#not sure when it’s meant to come into effect but it’s so great for animals

[joyful-enchantress]

Spring Heat (18+) | Loki x Fem!Reader

banner created by the amazing @springdandelixn

A/N: You help your husband through his yearly heat, which is part of the Jotun mating cycle. He's afraid he might hurt you, but you are determined to stay... I wrote this for @springdandelixn and her Double-Trouble Sleepover! Congratulations, Beanie, my love! I hope you enjoy this little fic that I put together for you 🖤

Genre/Warnings: Jotun mating cycle AU, smut (18+), rough sex, choking, dubcon? (everything is consensual but Loki is not entirely in control of himself), language, light angst, fluff too, filth with feeling, established relationship

Word Count: 3182

The sights and sounds of springtime were all around you as you strolled through the palace grounds —

The busy twittering of birds as they searched for food and fought over tree branches on which to build their nests.

The chattering of squirrels and rabbits and other small animals as they came out of hiding to begin a new season of life.

The rich shade of green returning to the grass in the meadow, speckled with pops of color where wildflowers were beginning to bloom.

Speaking of blooming flowers -- the palace gardens were thriving, and in the next couple of weeks were sure to become a spectacle of color, ranging from delicate pastel hues to bright, vibrant tones. Just in time for the Spring Festival that would be held at the end of the month.

Yes, spring was upon you. Your favorite season. It meant warmer temperatures and sunshine and new life.

But despite all the bright cheerfulness that spring brought with it, for your husband, Loki, it also brought with it a certain darkness.

His heat.

Loki was of Jotun blood; a Frost Giant. And with that heritage came certain Jotun traits, some more easily embraced than others. One such trait that your husband found more loathsome than the rest was the Jotun mating cycle.

Each year since his body matured, around the time of the Spring Equinox, Loki would find himself at the mercy of his primal instincts. Unable to control his animalistic urges to mate, he’d lock himself in his chambers until it would pass.

That is, until you had something to say about it.

When you learned of the agony he endured — both physically and emotionally — locked in his chambers for anywhere from one week to one month until his heat cycle passed, you couldn’t bear it. You had to do something to help, if you could.

You remembered the conversation you’d had with him well. It was shortly after your wedding…

————

“Loki, isn’t there anything that would make it easier to endure? Or at least make it come to an end more quickly? I can’t imagine a week of that, let alone a month.”

“Unfortunately, no, darling. There isn’t really anything that can be safely done to help it. The healers can give me an elixir that will suppress it, but I can’t take it every year, or it would lose its effectiveness. And besides, a heat the year after a suppressed heat is always more intense and agonizing.”

Your eyebrow cocked, looking at him with curiosity. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience…?”

He took a deep breath before answering, “Yes, I’ve taken suppressants occasionally in the past. The temptation of a year of reprieve was too great for me to resist at times. But I always found that the following year’s heat was far worse than what is typical. More desperation, more madness, more… pain.”

Your heart broke for him in that moment.

“Why does it last so long, Loki?”

He gave a mirthless chuckle. “It lasts as long as it takes for one of two things to happen. Either it quite literally burns its way out of my system, like a fever that takes weeks to break. Or…”

His voice trailed off, and he looked off into the distance, as if he was searching for his thought amongst the forests and rolling hills.

“Or…?” You gently encouraged him to continue.

Loki let out an exasperated sigh and quietly admitted, “Or… I mate. Breed. Fuck.”

Something about the way he enunciated the hard ‘k’, his Adam’s apple bobbing sinfully as the sound clicked in his throat, had your core throbbing with need and a wave of hot arousal unfolding over your body.

You blinked a few times as you contemplated what he said. “Well that seems easy enough,” you replied cooly, as if you were discussing the weather.

“What…?” He looked at you, perplexed.

“If having a good fuck will bring your agony to an end, then that seems like an easy solution to me. I can help you with that —”

“NO!” His rich baritone voice boomed as it cut you off, dripping with authority, anger, and — was that fear? “You don’t understand, my love. I am not myself when this happens. I lose myself, I lose control. I no longer am capable of keeping up the Asgardian façade; my Jotun form takes over and I am overcome with the primal desire to mate. I lose all regard for decency, I become… a monster. I am a monster.”

“Loki…” you reached a hand up to caress the side of his stupidly beautiful face, running your thumb soothingly along his sharp cheekbone and slotting your palm against his chiseled jaw, which was tightly clenched. A sign of his distress. “I love you, Loki. Let me help you through this.”

“I love you too, darling. More than my life itself. Which is exactly why I can’t let you do this.” He wrapped his large hand around the back of yours and turned his head to the side to tenderly kiss your palm. “It isn’t safe. I could hurt you. Badly.”

“I trust you, Loki. I trust you with my life, no matter what physical form you assume.” The next words you uttered came to you as easily as breathing, “I want to do this. Please. Use me. Use my body to sate your desires and end your own suffering.”

His emerald eyes widened at your words, most likely shocked at how brazen and self-assured they were. But swirling behind the shock was something else. Reverence. Trepidation. And lust.

He slowly swallowed, gathering himself together and collecting his thoughts after you scrambled them with your salacious plea.

“Alright then, darling.” He cautiously relented, his eyes boring into yours, searching for any sign that you were having second thoughts or hints of doubt. “Come springtime, when my next heat cycle is upon me, I’ll let you help me. I’ll let you be the balm that soothes my burning, searing ache.”

————

And now, spring was upon you. And any day now, it would be time to make good on your promise to him. For better or worse. You suddenly had a renewed appreciation for the words you spoke in your wedding vows to him, just 8 months ago.

Loki has been warning you for the past few days that his heat is imminent, and could take over at any time. He could feel it; all the warning signs were there. The restlessness. The irritability. The discomfort. Crawling under his skin like an itch he can't scratch. Until it makes him snap.

Each and every time, he asked if you were still sure. He reminded you that you could change your mind, that he didn't expect you to do this. That he'd never expect you to do this. It was entirely your choice.

And each and every time, you stood firm in your decision. You wanted to help him. You would do this.

The sun was beginning to set on your evening stroll, so you altered your route so that it would lead you back towards the private chambers that you shared with Loki. As you approached the hallway which led to your shared door, you could feel a distinct, unseasonal chill in the air.

Was this it? Was tonight the night?

Once you reached the ornate wooden door, you noticed a thin blanket of frost coating the edges of it, as if, behind the door, was the force of winter itself, its icy chill seeping through the gaps between the door and the frame.

You reflected for a moment on the irony that all this frost and chill was the result of something called a heat, and you couldn't help but chuckle to yourself.

But then you remembered that not just fire, but ice, too, can burn.

A shiver rolled down your spine, and the cold seeping through the doorframe wasn't entirely to blame.

You took a moment to gather your courage, reminding yourself that this was Loki. Your husband. Your one true love.

You could do this.

You softly knocked, each tap of your knuckles against the cold wood sending a jolt of bravery through you.

"Loki... can I come in?"

"Pet..." The voice that answered you was familiar, but more... ragged. It was deeper, if that was even possible, and assumed a huskiness that made your usually gentle husband sound nothing short of feral.

It sent a surge of hot, wet arousal through you, which pooled between your thighs.

"I'm here, Loki..." you whispered like a prayer. "Let me help you."

"This is your last chance, pet," he warned. "You can still change your mind. But the moment you open the door, I'm afraid there will be no going back."

Good thing you had no plans of going back.

You opened the door and stepped into your chambers; after ensuring the door was closed and locked, you took a deep breath. This was it.

As you turned around, you came face to face with your husband.

Except he wasn't quite the Loki you knew. For one thing, he was taller. Much taller. At least 8 feet tall. You briefly wondered how you'd be able to take him in this form. His usually porcelain skin was replaced with a brilliant cerulean, and across every bit of blue that your hungry eyes could find, were ridges that swept across his skin in bold strokes and delicate lines, forming intricate patterns that you longed to trace with your fingers. As your eyes settled on his face, you found some familiarity there. You recognized the bone structure and the shape of his nose, the curve of his lips; the luscious raven locks that framed his angular face were unchanged. But in place of the emerald orbs that you knew and loved were two glistening rubies, staring at you with an intensity that could only be described as ferocious.

He was beautiful. Flawless. You saw no monster before you. Only your husband. Showing you a side of himself that he has kept hidden from you. Until now.

You broke the silence first, and simply muttered, "I love you, and I am here. Use me."

And that was all the permission he needed.

He closed the distance between you impossibly fast, like a predator stalking its prey, and wrapped an icy hand around your throat, squeezing firmly, the coldness stinging like pins and needles against your skin.

His lips met yours with an urgency that you hadn't experienced before; any hint of gentleness was gone and in its place a brutal clash of tongues and teeth as he claimed your mouth, a throaty growl slipping past his lips as he basked in the taste of you on his tongue.

Fear crept up your spine for the first time since you entered, and you brought your small hands up to claw at his wrist, a desperate attempt to let him know that you needed a break; you needed to breathe.

Something within him seemed to get the message, because he peeled his mouth away from yours and released your throat, repurposing his hand to wrap around your midsection and toss you unceremoniously onto the large bed in the center of the room.

You had to admit that part of you enjoyed the way he was manhandling you.

He wasted no time freeing himself from his garments and strode towards the bed, where he situated himself over you, caging in your small frame like a hungry animal about to enjoy the spoils of its hunt.

You gulped at the sight of his enormous cock, as it bobbed angrily against his stomach, covered in the same ridges that decorated the rest of his body, the tip weeping with the evidence of his primal desire. For you.

"These pretty silks have got to go," he rasped against your ear, his breath somehow both hot and cold.

He roughly grabbed the fine fabric and you winced as you heard him rip it to shreds as easily as if your dress was made of flower petals from the garden.

Within seconds, you were bare before him, and his ravenous gaze lazily roamed over your body, savoring every dip and every curve like the sight of you alone could sate him.

Even though that couldn't be further from the truth.

When he decided that his eyes had had their fill, he brought two fingers up to prod against your lips, his gaze meeting yours, daring you to defy him.

But you didn't dare.

You submissively parted your lips and wrapped your mouth around his fingers, astonished at how much your mouth had to stretch just to accommodate them. A wicked smile tugged at his lips as your tongue danced over his digits, preparing them for exploration of another warm, wet hole.

A gasp escaped your lips as his fingers were abruptly pulled from your mouth and pushed inside your weeping cunt. They pumped and stretched you almost as much as his normal cock would, and you shuddered at the thought of what was to come.

The nerves melted away though, as his thumb found your clit and worked the sensitive nub in sweeping circles, pleasure taking over your senses and lulling you into a state of calm.

"Loki..." you whispered softly between your whimpers and pants.

He growled in response, withdrawing his fingers from your soaked pussy and wrapping his hand around your thigh, forcing your legs open as wide as they would go.

Before you had a chance to adjust to the new position, his huge cock was at your slick entrance and he thrust forward, forcing as much of himself inside you as he could, his girth stretching your walls and the tip pushing against your cervix. The sudden intrusion took your breath away, and the stinging pain you felt caused unshed tears to well in your eyes. The coldness of his skin only heightened the sensations, forcing your mouth open in a silent scream as he claimed you.

You loved him. You wanted this. You silently reminded yourself as a large blue hand found your throat once again and wrapped around tightly.

A feral moan left his lips as he began to rut into you roughly. Pushing himself in as far as your body would allow. Over and over. Chasing his own pleasure without regard for your own.

"So warm... So tight... You take me so well, pet." He grunted between thrusts. "You're mine."

You couldn't help the fresh pool of arousal that gushed between your legs in response to his words. Even as he wrecked your body and used it like a toy, you loved nothing more than being his.

His rhythm became sloppy and you knew he was close.

With a wild growl, he pulled out of you and violently flipped you over onto your stomach. You were thankful you were on the mattress and not on the floor in that moment.

His large hands dug into your hips, pulling them upwards and angling you so that he could sink himself once again into your tight cunt. You turned your head to the side, gasping for air between shameless moans as he pounded into you from behind like an animal.

It didn't take long for him to reach his peak; he let out a primal roar as he came, pumping you full of his seed. You felt it leaking out of you, dripping down your inner thighs as he continued to shallowly thrust into you while he rode out his high.

And that was the last thing you remembered before darkness blurred the edges of your vision and you succumbed to exhaustion, your body limp and spent.

--

Later, when you came to, you wiggled your fingers and toes first and slowly worked your way to moving each limb, assessing the soreness. There was an undeniable ache, but nothing you couldn't manage. You sat up in the bed and looked around the room, searching for Loki. Your eyes settled upon his familiar Asgardian form, huddled on the chair in the corner, as if he was putting as much distance as possible between the two of you without leaving you alone. His eyes were red, but not because of his Jotun blood. Because he had been crying.

"Loki, what's wrong?!" you frantically asked.

When he realized you were awake, he rushed to your side. "What's wrong? Love, look at what I've done to you!" He gestured to your body, to the bruises on your inner thighs, your hips, your wrists, your neck. He pointed to the mess between your thighs, to the bit of blood that was on the sheets between your legs. "I'm a monster. A vile, disgusting creature. I should have never let you do this!"

He looked away from you, ashamed.

You reached for his hand, in an effort to reassure him. "Loki, I wanted this. I wanted to help you. I insisted." Your thumb stroked the back of his hand in soothing circles, willing him to believe that you were okay. "And look! It worked. Your heat lasted only a few hours instead of weeks!"

"But at what cost?" He muttered, without meeting your gaze.

"I am your wife. We are a team, in everything. I vowed to be there for you and to love you no matter what, for better or for worse. A few bruises and some soreness are a small price to pay once a year if it means my husband isn't in agony for weeks at a time."

He sheepishly met your gaze then, peering up at you from under his eyelashes.

"I don't deserve you," he whispered softly.

"Yes you do. Because you are the most amazing person I know," you smiled easily as you said it. "Now, I did say we are a team, so if you're done sulking, I do believe it is your turn to do your part. Don't you have some magic healing powers that could soothe some of my aches, or am I misremembering?"

Now it was his turn to smile at you. He got to work straight away, a blanket of green seidr engulfing your body and buzzing through you, soothing away the worst of your residual pain. Then he spent the day spoiling you, running you a hot bath with your favorite rose scented bath oil, pampering you with a massage, and waiting on you hand and foot.

"Darling?"

"Yes, Loki?"

A wolfish grin crept across his lips. "When you've had a day or two to recover, I intend to make last night up to you, tenfold. To drown you in so much pleasure that the only word you'll remember is my name as it falls from your lips like a mantra."

You met his grin with your own cheeky smile. "And I intend to hold you to that, Laufeyson."

His lips met yours, then, in a passionate kiss; one that conveyed all the love and adoration he held for you. Your lover. Your husband. Your everything.

Spring was definitely your favorite season.

--

--

Tagging some lovely people who might be interested. No worries though if not, of course! @lokisgoodgirl @muddyorbsblr @mochie85 @cheekyscamp @give-me-a-moose @sarahscribbles @gigglingtigger @ladyofthestayingpower @mischief2sarawr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @wheredafandomat @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @loopsreacts @maple-seed @fictive-sl0th @coldnique @thomase1 @peachyjinx @superficialdomina @peaches1958 @evelyn-kingsley @simplyholl @tallseaweed @cake-writes @tripleyeeet @lokiandbuckysdoll @vbecker10 @lovelysizzlingbluebird

#rolling into spring writing challenge #beanie's double trouble sleepover #beanie's sleepover #spring writing challenge #milestone sleepover #loki #loki laufeyson #jotun loki #jotun loki x reader #loki x reader #loki x you #loki smut #loki imagine #loki fic

[ghostlykeyes]

Can you do the head canons set for Yone and Sett like you did for Kayn??? Thank you !!!!

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HEARTSTEEL SETT / READER ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW (Light sexuality, nothing explicit.) ♡ Hi my dear! Wasn't sure if you meant the relationship ones or kiss ones—Yone is getting both in upcoming separate posts, and I've already done Sett kisses here ! Hope you enjoy these :D

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SETT

Sett's most sensitive spot is his ears. They're dreamy soft, like velvet but thicker, and oh-so-warm. When you play with them he goes weak in the knees, tilting his head towards your gentle hands and letting out a low groan. He adores when you play with them. If he plops his head in your lap and looks up at you with pleading puppy-dog eyes, chances are an ear-rub is what he's begging for.

After Sett smashes out a great lifting session, he usually sends you a mirror selfie. He just wants to tell you he had a great workout, and he loves when you encourage him, so it's mostly innocent. But come on...he's shining with sweat, his muscles look fucking huge, and he's got that flushed-cheek, out of breath smile. How are you not supposed to ogle him a little bit? If you accuse him of trying to turn you on with his gym selfies he goes 'no wayyyyyy'. The next picture he says—one of him winking at you, with the hem of his shirt pulled tight between his sharp teeth and his glorious abs on display—says otherwise.

Sett's social media pages consist of basically two things: gymbro shit and cute animal videos. He spams you with the latter. Expect lots of pictures of housecats cuddling ("us", he captions) and videos of dogs doing tricks ("do u think we could teach earnest that??" Probably not, you tell him, but you find him on the kitchen floor the next morning trying to get the poor dog to do a flip anyway).

Sett is all for pet-names, and rarely calls you by your given name. He  goes with the classic "babe" a lot. Sometimes he likes to spice it up by sprinkling in nicknames like "hot stuff" or "sweets". If he's being cheeky, he'll give you a teasing smirk and call you his "favorite groupie".

Sett loves staying active (obviously) and he's always down to try something new. If you're for hurting date ideas, take him rollerskating, rock climbing, or swimming. And, if you're really brave? Ask him and the rest of the Heartsteel guys to go paint-balling with you. Bless his heart, he will try so hard to protect you and hyper-carry your team but his aim just isn't that good. (Predictably, Sett ends up covered in paint-splashes. He's nothing if not a good meat shield.)

For your first Christmas together, Sett's mom knits you a beanie to match his. "Oh, you two are adorable," she beams as her son excitedly tugs the warm hat over your ears. Once you've earned the beanie, trust that you've got Mama's approval on lock.

Anyone that wrongs you is on Sett's shit-list for life. He's a hothead and he knows how to hold a fucking grudge. If you complain about your boss or come to him teary-eyed because a friend blew off plans, he's fuming. "That fucking asshole," he snarls. Of course, he sets aside his fury to comfort you. Just know that a lifelong beef has been started and he's going to scowl every time you bring that person's name up again.

After a hard workout, Sett loves to tease you by pulling you in for a sweaty bear-hug. Don't worry, though—he's always down to hit the showers with you right after.

Sett knows his way around the human body—he's got a near medical knowledge of muscle groups, nerves, and effective stretches just from his time in the gym. What does this mean for you, though? The best fucking massages in the entire universe. The moment you complain about a kink in your neck or a sore back Sett's cracking his knuckles. "Okay, hot stuff," he says, placing his gentle hands on your tight muscles. "Where exactly does it hurt?" Of course, you don't need to be in pain to get a massage—Sett's eager to touch you any chance he can get. Pout a little and ask if he can pretty please rub your neck, and his hands are on you before you can finish your sentence.

Since he's a cuddle-bug and serial napper, plan on spending a fair amount of time snuggled up in Sett's bed. He keeps sweatpants in his closet for you so you can be comfy during cuddle-seshes. Honestly, though, he prefers if you skip the pants altogether and chill out in your underwear and one of his old t-shirts. He tends to take a fabric scissors to any of his shirts with sleeves—your favorite sleep shirt, though? He mercifully leaves that one alone.

Sett's a massive show-off. Anytime you're on your tippy-toes trying to reach the top shelf or you're struggling with the pickle jar, Sett swoops in with an "Oh, lemme get that for ya!" And if he's flexing extra hard opening the jar or stretching his arms so that just the teeeeeeeniest bit of his shirt slips up, exposing his six-pack...well. You might as well enjoy the show, right?

Even though he wears lifting gloves, Sett's hands get chapped and calloused, anyway. He constantly steals your lotion. If you catch him swiping it out of your bag his ears go back and he offers you a sheepish, "sorry, hon...", but does he stop?  No chance. He pops the top and slathers it on his hands, anyway. "Whaaaaaat?" he whines as you stare him down. "If I'm all rough and whatever you'll stop holding hands with me."

You and Sett have a frankly obscene amount of plushies. There's an endless sea of plush on your bed, plus a good handful on his, but he just. keeps. buying. more. You'd complain, since it makes finding a comfy position to sleep a battle sometimes, but come on... how can you say no to a sugarcone furyhorn? Fucking impossible.

Sett's favorite way to pull you closer is by your belt loops. He hooks his fingers through and gives your hips a light tug, loving the surprised squeak you give when you bump into his massive frame.

Sett has a metal water bottle with him at all times (gotta stay hydrated)! Even though he rolls his eyes when you paste cute stickers on it, you notice that he never peels them off.

#heartsteel headcanons #heartsteel x reader #heartsteel #heartsteel sett #sett x reader #sett league of legends #sett lol #sett #I love this catboy unquantifiably much

[sokkastyles]

ATLA Live Action Ep 1 Thoughts:

When the writers meant they wanted it to be like game of thrones, clearly they meant "we want the battles to happen in complete darkness so nobody can see what is going on," and not, you know, the sex stuff.

Idk why this never occurred to me until now but ostrich horse is chocobo.

They are clearly going for a darker, more grittier feel here, but it clashes with the attempt to keep things true to the animated origin. Like, the earth kingdom OC looks straight out of some more realistic Adult fantasy show, whereas Sozin's character design makes him look like evil Santa.

So firebenders are able to do that to bodies, which I appreciate from a fanfic perspective and also confirms what people have been theorizing about the agni kai, that Ozai put his hand on his son's face. Not sure it was necessary to see it, though. The original does a good job of horrifying us with implied violence and the adults already get it, while showing it makes it less accessible to a younger audience. This is hardly a problem unique to this show, though.

Air nomads actually riding sky bison!

I like having more background with the air nomads and Aang's actor is great but front-loading the flashbacks doesn't work great for the pacing.

One thing I do really like is the emphasis on how the war damaged the harmony of the nations in more than just a spiritual way. No one has friends from other nations now. Zuko comes seeking "someone who does not belong" with the (false) promise that no one will get hurt if everyone keeps to themselves, keeps the status quo. The air nomads are a complete anomaly in a world of division. We are introduced to Aang, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko, and all are isolated in their own way by the war at the beginning of the story.

Overall there is something just weird about the pacing. Characters keep pausing at vital moments of action to deliver exposition or meaningful monologues. It just feels off.

Zuko so desperate for "glory" that he accepts Sokka's proposal to fight one on one (nice foil to the final agni kai by the way). Then his surprise when Aang shows himself reveals that Zuko himself did not know whether he would really find the Avatar in this village he's suddenly shown up to terrorize. God, it just emphasizes how low Zuko is at this point. This is probably his first real high stakes fight and he might have killed Sokka over absolutely nothing out of a false sense that he had something to prove. It's just...sad.

The scene at the Southern Air Temple looked great and had me in tears. I actually saw some criticism of this to the effect of them "ruining Aang's arc" because he comes out of the Avatar state himself, but first of all, let's be real and admit that if mastering the Avatar State was Aang's arc, he never completed it. Second, just because he could bring himself out does not mean he can control it, and he's still letting his emotions control him which is a learning curve for handling that power, it's just that he was able to control his anger in that moment by remembering the people he loved. Which is not that different from how the scene plays out in the original, only he isn't using Katara as a crutch. Which is a good thing, actually. It's much more fitting and poignant that he thinks about Gyatso here.

I don't think there was any mention of Katara wanting to go north. She has a few lines about wanting to help more and Aang teaches her about balance so she can bend now, apparently, but where is her drive? It feels like they're attributing her accomplishments to Aang and that bothers me. Maybe it'll be mentioned in the next episode, since they haven't talked about Aang learning waterbending yet, either. But I do miss the Katara who was ready to banish herself from the village the moment she met Aang not just because it was the right thing to do, but because of her own desire for independence and autonomy.

Liked the scene between Aang and Iroh. It gives us a glimpse of an Iroh who is stuck as to what to do and so he just gives Aang the Zuko treatment by offering him tea. I'd be excited if this means we get to see more development for Iroh.

#atla live action #atla la thoughts #atla la ep1

[toxinellebug]

Paris and the World under The Supreme’s Rule Headcannons

Back during WW2, when Marianne suggested to Wang Fu they should use the Miraculous, she of course meant using them to fight. Wang Fu decided to use them to make a wish;

World Peace.

The price?

World freedom.

So there are SOME good things… No war in Vietnam, no war in Isreal, and good news Americans; 9/11 never happened and school shootings do not exist because it is impossible for anyone to get a gun, not even hunters!

On the downside, no guns for hunting means wildlife conservation is a thing of the past. Animal overpopulation in addition to human deforestation has led to a significant decrease in food sources for wildlife, many of which have gone extinct due to starvation. Another plus side is there are no “slap on the wrist” punishments for criminals who assault women and children. Death penalty is a very effective way to prevent recurring crimes.

Prisons are also no longer a multi-million dollar drain on tax-paying citizens; no free room and board for criminals. They all have to work in labor camps to earn every morsel of food and live in 15 square foot cells.

(Marinette’s Grandmother is currently serving time in a labor camp)

There aren’t really much in the way of trials either… You are arrested for a crime, presented with the facts/evidence, then sentenced.

There are no homeless wandering streets, begging for hand-outs. There are special labor camps for the impoverished where they are assigned tasks that meet their physical and mental abilities, snd are paid enough to afford them cheap living quarters, approximately 130 square feet in size, and the most basic of food stuffs and hygiene products to keep them alive. No, they cannot refuse.

Remember, the Supreme knows best.

Project Oxygen is a go- several small parks have been “re-habilitated” into giant filters and fresh air is beginning to be sold in fancy plastic bottles thanks to Bertrand King. He’s been trying for a while to convince Gabriel that Adrien should do commercials for Project Oxygen, as it would be great for the boy’s career…. But Gabriel always comes up with an excuse to get out of it. The latest being that it wouldn’t match with Adrien’s new look.

Audrey Bourgeois ADORES Adrien’s new look! It’s so much more bold and edgy! Also, the latest fashion trend is not glitter, it’s metal studs- industry and progress in a sleek, metallic form.

Audrey is home more often than Andre, who could be gone for months at a time working on one of his movies. But of course he still handles important paperwork and does video calls to check on hotel and sends lots of very expensive gifts to his little Princess.

Chloe is even more abusive and demanding of Sabrina, and poor Sabrina puts up with it for her father’s sake-

There has been a lot of vandalism lately (thanks to Shadybug and ClawNoir) and talk that Enforcers just aren’t as effective at keeping the order as they used to be. Word is that tech Giant Tsurugi is in the process of designing new automatons that will be more efficient (and less costly) than human Enforcers. Who knows? There may even be a surge of Enforcer lay-offs if the project becomes successful. Chloe has hinted that she MIGHT be willing to put in a good word with Daddy, should Mr. Raincomprix be one of the many Enforcers who finds himself out of a job. The Hotel could always use more security guards/bouncers. But since Daddy ONLY hires the most DEDICATED employees… Well, how can Chloe possibly make a recommendation if she’s not sure Sabrina’s dad would REALLY give it his all? So Sabrina bends over backwards until she breaks and then some to keep Chloe happy.

Officer Raincomprix is also uneasy about talks of future layoffs, and as such, has become harsh in Enforcing law and order. No little wrong doing goes unnoticed or forgiven. No leniency. (Think Roger-cop without the Akuma).

Rose is not that perky. Under the Supreme, there is no socialist nonsense like Universal Healthcare, so medicines, doctor visits, prescriptions, hospitals… it’s all crazy expensive just like in the USA. This means, in order for Rose to be able to attend a private school like Francois Dupont; her parents work a LOT of overtime and pinch pennies whenever they can. So it’s very lonely at home and in this universe, Rose has not (yet) met Juleka (as stated in previous headcannon). Instead of Unicorns, Rose’s favorite animal is the Caladrius, (a mythological bird that can heal any illness). Though unicorns and kittens are still in her top five favs.

Rose doesn’t see the word through rose-colored glasses. She can’t see the silver-lining in ever raincloud… Instead, she tries to make it herself; if there is no positive, she will just have to invent one! It’s more work, and exhausting, but she HAS to, otherwise she’d drown in depression. Rose’s illness is kept a secret, not because she fears people will treat her with pity, but that she fears people will look down on her; like she’s a burden on her parents, like it’s annoying to have to put up with her weakness.

(I’ve actually been sick myself, since xmas day in fact- perhaps as punishment from the universe for making ClawNoir cataclysm Santa Claus)

Penny is Bob Roth’s personal servant- er, I mean, assistant… which means she’s also gopher for XY. (There is no woman in Paris more miserable than Penny).

Jean-Pierre Monlataing is still an Art teacher at Francois Dupont… and he teaches traditional art styles. Helping students practice time-honored techniques through repetition and standardization. Graffiti is not art, so no spray-paint cans in his classroom! Alix Kubdel is his most troubled student. Marinette does not attend art club. Nathaniel shows great talent for portraits.

Jalil strives to be better than his father; he admire Nathalie Sancoeur and hopes to rise to her position of Director of the Louvre someday.

Directors of Museums are prestigious positions you have to work hard your whole life to even be considered for, as The Supreme appoints them. As far as the public knows, this is for the sake of preserving history as well as ensuring that dangerous ideas from the past do not repeat themselves and inspire anarchy in young, impressionable minds.

The reality is that they are searching for clues to missing Miraculous.

The Supreme has already taken steps to ensure the Prodigious will never pose a threat to his power (Temple and access to cave have been destroyed and the bracelet has been confiscated and placed in a secure location).

But there are still most likely Miraculous scattered across the earth. Gems that, if fallen into the “wrong hands” could disrupt the peace and order that the Supreme has worked hard to maintain.

Marianne intends to find these Miraculous first… if only she had the help of someone younger and more physically up to the challenge.

When Gabriel/Betterfly/Hesperia forms “The Resistance” and Marianne is introduced to their ranks, this is exactly the plan she suggests in order to take down The Supreme and give power back to all the people.

She only has a few clues on where to start searching though.

…Fun fact, if you were to unify the Ladybug miraculous of creation with the Eagle miraculous of freedom, you would get Ladybird- determined to create a new, free world.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous paris #miraculous world #miraculous fandom #toxinelle #shadybug #claw noir #griffe noire #adrien agreste #mlb s5 #miraculous shanghai #miraculous new york #Prodigious #Lady Dragon #marinette dupain cheng #rose lavillant #alix kubdel #chloe bourgeois #nathalie sancoeur #Supreme #gabriel agreste #Betterfly #Hesperia #miraculous special #shadybug and claw noir #sabrina raincomprix

[aujbabeyy]

i'm crying over the detail that was put into the mage tower in the underdark.

it's an absolutely tragic love story.

lenore de hurst is a cleric of mystra living in the mage tower. before you ascend to the roof, you can find and read four important books and papers. two, the threadbare book and the roads to darkness, are plays (rather, excerpts from plays). the other two are poems, one on a 'torn-out paper' and the other on a 'patched parchment'. quotes from these works earn you items or actions when you respond to bernard correctly with them.

based on the somber themes of the written works you encounter in the tower and how bernard responds to you (healing potion, a hug, "remember: you are loved, lenore. so much. you're doing great. and everyone will be so proud of you, as i already am.") you'll likely realize that lenore is... pretty lonely. two letters give more context to lenore's loneliness: the letter from amarith, found near some of the other works, and the letter to yrre, found outside the tower near the first arcane cannon.

the letter from amarith reveals that lenore's dog, myrna, passed away. after the death of her dog, lenore attempted to tame befriend a bulette (yes, the one you can use 'speak with animals' to talk with from the deep hole by the myconid colony). very "i'm lonely" behavior if you ask me. the letter to yrre reveals that lenore was, at one point, not alone in the tower, that her and her partner (yrre) split up for some reason, and that she wants to reconcile. I'm assuming that yrre left lenore some time (weeks? months? a year?) before myrna passed and that lenore wrote her letter to yrre some months (a year, maybe?) afterwards. i'm not sure which time-frame would make this story less tragic, but whichever it is... i hope it's that one.

also this... this is fucking sad, man. more magic was used than necessary to create this tombstone, out of nothing but sheer love for the creature buried there. oh my god my heart hurts.

the last bit about lenore that makes me want to sob: lenore and yrre, most likely, would have reconciled. yrre wrote back on the letter written for them to say that they waited, that they would always wait, and that lenore didn't come. the diary entry found in the basement of the mage tower indicates that lenore fully intended to return. lenore meant to come back to her research, to come back in hopes yrre would be there waiting for her, but something happened to her.

what happened?

one theory could be that the sussur flower and lenore's use of it was seen as a threat to mystra (it's noted in lenore's treatise that even those unattuned to the weave feel the anti-magic effect of the sussur flower) and she was punished for it. these events would have occurred nearly a decade before the events of bg3 (as noted in the diary). within the last year of game-time, mystra punished her chosen for attempting to reunite her with what he thought was part of her weave, lost to karsus' folly–without even telling him the orb's truthful origins. it would not be out-of-character for mystra to have punished a follower of hers for researching something that threatens her power. none of this is for sure, though, it's just a theory a game theory.

i honestly have no idea what happened to lenore and it pains my heart to not know. and what about yrre? they return to the tower to reconcile with their ex, only to find a note asking them to wait for her, that she'll be home soon. she never returns. where did yrre go? what did they do afterwards? i haven't finished the game yet but i really hope i end up finding some more lore on these two in act 3.

#lenore de hurst #yrre #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #the mage tower #mage tower #underdark #FUCKING SAD DUDE #my heart #yrre is referred to with they/them pronouns #so i stuck with that #the devs hate to see a queer couple winning #no they don't we actually love how inclusive the devs were with bg3 #mystra hater at heart btw

[filthforfriends]

Chapter 4: Comfort

The Sun is the Center of Everything

See Authors Note (CW: Addiction, hard drug use)

Word count: 4.1k

“The label would like to fly you out to London.”

“Do they know we’re broken up?”

“This isn’t for an event. Sony believes that you’re the most effective kind of damage control when it comes to Damiano. They’re probably not wrong.”

“Is he okay?” Already, you’re opening Twitter.

“For now. I think he’s reached a turning point where the drugs are more scary than they are rewarding. If we can just get him into rehab…” In moments of wishful thinking, you’d done some research into rehab programs in Rome. In a moment of poor impulse control you’d stuck Damiano’s name on wait lists, which was no small undertaking. It meant using confidential healthcare information that you knew from the five year relationship. The fact that he hadn’t consented made it not entirely legal, but you justified it as a means to an end.

“The label is willing to refund Damiano for the program, whatever he chooses.” 

“I think the difference might be an Italian-speaking facility.”

“I agree. So you’ll come?”

“Yes,” you wince. This might go horribly and hurt like a motherfucker.  

“Good. Your flight leaves in four hours. The car service will drive you to the hotel. They have a gig tonight.”

“Oh lord.” The chauffeur actually took you straight to the venue, promising to deposit your belongings in your hotel room. You still had your friends and family badge. Wearing it again felt like putting on a costume. The cavernous backstage area was weirdly empty. You had to follow the arrows to the dressing rooms, of which there was an entire hallway. It was unusual that each band member had their own and that none of them were there to greet you. Handlers and security gathered around the entrance to what you assumed was Damiano’s room with crossed arms. You weren’t sure why, until you heard the yelling.

“Shit, he’s gonna shred his voice for tonight.”

“We’re past that point,” someone responds, not even looking at you.

“Just leave him to calm down,” another suggests.

“We need him for soundcheck,” someone else hisses. Many of these staff members were added since the breakup. Luckily, you found Ronnie.

“Hey, staring at him like a zoo animal isn’t helping, no?”

“Oh, hey. Yeah, um…” 

Damiano comes out of either a closet or bathroom, slams the door and bellows, “Why the fuck are you watching me?”

“We don’t know what he has on him or if he’s eaten today.” Damiano slides down with his back against the wall and curls in a ball behind the couch. He’s so defeated and powerless that it shatters your heart into splinters of glass.

“He’s totally dysregulated. Have you offered him food? Water?”

“He’s insisted that he won’t eat,” says another new voice. 

“Get him some pizza from the bougiest place you can find and if he doesn’t eat it, fine. What about his rider?”

“It contained alcohol so we had someone remove it.”

“You removed the whole rider, not just the alcoholic drinks?” You look at Ronnie in astonishment. “Fresh fruit is on his rider because he eats it before a gig. So he has something in his stomach, but it won’t make him sick running around on stage.”

“Right can, uh…can someone get some fresh fruit for Damiano?”

“No citrus, no pineapple,” you add. “Don’t need to douse his vocal chords in citric acid right before a gig. Also throat coat tea and cold compresses to help him calm down. Alkaline water, as well.” You look into the giant dressing room to see if he’s noticed your voice amongst all the others. Dami seems to be in his own little world, and not in a good way. You can’t do this with an audience.

“One more thing, could you just back up a little bit.” You herd the onlookers out of the doorway so you can achieve privacy. “Just a little more, mhm. Okay, great.” Before they realize what you’re doing, you close the doors of the dressing room in their surprised faces. Trying not to startle him, you place a hand on Dami’s back. It smells like he forgot to put on deodorant. Or maybe he was so stressed he sweated through it already.

When that doesn’t elicit a reaction, you rub his back and run your fingernails along his scalp. Dami shivers and looks up in confusion. That was your touch, but how the hell were you here? He’s obviously high, pupils completely blown out. Could phone camera’s catch that on stage? 

“I closed the doors, it’s just me and you here.” He’s still processing, confusion turning into surprise.

“What did you take? Blow and liquor?” He nods sheepishly and avoids your eyes. “What about pills?” Looking sincere, Damiano shakes his head. 

“They sent you here to talk to me?”

“I guess. I’m not here to chastise you, though. It seems like you needed some peace.” You stroke his head, then down his face. Dami leans into you organically. 

“Can we sit on the couch instead of the floor?” As he stands, there's a timid knock on the door. Someone slides a couple trays inside. Fruit and tea on one, ice water water and a stack of cloths on the other.

“Thank you,” you say curtly and lock the door. “Ohh-kay, do you want some tea for your voice?”

“No thank you,” Damiano clears his throat. You wrap the first cold rag on the back of his neck and use the second to softly wash his face, redipping to keep the cloth cold. As much as you’d like to ask questions, it was clear that soothing is what Damiano needed.

“I’m gonna go grab the other tray.” You start eating the fruit yourself, knowing that will encourage Dami, and he takes sips of tea. You exchange the rag on the back of his neck with a fresh one. This is the tipping point. He opens the water bottle, but doesn’t drink. Instead, Damiano reaches towards you, arms around your waist and head in your lap as his face crumples.

“I can’t control it!”

“I know,” you murmur, stroking his flushed complexion.

“I can’t control it and I don’t know what to do,” he cries. “I just want to go home.” How childlike we all are, when worn down to the bone.

“That’s why I’m here, to take you back to Rome after this gig.”

“No, I fucking hate Rome,” he bites.

“Rome is your home.”

“No, you were my home and now whenever I go to Rome I can’t come home.” Closing your eyes, you try to steady yourself, with a few deep breaths, then a few more. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“I fucked it all up and I’m afraid…it feels like I’m too far gone to turn back.”

“You are not too far gone! People spend years in hard drug addiction and they’re not too far gone. Please, don’t give up on yourself! I haven’t given up on you, not at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are right here, right now, acknowledging that this is out of your control.”

“I’m so afraid of getting better because there’s only one direction. If I don’t do it then I’ve failed. If I fail, then I might as well die.”

“No, that’s not true! If you’re alive, then there's always a chance to get better. And if you relapse, you can get clean again.” As you say the words, they sound more like a Hallmark card than a mature piece of advice. Neither of you were equipped to handle this particular moment.

“Then you won’t want me anymore!”

“Yes, I will! My love isn’t that fragile. I am not that fragile. I dealt with your self-destructive alcoholic ass for months before we ended it.”

“I’m never happy. Even the blow doesn’t make me happy, it just keeps me going. The other day I was so close to trying crack, just to see if I would fucking feel something again.

“But you didn’t?”

“No, but I almost –” You lean down and press a long kiss to Dami’s cheek.

“You’ve already started getting sober then. Plus you’ve admitted that you need to get better, that this is all out of your control. Three weeks ago you couldn’t say that. You’re doing good.”

“It feels like it was all for nothing. I burned every bridge to force Sony’s hand in a new contract, and now I’m even more miserable than before. I can’t even enjoy it because I can’t enjoy anything! I’ve driven so many people away and the ones left are other addicts, but they’re all fucking miserable too. I can see them pretending they’re not and its so fucking depressing that sometimes I don’t even want to –”

”Go on,” you whisper horsely, stiller than a granite statue.

“I don’t even want to be alive anymore,” he finally admits. “The entire world thinks I’m a druggie playboy and they’re not wrong. I’ve destroyed all my credibility, every good thing that people thought about me and I’ll never get it all back.”

“I disagree, I think an epic rebrand will be humanizing and make you more lovable than ever. People crave a comeback story.”

“But I never put 100% into getting sober before! I don’t know how to try, what if I’m not good at it?”

“I guarantee you won’t be, which is why you’re going to go to one of the best rehab facilities in Rome. You’re gonna get psychiatric care to treat the why of your addiction so you can stay clean.”

“Come on,” Damiano sits up, face riddled with skepticism. “It takes weeks or months to get into those places.” He starts eating just like you’d predicted.

“That's why you’ve been on half a dozen waitlists for a few months.” Damiano scoffs and catches a grape in his mouth.

“No I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.”

“How would I –” When he makes the connection, Dami’s mouth falls open in surprise. “You? But you’d need my SSN and fiscal code, right?” You nod with a self-satisfied grin. “Did you steal my identity, y/n?”

“For your own good.” He shakes his head in mock disapproval, but gives it away with a poorly suppressed smile. “I secured a spot for you before I got on the plane.” Secured was a nice way of saying frantically called and pathetically begged until I got a yes. His face falls.

“What? Do you really hate Rome that much? I’ll visit you.”

“No, no…I was just hoping for an excuse to stop by the apartment for a night.”

“When you get out, you’ll make me dinner and meet Cheeto, okay?”

“I’d love that. We’ll have– ‘scuse me.” He makes a face then bolts to the bathroom. Damiano turns on the faucet and fan, but you can guess the sound he’s concealing. Giving him a few minutes before checking in, you snoop through all his stuff. In the bottom of his box of cigarettes is a mostly empty dime bag of white powder that you almost missed. There’s also a pill case at the bottom of his purse which has coke in it, too. You feel silly after checking the room itself for drugs, as if Damiano wasn’t taping heroin to the underside of the sickly-green velvet couch.

“Babe?” Oops. “Dami, I’m coming in okay. In sickness and in health.” He’s sitting on the floor in the corner, panting, face scrunched in pain. You retrieve the water and cold compress tray.

“You really can’t keep anything down?” He shakes his head, obviously exhausted. “I’m so sorry. I know that cocaine can be hard on your stomach.”

“My own fault,” he winces.

“Yeah, but I still hate seeing you suffer.” You sit down on the floor beside Dami and pull his legs across your lap. Naturally, his head rests on your shoulder. You rub his back for a while, wiping it down with a cold cloth first.

“That's nice,” he whispers.

“Mhm.” You make a fresh one to wipe the sweat from his face. Then you take an ice cube and run it across the top of Dami’s chest to stimulate the vagus nerve. His breathing starts to slow and he leans into you more.

“I really miss this.”

“Affection?”

“Comfort. Everyone is…exhausted with me.” Not knowing what to say, you wrap one arm around Dami, set the other hand above his knee, then rock back and forth. For a few more minutes, you sit in silence on the hard tiles of the bathroom floor, just being together.

“Okay, I’m about to fall asleep, which means I need to get ready.” With a grunt, Damiano stands upright, then pulls you up after him. “Thank you, my lo – sweet – y/n.”

“Smooth.”

“Mm, thanks,” he cringes, walking up to the sink. He picks up a travel toothbrush and fresh tube of toothpaste that someone had already left there, prepared for this moment. You unlock the door and peek your head out to find Ronnie leaning his back against the opposite wall. 

“Hey is he, is he gonna do the show?”

“Yeah, can you get us tickets back to Rome as soon as possible? His place is being held at a facility that does 24/7 intake.”

“Like right after the gig?”

“Yeah, I don’t feel comfortable taking care of him overnight. He needs people who know what they’re doing.”

“So he agreed to rehab. How’d you get him in?” 

“Uh, name dropped,” you shrug, trying not to overcompensate. “So by the end of the show we’ll need a car ready with all our luggage, plus a change of clothes for Dam.

“Something inconspicuous. There’ll be a car waiting when you land, of course.”

“What if Twitter finds out we’re traveling?” Fans wanting a picture was inconvenient, but paparazzi wanting a story were truly the worst ever.

“Security will be there as soon as you deplane. We’ll keep this need to know.”

“‘Kay because he can’t handle any stress. I’ll need an ETA before we take off to give the facility and um…I don’t want him to get arrested for drug possession.”

“Damiano never puts drugs in his luggage, he always keeps them on his person.” You can already feel the nerves of walking by drug sniffing K-9s, hoping to god that there isn’t any significant residue in the bottom of his pant’s pocket.

“So we’re depending on the addict to be rational, thorough, and honest in the process of throwing all his drugs out? Really?”

“He’s good about not taking stuff through TSA. We wipe everything down. There's a system and we haven’t been caught yet.”

“And as great as that is –”

“Y/n,” Ronnie takes both your hands in his own. “Neither of you will end up in English prison tonight, I promise.” The lingering skepticism is written all over your face. “I promise,” he insists. 

Damiano acts the very same before going on stage. He smokes a cigarette and bounces in place to mitigate his own adrenaline.You always stand with him in this moment, rubbing his arms and reminding Dami to be gentle while stretching his neck. It’s comforting to see the band comradery persist now that they’ve come together. There's fist bumps, plus Thomas and Victoria threatening to ruin the other’s performance. Mia is joking along with them, cheeks flushed and her top inside out. Tom keeps a hand on the neck of his guitar so it doesn’t hit her.

At this moment, you’d kiss Dami good luck, having to get on your tiptoes because of his stage shoes. Today you slink into the shadows and see him take a breath from an oxygen canister. Their stage manager counts down from ten while shining a flashlight at the floor, so no one trips on a wire or seam in the stage. You can see him put the persona on, then drop the cigarette on the floor and stamp it out. If you were beside him, Dami would take a final puff and hand it over for you to finish. 

Ethan goes on stage first, then the rest of them. The audience releases a wall of sound and the unhinged screaming only intensifies as the lights go up. You can barely hear Ethan’s sticks click as he counts the band in. Mia cheers with the crowd, in case Thomas looks back. They never look back, but you both did it anyway. Just in case. She begins walking towards the audience exit. It was easiest to slip in front of the barricade unnoticed at the beginning because of the hysteria. You feel the tug in your chest to go with her, sing the lyrics to songs that Damiano had shown you first. 

“Y/n! Oh my god!!” It's jarring to be noticed in real time since you feel so stuck in memories.

“Mia, hey!” You try to match her enthusiasm. “Looks like you’re having fun.” You flick the tag of her blouse as she comes in for the hug.

“Yeah, this venue is huge!” She doesn’t pick up the reference, but enthusiastically agrees anyway. Her and Thomas were both like that: sunny.

“I see you made use of the space.” Mia finally looks down.

“Oh shit! We weren’t sure how long the show was delayed, but Tom thought we had more time to, you know, finish. I wouldn’t touch his guitar if I were you.”

“Ew! You guys are disgusting, I’m so happy for you.” 

“Yeah, thank you!” she laughs. “Let me just...” Mia ducks into Thomas’ dressing room and fixes her top. “So, c’mon let’s go watch.”

“I, um…We’re not back together.”

“Okay, but I’m sure Dam would love to see you out there.”

“I can’t be filmed or photographed today. Also if you could not tell anyone that I’m here?”

“Uh, sure,” she’s put off, torn between staying backstage with you and watching the show.

“But, you go ahead! I have a ton of work stuff anyway, so I’m actually gonna be busy.” A total lie, but Mia isn’t the type to question the authenticity of a friend.

“Oh, okay! Love ya, good luck!” She pulls you in for a goodbye side hug, and practically skips down the hall. Was Damiano expecting to see you in front of the barricade? He probably hadn’t thought about the social media and paparazzi component, which meant he’d be disappointed. This realization didn’t change anything, it just made you miserable. 

Except for the roadies, it's just you backstage. The actual concert was their time off, since they began hauling gear in total darkness as soon as the band finished. Despite how labor intensive their jobs were, the crew was in good spirits, their laughter echoing down the hall. They wore all black with tattoos scribbled on their forearms and cursed as much as possible. You consider saying hi, but this is no longer your space. It'd be like walking into your childhood bedroom with the Justin Bieber posters, hot pink bedspread, and tinkerbell night light still intact. You were visiting a past life, like a ghost.

While Thomas opens the encore with his solo, Dami runs back to his dressing room. You know that his body has become dependent on coke to get through a show and that if he stops now, he’ll crash before you can hand him off to the professionals. Still, it's awkward for both parties. Damiano pulls the pill case from his purse and looks at you with a pained expression.

“I…can’t do this while you’re watching.”

“Right, okay.” You stand up and gesture towards the door. “So I’ll just…”

“No, no, you shouldn’t have to leave. I’ll just go in the bathroom.” Dami closes the door halfway and hesitates because that seems a bit excessive.

“Are you gonna shove it up your ass or?” Dami’s laughter bounces off of the tiles.

“No, I only do that on certain occasions.”

“Like a birthday special?”

“Exactly.” You can hear the tap of something plastic against the porcelain sink. “Can you tell me you’re disappointed in me or something? This feels wrong.” You try to come up with something to say, but end up blanking.

“You are…a very bad boy.”

“Kinky.”

“Ugh, I’m trying! Disappointing…your behavior is disappointing. You are too grown not to know better. Refusing to acknowledge a problem exists is…counter productive to healing. You need to prioritize healing because nobody can do that for you. You have –”

“Okay, done!”

“Thank god.”

“See you in 15!” You walk around the kitchen collecting possibly useful supplies for the car ride, plus the pizza box with Dami’s name on it. The chauffeur walks down the hall with Damiano’s clothes in a garment bag.

“Your flight departs in two hours and 41 minutes,” he says in a professional tone. “Shall I take that to the car?”

“Huh?” Oh, thank you.” The jitters have already started to set in. “And has Damiano’s luggage been inspected?”

“Inspected, ma’am?”

“Yes, has someone on their team looked through it?”

“His luggage was packed by a member of their staff, although I am not sure if they inspected it in the process. Should I ask?”

“Yes, please.” He walks away looking bewildered. You hear the final scream of the concert and try to locate Damiano through the rush of activity backstage. Each band member walks towards the dressing rooms with a towel in hand, drying the sweat from their faces. Dami is exhausted, but he smiles wide when he sees you.

“Hey, were you out there?” 

“No, I didn’t want to get mobbed when those photos hit Twitter.”

“Ah, smart.” He’s still disappointed.

“I’m sorry, but I need you to hurry up and shower. There's a change of clothes hanging in the bathroom. Also I made a cup of baking soda and water for your stomach. Our flight leaves in two and a half hours.”

“Jesus.” He pulls his shirt off while walking into the dressing room, the muscles of his slick back rippling. For a moment you’re very distracted with memories of digging your fingernails into that back while he fucked you to overstimulation. Or when you’d peg him from behind, cupping his balls in the palm of your hand, lips to the nape of his neck. Damiano made the most beautiful sounds when he bottomed. So whiny and demanding.

“Y/n? Y/n?”

“Huh?”

“I was saying it's so nice to see you,” Victoria panted. Ethan agrees behind her.

“Yes, you look well.” His formal way of speaking had endeared you from the very first meeting. Tom is nowhere to be found, probably finishing what he and Mia started before the gig.

“Oh uh, thanks. Sorry, I’m distracted. Our flight is…soon. Too soon.”

“Like tonight?” Victoria exclaims, pulling her own shirt off. She was bare breasted and unapologetic as per usual.

“Yeah, I guess the sooner, the better.”

“So he’s really going? Of his own volition?” 

“Mhm! He’ll be in the facility by breakfast tomorrow.” 

“Oh my god, that's amazing,” Ethan lets out a huge sigh of relief and Vic grins.

“I’d hug you if I wasn’t disgusting.”

“Well, that’d just give me a boner,” you deadpan. Nobody loved raunchy, flirtatious humor like Victoria.

“Ooh, well since you and Dam are on a break…” She wiggles her eyebrows and shimmies closer, sauntering around you with a provocative expression. Meanwhile, Ethan is silently laughing with his eyes scrunched. It's enough to evoke a genuine smile, but also your heart aches for the months you’d missed with these dumbasses.

“Since he’s busy, do you want me to show you what it’s supposed to feel like?” She gives an over exaggerated wink. There had been a strictly no band members policy in your non-monogamy.

“I heard that! Keep your paws off of her, Vic!!” Dami yells from the bathroom.

“Ugh, fine!” She gives your ass a robust slap before disappearing into her dressing room. Your understanding was that “on a break” and broken up were vastly different things, even though phonetics would suggest otherwise. Had Damiano lied or were you reading too much into it? And why did it make you so happy? Before you can get caught in a hell cycle of intrusive thoughts, Ronnie walks up and hugs you. 

“I’m really glad you came,” he admits, pulling away. Your arms hang limply by your sides in surprise. Ronnie wasn’t the hugging type or the emotional type, but his eyes are glassy. It throws you off guard even further.

“You okay?”

“What? Yeah.” He clears his throat roughly. “And we checked everything twice. Someone is currently wiping out Damiano’s purse, just for you.” 

“We can’t all be rock ‘n roll. Some of us have to be anal as fuck.”

“Agreed. I just wanted to wish you luck.” He gives a tight lipped smile and continues down the hall.

“Am I gonna need it?”

“Hopefully not,” he yells over his shoulder.

“Very reassuring, thanks.”

Notes: This is queue. I am currently camping because today is the anniversary of my grandmother's death. Taglist will be updated when I return. Thank you for reading, I promise it gets way less depressing really soon.

-XOXO Eden

Taglist (or taglist removal)

Masterlist

@surelyfreedombound @shinshans @lonnybunnys @davianos-blog @hauntedpostperson @lizzylynch1 @kammerstx@harryssshouseee @slavicgoddess13 @persona1read1ng@katyldamusic @whore4damia @the-chaotic-cow@icarodamiano @gr8rainbowpunk@elvirabelle@bright-shiningstar@maneslut @stardustingold @little-moonbeam-666@que--sera--sera

#maneskin #måneskin #damiano david #må #damiano #damiano maneskin #maneskin damiano #damiano david x reader #damiano david fanfiction #damiano david imagine #damiano david x y/n #damiano david x you

[captastra]

The collection of 19 fics I've written for Writer's Month 2023!

AO3 Series or full break down under the cut! Biggest shoutouts to @kourumi @poetikat and @kyber-infinitygems for all your support and assistance throughout this whole experience <3!

Day 1; Day 11

Suicide Squad: Recovery and Redemption (The Suicide Squad, Words: 5,492, Chapters: 2/?, Rating: T) (Chapter 2)

Living in a world with meta-humans hasn't stopped Renée Watts from doing what she does best, helping others as a nurse. But when she befriends one particular patient, she finds herself learning what it truly means help others. Rick Flag wasn't meant to live. Peacemaker had made sure of that back in Corto Maltese. But when he wakes up in a hospital months later, he finds himself left wondering: what will he do now? His sense of emptiness gets challenged when he befriends a nurse that shows him that there can still be purpose and recovery for him.

Day 2; Day 9; Day 15

Statesman: Four Roses (The Outer Worlds, Words: 10,214, Chapters: 3/?, Rating: T) (Chapter 2; Chapter 3)

Felix Millstone, aka Agent Whiskey of the Statesman agency, has devoted his life to taking down the underground criminal mastermind, Charles Rockwell. So when he is assigned a simple protection duty of a UDL scientist, Rhea Hawthorne, he feels all his hard work has been for naught. But as he comes to know Rhea, his secret plans to bring down Rockwell may come to harm his new companion.

Day 3; Day 10; Day 12; Day 27

A Beach Vacation (Bullet Train, Words: 3,776, Chapters: 4/4, Rating: T) (Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4)

Lily, Tangerine, and Lemon enjoy a beach vacation together.

Day 4; Day 19

I Don't Need Your Love (The Suicide Squad, Words: 2,707, Chapters 2/2, Rating: G) (Chapter 2)

Renée and Rick are faced with the reality of their world when Rick is called to lead another suicide mission by Amanda Waller.

Day 5

To New Beginnings (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Words: 2,543 Chapters: 1/1; Rating: G)

Kiara Ryder struggles to process what happened at the Eos Vault, despite the restart being a great success. A chance to chat with Kandros helps her realize she doesn't have to face her problems alone.

Day 6; Day 26; Day 29

Along the Right Path (Resident Evil; Words: 6,576; Chapters: 3/3; Rating: G) (Chapter 2; Chapter 3)

A recreational hike through Arklay Mountains takes a turn when Jill and her friends get lost, but a certain handsome park ranger comes to their rescue.

Day 7; Day 21

A Promise for Another Day (Haven; Words: 2,133, Chapters 2/2, Rating: G) (Chapter 2)

Duke attempts to surprise Paige with a promise to get away, but fate has other plans.

Day 8

Watermelon Candy (Z Nation; Words: 753; Chapters: 1/1; Rating: G)

Enjoying a rare moment together, Annie shares a sweet treat with 10k.

Day 13

Fanning Their Feelings (The Outer Worlds, Words: 2,164, Chapters 1/1, Rating G)

Mayor Odie supports Deputy Felix with his crush on the new schoolmarm, Miss Rhea. Only problem is he won't court her, so Odie decides a little meddling in their affairs will help matters along.

Day 14

By the Fireside (Baldur's Gate 3, Words: 716, Chapters 1/1, Rating: G)

Everlith and Gale's friendship starts to blossom on their first night at camp.

Day 16; Day 20

In You I Can Trust (Baldur's Gate 3, Words: 2,600, Chapters 2/2, Rating: G) (Chapter 2)

After revealing the truth of his magic absorption, Gale still worries about whether Everlith truly wants him to stay by her side. But a nighttime conversation shows just how much he is truly wanted.

Day 17

When Dreams Become Nightmares (The Suicide Squad, Words: 1,006, Chapters: 1/1, Rating: T)

What started out as a peaceful getaway for Rick with Renée turns into a nightmare when reality comes crashing down.

Day 18

A Nurturing Hand (Elden Ring, Words: 1,307, Chapters: 1/1, Rating: T)

The animal shelter Aisling works for rescues an extremely angry feral cat. With Malenia's help, and a lot of patience, their family gains a new member.

Day 22

An Enchanting Encounter (The Outer Worlds, Words: 2,008, Chapters: 1/1, Rating: G)

Becoming a wallflower at her own celebration, Rhea's evening takes a turn for the better when she encounters a mysterious winged figure.

Day 23; Day 30

Waiting Out the Storm (The Outer Worlds, Words: 3,352, Chapters 2/2, Rating: G) (Chapter 2)

A surprise thunderstorm offers Rhea and Felix a chance to learn more about each other.

Day 24

Stolen Kiss (Baldur's Gate 3, Words: 1,001, Chapters 1/1, Rating T)

Gale and Everlith steal a moment alone on their journey to Baldur's Gate.

Day 25

Just You and Me, Alone (The Suicide Squad, Words: 536, Chapters 1/1, Rating: T)

Rick and Renée get to go on the vacation they deserve.

Day 28

What Promise Awaits (Baldur's Gate 3, Words: 1,248, Chapters 1/1, Rating: G)

Gale Devrakis had accepted that his life was one of solitude and reflection. Being summoned to Elminister's tower promised a possible solution to his magical condition, and companionship from his new assistant, Everlith S'aer.

Day 31

The Light In The Darkness (Baldur's Gate 3, Words: 1,793, Chapters: 1/1, Rating: G)

Gale and the others attempt to enjoy an evening around the campfire while traversing towards Moonrise Towers. But even as darkness and evil surrounds them, Everlith reveals her feelings to Gale as Wyll supports their budding romance.

Taglist: @olliesaurus-rex @roofgeese @kyber-infinitygems @poetikat @confidentandgood @spaceratprodigy @darkfire1177 @jillvalentinesday @theelderhazelnut @shegetsburned @awhellstothejoe @oh-nostalgiaa @seliviawanders @thisisrigged4 @poisonedtruth @bitchesofostwick @transcaster @incognito-insomniac @kirjanikv6ilill @madparadoxum @gayafsatan @euryalex @mxanigel @eclecticwildflowers

#writersmonth2023 #fanfic #masterlist #the outer worlds #baldur's gate 3 #resident evil 3 #the suicide squad #haven syfy #z nation #elden ring #mass effect andromeda #bullet train

[yurisorcerer]

That was really good!

Gosh, I have many thoughts, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate them given that I'm kind of tired at the moment.

So, my main love here is for the characters. I think people tend to sell Dungeon Meshi on its worldbuilding and I do get that (it's very complex and is quite well thought-out), but the characters are what really grabbed me. I don't think there was a single member of the main cast I didn't love. Laios is such a delightfully weird monster manual fanboy and I 100% agree with the people who say he feels neurodivergent and that this feels intentional. Senshi is awesome and it's very funny how the manga is extremely horny for him. Chilchuk brings a profound Divorced Dad energy to the cast that I think is great for bouncing off of the other characters. Izutsumi is interesting by how she contrasts with the earlier party members, I want to think about her role in the story more. I think she was kind of meant to give us an "outcast's perspective" of sorts? I think she's good at being that, but I feel like having blown through most of the manga in a few days may have hampered my appreciation of some of the more subtle aspects of her character.

Marcille, though, is my favorite; as someone who is also a really fussy eater and just kind of tightly-wound in general I found her really relatable. She's also super, super, super pretty and cute but we don't need to get into that right now. I cannot be the first person to point out how, when she becomes the dungeon lord, her behavior starts feeling extremely manic, right? I suffer from delusional episodes that include very difficult to ignore intrusive thoughts, and I thought the whole bit she went into about how being the dungeon lord feels felt very familiar in that respect, and it really hit home for me.

(On the flip side, having your desires eaten by the demon seems similar to depression. I've been there, too.)

Other stuff! I like the whole overarching theme of eating both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for going through one's life. In the very last chapter Marcille says something to the effect of, perhaps this journey was to teach us to accept death, and I don't think that's necessarily the entirety of what the series is going for, but that's part of it definitely. There's a whole circle of life thing going on here. The manga is very....sensory? Lots of focus on taste of course but also scent and feeling. Lots of really strong imagery along those lines throughout the entirety of it.

I set the worldbuilding aside earlier but it is super neat actually, also. I still don't love the general conceits of a western-style fantasy setup, but I think this is honestly about as well as it's possible to do this material. Everyone has a motivation for their actions that feels inspired by experience and history rather than just Dwarves Do X and Elves Do Y and so on. There's a LITTLE of that, but not nearly as much as is typical for this kind of thing. In particular, I liked the orcs. Their usage as a symbol is perhaps somewhat fraught (I'm not the person to make that call either way), but it felt like it was coming from a good place and they're just treated so much better here than comparable people in other media, idk. It felt nice to me.

The art! The art is fucking gorgeous, like, if I wanted to get someone to read this manga this is one of the things I'd mention. The entire dungeon feels so wonderfully lived-in and ancient. You can practically feel the stonework in some panels. (Sidebar here! The anime is really good at capturing this, do watch the anime it's fantastic.)

Some other random stray thoughts:

-The circumstances she gets it in obviously suck, but Marcille's dungeon lord outfit honestly serves hard and everyone should get off her case about it.

-I ended up liking the captain of the Canaries a lot more than I thought I would. He's just an interesting character all around.

-I also really love Sissel / Thistle / apparently how you romanize this is a source of some contention. I feel sooooo bad for the guy. He just wanted to keep everyone safe! It's not his fault that his idea of keeping everyone safe ended up being influenced by a lion-headed demon from outside of reality and corrupted into a suffocating hellscape for those same people! OK maybe it's a little his fault

-I like the diversity in appearances across the characters. This is a thing I wish more manga did this well.

-Laios' kingly titles in the final chapter, RANKED from MOST to LEAST badass: 1. Laios of the Three Heads (based as fuck, makes people ask questions when they hear about you in a history book several centuries down the line), 2. The Demon-Eater (badass and very specific) 3. The Vegetable-Armored (basically gets the same reaction as #1, but with a more comedic lean) 4. Demon King Laios (this honestly seems pretty disingenuous but it is dope) 5. The Dragon-Slayer (very generic, also not even the most impressive part of what he did) 6. The Lord of the Dungeon (Crusader Kings 2 auto-generated-ass name) 7. Pervy Tallman (this sounds like a bad comedian)

-I want to kiss Marcille on the lips

-who said that

-haha I wouldn't mind the Canaries coming to arrest me am I right fellow lesbians

-who said that (part 2)

anyway yeah really good manga highly recommended. I'm not sure if it's a (get out the scare quotes folks) "Personal Favorite" per se, but it might become one over time. Usually such things take a bit to settle with me. The fact that I have any interest in reading it again is a good sign, though. 90% of the time when I'm done with media I'm fine with never revisiting it again. Dungeon Meshi I would very much like to revisit, both in the form of the anime that's airing right now and also I think I'd like to re-read the manga in a few years when I'm at a different place in my life to see what I think of it a little farther down the line. I liked it a lot, and I think it will stick with me.

#Dungeon Meshi #Delicious in Dungeon #yurisorcerer talks about media #spoilers

[ghoulietbat]

Fahrenheit 451's dismissal of the importance of other artforms

something is pissing me off about farenheit 451 and i'm sure it's been said before because this is quite a book but ill say it anyway. im only on page 54 so i have yet to judge if this is a good book or not, but i like it so far. it's a beautiful love story to books and writing and the written word, and it's about how important it is to share stories. i am a storyteller, i tell stories in many ways, but i am first and foremost an illustrator, with a love of cartoons and animation. i consider every method of storytelling an artform; and intellectual, important ones at that: oral histories, pop songs, stand up comedy shows, cartoons, a kid's oc, books. and i believe that at the end of the world, humans need art, and not just one form of it. every art form is as important as the next. so what pisses me off is that it seems like Ray Bradbury does not consider anything but books to be an effectively important artform. He makes a bold claim, describing cartoons and pictures as a lazy method of storytelling.

More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. (p. 54)

As someone going into the animation industry, i took great offense to this. What i believe is truly meant here is that the people who consume cartoons are lazy, and that i can agree with (after all, it is much easier to watch the Loony Tunes than read Shakespeare), but in the same vein he is calling the people who made the cartoons lazy as well; that the people who make cartoons and the people who enjoy them are dumber and lazier than those who create and enjoy books. i understand the importance of the written word, and i certainly believe people don't read enough, but he clearly values books higher than visual art forms. he makes this defense against classical artists, so we know that he does not deem visual art unimportant:

And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people. (p.28)

but then this itself shows a bias toward classical art, and he does not view abstract, or modern, art as real art. i think this, in part, is because he is a product of his time. tv and cartoons are new and strange, the funny pages in a newspaper are just for kids, and comic books are for delinquents. i understand his feelings on modern abstract art, but it is art and it is just as important as Michelangelo; and these are both as important as Faulkner.

he shows a hatred for other mediums, like music, and television, and film. and i know, i know, it's about how things are made more simple so that people can consume quickly and without thought, but to imply that music and cartoons and film requires no thought is an insult to those complex and beautiful art forms. think about the love and care that is needed to create them. is it not comparable to your own when you write a novel? but now i must come down off my high horse, and tell you that i think all artists share this bias for their own art form, and i can't blame Bradbury. you can only have one favorite, and his is books. i just think that all artists should be able to recognize each other as equals.

#no one gives a shit about my rants or my writing at all #but i dont really care #essay #short essay #writing analysis #book analysis #farenheit 451 #ray bradbury #writing #yeah i wrote this high. fuck you #books #rant #also i stole this book from the dorm rummage sale. they read this for class and i was like man i wish i was in that class... #well youre in luck buddy boy! #i hear that most people hate this book though. so i guess ill just keep reading. #animation #cartoons #art

[fiction-box]

Hello hello! Here is my Claude request again:

Reader has always wanted to fly but never had access to a pegasus/wyvern until coming to Garreg Mach. Claude, of course, offers to give reader a ride on his wyvern to help fulfill this childhood dream of theirs (and as an excuse to hold them close- *cough* uh no you didn't hear anything this is for safety purposes only)

Feel free to use the same reader from my first Claude request! Plus reader is a little nervous about heights so they're definitely gonna be holding on to the nearest thing for dear life lol (also idk if this detail will matter but reader is very much an animal lover and will certainly be cooing over Claude's wyvern like they do with all the monestary's cats and dogs hehe)

Thank you again in advance!!

I got your other note, too. I'm glad you like my style! Of course, there are things I must attend to outside of this blog, but it always puts a smile on my face to get a request during my day. I'm a bit of a dreamer (though that doesn't mean my head is in the clouds), so these things tend to fuel my imagination. Then, I'm able to put them into stories effectively before sharing the result with you all! How lucky I am to have such a gift.

On that note, I believe someone needs to bash me over the head with a stick because once again, I did not entirely listen to your request. I somehow turned "a little nervous about heights" into a full blown fear of them. Forgive me. Naturally, before I noticed that I messed up, I managed to write over half the fic.

(Also, thanks for coming in clutch with that resend! I was devastated when I accidentally deleted it!)

Let me know what you think! Requests are open to all!

The story will be continued under the cut.

“Uh oh. Looks like someone’s developed a crush on my wyvern. Should I introduce you two?”

Standing at the entrance to the stables, you turned around at his sudden appearance. Your flustered reaction to his words turned to laughter once you realized what he meant, “Could you really? That would be great! Oh, but what should I say? How should I act?”

It appeared that Claude couldn’t fight his smile at your antics, “Just be yourself! Fate will work itself out.”

“Careful, the Goddess might get mad at you for that one.”

Easily, the two of you fell into a good mood as he led you to his wyvern.

“So is it friendly, or will it bite my hand off?”

“I’d imagine you’re a familiar face,” Claude reached forward to pet it, himself, “so you’ll be fine. Besides, you’re here with me. Pretty sure you’re safe as long as you don’t suddenly attack me.”

“Ah, well. There go my plans for the day,” you remarked, slowly stretching your arm out for the beast to inspect.

It sniffed you once, twice, then leaned forward into your hand. Its scales were rough, but so long as you stroked in the right direction, it was comfortable.

The wyvern seemed to have more of a preference, though. The more affection you gave it, the more noise it made. Soon enough, it began trying to get closer to you, though the chains attaching its harness to the wall wouldn’t permit it to go far.

“Oh my- you are adorable!” you cooed.

“Careful. This one’s special,” Claude commented. “I’m not a fan of the idea that we might draw an audience, what with all the noise you two are making.”

You took your attention away from the creature as he did his best to silence its movements. From your many visits to the castle of Duke Riegan when you were younger, you came to recognize this wyvern as belonging to Claude. If he didn’t want it to have a crowd, he probably had a good reason.

Originally, you two had been sent here on stable duty. However, you highly doubted that your teacher would suddenly classify this as an acceptable way to spend your time.

“I suppose you have a point,” you frowned. “It’s just…I have never actually seen one of these up close. It’s always been a dream of mine to fly at least once, but…”

“What’s been stopping you?”

I’m afraid of heights. “Quite a few things, actually. There aren’t exactly a surplus of wyverns and pegasi in the area I’m from, and my family is quite stubborn about not needing them. That means my teachers have firm instructions not to let me ride one, so I haven’t had the opportunity to learn how.”

“That’s it? Well, I sure don’t see any teachers around here. And would you look at that? There’s a wyvern about ten feet in front of your face.”

You didn’t smile, “I don’t know…”

I can’t do it. I’m too scared.

“If you want, I can take you flying,” he offered. “I happen to know for a fact that today’s skywatch is made up entirely of students. Nobody will recognize you, and if they do, there’s no way they could possibly know about your little ‘obligation’.”

“Maybe, but…” you eyed the wyvern.

He paused, waiting for the rest of your sentence. It didn’t take him too long to figure out the end wasn’t coming.

“Is there some other reason?”

Really, you didn’t want him to know. It was embarrassing enough when you were the only one that knew about it, you didn’t need your best friend figuring it out and teasing you about it.

“I…”

“Oh, I see,” Claude picked up, ever the vigilant one between you two. “You’re afraid.”

Unable to find the words, you settled for a nod.

“Come on, what’s so scary? Worried about what your family might think if you went behind their backs?”

He received a look from you, “After everything you’ve talked me into doing these past few years? I doubt you and I will start getting caught now.”

“Okay…and I know you aren’t scared of my wyvern after how friendly you two were a moment ago.”

You laughed, “No, of course not!”

“Well?”

He was only trying to help, you reasoned. Besides, he already knew you were afraid. Telling him why couldn’t be so bad, right?

“...I’m nervous about being so high up without anything to keep me safe. No ties, no railing…”

In truth, you had always been somewhat thankful that your parents had forbidden you from riding the animals. It meant you never would have to reveal your fear, and your teachers couldn’t force you to face it.

Yet here you were, spoilt for choice, and you were freezing up. You still yearned to fly, but by no means did that translate to you wanting to face your fear.

“...I don’t know…” you repeated, softer.

You could feel Claude stare at you for a moment, “It’s not like you’ll be on your own. You’ve got me here with you, and I promise not to let you fall. I can hang onto you the whole time, if you want. Plus, you can always hold the horn of the saddle to feel more secure.”

It didn’t sound so bad when he put it that way…

“I swear, you won’t have to do anything other than sit. I can handle the rest by myself.”

“Have you ever fallen off?”

“Not that I can remember,” he joked, “but trust me, I won’t let that happen to you.”

How old was he now, eighteen? You were well aware of how many years of experience Claude had with wyvern riding. The leader of the Golden Deer was offering to help you achieve your own small dream, but it was strange.

The existence of this wyvern was not known to many, and Claude had never even mentioned owning one to the professor. You wondered how many students were aware he actually knew how to fly.

Well, if this was your one chance, you were taking it. The details could be sorted out later. Once you were in the air, you would have no other choice than to face your fear, right?

No, that was a horrible line of reasoning.

Just shut up and get on the wyvern.

With false confidence, you let him lead the way to the wyvern’s saddle. He went up first, then extended a hand in order to help you up.

“There you go. Now, put your left foot on that loop and step on it. Keep holding my hand so you don’t lose your balance.”

You followed his instructions easily enough until he was able to wrap an arm around your waist and pull you up. Seating yourself as comfortably as you could, you moved your hands to hold the saddle’s horn. Claude kept his left arm at its place around your waist.

“Alright, you ready?” he asked, pulling a key out of his pocket. The brunet undid the chains binding the saddle to the wall and let them fall to the ground.

Really, how bad could it be?

“Yes. Go ahead.”

He guided the wyvern out of the stables through the gate you left open when you entered. Then, with a few movements of his right arm that you didn’t get to see, you felt yourself leave the ground.

Immediately, your eyes shut and your grip tightened.

Maybe you weren’t ready, yet. This felt similar to signing a contract without reading it first. If your eyes remained closed, though, you could remain calm. That way, you wouldn’t realize what was happening until you opened your eyes at the peak of your little flight. You were sure it wouldn’t be so bad by then.

But when the time finally came, and Claude informed you that you weren’t going to fly any higher, your eyes did not open.

Somehow, from behind you, he managed to pick up on this.

“What’s the point of doing this if your eyes are shut? We may as well have just gone outside on a windy day and put you on a rock,” he teased.

“I’m trying, I just…”

“Seriously, if you don’t open your eyes, you’ll get all disoriented and pass out. Then I’ll have to fly back without dropping you, take you to Manuela, and explain everything in a way that doesn’t send one of us home or get my wyvern banned.”

Sad as the second part was, your mind was gripped in fear at the thought of the first, “What? That can’t be true!”

“Hey, I’ve seen more than a few wyvern riders fly into caves without their helmets attached properly and come back out limp on their mounts!” he shouted over the wind, “Something about the harsh breeze going past your ears and your eyes not understanding why.”

He must have been lying to you, right? There was no way such a ridiculous story could be true.

“Look, whether you open your eyes or not is up to you. All I’m saying is that if you don’t, I’m turning back to the stables. I don’t need your parents or any teachers spreading rumors that the future Duke Riegan made some noble’s daughter pass out on his wyvern.”

Yeah, that did sound pretty bad.

“Alright, I’ll do it. Just give me a moment.”

You didn’t feel safe enough on the wyvern; that was your chief complaint. Sure, Claude’s arm acted as a safety harness, but you still felt the need to grip the horn of the wyvern’s saddle. If you could just cover your eyes with your hands, you knew you could muster the courage to open your eyes. Then, it would only be a matter of spreading your fingers open to peek through the gaps until finally, you could pull your hands away.

But how were you meant to achieve all that when you barely felt safe now?

Then it hit you. Of course the answer was right in front of you (or, behind you, rather.)! Did you not just refer to Claude in your thoughts as a safety harness?

“Alright, I’ve got a plan. For this to work, though, I’ll need to release the saddle.”

“Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”

“No, that’s…” that was a terrible explanation on your part, “That’s the thing. I feel as though I might fall off if I do. Could you just…tighten your hold on me to make up for my own lack of grip? At least that way, I can trick my mind into thinking I’m attached to something.”

The literal second you stopped talking, you wanted to slap your palm against your forehead. What did you just ask Claude to do? And so casually, too. It didn’t help that you had no backup plan; everything was riding on how he chose to answer your question.

But before you could process what that really meant, you felt him shifting behind you. Your back was moved into his chest as the pressure around your waist increased. 

“How’s this?”

“Perfect.” you said lamely, attempting to play it off.

And then all of a sudden, fear engulfed you as you realized you would actually have to do this task you thought up in your head.

Uncomfortable with entirely free-handing it, you lifted one hand to cover your eyes as the other braced itself on Claude’s arm for support.

This can work. I can do this!

You opened your eyes within the darkness of your hand, then you slowly began to fan it out and peer through the gaps. Through them, you could see just how high up you were.

At once, you closed your hand and shut your eyes. It was too much. Instinctively, your body tried to back away only to be met with Claude’s chest. You stopped at the resistance, not wanting to make him uncomfortable, and started to shake. 

You were trapped in the sky. There was nowhere for you to retreat. Your breathing was out of control, you were out of control…you couldn’t control anything up here! What were you thinki-

“I’m right here with you,” Claude spoke into your ear. “Take it easy. You’re alright.”

“I can’t. I can’t do it.”

He kept his tone calm, “Sure you can. The only thing stopping you is your fear, remember? So, what part of this are you so afraid of?”

“When I look at it...when I think about it…I’m afraid I might fall off.”

“But I’m here, aren’t I? Move all you’d like, but I’m not going to let you go unless you ask me to. And even if you do fall, I’m right here to catch you.”

“Right.” He was persuasive when he wanted to be, you gave him that. You wanted to believe him, and so you allowed his words to bring you into a state of ease.

“What else?”

What else was there, really? Thinking back, you never had an issue looking out at the view from the top balcony of your manor, so long as you stayed away from the rail. So maybe heights weren’t the issue.

“I think that’s it. I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling.”

“Well, you aren’t falling right now, are you? In this moment, you’re not facing any of your fears.”

That was…true, wasn’t it? You truly wanted to see the view from up here; you weren’t afraid of the sight by any means.

“So open your eyes. It’d be a waste, otherwise.”

You followed his instructions, opening your eyes from behind the darkness of your own hand. Gently, you felt Claude’s own hand brush against your own, slowly pulling it away. If he was waiting for some form of protest, you didn’t give him any.

It wasn’t a beautiful sight, really. It was predictable; exactly what you would have guessed the monastery grounds looked like from the sky.

Even so, you felt accomplished. The feeling made the whole experience that much better.

“How anticlimactic,” you commented. Well, at least you wouldn’t have to go through this episode in a place where it mattered, like on a battlefield.

Claude laughed so hard that he almost did fall off the wyvern (which meant he almost pulled you with him!). You wouldn’t let him hear the end of it, lecturing and insulting him the whole journey to the ground for “almost killing you”, “endangering your life”, and of course, for how “terrible of a friend” he was.

He settled for doing the majority of the stable work to make it up to you.

#fe claude x reader #fire emblem #fe x reader #fiction #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fe3h x reader #fire emblem x reader #fe3h claude x reader #claude x reader #claude von riegan #fe claude #fe

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

To 10 Games

Thanks so much for the tag @thevikingwoman! In no particular order and no particular criteria. Just games that have meant a lot to me for one reason or the other over the years.

tagging @wintersongstress @muses-circle @elveny @alyssalenko and anyone else. I have no clue who is here anymore, lol.

1. Resident Evil 4

Though I love the remake and plan on replaying it soon, the original has to be on this list for not only being nostalgic, but just for being a big staple of my time in high school. I played this game way after it released, but it was such a fun escape when I needed it. Ada and Leon were the first couple I really shipped and their dynamics still appear in my writing today, even subtly. honestly I think it's also fair to say Ada also taught me how to flirt. lol.

2. Kingdom Hearts.

This was the first game I played where the story impacted me enough for me to cry at the end. Yes it’s not exactly great and it’s very cheesy and weird, but I feel the need to include it because this was the game that made me realize how impactful the medium of games could be in terms of storytelling.

3. Dragon Age

I’m sure you knew this would be on here! I’ve spoken so much about it, but let it suffice to say it got me back into writing and now I’m a much better writer because of the things I’ve learned and developed along the way! Will give the edge to Inquisition over Origins on this one, but I feel like a lot of people don't know how much I replayed origins, and in fact played it all the way back when it first came out.

4. Tomb Raider Anniversary

Been thinking about these games a lot recently. I do love the remakes but I have to say I’m partial to this Lara, of Legend and Anniversary variety. She likes adventures and history and she explores and goes to cool locations, and at a time in my life where I was just starting to realize how much travel means to me, I got to vicariously travel. I also think these games are a good blend of puzzle, exploration, and action.

5. Red Dead Redemption 2

This was the game that solidified my feelings that story telling in games not only rivals that of other mediums, but sometimes can even overtake it. Playing RDR2 feels like reading a long epic novel where the characters become your best friends by the end.

6. Last of Us

It would feel weird not to have this game on here because I truly think it is one of the best games that has ever been made. I just like to pretend the sequel doesn’t exist. Cough.

7. Assassins Creed 2

I love so many of these games—odyssey is definitely up there as well but I have to give this one to 2. I played it when I was 16 after coming home from Europe for the first time and enjoyed the hell out of running around Florence after I had been there. I did also have fun playing odyssey again after being in Greece. Couldn’t find the place I jumped from in Paros I was so sad.

8. Okami

This game is very much pure nostalgia. beautiful cell shaded animation and compelling use of Japanese mythology.

9. Mass Effect 2

I don't quite love ME as much as Dragon age due to my own preference for fantasy/medieval, but I love 2 for where it took the story/characters. Overall, ME is one of the few, if only, pieces of SciFi media I like.

10. Witcher 3

If you put a gun to my head and told me to name what I thought the best video game ever released was, I'd say Witcher 3. I have fond memories of playing this game while eating pizza in college. I also just love the animations for this game. In a time of "realism is the way" in video games, to me it's the more animated style that is much more timeless. (this is another reason I like Baldur's Gate right now)

#games #tagged

[theladyvalkyrieskyeart]

Now this is really kinda sad because Trigun Stampede has a lot of potential for both an elevated version of the original story and world building lore. I really hope we get to see it fully realized soon.

In the meantime, if you haven't done so, please be sure to watch Trigun Stampede and rope others in as well.

Edited to add: Trigun Stampede is in both Crunchyroll AND Hulu so either one should be fine and would probably count.

FURTHER EDITED TO ADD: I understand some of the reticence is due to it basically being a reboot and as such people who have a fondness for the original anime or manga may not like the changes. Or people who have never seen the anime/read the manga may feel lost watching this. Lemme assuage some doubts:

1. Do I need to watch the original '98 anime or read the manga to understand?

NO! you can watch straight on and in the first episode it lays down the important points you need to know about this story and builds from there.

2. I'm really attached to the original anime tho and I was told it nothing like it, is that true?

Sort of yes. The tone here is more believable and realistic as opposed to the slapstick of the '98 anime, but it's more in line with the tone of Trigun Maximum when it gets serious, it's deadly serious. There is still some leavity in the show, but this version of the anime is meant to feel like a movie or a irl TV series

3. But *redacted* isn't in this!

Not in this season, no this season Roberto was there to build up Meryl's character arc. The events of this season will have an effect on her into the next season when she.... um.... comes across familiar faces. It's clear this story is meant to have at most 3 seasons to fully tell the story but again, if people aren't watching it then it's a good chance it will be dropped and then you'll never get *redacted character* at all.

4. I don't have Crunchyroll

Great! It's on Hulu!

All I'm saying is have an open mind and give this iteration of the series a chance. Studio Orange along with Kenji Muto and Yoshihiro Watanabe put a lot of thought into this series.

#trigun stampede #i hate this era of tv #streaming tv is such a curse

[bussyplease]

As someone who's about to work in biology research, I can't stay silent about the Frontiers AI rat penis event.

LOOK AT HIM

WARNING: LONG AF. STRAP YOURSELVES IN, WITCHES!

I'll explain in detail, in a way that's accessible for non-scientists, everything that's wrong with this. Recently, a scientific article with AI generated figures was published in the journal "Frontiers in cell and developmental biology".

Here's the link to download this (now retracted) article in PDF.

(disclamer: I am a master's student in neuroscience with a bachelor's in biology, so, definitely not a rat ball specialist, and I have never published anything)

Context

This is a review article about the relationship between rat ball cells and a signalling pathway that happens inside cells.

What's a review article? It's an article that is meant to summarise everything we know about a certain topic, based on recent research articles. This means that the authors of a review don't conduct any experiments: they gather information from people who did. It sounds easy but it's not. They have to piece together a very complex puzzle. Sometimes an article says that molecule A interacts with molecule B and gives you such and such effects, but in another article they say they haven't found any effect in particular of molecules A and B, and a third article will tell you that the effect exists in cell cultures but not in an actual animal because molecule C is also there... And there are dozens and dozens of articles they have to sift through, dissect, evaluate etc. And then they have to make sense of that whole hoopla. And then they have to explain it to everyone.

BUT. A review is probably the easiest type of scientific article to fake. Because for a research article, you have to conduct actual experiments and provide results. For a meta-analysis, you will come under great scruitiny because they are expected to be very reliable and when a new meta-analysis drops, the hype in the field is big. People will see through it in seconds. But a bullshit review? People are not as interested in picking apart reviews, because there are no experimental results directly shown in them, no statistical calculations or criteria to criticise etc. It's almost all text. You can AI generate text. You can write lazily and it will still have the appearance of a review from afar.

However, a review has figures. The figures are meant to illustrate the mechanisms of the phenomena described in the review. Usually, those are very clean, easy to understand even for non-specialists, they are your best friend when you're not too sure what's going in this wall of text and you want to get the gist. Review figures are good educational tools, so you need to have a good understanding of the topic and be concise to make a good review figure. You can't fake that with AI.

In order to publish a review, just like any other scientific article, you have to submit it to a scientific journal. You have to format your article exaclty according to the journal's criteria, (and if you were wondering, no you don't get paid for doing the journal's job for them, nor do you get paid for providing them content you took years to produce, in fact you have to pay them, the journal, thousands of dollars). Your article will then go through several rounds of selection and revisions. First the journal will decide whether or not your article is relevant to their area of expertise (like, if you try to publish a paper on quantum mechanics to the journal "Poultry Science", it will not work, no matter if you're better than Einstein and Hawking combined). Then they'll decide whether or not your article is interesting enough to them. If it is, they will send your article to reviewers (usually 2, sometimes 3). Reviewers are researchers who are knowledgeable about the topic you're covering in your article. They're usually anonymous, they shouldn't be associated with the journal and they don't get paid by the journal for reviewing the paper (this is to guarantee neutrality, but still it's work to review an article and they don't get paid). The reviewers will suggest modifications to the paper, ask for clarifications etc. You change your paper, they give their suggestions again, you change your paper again... Then after this back and forth is done, if everyone is satisfied, your article can get published. I'd like to emphasize that in a decent journal, it almost never happens that a paper gets accepted right away without any rounds of corrections. Most of the time, reviewers get real nitpicky and I've had professors complain that they'll sometimes freak out over every single comma. This is what the term "peer-reviewed" means. Other researchers in the field have to critique your paper before it even comes out, and after it comes out, every other scientist who reads your paper can critique your paper. Some say the real peer review starts after publication, because then everyone in the scientific community can pick your article apart and determine how relevant it actually is by deciding whether or not to cite it in their own works.

The journal this article was published in, Frontiers in cell and developmental biology, is not the most prestigious, but it is (or was, I guess) still rather reputable with an impact factor of 5. The impact factor is a score that evaluates the quality of a journal based on how many times their articles were cited as references in other articles. To give you an idea, here are the 2023 impact factors of the biggest journals in biology:

Science: 57

Nature: 65

Cell: 65

The average impact factor for all scientific journals is under 1, because there are a lot of shit journals out here. Journals are businesses that can be very low effort to set up, so the quality journals are actually few. An impact factor above 10 means business, that's some shit you can brag about. 5 is not super glorious but it's decent.

Frontiers is not just one journal but a group of journals, each specialised in one topic (Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Surgery, etc) each with their own impact factor.

Where did shit go wrong?

I don't know what the fuck went through the authors' heads. Was this a troll? Were they serious?? Anyway let's start with the funniest and most visible part.

The figures

Figure 1

Do I really need to explain? These aren't real body parts. These aren't even words. Shoutout to "rat", the only correct part of this figure. The caption says just about nothing.

This is the image that went viral because... Of course. It's a massive rat dick and balls. But the other figures aren't any better.

Figure 2

This is supposed to represent the JAK-STAT intracellular pathway. JAK and STAT are proteins, and this is supposed to represent how their activation impacts other molecules inside the cell. As you can see, again, not a single real word on that figure, this represents absolutely nothing. You can clearly see that the authors gave the AI image generator "JAK-STAT pathway" as a prompt because every single thing on this image is labelled as some variation of JAK or STAT. Which is pretty funny. Another thing I find hilarious is that the caption underneath the figure is actually a correct description of the JAK-STAT pathway, which leads me to think it was written by a human. For reference here's an actual diagram that represents this pathway rather simply (by Adriana Gutiérrez-Hoya and Isabel Soto-Cruz)

Source

Figure 3

Again, no real words, just a bunch of balls and circles without any meaning. I can't speak about whether or not the caption makes any sense because I'm not too well versed in the topic. Special shoutout to the beautiful word "IMMOUMINOMUDUODIUILATIUCATON" in figure E. I think that was an attempt at saying "immunomodulation".

The content of the text

This review attempts to summarise the current knowledge on spermatogonial stem cells in relation to the JAK-STAT pathway. Spermatogonial stem cells are self-renewing cells located in testicles that allow for continuous production of sperm cells throughout a male mammal's whole adult life. The JAK-STAT pathway is a cellular signaling pathway. What this means, in simple terms, is basically a cascade of proteins inside a cell that talk to each other to say shit like "hey hey hey have you heard that there's a bunch of [X] molecule outside?? We better do something about it." And then they do something about it.

As I've said before I'm not an expert in this area at all. I vaguely know the JAK-STAT pathway, the structure of testicles, and what stem cells do, but it stops there. I do want to discuss the content of this article though, because I haven't seen anyone do it yet and I wish an expert in the field would tell us what the content of that review is really worth.

There are some things that do seem fishy in here. First of all, when I first read the abstract, I was convinced that the whole article was AI generated because it looked like a succession of buzzwords. Turns out, the captions of the figures make sense and the text seems somewhat coherent. I would tend to say it was written by people, albeit in a very boring and unclear way. Then I went to the references to check if they were real. It turns out, at least the references are real articles.

I will not speak on the validity of the claims made in the article because I'm not knowledgeable enough. I've checked some references at random though, and sometimes, they are only very very loosely related to the claim in the review that they're supposed to illustrate, or sometimes just unrelated.

Example: at the beginning of page 7, you can read "miR-34c activates the JAK2/STAT3 pathway, implicated in germ cell generation and SSC differentiation (Clotaire et al., 2018)." When you go to that 2018 reference, you find out that this paper is not about miR-34c (it's not even mentioned once in that article). It's about another miRNA called miR-19b-3p. I've checked, they are 2 completely different miRNAs. They're not even coded on the same chromosome ffs. The article barely mentions JAK2 and the few times it does mention JAK2, there is no significant result showing any activation of JAK2.

Other example: at several points throughout the review, the authors claim that spermatogonial stem cells have an important immunomodulatory role. I haven't found literature supporting this claim anywhere. The one reference that the authors linked to this claim was absolutely not about immunomodulation, it was about reprogramming spermatogonial stem cells into neurons. What I did find, is several mentions of Sertoli cells (another type of cell present in testicles) having an immunomodulatory role.

Literally a case of [citation needed]. If there is one place where you have to have proper citations, it has to be a review article. This seems like some top tier laziness. I kind of doubt myself because I don't want to believe that someone would make a review where they don't source their information. I want to believe that I understood their reference articles wrong. But for real, check for yourself if you know a bit about biology. I don't think I'm wrong here.

I will not dive further into the content but tell me if y'all are interested. I will read up on rat balls to try and see if there is more bullshit in here, section by section, if you want me to.

The authors

The lovely individuals behind this review are Xinyu Guo, Liang Dong, and Dingjun Hao. All three are part of the Department of Spine Surgery in Xi'an Honghui hospital in China.

Because I don't speak chinese, and because it's common for hundreds or even thousands of people to have the exact same name in China, and because chinese social media is isolated from the rest of the world, it was hard for me to find information about these people.

All I can think is, what were they thinking??

First of all, what are y'all spine surgeons doing writing about rat balls?

First author - Xinyu Guo

For context, the first author is the person who contributed the most to the paper.

It's hard to find information about this person due to a lot of homonyms. However I was able to find 4 other articles from them on ResearchGate, which were about spinal cord injury, the JAK-STAT pathway, and one about reprogramming spermatogonial stem cells into neural-like cells in order to transplant them and help with recovery after spinal cord injury. So I guess that's why they're interested in rat balls. Kind of makes sense, but it looks like spermatogonial sperm cells could be a tool that they use in their research, and not their actual area of expertise which is, ya know. Spines. They seem knowledgeable about spines. I've also found their name in articles that were reports of medical cases and treatments for spinal injuries. I haven't found any online accounts related to this person, even on "scientist" social media like ResearchGate. My hypothesis is that this is a medical doctor turned researcher who got into using stem cells.

I did find this person as a reviewer for a paper in Frontiers in Immunology. If they're also in the field of immunology, that might explain why the review was so adamant that these spermatogonial stem cells have a role in immunomodulation...

Anyway, it doesn't seem very wise to have someone who is not specialised in stem cells to be the main author of a review about stem cells.

Second author - Liang Dong

Again, all I can find on that person is about spines and how to fix them. Articles associated with them are related to spinal cord injuries, spine surgeries, reports about medical cases and treatment efficiency etc. Nothing related to stem cells, except that one fateful review. No social media accounts either that I could find.

Third and last author - Dingjun Hao

Another Mister Spine. An experienced and prestigious one, even. He is (or was, I'm unsure) the president of the spinal surgery department of the hospital all three authors work at. He was also an author on many other papers, including those I found with the first author, so he did read the term spermatogonial stem cells at some point in his life it seems. But with his rhythm of publication (sometimes more than 10 papers a year), there is simply no way he is putting much effort in all of these papers. It seems like he is an old renowned professor, director of such and such department, who gets almost automatically added as an author in all of his colleagues' papers. I doubt he contributed a significant amount to this review. There's even a chance he hasn't read it.

He has been a reviewer for another journal of Frontiers, Frontiers in Surgery. He reviewed various papers on spinal injuries, which is fair enough because it's his area of expertise.

This time though, I got some more fun details. Interestingly, I found this from the website of Honghui hospital:

Looks like our friend won a great prize from the chinese government for his scientific work! Congrats! I'm sure that this botched review and the associated global backlash will not affect his relationship with the chinese government at all!

Overall, it seems like the authors are indeed spine surgeons, probably good ones, but not researchers specialised in stem cells or cellular singaling pathways.

This leads me to think that this review was not a troll at all. The likely scenario, in my opinion, is that, since all institutions need to publish articles to stay relevant (the age old slogan, publish or perish), the first two authors were asked to write a review and did so in a rush, about a topic they're vaguely familiar with. They didn't have anyone available to make cool looking figures, so they resorted to using AI at the last minute. It turned out terrible but they still tried to publish it in a not so prestigious journal, and somehow succeeded. They probably thought nobody would notice because no one would care enough to read it (and fair enough it is boring as hell).

The last author likely just has his name on there because he's the head of the department they work at, and these guys always get the last author spot by default. They're not necessarily very involved in the paper because they don't have time, but it benefits them by inflating their publication count.

The reviewers/the journal

With the way the figures look, there is absolutely no way a reviewer even looked at this paper and gave a favorable opinion. Point blank. Even an editor with very little scientific knowledge would have screamed seeing this. So what happened here?

After retracting the paper, just a few days after the publication, Frontiers released a statement in which they say:

"Our investigation revealed that one of the reviewers raised valid concerns about the figures and requested author revisions. The authors failed to respond to these requests. We are investigating how our processes failed to act on the lack of author compliance with the reviewers' requirements."

It seems like one reviewer (why just one??) raised concerns, somehow their opinion was not taken into account, and the editor still chose to publish without the reviewer's accord which is a huge no-no (means the paper is not in fact peer reviewed).

In a Vice article, one of the two reviewers, Jingbo Dai, (probably the one who didn't raise concerns, as you can tell from his detached attitude) said:

"As a biomedical researcher, I only review the paper based on its scientific aspects. For the AI-generated figures, since the author cited Midjourney, it's the publisher's responsibility to make the decision," Dai said. "You should contact Frontiers about their policy of AI-generated figures."

This is utter bullshit, because the figures are 100% part of the review, they are a "scientific aspect", and if they are inaccurate it's totally the reviewer's job to call them out. This guy simply doesn't give a shit. He shouldn't have accepted to review this paper if he didn't want to bother doing the bare minimum. If by "scientific aspects" he means the text, had he checked the references, he would have noticed some shit to fix as well.

Basically, what happened is that at least one reviewer didn't do his job, the editors flat out didn't look at what they published, and they only bothered looking at it when the backlash started. A nice chain of incompetence.

Conclusion

What does this mean for the scientific community?

It's important to note that the reason this article was even retracted is thanks to online backlash from the scientific community. What corrects science? More science. Better science. Not your aunt who "did her own research" on Young Living's facebook page.

Many in the scientific community are now more than ever highly critical of Frontiers, saying they will never publish in or review for them. The reputation of the journal is severely tarnished in the eyes of many, and one can hope that this will make editors look twice before they publish bullshit.

This may or may not be a career-ending mistake for the authors as well. We will see in the following weeks or months if they get to keep their jobs. They might not be able to publish in scientific papers ever again due to bad reputation. But I don't think they will have to stop their work as surgeons, since this is a completely different activity.

For me, this whole ordeal is a reminder that scientific journals are, first and foremost, businesses. Ultimately, they don't give a shit if what they publish is true. They only pretend to care about scientific integrity to maintain their reputation.

I hope that this will also encourage co-authors, especially senior researchers who get the last author spot by default, to be more cautious about what kind of papers they're willing to put their name on. And I hope this encourages institutions to lower their push for their researchers and doctors to publish publish publish no matter the quality, just so they can flex how many papers came out of their institution.

If anyone actually read this entire thing, thank you so much. I am very grateful that you found my rant good enough to read. If you have any additional information or corrections, please share them! Because this is just something a master's kid wrote in a boring afternoon, so there might be some errors. Have a nice day and uh... stay sciencing

#rat penis scandal #science #stem cell research #biology #frontiers #research #scientific research #can't believe I wrote this #long post #deep dive #scientific scandal

[jubilantmedusa]

I’ve watched the first two episodes. Not sure when I’ll be able to watch the remainder - likely not until next week. Some spoilers below the cut, but nothing huge.

It’s basically exactly what I thought it would be. Action oriented. A little wooden, largely due to trying to get all that action in. At times overly serious (the music). Some nice moments, and seeing bending is fun, but not quite there. Needs better character development overall.

What works:

1. Iroh. He’s very different than the show, but it’s working. Tea and sticky rice! They are doing more nodding to his true nature than the cartoon was at this point, which is fine.

2. Zuko. We’ll see how it goes as the show asks more of him, but for now whiny Prince is whining as he should. And he and Iroh play off each other very well.

3. Bending - it’s fun to see the bending! I actually really liked seeing the earth bending in the opening scene.

4. Set design. The sets look cool. A little artificial here and there, but I like them. Especially the southern air temple. It just looks fun. But even smaller details, like Zuko’s room.

5. Gyotso. He did great.

6. Intro of the water bending scroll. I am down with expanding Gran-Gran’s roll and avoiding pirates.

Mid:

1. Suki. There was a lot to like there, but her character motivations don’t quite land. But her scenes with Sokka work.

2. Sokka. I don’t think he’s quite there, but some of his comic relief lines are working, and I’m glad they are taking his warrior arc seriously.

Not quite there:

1. Katara. No fault of the actress, let’s be clear. So far Katara’s characterization is what I feared from the promos. She’s a very sweet Katara. And that is definitely part of Katara’s character. But we haven’t seen her saucy side yet, and it’s missing. Katara is full of compassion and also tough as nails. Just pure tenacity. They have made it clear she wants to be a warrior, so that’s good. Buy can I picture her yelling? Hmmm.

2. Aang. He’s not completely joyless, but he is an angstier Aang. Lots of his fun loving nature is coming from monologues rather than action (though he did get a great airball moment). We’ll see. It’s only episode 2.

3. Costumes. Some of them are just a little too much. The bright colors work better in the cartoon. I actually wouldn’t mind if there were turned down a smidge.

Not working (SPOILERS):

1. Suki’s mom. What was her character even? What motivated her to change her mind? witnessing flirting? Does that make sense?

2. Music. Too much serious music.

3. Not sure how I feel about the change in Zuko and Zhao’s relationship. It appears to be their first meeting. Also not sure how I feel about Zhao being less important when we meet him. He’s a commander but… doesn’t seem like he has quite the authority or the prestige as the animated show.

4. Tone. It’s what I expected it to be, but I don’t love it. I wouldn’t quite call it rushed, but there isn’t a lot of room for character and so the character moments they do have feel a bit heavy and cliche.

5. Spirit world effects. I mean, assuming kiyoshi was meant to be in the spirit world, which is uncertain. That was just… purplish and blurry. What?

6. Am I okay that Zuko did not attack Kiyoshi Island? Not sure. Like… he did get a menacing moment with Katara so that’s good, but… is it good enough?

7. And a pacing/character rant… I think the Suki & Sokka stuff in episode two worked, but I also felt it came at the expense of Katara and Aang getting developed more. As much as I personally love Sokka, Katara and Aang are the most important characters to develop.

8. So I get they need to info dump, but there is no way Zuko wouldn’t know where all the Fire Nation headquarters are, so Iroh would not need to dump that on him. Small detail but come on.

9. How did Aang’s shirt get off? What was that for?

#avatar: the last airbender #live action atla #avatar the last airbender Netflix

[yjyt85r98r]

Pretty Series song reviews: Konna sekai ni tsugu

I'm not writing it out as "KON-NA SEKAI NI TUGU".

Song

I remember when this first came out. We were in such dire need of a 'scary' gothic song. All the gothic characters' image songs over the past few years had gone the classical or pop routes – which there's nothing wrong with – but we were in need of a more intense, rock-style song. And this one sure delivered!

In classic 'jumpscare-style' intro fashion, soft mystical piano (?) makes way to much louder, scarier music. Between that is a sound effect that builds up before suddenly cutting out – very chilling.

The instrumentals combine elements of pop, rock and orchestral music, but in a way that's different from many other anime songs. Most anime songs that combine those elements use a rock-like rhythm, a pop-like melody, rock instruments in the lead, orchestral instruments to support them and give the song a fuller quality, and a bit of synth to accentuate it. This song has more of a rapid 4-on-the-floor rhythm, fast cymbal patterns, a unique melody, and orchestral instruments in the lead with rock instruments playing a secondary role for much of the song. At least, that's how it sounded to me. It's kind of hard to tell some of this stuff because the orchestral sounds are used in such an aggressive way that they almost sound like synth.

The verses in the full version added a much-needed touch, at least to me. The visuals of the stained glass and kaleidoscope, and the overall mystical design, weren't really suited to majority of the song aside from the intro. So slowing the tempo and using eerily twinkling instrumentals really helped add the mystical feeling that was missing from most of the short version. It also adds more impact when the pace suddenly speeds up.

Regarding the melody, it's a bit unique in that it jumps up and down a lot. Most melodies follow a more linear format where they go up and down note by note (e.g. do-re-mi), occasionally jumping up or down the scale to give an impact during important parts. But this song does a LOT of jumping between higher and lower notes. (Although it still has linear progression, of course.)

I have a lot of inside jokes with myself about this being a gamer rage song.

Vocals

The contrast between Lemon's singing and speaking voice is great. She sings with a strong, deep and full voice that's well-controlled but still emotional. And she can even roll her Rs!

As for Carron, she didn't get much time to shine. Nevertheless, it is delightful to hear so much pure rage coming out of that tiny rabbit.

The one thing about the vocals is that, during the part near the end where the lyrics are "kibou wa", I keep hearing "kibou ari". Every single time. It's not just me, right?

Lyrics

A lot of the lyrics are pretty complicated and vague, but then some are stupidly simple. I've read some people's interpretations of the lyrics, such as one person claiming that the lyrics were about wanting to stay trapped in the otaku world, and I didn't really agree with that interpretation (though can I understand where it came from), so I guess I'll write my own.

I think the meaning of the lyrics is very simple at heart. They're about doing what you want regardless of what anyone thinks. I suppose that "doing what you want" could mean "shutting yourself in your room and playing video games all day", but the story seems to show that that isn't what Lemon wants.

There are a lot of lyrics that are so vague and abstract that I still don't know what they mean after all this time, but the fun part of that is that it makes it easy to project your personal feelings onto the lyrics to make them more relatable. Like, I don't know what they meant specifically by "gathering and learning" or by "parallel lines", but that means I can think about all the times that thinking and learning didn't help me fix my problems, or all the times that things in my life seemed to be lining up but then I didn't take advantage of them so they just passed by without coming together.

The repetitive parts of the song kind of feel like when someone's so angry that they can't think straight and just keep saying the same thing over and over.

I wish I knew what they meant by "voi".

Choreography

Not the best, but could be worse. I don't really feel the need to say that much on Primagi choreography since I already made a separate post covering the choreography for all the songs. From now on, I think I'll just copy-paste those into my Priamgi song reviews. As for this one:

This song’s choreo looks like it was made up on the spot. The rhythm of the movements is rather liberal compared to the rhythm of the song, the non-dominant limbs often fall into position halfway through a movement, and there isn’t much consistency even among repeated movements. But looking like the dance was made up on the spot isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a frantic-sounding song like this one. As with many songs, my opinion on the choreography improved after seeing the full version - it’s a lot cleaner, quicker, sharper and more precise.

Visuals

Somehow, the animation feels kind of laggy during some parts, especially the instrumental part. But only when played along with the sound. When I watch it with the sound off, it looks perfectly fine, but when accompanied by the music, the animation looks too slow.

The stage design looks too elegant for the song, but it's really pretty so I can't complain. There are lots of beautiful details like the crystals, the flower bush, the moving kaleidoscope pattern, and the big lamps.

The performance made use of a lot of unusual and experimental angles, which personally gave me the impression of being killed by Lemon in a video game. Like you know, those "you died" memes.

The red tint that appears (and even seems to pulse and bleed at the corners) is an exciting touch that helps get across the song's aggressive vibe.

Good points: Powerful vocals, intense atmosphere Bad points: Kind of annoying?

Rating: 8/10 Personal rating: 8/10

#pretty series song reviews

[slowlydifferentbluebird]

Ah, thanks for the compliment author! ☺️ But I could never be as good of a writer like you! Besides, I really enjoyed that Irene and Seulgi piece, especially with the multiple endings!

Anyways, here’s another prompt for another headcanon, but this time for a Royal AU with Kwon Eunbi. Hope you enjoy! And please and thank you in advance!

******

Queen Eunbi? It seemed like just a few days ago she was Princess Eunbi, some low-ranking member in the Royal Court.

Well, at least she was, before she decided to stage a coup, violently disposing of the Royal Court, the loyalists to the monarchy, and the Royal Family.

Your family.

But she didn’t manage to execute you, the last legitimate heir to the throne.

She’s managed to pull the rug out from under you. Your family, your friends, everything that you’ve known gone in an instant, your life upended overnight.

An empire at your feet and you’ve lost it all.

And now she’s searching for you. Reports from your last remaining loyal servants have suggested that she’s not looking to kill you if it meant risking making you a martyr and causing the people to rebel against her. No, she’s looking to either force you into marriage to legitimize her consolidated power. Or, if you don’t comply, she’ll turn you into her political prisoner.

Maybe living in a palace has made you soft. Harsh words? Perhaps. But be honest, do you think you deserved it? If you had been a little more vigilant, maybe you would still have a family and a throne.

So, what’re you going to do about it, your Imperial Majesty? How will you make your mark on this wretched world? Will you go along with Eunbi’s plan? Or will you take back what is yours by force?

Careful. Whatever you do will have a ripple effect for years to come. So choose wisely.

Kwon Eunbi headcanon - Royal AU! - Royal! Reader trying to take back the empire from Queen!Eunbi

Requests are open

Hello again! I'm really thinking that you're a human storage of greats prompts for headcanons. And the Au details give that spicy flavor, because in this way I could try new things. Also, thank you again for your kinds words, I hope the result satisfy you.

Royal!Eunbi X Royal!GN!Reader

The plan

The world how you knew it was now gone

One night was enough to transgorm you from claimant to the throne to a fugitive

A lump in your throat while you think to all people you lost few days ago:

Your family, your friends, whoever was on your side

You have seen death them by the hands of Eunbi

A a person whose existence you sometimes forgot

But from now you will never forget about her, nor you will forgive her

It could be the last thing you will do, but you will have your revenge

But you can't beat an entire empire alone

Luckily you are not alone, because you have still few friends you can rely on

Humble but loyal people

You knew them since your childhood and even now even now that so many years have passed, you can still count on them

You never stopped writing letters to them and sending castle resources when they need it

So, when that night you managed to escape from the castle and you knocked on their door, they didn't hesitate to let you enter

Now you are still there and they are all with you: Yena, Yuri and Chaeyeon

You could have been too soft maybe in these years, but you are always been the best in making strategies.

So after spending an entire night making a plan, the next day you were ready for action.

To the castle

The first part of the plan was the easiest: enter the walls

In fact Chaeyeon everyday deliver straw for the animals of the castle, so the guards should let her enter with her cart

A cart where you and the other two were hidden

At the big front door the guards searched the cart, but they had found nothing because you were hidden under the double bottom

So Chae left you in the yard and went away, done with her part of the plan

Now that you three were in, the second part could start

Chaos

To sneak towards Eunbi position you needed a distraction

And the best one to make a fuss is for sure Yena

Like, she's not a bad girl, but she's really innocently chaotic, if it makes sense

So while you and Yeri were hidden in the first storage space you found, Yena started running, screaming, singing and other 100 noisy activities that attracted almost all the royal guards to her

Honestly it was fun watching that little bean escaping with no difficulty from a mob of men armed and twice her height

But you can't waste precious time, you needed to take advantage of the distraction

Her

You and Yuri left Yena on her mission, confident of the fact that she would have managed to escape

You two ran in castle with agility, thanks to your knowledge of the castle and of the laws

In fact you remember clearly that only someone with blue blood can love in the royal rooms

Or someone married with someone with blue blood

Thus Eunbi should have been in old, low-ranking member of the Royal Court room, even though she has the power now

That's the reason she's searching for you in all the realm

But you were far few minutes to her

At the beginning of hallway of the Royal Court member you separated with Yuri

She stood there as a lookout

Before parting you gave her your trusty sword, because she needed to defense herself

After all you didn't need it, you had with you the dagger that your grandfather gave to you the day you became an adult

You and Yeri hugged tightly, you knew that you can count on her, but can't help to worry for her

Just watching in her eyes remembered you the feelings that you had for her since you were a child

But now there was no time for that

That was the time for your vengeance

So you started walking slowly towards Eunbi room, the last on the right

Silently you turned the knob and walked in

She was there, sat with her back turned

She was brushing her hair, unaware of your presence...

...or at least that was what you thought

"Well, look what the cat dragged in. My favorite claimant to the throne" she said looking at you through a mirror in his hand

The thing surprised you, but not too much because the situation was still the same: you two were alone and you were armed and her not.

"Yah, Kwon Eunbi, how dare you speak to me when you still have the blood of my family on your hands?" You loudly shout to her

"Don't worry, Y/N, I washed my hands, I'm a clean person, you know? So, So... what brings you to my "humble" establishment? You finally decided to turn yourself in?" She said looking directly at you this time

You laughed impressed by her boldness, "You would like. No, you filthy traitor, I'm here to end you here and take back what's mine".

With saidyou closed the distance that separated you and now the blade of you dagger was on her neck. "Do you have any final words?", you asked her, ready to do what was needed.

"Oh, actually yes: don’t you ever get tired of failing?", she didn't have the time to finish her question that from behind you someone entered in the room.

It were Yuri and Yena, both with their hands tied and with a sword pointed at them. Behind them, wielding the sword, a royal guard and... Chaeyeon?

"Chae, what are you doing? Are you crazy?" you asked her baffled. "Shut up, Y/N! You know nothing", she answered with sad but angry eyes.

While you were distracted talking to your former friend, Eunbi took the opportunity to steal your weapon.

"Thank you for the gift, Y/N! However I know something instead: in fact this smart girl yesterday night contacted me through one of my spies and informed me about your silly plan". Said Eunbi, this it was her placing the blade of the dagger on you neck.

But at that point that was something secondary. "But why? I thought we were friends, Chae!", you asked, in the verge of cry.

"That's what YOU thought! You always put me in the last place, Y/N. Since we were child. Yena was your bestfriend, Yuri was your crush, and I? I was the other one, I was useful only to not be in an odd number. I always thought that it was a child thing, you were immature, but you are still the same. Yesterday when you came to our house I was the last one you said hi. That's why!, she ended her discourse, shouting at this point.

"Yes, very sad. However", Eunbi at this point has got your back against the wall, "time to finish this drama! Here's the deal: guard, take these two rascals and put them in prison for a few days, then throw them out", she said looking at the guard.

Now she was looking at you with a strange glare. "And as far for you, now that you're here you will marry me so my power will be officially recognized by the laws. Lucky me, you are stupid, but you are hot!".

She kissed you with passion, to claim her property. On the other hand you didn't resist, probably heartbroken over too many betrayals in so little time.

Your plan failed. Now a future as the partner of the usurper was waiting for you. Is that the end of your story?

#kpop #kpop girls #kpop headcanons #kpop reactions #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop angst #kpop x reader #kpop x gender neutral reader #eunbi solo #izone eunbi #kwon eunbi #eunbi headers #eunbi izone #izone #izone headers #izone reactions #izone imagines #izone yuri #izone yena #izone chaeyeon #yena solo #chaeyeon #royal au