on the floor of the house where his son made a mess as a younger child, jumping over a candle and tries to just describe the person he wants. His son. He writes in his book the nursery rhyme (which it seems like he wrote in the world about his son) Jack be Nimble, Jack be quick, etc. 
As he does, light fills the room and he sees a window open in the pages through which he sees his son, healthy and well and in a version of Pottingham that doesn’t seem afflicted by the floods tormenting it IRL.
“Dad I’m still here,” the Jack on the page says. “[The book] can save more than me. You’ll save them, I know you will.” Before he can say more, he is cut off and starts running. The book in the story sticks and Jack’s bones disappear in motes of golden light. 
Tim realizes he has a LOT of work to do.
[Note: Tim is a bard. I could see College of Lore. Maybe Eloquence or Spirits? Also, I HATED how he got roped into his wishes. That’s some fey/lawyer B.S. “Do you wish to know?” Get out of here with that B.S. I hate the gander. All my homies hate the gander.]
Back in the present, the three groups of PCs are starting to get acquainted. Pinocchio introduces himself as a prince and, as a princess, Roz wants to know where he’s the prince of. Maybe they’re related!  He lies and says he’s the prince of Shoeberg which Lord B overhears and knows to be false because he’s from Shoeberg. 
Lord B starts accosting Pinocchio who is defended by Tim and then the Ram dude who comes to back Tim up. Ram dude is muscular and has armor and a sword. Though he backs up Tim in telling Lord B to step off, he also whispers to Tim that Shoeberg sucks and he shouldn’t talk about it so much. 
Lord B retreats to his shoe carriage and on a Nat 1 insight, Pinocchio thinks that, despite his lie, he’s fine to still go in there. Everyone tries to stop his “chaotic entitled” ass and Red ends up stopping the sword of one of Lord B’s guards with a hairy paw and she goes into a rage. Flashback time for Red.
Ylfa Snorgelsson (Emily’s PC)
Red is outside of her home she is returning to. Apparently, she strayed from the path when she shouldn’t have and shit went down. She knocks on the door, and calls for her mom. No one answers. Red pleads for them to open the door, saying that her grandma is dead and she doesn't have a place to go but her mom says that her daughter is dead. 
Read assures her that she’s alive and says somewhat fearfully that she doesn’t know what she might try to do to get in. 
Inside, there’s some whispering about wolf-trickery and waiting for a woodsman but Red is eventually let in.
She manages to quell her churning thoughts and tells herself that everything will be fine once she’s in. Her mother will help her fix everything…but as soon as she steps in, a silver dagger falls on her while her mom calls for her siblings to run out the back door. It was a trap.
Her rage boils over and she flips the dinner table. A voice tells her to remember to breathe. She does and then, just like in the story, she huffs and puffs and blows her entire family away. Yikes!
[Note: God, talk about trauma. Love the weaving in of the Three Little Pigs story here. And man, Red is so young. Just a pre-teen. Emily plays her so unsure and awkward. I can feel Emily readying some emotional killshots with this character. Her pleading to be let in  (which I realize as I write this is very “Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in) was so sad. Also, she’s a Barbarian in case that wasn’t clear. Path of the Beast would be the obvious subclass but we’ll see if she throws us a curveball as she is wont to do. Also,what’s the over-under on her multiclassing into bard? She already has a bard mentor in Tim and we call know mama needs her spell slots.]
In the present, the guard flees at Red’s display of strength and Tim hugs Red. 
Pinocchio admits he’s not a prince but he and Pib tell a very sanitized story about how times are hard and they’re just been taking care of each other. 
The stranger who helped them reveals himself as Old Cole (ie: Old King Cole was a merry old soul–but he doesn’t seem very merry anymore). He explains that Shoeberg was founded by an unkind woman who gave lordships to all of her shitty sons (ie: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe). It’s a rough city that chews people up and spits them out and it sucks that it got to survive while many other better cities crumbled in the Time of Shadow. 
He’s–as far as he knows–the last survivor of his kingdom–Jubilee. Ger asks if he knows anything about his wife and Cole says she was a brilliant warrior on the battlefield (she’s a mace-wielder btw, and ad props for her to being a queen who actually gets her hands dirty) but he doesn’t know if she’s alive right now. Pib asks about Marienne as well but Cole only knows it was overrun by giants. 
[Note: This probably isn’t important, but Cole is essentially making Stone Soup by his carriage which is another famous childhood story I wanted to point out because it’s glossed over.]
Everyone is told that they don’t get to eat if they don’t help with the food so Roz tries to do the princess thing of calling birds to help her. Of course, they’re in a gnarly, ultra-cursed forest so on a Nat 1 a fucked up ostrich comes to help her and she politely declines.
Pib and Pinocchio figure they can just steal some food and bring it to “help” but, when they go to do that, Pinocchio notices a coach with a key in it. When he opens it, he sees someone familiar is in there and sends Pib away while he talks to them privately (though Pib tries to eavesdrop).
Inside is a shadowy silhouette that Pinocchio nervously addresses as “Mom” Brennan says he’s only ever seen her shadow. 
His mom says that Roz is very important and is being hunted so he needs to help keep her safe and hidden. She’s too busy caring for his father. Pinocchio asks for an assurance that his dad is OK and she says that she promised to keep him safe when she married him. She says something about some candle “burning low” and reminds Pinocchio of the night they met.
[Note: I can’t believe I’ve gone this far without mentioning that Lou had committed to this Mickey Mouse sounding squeaky voice for Pinnocchio which is Certainly A Choice. Also, not sure what the candle refers to yet. The most famous candle story is the Jack Be Nimble one and that doesn’t fit. Will think about this more.]
Pinocchio (Lou’s PC)
Pinocchio is in his town (Amarti in the kingdom of Marienne) up later than he should be. And he’s a real boy. A pointy woman in all black carrying a staff shows up and Pinocchio recognizes her as the second fey he’s met in his life. 
The woman has a ball of magical energy which looks so so fun and says each child will get a chance to play with it if they answer a question honestly. Behind her, going into the village, something shadowy flickers. Maybe rats?
She asks a child what their father’s name is. He answers. There’s a scream in the village. She moves on to the next child. Same thing happens. The kids start crying, realizing something awful is happening.
She gets to Pinocchio. She asks for his name. Then she asks for his father’s name. He lies.
Instantly, he drops dead and wakes up on his strings in his father’s house as his dad breathes in and turns. 
Back to the present, Pinocchio’s mother says that he’s been telling a lot of lies and she hopes he can keep them straight. And that’s where we end for the week!
[Note: OK, this is my big Pepe Silvia moment of the week. I have this fraught relationship with the show Once Upon a Time but I feel like it’s prepared me for the analysis I’m about to do. 
When the character card shows up for Pinocchio’s mom it identifies her as “The Stepmother” (who is his patron btw–he’s a warforged warlock) and it identifies her as being from Cinderella. BUT it doesn’t say she’s THE stepmother from Cinderella. 
Let’s think about this for a second.
She’s presented in silhouette. Why? It could just be patron dramatic-ness. But it also could be to set up for a reveal later. 
We never get a name–just a title: Stepmother. And it’s totally normal that Pinocchio would just call her mom. But that also could be a setup for a reveal. 
This is a weird pull but there’s an apt quote from Disenchanted (the other thing I’m currently obsessed with). “Stepmothers are wicked but they’re not usually very powerful.” Cinderella’s stepmother as a patron wouldn’t be my first guess, you know? Like, of course in this world she COULD be magic, like Tim is, but I think there are better candidates here. 
Let’s think about the flashback now. Pinocchio’s mom leads into it by telling him to remember when they met. 
He describes the fairy that he meets and her features. But Brennan also says he’s only ever seen his mom in silhouette. So the fairy and the mom don’t seem to be the same people even if that is the night that they met. Brennan also says it’s the second fairy he ever met which means the first is likely the Blue Fairy. So this isn’t likely a twisted version of the fairy from his story. 
So the fairy this is likely to be is the one from Cinderella. The Fairy Godmother. And it seems like she’s controlling rats which tracks with the Cinderella story–rodents to horses, right?
(Though, sidenote, because I’m going full Pepe Silvia, I will also point out two other possible links. The first being something Pied Piper related. And the second being a Pinocchio pull as the Pleasure Island owner in the Disney version has these shadowy minions. Oh and while we’re talking shadows–Peter Pan. None of this is part of the analysis proper, just throwing out possibilities.)
ANYWAY, if this fairy is Cindy’s fairy and I’m skeptical the stepmom is The Stepmother then what if Pinocchio’s stepmother is Cinderella herself? The OG Stepmom in the story never had enough proximity to magic to be a patron but Cindy did. I could see her getting magic much more easily. And it would be a killer reveal story-wise. 
I don’t know what the motivation would be yet and I don’t even know if she’s evil or just shady. But there was clearly a lot of intentional vagueness during this section, and this is my best attempt to parse it. I look forward to getting more puzzle pieces as the season goes on!]
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punmonster · 5 months
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Kinda scuffed cuz my source is Wikipedia but the burning bush was described as being an angel appearing in a bush which God then speaks through, if Dante is the angel in this case as they appear to be, then I wonder who the God may be.
I've got a few thoughts on who though:
1] Carmen/Ayin/The Light in general. Easist to explain, they all relate quite heavily to religious and more specifically heavenly references like White Night, the sephira and how one could argue that Angela could be a stand in for Lucifer. However, I find this one the most boring.
2] It's the star that guides them. Especially given how the burning book scene in the bible is one in which Moses is appointed to become a leader and guide the Israelites. [I wonder if this has anything to do with DD Moses, but it's unlikely] But in this case, the question remains of who exactly they're talking to, as with C/A/L one could easily say they're being guided to ensure everyone distorts/doesn't/forms an EGO. Also the idea of the star - something most likely from the outskirts - being Lucifer cuz he's known as the Morning Star is interesting given the next idea I have.
3] The Head. Do we have any info on them? Not really. Does this make sense? Probably not. Is it fun? Hell yeah.
According to my lord and saviour Wikipedia: '26 is the gematric number, being the sum of the Hebrew characters (Hebrew: יהוה) being the name of the god of Israel – YHWH (Yahweh).' Which matches up with the amount of wings [or at least the amount there's meant to be, don't remember any references to Z corp] within the city, and the sum of a city could be said to be its leader.
There also the holy trinity idea of the Arbiters, Beholders and Claws of the head, and how they will know if any one of The City's rules are broken in a way reminiscent of how God's omniscience is described. As well as how it seems that the calendar was reset at some point or another - looking at the dates on Dante's notes - which possibly aligned with the date of The City's formation, and which matches how our calendar reset with the birth of Christ [does that then make The City itself Jesus? Someone or something to be sacrificed for other's sins and then revived? Or is it just referencing how a major religious moment was the thing to reset the calendar].
In this case, would the game's version of God speaking through the angel to nudge Moses into guiding His people be The City being reflected through Dante to guide someone [the sinners? Limbus Co. Itself?] into making The City slightly less shit? Unsure.
Hope you don't mind my rambles, but all the ideas you put out are really interesting and I have no irls to talk abt this game with, have a nice day!
Also: Currently on the look out for anything with black n' yellow fire, and the 'burning bush' is also a species of plant native to several places, including Korea - as well as also being known as the 'winged spindle' and 'winged euonymus'. This is probably a reach but if we see anything abt spindles or euonymus I'm gonna take notes lmao.
hell yeah delicious analysis!
a spindle is also used to hold thread, if that means anything.
i cant think of anything to add atm otherwise, but this is good shit! :D
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bpod-bpod · 6 months
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Drug Action Detail
Commonly used anti-cancer drugs (eg Taxol) target microtubules – structures inside a cell essential for them to divide. This study shows such drugs cause defective formation of mitotic spindles – microtubule structures that segregate the chromosomes during cell division – and provides insight into how resistance to these drugs develops and how to counteract it
Read the published research paper here
Image from work by Amber S. Zhou and colleagues
Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in PLOS Biology, October 2023
You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
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mermaidsirennikita · 10 months
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What historical romance novels give you beachy/summer vibes?
Gooood question!
Of course, there's Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas. Conveniently the gateway to the Wallflowers series. I need to reread this one, but it's honestly quite good, if overshadowed by the next couple books in the series. There's the girl gang formation, the "rich self-made rough man/snotty poor girl" pairing, the Indecent Proposal of it all, the subtle foot fetish Simon Hunt absolutely has (what are you doing with those boots, Simon; what are you doing; why are you touching her feet). I also remember really liking the little honeymoon trip they take? It's good if you haven't read it yet (and if you can secure a paperback of the original copy before Lisa edited it... do that, the edits are so dumb, this book does not have any serious dubcon). Also, I feel like the scene where the girls play rounders in their underwear in the woods is SOOOO summery, especially when Westcliff shows up and falls completely in hate love with Lillian IMMEDIATELY.
Joanna Shupe's Fifth Avenue Rebels begins with The Heiress Hunt, which takes place largely at a house party in Newport. It's basically a Gilded Age beach trip, with friends, hookups, secrets, tennis. The next book, The Lady Gets Lucky, begins with an overlapping timeline at the house party, then moves back to NYC. The Bride Goes Rogue takes place almost entirely in NYC with a brief interlude in the Catskills, I think? But I'd still read it next because this series is best if read in order (though every book is technically a standalone) and it's EXCELLENT. Then the last book, The Duke Gets Even, goes alllll the way back to the house party and reveals things, and the leads literally meet while he's doing laps in the ocean and she's skinny dipping. There's a huge water motif in that one. A wetness motif, if you will.
I'm not 100% sure why, but I'm really feeling this vibe for Scoundrel of My Heart by Lorraine Heath, an excellent book--I belieeeve the leads fuck on the beach.
Dearest Rogue by Elizabeth Hoyt takes place over the course of a road trip, essentially, when someone attempts to kidnap the heroine (who is blind, as a side note) and the hero, her bodyguard, has to spirit her away. Road trips often give me summer vibes, but they also do go to the sea at one point, and, yes, fuck on the beach.
The Hawk by Monica McCarty is a medieval you should check out--it's less "beach" versus the sea (though I believe there is at least one scene on a beach) and admittedly this shit takes place in Scotland and Ireland so like, what is summer, but the ocean stuff is so intense and it's so fun. The hero is like, a pirate but also a Scottish lord. At one point they fuck on a raft in the middle of a storm because she's scared and how else can she calm down???
The Duke in Question by Amalie Howard is such a fun ROMP of a book!!! And it begins largely on what is basically a cruise ship, which is why I recommend it. The heroine is like, an intrepid spy, and the hero is a spy too AND her brother's close friend, and they begin this game of cat and mouse. He takes her virginity while she's bent over and braced against a tree because he doesn't realize she's a virgin and she wants it SOOOO bad? And later he finds a handkerchief she used to clean up with her VIRGIN'S BLOOD and is like "OH MY GOD???? I DID THAT????" And then they go back on the ship and fuck some more. So fun.
A Daring Pursuit by Kate Bateman gives me summer vibes. Not 100% sure why, but they do a lot of sexy stuff like.... outdoors. At one point they fuck doggy style in the woods after a near bear attack. It's lots of fun, and so is A Wicked Game, the next book in the series, which may give you a similar vibe.
Tessa Dare's Spindle Cove series gives me serious summer vibes. It's basically set in this little vacation town by the water. The first book in the series has a "near sex while swimming" moment as well. When a Scot Ties the Knot also gives me summer vibes, but that may be because the English heroine going to Scotland gives vacation and because she's trying to sketch her pet lobsters as they fuck through the whole book, so I'm thinking.... water?
Ravished by Amanda Quick is a classic wherein the hero and heroine get stuck in a cave while water is rising (there's treasure involved, it's a lot) and he's like "well, I'm gonna have to marry you since we're spending the night in this cave, so we might as well fuck now". Fucks her right there in the beach cave.
A Rogue's Rules for Seduction by Eva Leigh is super summery to me! Hero left heroine at the altar a year before so they're angsty exes. Their friends and family basically trick them both into coming to this party on an island, and they're stuck there and have to talk it out. There's a hot moment on the beach. Not on the beach, he does in fact eat her ass. They're switches. It's great!
The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham begins with the heroine (a famous rakess) taking a sort of sabbatical to write her memoirs, and it's kinda giving eat pray love except she's just in this one small town (beachy?) area, and also she's way too messy to just have a normal eat pray love time. The heroine meets the hero, this widower single father, and sets out to seduce him. It's good and kinda subversive.
A Caribbean Heiress in Paris and An Island Princes Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera give girls' trip to me--the heroines are from what is now the Dominican Republic and have traveled to Paris. The first book has the rum heiress heroine entering into a marriage of convenience with a hot Scottish whiskey guy and getting fingered on the Eiffel Tower, while the second book is a sapphic romance with the the younger heroine getting entangled in this vampy older woman who wants her land and will do A N Y T H I N G to get it. Both are super good and super hot.
Something Fabulous and Something Spectacular by Alexis Hall give me summery vibes for some reason. It could be because they're just so fucking funny and zany, but this shit can't possibly happen during the winter...? The first book is a m/m roadtrip romance wherein this cold duke has to enlist his fiancee's twin brother to help him find said fiancee after she flees following his proposal. It's so funny, so entertaining, so good. The second book is a nb/nb romance with a genderfluid lead whose former lover enlists her help in getting the attention of a famous, sexy castrato soprano the former lover is into... But the soprano is more into our lead than her lover.
The Palace of Rogues series by Julie Anne Long is one series that just gives me summer vibes? The series takes place at a boarding house, so each book is about different guests (well, technically the first two books are about the owners of the boarding house, but still). It gives vacation-y romcom to me. The next book coming out, How to Tame a Wild Rogue (drops 7/25) has a pirate-y hero and a big thunderstorm keeping everyone stuck inside, which feels especially summery.
What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long also feels very summery to me, as a house party book. My favorite JAL. The hero is pushing 40 and decides to ruin this twenty year old virgin as revenge for her brother cucking him. She immediately catches on, but is using him to try to make this other guy jealous. It's so good. There's dry humping on a bench!!!
The Wrong Marquess by Vivienne Lorret has, again, a lot of stuff happening with people packed together in a house (as well as a very good sex scene that's water/waterfall-adjacent). I think there's a scene at a zoo, too? It's light and fun with just enough looooonging. The hero is the older brother of the heroine's new best friend, and he initially dislikes and is super rude to the heroine, which she believes herself in love with her childhood best friend (who's a duke). The moment when the hero realizes he's fucking obsessed with this girl... The yearning is INTENSE.
Never Seduce a Duke by Vivienne Lorret (same series actually, doesn't follow directly after but is about the above hero's sister) is a crazy fucking book that I love so much. It's very summery to me because the heroine is giving this last hurrah before she's officially a spinster and done with the season thing, and she's traveling Europe with these two spinster aunt types. She meets the hero, he thinks she's stolen an ancient cookbook from him (yes) he follows her through Europe, the flirting is intense, and....... well. Actions. Have. Consequences. It's SO good.
A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean gives me summer vibes, too; it's a roadtrip romance, it's wacky, it's sexy, the hero is an absolute rake and eats the heroine out in a moving carriage...
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best-childhood-book · 29 days
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Ohhh me too me too me too
I love you, op.
That being said, could you add the works below to the list, please ? :
The Supernaturalist (Eoin Colfer)
Skylark (Meagan Spooner)
The Once and Future King (T.H. White)
Once & Future (Kieron Gillen)
The Checquy Files (Daniel O'Malley)
Circe (Madeline Miller)
Monk & Robot (Becky Chambers)
Legacy of Orisha (Tomi Adeyemi)
Villains (V.E. Schwab)
Falling Kingdoms (Morgan Rhodes)
Chivalry (Neil Gaiman)
The Sleeper and the Spindle (Neil Gaiman)
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (Ram V)
The Unwritten (Mike Carey)
The Left-Handed Book Sellers of London (Garth Nyx)
Die (Kieron Gillen)
The Wicked + the Divine (Kieron Gillen)
I added most of these, but like some other Neil Gaiman titles, Chivalry and The Sleeper and the Spindle are short stories, not technically novels (even in graphic format)
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imperialchem · 9 months
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Types of Insulators in Overhead Lines: The Ultimate Guide
Within the realm of electrical power transmission, overhead wires assume a pivotal function in facilitating the effective conveyance of electricity across extensive distances.  The aforementioned lines are upheld by a system of towers and poles, and a crucial element that guarantees their dependable functionality is the insulator.  Insulators are specifically engineered to impede the transmission of electrical current between the conductive elements and the supporting frameworks, ensuring the safety of the lines and upholding a consistent electrical provision.  Strengthen your electrical networks - Trust the expertly crafted Medium Voltage Support Insulators offered by Radiant Enterprises - one of the leading Medium Voltage Support Insulator manufacturers in India!
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This comprehensive reference aims to examine the various classifications of insulators utilised in overhead lines, elucidating their distinctive characteristics and practical implementations.
Pin Insulators:
Pin insulators are widely utilised in overhead lines, making them one of the most prevalent types in use.  The components are comprised of a body made of either ceramic or glass, including a spindle located at the bottom that is securely attached to the cross-arm of the supporting structure.  The conductors are affixed to the upper groove of the insulator, therefore ensuring electrical isolation.  Pin insulators are commonly used due to their simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and capacity to endure mechanical and electrical pressures.  Distribution lines and low-voltage transmission lines frequently employ these devices.
Suspension Insulators:
Suspension insulators are utilised in high-voltage transmission lines characterised by elevated tension levels.  The design of these units involves a serial connection of insulators, resulting in the formation of an elongated chain.  Typically, a unit comprises a ceramic or composite disc accompanied by a metallic cover and an insulating cement joint.  Suspension insulators are affixed to the cross-arm through the use of an insulating string, so facilitating the suspension of the conductor beneath the tower.  These insulators exhibit exceptional mechanical durability and demonstrate remarkable efficacy in environments characterised by substantial levels of pollution, such as industrial zones.
Strain Insulators:
When a transmission line terminates or a sharp turn is made in the line's direction, strain insulators are employed to securely terminate or anchor the conductors.  They are built to endure the mechanical tension of the hung conductor as well as the electrical stress.  Strain insulators are often constructed of porcelain or toughened glass and have a long, cylindrical shape.  Their major function is to disperse mechanical forces while preventing electrical contact.
Shackle Insulators:
Low-voltage distribution lines typically make use of shackle insulators, which are sometimes known as spool or link insulators.  Made of porcelain or polymer, they take the form of a spool.  Shackle insulators can be fastened to their support structure with a nut and bolt thanks to the centrally located threaded bolt.  The shackle eye is then used to secure the conductor.  For low-voltage uses, these insulators are a straightforward and inexpensive option.  Experience comfort and energy efficiency - Order high-quality Indoor Insulators manufactured and supplied by Radiant Enterprises - one of the renowned Indoor Insulator manufacturers in India!
Composite Insulators:
In recent years, composite insulators have experienced a surge in popularity owing to their advantageous characteristics, including their lightweight nature, superior mechanical strength, and exceptional pollution resistance.  Typically, these objects consist of a core made of fibreglass and a housing made of silicone rubber.  Composite insulators possess superior resistance to adverse environmental conditions, hence decreasing the necessity for maintenance.  Insulators made of alternative materials are employed in both distribution and transmission lines, serving as a practical substitute for conventional porcelain insulators.
Post Insulators:
Post insulators are commonly utilised in substations and various electrical apparatus.  These units are specifically engineered to function as a cohesive entity, effectively insulating the conductors from the earth or supporting structures.  Post insulators exhibit a diverse range of shapes and sizes, which are contingent upon the particular application and voltage prerequisites.  Crucial elements are present in order to guarantee the safety and effectiveness of electrical power networks within substations.
Final Thoughts:
Insulators play a crucial role in overhead lines, serving as essential components that guarantee the dependable and secure transmission of electrical power.  This comprehensive resource provides descriptions of numerous types of insulators that are designed to accommodate varying voltage levels, ambient circumstances, and mechanical specifications.  Various types of insulators, ranging from old pin and suspension insulators to contemporary composite insulators, possess distinct advantages and find usage in diverse contexts.
When undertaking the design of overhead lines, it is imperative to take into account many elements such as voltage levels, contamination levels, and mechanical loads in order to make an informed decision regarding the appropriate insulator type.  The continuous development of insulators, driven by breakthroughs in materials and manufacturing techniques, has resulted in improved efficiency and increased lifespan of power transmission networks on a global scale.  With the continuous advancement of technology, it is anticipated that there will be a proliferation of inventive insulator solutions in the future, which will further enhance the efficiency of overhead lines.  Ensure continuous power supply with expertly crafted Outdoor Insulators for your infrastructure supplied by Radiant Enterprises - one of the best Outdoor Insulator manufacturers in India!
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morrak · 2 years
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Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 82
This week: a diversion from typical format and focus, as well as answers promised explicitly to @shiny-good-rock and @sagehaubitze and implicitly to the rest of you. I’m going to allow myself one paragraph per thought cluster not as a challenge, but because I’ve been out in the heat and my brain is as an egg. Runny but denatured, like.
In 1927, some German guys under the banner of the Reichs-Ausschuß für Lieferbedingungen (that is, RAL, that is also National Committee for Delivery and Quality Assurance) established their own color space because that’s what such guys do. After some tinkering around with their system, out plonked (among other colors, because that’s what color spaces do) RAL 6011 (that is, Resedagrün, that is also reseda green) which after some stuff happened got used in a bunch of military applications and then some civilian ones. By the 80s RAL 6011 was the standard color for machine tools in continental Europe. Deckel, Schaublin, Opus, whatever. Still gets used a lot by certain kinds of machinist, restorers, hobbyists, and model makers. See below.
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In the 1980s, my dad’s parents moved to the Netherlands after several decades living in places other than the Netherlands. My grandmother was not a creative or crafty woman except for occasional pattern sewing — she did not like to alter clothes, mind, just follow patterns — or, along the same vein, simple guided painting. Because she spent time around Hindeloopen and because she liked finding local furniture wherever they happened to live, she got reasonably into folk art. She got into it enough she started painting on her own — trays, mostly, but also small containers and the odd stool or book rack. I grew up with a weird amount of Hindelooper art. Poppies, dog roses, sometimes even birds. See below.
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In 2020, I was given my poor little lathe practically at the same moment as a friend was given a poor old (1921ish) Singer sewing machine and table we slaved for a while to restore. Adoptive siblings, those machines. Last year (that is, 2021) I got a wild hair and up-gunned the lathe with a servomotor intended for industrial sewing machines. Knowing I’d need to repaint it eventually, I considered hand-detailing over black lacquer like an old Singer, but realized that would require creativity and craft. Nah. I further realized a common base color in the Hindeloopen style is similar to RAL 6011 (if darker on average, but always with 6011-friendly accents in gold and/or powder blue and/or brownish), which I thought would be a very silly visual pun. See below.
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When I rebuilt the spindle and headstock a couple weeks back, I found the closest match I could obtain quickly and cheaply. Currently only the headstock bears the new paint, but I’ll recoat the rest as agrees with more urgent projects. See below.
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I have several other priorities with the machine overhaul — custom headstock hardware, finishing the solid toolpost riser that’s sitting in the chuck in the picture there, metal handwheels for the carriage and tailstock, etc. and so on ad nauseum — but eventually it will be all dressed up like a piece of Hindeloopen furniture. Only I, my dad, and about seven other people alive (plus I guess you, reader) will get the reference, but when the hell have I ever bothered with appealing to people with my obscurities?
I’ll need some practice painting the motifs and guidance with drafting custom spreads, though, which is why this is counting toward UWLS’ tally. For a couple months now I’ve been scouring eBay and similar for old craft magazines that fit the bill. Luckily my grandmother was far from the only sucker that bought into yet another clever Dutch ploy targeted at foreigners looking for quaint whatsits, so I’ve hit on a minor but distinct, if extinct, publishing niche. So far my collection comes to two (2) items. See below.
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I need more. I also need to practice a lot. I also also need to experiment with layering acrylics over the alkyd enamel I’m using on the lathe, and with topcoating the whole deal to ward against oil and solvents. Much to do, but we’re getting there. When I inevitably die in some kind of slapstick labelmaker incident, good luck fighting over these gems.
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