#I AM 7-10

[reasonsforhope]

"For most people, a rat is at best an unwelcome guest, and at worst, the target of immediate extermination. But in a field clinic in Tanzania, rats are colleagues—heroes even.

Far from a trash bin-dwelling NYC street rat, the African giant pouched rat is docile, intelligent, easier to train than some dogs, and for East Africans, the performer of lifesaving tuberculosis diagnoses every day.

400,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were estimated to have been prevented by these rats, whose sense of smell would make a bloodhound take notice. As [TB is] the number-one killer among infectious diseases worldwide, many of those 400,000 can be translated into lives saved.

“Not only are we saving people’s lives, but we’re also changing these perspectives and raising awareness and appreciation for something as lowly as a rat,” said Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents for the nonprofit APOPO.

“Because our rats are our colleagues, and we really do see them as heroes.”

APOPO uses giant pouched rats to sniff out traces of TB in the saliva of patients. In parts of Tanzania, a saliva smear test under a microscope by a human may only be 20-40% effective at detecting TB.

By contrast, a giant pouched rat like Ms. Carolina, a now-retired service rat who worked for APOPO for 7 years, raised the rates of detection on TB samples by 40% in the clinic where she worked.

Pictured: An APOPO employee with one of their trained rats

It would take 4 days for scientists to analyze the number of samples that Carolina could screen in 20 minutes. For that reason, when Carolina retired last November, a party was thrown at the clinic in her honor, and she was given a cake.

TB is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past—a disease for which doctors used to prescribe “dry air,” leading a modern sense of humor to muse at the antiquated, pre-antibiotic medical advice.

But it remains the number-one cause of death globally from a single infectious pathogen, and Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, told National Geographic that once people see what the nonprofit’s rodents can do to slow the spread, they “fall in love with them.”

3,000 times in her career did Carolina detect one of the six volatile compounds that can be used to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and she got a hero’s send-off to a special compound to live out the rest of her days with her closet friend and sniffer colleague Gilbert, in a shaded enclosure dubbed “Rat Florida.”

“We’ve made special little rat-friendly carrot cakes with little peanuts and things on it that the rat would enjoy,” Fast said. “Then we all stand around and we clap, and we give three cheers, hip hip hooray for the hero, and celebrate together. It’s really a touching moment.”

APOPO has made headlines for its use of these rats in other lifesaving tasks as well: landmine clearance.

One of the world’s great underreported scourges (a lot like TB, coincidentally) is landmine contamination. There are 110 million landmines or unexploded bombs in the ground right now in about 67 countries, covering thousands of square miles in potential danger. Thousands of civilians are killed or injured by these weapons every year.

GNN reported on APOPO’s demining efforts using pouched rats back in 2020. One rat named Magawa alone identified 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance across an area the size of 20 football fields.

If at the start of this story you didn’t like rats, maybe Magawa and Carolina will have changed your mind."

-via Good News Network, March 31, 2025

[rui-drawsbox]

my favorite scene by far. malleus ugly crying silver shocked cuz he never saw him like that lilia just lying there😭 bruv i love them so much

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[mashmouths]

i need to experience something beautiful and true or i'm going to dissolve into a wretched ooze i think

[notaplaceofhonour]

based on a true story…

[licorishh]

no way she's alive ?? yea those mental health breaks because social media makes people suck are wild huh

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

“would you still love me…” “yes!” “…if i was a ghost?” bitch didn’t even wait for the end of that sentence goddamn. let the man speak before you profess your unconditional love.

[bluebnny]

Can u make another luffy fwb smut this time with a fem/plus size/short!reader and they're childhood friends? Doggy style with loads of creampie please and thank u

Fill you up

monkey d luffy x fem!reader

contents: doggy-style sex with luffy. basically what it says in the ask

warnings: smut, MDNI, some size kink, unprotected sex, creampie, a little overstimulation

a/n: yes i can, anon ;) here you go, i hope you like it. i was meaning to post this 2 days ago but got distracted lol. also you mentioned short!reader so for me, that means with a hefty side of size kink <3 hope i went into the plus size aspect enough. Have fun reading!

(Dividers made by me)

word count: 1.164

The floor of the cabin sways violently beneath the bed. It would be enough to make you fall if you weren’t currently on all fours, Luffy’s hands on your hips keeping you firmly in place.

You’re temporarily on his ship as he had offered to help you get to the next island. Since Luffy is a good friend, you had taken him up on the offer. Either way, it’s preferrable to spending your hard-earned money to travel with total strangers.

Although you had been stupid to think that he might not have any ulterior motives in inviting you to stay, you can’t say that you aren’t happy with your current situation. That is, being pounded into oblivion by none other than the captain of the ship himself.

A storm is raging outside, but you barely register the turbulence around you in the dark, hot room. All you can feel is the drag of his cock inside you as he rams into you from behind. Luffy’s never been the delicate type, always breaking stuff, even when you were kids. And you can feel that in the way he’s roughly thrusting into your much smaller frame. Or rather, thrusting your body onto his, because he’s vigorously pulling you back by your hips every time he pushes into you, impaling you on his length. It’s so overwhelming a feeling that you’re whimpering and whining into the mattress beneath you. But you’re not complaining.

You and Luffy had grown up together in the same town, knowing each other from a very young age. You used to be the most inseparable of friends but nowadays, you rarely saw him anymore – the contact between you two becoming sporadic at best after he left your shared hometown to become a pirate. But when you do see him on rare occasions, the night usually ends like this. Something about the distance between you has ironically made you closer. And although it isn’t romantic, there’s a certain spark between you two that makes you end up in his bed time and time again.

Luffy’s hands are digging into the fat of your hips, stinging deliciously as he holds your body in place for him. You couldn’t move away from him even if you tried. So, you’re reduced to taking what he’s giving you while fisting the sheets for purchase.

“You know you look so fucking hot like this?” He’s panting out the words between thrusts.

You can barely respond from how well he’s fucking you. Your brain unable to focus on anything other than the way his tip is kneading into your g-spot with every move of his hips. But Luffy clearly doesn’t expect an answer, because he keeps talking.

“Love seeing you like his. This position- fuck- you’re so hot.”

He’s mesmerized with the way your skin ripples with every hard snap of his hips into your ass. How his fingers make indents in your thighs and hips when he squeezes the plushness there. You think part of him also loves having enough of you to hold on to while also still being able to tease you for being shorter than him. But you stopped being insecure about it a long time ago, now able to fully enjoy the fact that Luffy is almost a head taller than you. A difference in size that definitely makes itself known when he has you going stupid on his cock.

Your back is in the deepest arch to try to accommodate his girth; the top of your stomach touching the bed despite your hips being in the air. Luffy is utterly ruining you, and it feels so good that you can’t form a single coherent thought.

All you can feel is the pressure building in your abdomen. That familiar heat getting more concentrated, ready to explode.

“Ah- Luffy, fuck-” You’re whining out your words, and they barely even make sense to you, but you need to show him how much you need this. “Right there… please-”

“You close?” He lets out his little laugh. The one he only has when he’s reeling from happiness, or in this case, pleasure. “Fuck, me too. Let’s cum together, yeah? Where do you want it?”

“In- inside. Please.”

He only moans at that; and leans down so his chest pressing into the small of your back. He’s got one arm grabbing on to the headboard somewhere above where your head is buried into the mattress, the other snaking around your front to roughly grab a handful of your chest.

“Fuckin’ love these tits. So- so soft f’me...” His face is hovering above your head, and you feel so small buried under him like this. The thought makes you squeeze him even harder, and he lets out another loud moan.

“You like that, yeah?” His voice is breathy. Strained. “Then cum f’me.”

As he says those last words, he starts to rub your nipple messily between his thumb and index finger. The delicious sting shoots straight down to your lower belly and connects to the ocean of pleasure already spilling over there.

Your orgasm hits you, and your vision goes white.

Every nerve in your body is on fire, and all you can do is moan obscenely from the exhilarating high that’s overriding every other sensation. Luffy follows close behind, thrown over the edge by how brutally your smaller body is writing and convulsing beneath his.

The feeling is starting to be too much. When Luffy spills inside of you, he simply keeps going instead of slowing down. Emptying more and more of himself into your tightness, unable to stop when the feeling was so intoxicating.

“Luffy, ‘s too- ‘s too much…” you’re whining from the overstimulation now, body starting to tense despite wanting nothing more than to fall limply to the mattress. You can feel him still cumming into you, thick ropes of it filling you up more than you thought possible.

“One sec. Almost done.” He pants out, hands still tightly gripping the plumpness of your hips, sure to leave massive bruises. After a few seconds that feel like an eternity to your overstimulated senses, he stills his movements.

“You alright there?”

“Y- yeah.” You’re still trembling beneath him, feeling that familiar soothing warmth that comes after an orgasm spread itself to your tired limbs.

Luffy carefully slides out of you but stays where he is to admire his work. “Heh, look at you! Filled you up so fucking good.” A trickle of his cum mixed with your wetness runs down your thigh, but he catches it with his fingers and pushes it back into you with an obscene squelching sound.

“Luffy, stop!” You can’t help but giggle despite your embarrassment. “Help me get cleaned up?”

“’Course I will” And with that, he’s picking you up and carrying you to the bathroom. “So… round 2 after I clean you up?” You’ve known him long enough to know that he’s only half joking.

You’re in for a long night.

thanks for reading! I really hope you liked it!!! <3<3 sorry the title is so bad, i always forget i have to make one for the masterlist 2 seconds before posting lol

(This is my fic, don't repost or use in any AI training programmes! Reblogs are always appreciated <3) Here are my rules, and my masterlist.

[tiarpopdind]

Found an interesting brush set, had an interesting drawing idea ?!

[crispywizardtale]

[varrictethrasoilytits]

Andruil and Harding (The Goddess of the Hunt - The Scout)

Elgar’nan and Bellara (The God of Vengeance and the Sun - The Veil Jumper)

June and Emmrich  (The Master of the Craft - The Necromancer)

Sylaise and Lucanis (The Hearthkeeper (Goddess of the Domestic Arts) - The Mage Killer (can cook)

Ghilan’nain and Davrin (The Goddess of Guides and Navigation (Mother of the Halla) - The Warden)

Falon’din and Taash (The God of Death and Fortune - The Dragon Hunter)

Dirthamen and Neve (The God of Knowledge and Secrets - The Detective)

Mosaics of the Evanuris and The Veilguard Companion Tiles

[slavhew]

2/3 i kept forgetting to post these

[scribbletropolis]

I’m two decades late but hello world!!

[egophiliac]

YOU MANIFESTED THE TWEEL CARDS CONGRATS

YOU'RE WELCOME EVERYBODY!

seriously though I was probably like. 60-80% thinking we'd get at least one tweel for chapter 10. but I was NOT expecting it so soon! both of 'em! in August! a shame we're not getting a Coral Sea event after all...but I guess I can be resigned to that and ALSO excited for getting shiny sparkly glowing(!!!!) mertwins along with Azul fighting his inner demons and going right for the eyes! AHHHH I CAN'T WAIT

(also heeeey I recognize that rowboat... 👀)

[spale-vosver]

Given that it is the anniversary of the October 7th massacre, here are some charities to support if you are financially able.

Magen David Adom - Israel's national emergency and disaster relief service

Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans - Charity for disabled Israeli veterans

Friends of ALYN Hospital - Rehabilitation of and support for disabled children from birth to adolescence

Enosh - Israeli mental health association

If anyone has any additional charities, let me know and I'll add them to the list.

[thriftybruce]

warmups + refreshers