GEARHEAD *

indie. priv. selective. BULMA BRIEF   dragonball.

[vulgarbulma]

capsule  corporation's  primary  engineering  terminal  has  been  brought  online, rebooted by KAI.

⇄ ◁◁ I I ▷▷ ↻ ⁰⁰ ²⁵ ━━●━━━━━━━━ ⁰² ⁰⁸ NOW LISTENING TO CAPSULE RADIO . . . DO NOT TOUCH THAT DIAL

this  is  an  independent,  highly  selective  portrayal  of  bulma  briefs  from  dragon  ball,  written  with  primary  inspiration  drawn  from  the  anime  while  incorporating  PERSONAL  HEADCANON.

transversing  the  galaxies  with  @wokegeta

[monkison]

@vulgarbulma

gohan liked heroes.

his life had begun because of two of them, if the stories his mother told him were to be trusted. there was so much passion in her voice whenever she spoke about those first years with his father that he could not help believing every word.

before he had even reached eleven, he understood how thoroughly heroism ran through his family and the people gathered around it. piccolo had once pursued domination and the death of his father. vegeta had arrived on earth prepared to destroy it, with no remorse trailing behind him. their collisions with goku had forced both men onto different paths, however gradual and imperfect those changes proved to be. gohan himself would eventually become essential to piccolo’s transformation.

sometimes, gohan felt like a shadow moving across the vast, astronomical scale of his father’s reputation. on some level, he understood vegeta’s impassioned need to measure himself against it

superiority had never interested gohan. the perception of a son defeating his father merely so he could confidently pronounce himself the better warrior was a concept he never held; no cell in his body urged him toward it. his father may be skyline eclipsing many, but that didn't sour him on his own dad. what goku inspired in him was the desire to discover the full dimensions of his own power—to throw himself headlong into the familiar, chaotic world that had raised him and finally occupy it on his own terms.

the heroes gohan discovered after becoming a city student were different from those he had known in the mountains.

they appeared between television programs, across comic-book covers and advertisements, bedazzled in bright armor and capes while announcing themselves with a compelling, dynamic voices to the masses before delivering justice.

gohan had known warriors capable of splitting planets apart and reducing them into atoms. there was still something uniquely appealing about heroes who made an event out of arriving.

perhaps that explained more about the great saiyaman than he cared to examine.

the persona gave his strength a language that belonged specifically to him. it allowed gohan to take the power inherited from a nearly cosmically lost culture and filter it through the heroic imagery earth had taught him to love. where his father had become an icon almost accidentally, gohan had designed one for himself: colorful, theatrical, sincere, and occasionally embarrassing whenever he adamantly performed the poses for too long.

it was still his—and actually have fun while doing so! so, how could he ever lose?

years later, the familiar green-and-black suit remained folded perfectly beneath one arm as gohan descended toward capsule corporation. his shoes settled lightly upon the lawn. blades of grass planted against the earth while several insects scattered from the sudden arrival.

he lifted his eyes toward the nearest laboratory window.

“ hey, bulma!! you got a sec? ”

[vulgarbulma]

the  laboratory  reflected  its  owner  with  uncomfortable  accuracy.

there were circuit  boards  rested  against expensive  cosmetics  she  had  forgotten  to  carry  back  upstairs.  a  pair  of  sunglasses  lay  across  a  stack  of  engineering  journals,  while  a  lipstick  rolled  lazily  against  a  container  of  titanium  fasteners  whenever  the  ventilation  system  sent  a  faint  vibration  through  the  workbench. 

several  jackets  hung  over  the  backs  of  the  chairs  instead  of  the  coat  rack  standing  only  a  few  feet  away.  a  drawer  remained  half  open  because  she  had  intended  to  return  to  it  a  few  minutes  earlier,  and  a  coffee  mug  sat  beside  an  exposed  circuit  assembly.  nothing  appeared  particularly  orderly,  yet  nothing  was  ever  truly  lost.  the  room  followed  a  logic  that  belonged  entirely  to  bulma,  and  she  could  cross  it  without  looking  while  reaching  for  exactly  the  tool  she  needed.

it  had  always  been  that  way.

when  she  was  a  teenager,  her  bedroom  had  reflected  the  very  same  habits.  clothes  disappeared  beneath  blueprints.  a  makeup  palette  occupied  the  same  dresser  as  a  half-finished  capsule  prototype.  a  necklace  might  end  up  draped  across  an  oscilloscope  before  she  remembered  putting  it  there,  and  an  expensive  handbag  could  spend  a  week  leaning  against  an  engine  block  because  she  had  become  distracted  by  another  idea  halfway  through  unpacking  it. 

her  mother  called  it  a  disaster.  her  father  never  seemed  to  mind.  he  would  wander  through  the  room,  step  over  whatever  occupied  the  floor  that  week,  and  somehow  retrieve  the  exact  screwdriver  or  socket  wrench  he  had  been  looking  for  without  asking  a  single  question. like father, like daughter.

vegeta  had  stepped  into  her  bedroom  once,  and  surveyed  the  clothes  scattered  across  the  floor,  the  blueprints  draped  over  the  bed,  the  cosmetics  with  engine  parts,  and  the  stack  of  unfinished  projects  occupying  nearly  every  available  surface.

"you  live  like  a  peasant."

for  vegeta,  wealth  had  never  been  measured  by  accumulation.  saiyan royalty  had  never  meant  surrounding  oneself  with  possessions  until  there  was  nowhere  left  to  walk.  it  meant  every  object  occupying  its  proper  place,  every  room  maintained  with  discipline. later  came  frieza's  army,  in which  personal  space  was even  scarcer  than  it  had  been  inside  the  royal  palace. 

bulma  had  never  known  that  life.

she  had  grown  up  in  a  house  where  every  room  expanded  into  another,  where  invention  spilled  naturally  across  tables and  countertops  because  there  had  always  been  another  room  to  work  in  if  one  became  full.  ideas  arrived  faster  than  she  could  put  them  away,  and  dr.  briefs  had  never  cared  whether  an  engine  component  rested  beside  a  bottle  of  perfume  if  both  were  being  used.

she  steadied  the  housing  with  one  hand  and  turned  the  screwdriver  another  quarter  rotation  before  reconnecting  the  power  supply.

a  row  of  indicator  lights  cycled  red. yellow. green. she  watched  the  diagnostic  report  scroll  across  the  nearest  monitor,  scanned  the  values  for  anything  unusual,  then  nodded  once  to  herself.

"there  we  go." a  quiet  rustle  pulled  her  attention  toward  the  neighboring  bench; one  of  her  father's  cats  had  made  itself  comfortable  beside  a  stack  of  technical  manuals,  sprawled  beneath  the  warmth  drifting  from  a  monitor  as  though  the  laboratory  belonged  to  it.  bulma  looked  over  the  rim  of  her  safety  glasses  and  frowned. "... how  are  you  still  alive?"

"hey,  bulma!!  you  got  a  sec?"

the  voice  cut  through  the  open  laboratory  window. she  jerked  hard  enough  to  nearly  drop  the  screwdriver  before  instinctively  pointing  it  toward  the  source  like  a  pistol. "...gohan!" she let out a breath she did not realize she was holding, prying the window open farther. "one of these days you're gonna use the front door like a normal person." like father, like son.

[vulgarbulma]

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