#I’m using cellular to type this

[demonicseries]

Once again I think it’s so funny my public library blocked tumblr on the wifi

[whalesforhands]

the swimsuit dilemma

summary: you’re reminded that swimsuits are back in season after seeing a certain someone on gojo satoru’s lockscreen. (star plasma vessel era)

“Waka Inoue.”

You blink at his phone as it hovers in front of the you, the glowing screen of a gravure model in an all-too revealing bikini that left little to the imagination floating before your eyes.

“Oh? Satoru, you changed it?” Suguru’s directly behind you, leaning over the back of the sofa and your seated self to get a good look, the scent of lavender incense with a hint of strawberry weighing heavy on your nose from his closeness.

“Yeah, yeah! Whaddya guys think?” The cellular device waves around lightly, a grin growing on the white-haired boy’s face as he watches your expression, eyes blank as you focus in on her.

“She looks nice, I suppose.” Not his type though. Geto’s response is curt, his eyes much more interested in watching your reaction, the slow tapping of his fingers against the plush material of the seat as they await your opinion.

Would you be jealous? Or would you be so adorably embarrassed, hiding your face away?

“Mmm…” Your eyes are slowly losing their focus as your brain churns, still fully fixated on the picture in front of you. “…do you guys think that style would suit me?”

(Now that’s one unexpected reaction.)

Two pairs of eyes nearly bulge out of their heads, a choke going unheard as your lax expression remains, a tapping of your finger against your chin as you tilted your head to the side in focused thought.

“Shoko mentioned that it was about time I bought a new swimsuit—“ You sigh. “But everything I’ve shown her ends with a rejection…” You slump onto the couch, slightly agitated with your precious Shoko’s resistance to your choices.

“Not cute enough.”

“Choose something else.”

“…are you serious?”

You’re sighing again at the memory of her dissatisfaction with you, at her crossed arms and furrowed brows, a small pout forming on your face as you let the thought simmer on. Inoue Waka must be a model of sorts, you gather. So her clothing must be acceptable by Shoko’s standards, right?

“Inoue-san looks fashionable… Are they expensive? How much allowance would one be…?” Your mumbling doesn’t go unheard as two jaws start to unhinge, red splashing all over their cheeks as you suddenly snapped out of your daze, a thought occurring to you, as a cute smile of realization on your face forms. “Oh, Satoru! Could you show me more—“

The phone is immediately slammed shut. “No.” A smile, no; something akin to an even brighter grin is upon the pretty face of your white-haired friend.

“Eh?” Your head tilts to meet dark, sunglasses clad eyes that rejected you all too soon. “…would it not suit me after all?” There’s an awkward scratching of your cheek as you let out a dry laugh to ease the odd tension in the air.

“No.” Gojo Satoru does not stutter. “It’d suit ya well.” A glimmer of his perfect teeth. “You’d wear it?” Excited blue eyes appear in your view as you simmer in more confusion.

“Well… Yeah. I suppose I would?” Your smile returns as you try to decipher his words.

(Did you just leave yourself open to more teasing…?)

“That’s cute.” A pat to your head that messes with your hair. “But you can’t wear it out,” His smile is too tensed, his face a little too close as he leans in, his breath nearly fanning your lips had you not shifted back slightly. “Okay?”

“Okay…?”

(Would it look bad on you after all? You’re sighing again as you see him pull away from you, a proud smirk upon his face.)

There’s a shadow cast over Suguru’s eyes when you confusedly lean back, looking up to face him when you feel his larger palm rest upon your shoulder.

“…why don’t you allow us to pick one for you? I’m sure Shoko wouldn’t disapprove of our choices.” His expression is quick to shift, to reveal an all too tense smile, teetering just between the line of mischief and his usual genteel, his chest against the back of your head as his arms settle on both sides of your head, his long fingers mindlessly playing with your hair as you feel Satoru’s head loll and rest on your shoulder in pure boredom.

Hmm… Maybe you should…?

(…or are you just feeling too comfortable right now that you’ll agree to anything they say?)

“We have finished packing our luggage.” Kuroi’s voice rings out as you hear the creaking of the door and the rolling of a few luggages. Her footsteps are quiet against the carpeted floor as your ears pick up on another set of feet tottering in, braided hair swaying as her uniform skirt flutters with her movement.

“We’re ready for the flight to Okinawa!”

(“Riko, please do not yell. We will disturb the neighbors.”

“Oh. Sorry, Kuroi…”)

——

“Hey.” Riko is leaning in towards you, whispered words and close proximity as you sat beside her on the plane. “What was that about swimsuits?” Her eyes gleam with a hunger to know, to get in on the action whilst her other escorts were far too busy intimidating the other passengers.

You giggle lightly in embarrassment, your cheeks feeling a little hot. “Oh— You heard?”

“Duh.” A smile of pure, unadulterated pride sits upon her smug face. “As the vessel who will become one with the almighty Tengen-sama, of course such matters do not escape my mighty ears!”

(She sounds kind of impudent, you’re not gonna lie.)

You’ll humor her. “Oh, it’s such a trivial matter, great vessel!~” You sing out your praises. “It was just—“ You take a pause for the dramatic effect as you see her cross her arms, nodding at your choice of dramatics.

“Letting them pick my swimsuit for me.” It does sound more embarrassing now that you’re saying this out loud.

“Wha— Don’t let them pick for you!” She’s quick to break character, grabbing onto your hands with a look of stout determination in her eyes.

“I’m much better suited for the job!”

Notes:

Riko thinks she’s much suited for it due to her yearning to experience the true ‘school girl’ experience! And that includes shopping for clothes.

You did this to yourself. Gojo went online to go find and order the exact same swimsuit on his lockscreen. He thinks it’s ready to be replaced soon too, if you get what I mean.

Geto is upset Riko managed to goad you into picking her as your swimsuit stylist. What kind of future husband is he if doesn’t pick out your clothes with you…?

Whilst in the clothing store, there was quite a battle between the dynamic duo and Riko.

“What do you mean this colour isn’t suitable?!” Gojo is quite frankly offended as he held up the skimpy blue two-piece.

“It looks cheap and nasty, just like your bug eyes!” Riko is sticking out her tongue at him as she hides behind you, grasping onto your shoulders and using you as a shield.

“Come now Riko, you shouldn’t be saying that to your poor security escorts. We’re working very hard, you know?” Geto is quick to jump in, a deep royal purple one piece with a deep-V in the front in his hands, as he appears directly behind the both of you. Riko jumps in surprise, quickly turning around with her arms up defensively.

“Bugger off, you weird, conman-looking delinquent! Your tastes are just as bad!”

He feels a vein pop.

It seems that only you and Kuroi are of sane mind.

masterlist

KOFI does being in okinawa give you okinawan dreams? (continuation of this specific fic)

nvy’s aftertalk:

HAH u THOUGHT i was gonna do my animal ears special but YOU THOUGHT WRONG WAHAHAHAHA

[cowboy132]

WHAT POPULAR TIKTOK COMMENTS I THINK THE THUNDERBOLTS* WOULD COMMENT

(These are lowkey buns im sorry 💔)

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

ALEXEI SHOSTAKOV

(He ONLY types in caps idc what u say)

(He also uses #newavengerz at any chance he gets)

(He fucking LOVES stupid ai videos, like a story where a cat gets married and cheated on or something and he shows it to Yelena.)

“EXCELLENT USE OF FREE WILL”

“ON MY CELLULAR DEVICE?”

“YOU KNOW WHAT HELL YEAH”

“HIS GREED SICKENS ME”

“APOLOGY NOW”

“#NEEDTHAT” (he does not know what this means for far too long and would just comment it on like random ads or videos of things he wants until Yelena finds one of them and is like…dad?)

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

BUCKY BARNES

“flying cars they said..”

“I’m tired of blaming this on the wind”

“Close enough, welcome back ____.”

“Men used to go to war”

“We’re devolving”

“Ten? As in 12345678910??”

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

BOB REYNOLDS

(He probably uses emoticons)

“Oh..that’s not…”

“I did not place this brick”

“God forbid ____”

“Raw, I mean awwe”

“Scrolling feels like a divorce”

“No aftercare? Am I just a view to you?”

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

AVA STARR

“I’m employed what does this mean”

“Mind you, this is my first impression of you”

“Do they know it’s legal?”

“Nurse…I think im awake?”

“Will schools be closed?”

“Idk leave me alone”

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

YELENA BELOVA

“I’m gonna hold your hand when I say this”

“This is so funny I’m gonna follow you home”

“Who is this diva?”

“Hey! So, this is insane!”

“I love u pls don’t die”

“I did not learn English for this”

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

JOHN WALKER

“big fan of whatever this is”

“Call Police: ❌ Make TikTok: ✅”

“This used to be a dancing app”

“What core is this?”

“It’s gonna be a long year”

“People irl: hello”

[vienssunshine]

Come Over for a Swim, Darling

pairing: Nanami Kento x fem reader nsfw word count: 4.9k author's note: This was the winner from the poll! It was supposed to be bite-sized but the story got away from me. Parts are inspired by our queen lana del rey. description: You take your neighbor up on the offer of his pool on a hot summer day.

He’s such a gentleman, isn’t he? 

It’s been an unforgivably hot July this year, so it was perfect when the man next door offered his pool for whenever you needed to escape the relentless heat.

“Anytime you need, even if I’m not home, you’re welcome to come over for a swim,” your neighbor Nanami had told you at the annual block party.

So as you’re packing a pool bag, fighting through the hot, humid air your busted AC does little to improve, the only emotion you feel is immense gratitude. 

You cross the street to his house, noting that his car is still parked in the driveway. Maybe you should knock on the door? Let him know you’re here?

No, that would probably bother him. He could be busy with things around the house and, since he’s doing you such a huge favor, you want to be as little of a nuisance as possible.

You have his number—he gave it to you at the block party in case there’s ‘anything you might need’—so you pull out your phone and type out a text to him:

“Hey! Thanks again for letting me use your pool, I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there this afternoon.” 

After sending the message, you let yourself into his backyard through the gate in the white fencing. 

Your neighbor never talked much about his work, but it’s clear that it pays well. The backyard is spacious and well taken care of with mowed, bright green grass covering the area, only broken up by the cement surrounding the large tropical blue pool just behind his house. Lawn chairs line the near side of the pool and there’s a garden with a large tree that droops over the water on the far side. 

You place your bag down on one of the lawn chairs and stretch out, enjoying the warmth of the sun on your skin, though you’re quick to favor the coolness of the pool when you crouch down and swipe your fingers through the water.

Your phone buzzes. It’s a text from your neighbor:

“Of course. Let me know if I can get you anything.”

You smile, he’s so kind to you. A girl could get the wrong idea. It doesn’t help that he’s tall, built, and handsome. Somehow, he’s unclaimed; you’ve only ever seen one car in his driveway.

After pulling off your cover-up to reveal your white bikini, you wade into the pool. The cool water welcomes you, and you lower yourself down to sit on the steps, submerging your poor, overheated body up to your shoulders. It’s refreshing to a cellular level and exactly what you need after a long, scorching summer. You lean back, arms behind you on the stairs and sunglasses resting on the bridge of your nose. 

Your gaze floats around your surroundings, noting that you wouldn’t mind living like this, able to enjoy the luxurious backyard whenever you please, until you catch a small movement in the corner of your eye. You follow it to see your neighbor peering down at you through his upstairs window.

He must be checking up on you, how sweet of him. You push your sunglasses down, eyes locked on his, and bring your hand up to give him a little wave. 

Nanami returns the gesture and softly smiles. You expect him to close the curtain and return to whatever he was doing, but he doesn’t, seemingly having a hard time pulling his eyes from the sight of you enjoying his pool.

How interesting.

You sit up, water dripping off your chest and leaving behind little droplets that make your skin glitter in the sunshine. His eyes flick down to your bikini top, only for one, shameful second, but you still notice. It sends a rush through your veins; you like his attention, and he doesn’t appear interested in taking it away. This could be fun.

His stern eyes follow your hand as you run it up from your stomach, to your collarbone, and finally to one of the white, thin straps of your top. You enjoy how Nanami, whom you’ve deemed a stoic man, appears impacted by your roaming touch, eyes slightly widening as your delicate fingers push the strap off your shoulder. 

You move further into the pool, turning around in the water so your back faces the window, and watch Nanami’s face, determined to soak up any micro-expression the man was willing to concede as you drop the other strap from your shoulder. 

His big hand comes up to the collar of his button-up, pulling the patterned tie around his neck loose. The man’s waning restraint makes you giggle, simply delighted by how your teases are affecting him. 

You submerge further into the pool so the water is level with your collarbone, and the man’s gaze is unwavering as your hands come around your back to unclasp your bikini top. You turn and toss it onto the cement surrounding the pool, but when you look back to the window to see the spectator’s reaction, you find it empty.

The back door slides open. Nanami’s tall body consumes the doorway as he stands in the threshold, tempted but still hesitant, like he’s wavering between worlds and just a step away from fully giving in to you.

He greets you calmly as if the situation he’s in—having his topless neighbor in his pool—isn’t notable or unwelcome in any way. “Hello.” 

You smile at him, coquettish and daring, “Hi.” 

“How are you enjoying the pool?” He leans against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest with a smirk on his face you can only find if you look for. 

“I like it a lot,” you respond, moving to the pool’s edge and leaning on it, the water the only thing keeping you modest. “I’d like it a lot more if you joined me.”

“I think I’d feel the same.”

“Okay, go put on your suit,” you giggle. He’s still wearing his work clothes, long pants and a button-up—attire that’s unacceptable for such a hot day. 

“That will take too long,” he says, “I’m fine in this.”

He walks to the pool's edge and stops, looking down at you. Though you don't know it, with his line of work, it’s always best to approach unfamiliar situations with a level of caution, and something like this has never happened to him.

Only when you call to him, voice silken and sweet like a siren’s, his sorcerer mindset of constant suspicion is forgotten. “Come into the water, Kento,” you say, and it ensures there’s no way Nanami can refuse your request. Compelled, he removes his leather shoes and joins you in the pool, sitting down on the submerged steps and paying no mind to how the water soaks his expensive work clothes. 

You glide over to him and settle down on a step below his so you can keep the veil of water over your chest. He brings a big hand to your cheek, drinking in every feature of your face as his thumb strokes your warm skin. 

“So nice to me,” you hum, leaning into his rough palm, “letting me use your pool.” You rest your arm on his clothed thigh and smirk. “Did you expect this to happen?”

“I didn’t,” he confesses, “But I’m glad you took up my offer.”

“Me too,” you say, dipping your chin down and looking up at him with your pretty eyes, “Can I show you how grateful I am?” 

He's breathless when he responds, "You may, dear."

Then you're climbing up his built body, water falling off of you, so you can lean forward and press your lips to his. When he processes what’s happening—that the neighbor he hasn’t been able to shake from his mind is kissing him—he melts into it, a big arm wrapping around your waist and the other coming up your bare back, his hand cradling your head and pushing you into him. 

You smile against his mouth, elated by the win of seducing your hot next-door neighbor, and he notices, of course, but just feeling your soft body against him is enough to decide to be as sweet as you are being to him. 

The hand on the back of your head gently tugs at your hair, pulling a gentle sigh from your lips which he uses as an opening to deepen the kiss. Though he’s pushing you into him, with his tongue rolling over yours, you can tell he’s tempering himself. There’s flashes of impatience and desperation, with the way he nips your lips or roughly squeezes the softness of your sides, but they’re actions he quickly suppresses. It makes you wonder if he’s holding back for a reason, if he wouldn’t be able to stop if he were to fully indulge in you. 

“Pretty girl,” he whispers into your mouth in a momentary pause, and the low notes of his gruff voice send the thoughts out of your head and heat rushing to your cheeks.

Then he pulls you from his side into his lap, your wet body—and bare chest—now pressed against his as you straddle his soaked pants. His shoulders are underneath your palms, and you tighten your fingers around them, squeezing the thick, sturdy muscle the wet fabric sticks to; he feels stronger than he looks.

“I appreciate”—he kisses your jaw—“how you express”—then your ear—“your gratitude.” His last kiss is placed on your neck, and you gasp—you’re so sensitive there—and cant your hips into nothing. 

“So needy,” he remarks with a low chuckle, hands traveling down to your sides, conducting electricity through your nerves as they move, “At first, I thought you just needed my pool, but now I think you need more.”

“Need you,” you tell him, almost whining, pulling at the tie loose around his neck, “Now.”

“You need to be taken care of,” he agrees, thumbs rubbing slow circles on your hips. He places a soft kiss on your cheek. “Let me make you dinner, sweet thing. Why don’t you come inside?”

His suggestion, one you’d normally appreciate, seems unreasonable with the painful ache pulsing through you. You lean forward, pressing a wet kiss on his neck that pulls a groan from him. “Kento, that sounds nice, but I want you, not dinner.”

His hands land on your shoulders, rendering you still. “I know, darling, but I can’t take care of you how I want in the pool. Please, let me dry you off and feed you first.” 

You huff, which he finds amusing, but give in to his request, allowing him to help you out of the pool, wrap a warm, fuzzy towel around you, and lead you inside. 

Your body is frustrated with you, wanting release so badly, but he’s right, a pool isn’t the most pleasant setting for sex, and you should eat something as you haven’t eaten since this morning, too distracted with trying to fix your AC. 

Nanami steps away for a moment and it gives you some time to check out his living room. The interior of his house is as impressive as the exterior: spacious, clean, and decorated in a way that invites you in. Interestingly, there aren’t any picture frames around the house, rather, the shelves are filled with books, all academic-looking and on niche topics regarding the supernatural.  

Nanami returns dressed in dry slacks and a short-sleeve button-up. He has a change of clothes for you, a big t-shirt and sweatpants, presumably his own. 

It’s still hot–and you feel like testing him–so you tell Nanami that: “Just the shirt is fine.” You put it on, though it’s more of a dress with the way it covers the first few inches of your thighs, and then pull your bathing suit bottom down and step out of it, leaving nothing underneath the shirt-dress. Nanami stares at you, eyes wide. 

“Can’t stay in my wet bikini,” you say, unsticking the long shirt from your wet thighs. 

“Right,” he says, regaining his composure and taking the bottoms from you, “I’ll hang it up with your top.”

For dinner, he makes you a pasta dish, and it’s delicious, but what you enjoy more is teasing him as he cooks, never letting him forget what you really want from him. You make multiple attempts at convincing him to forgo the dinner plans and head to his room, just so distracted by how his hands move and forearms flex as he prepares the food, but make little headway. 

After the meal and patiently dealing with your quips that were only exacerbated by your glass of red wine, he leads you up a tall staircase to his bedroom. The lighting from the lamps on either side of his bed is soft and warm, and a glance at the dark window tells you that the night has been much longer than you realized.

He shuts the door behind you.

“Finally,” you sigh, leaning up to kiss him, but his rough hand on your shoulder stops you, bringing a confused frown to your face.

He takes his hand from your shoulder and uses it to tilt your chin up, his eyes darker than before. “You’ve been teasing me all night and expect me to reward that behavior?” 

“You’re saying that like you didn’t enjoy it,” you respond, because if this is the game he wants to play, you’ll play it. 

“However I felt does not change the fact that you were trying to work me up.” 

You smirk up at him, guilty as charged.

Nanami puts his hand on the small of your back, guiding you to the foot of the bed. Then he waits, staring at you expectantly, so you sit down on the edge of the mattress, making sure the hem of his big t-shirt just barely covers the glistening mess between your legs. His eyes flick down to the tease and his jaw clenches.

“So you’re going to punish me then?” you wonder, thrilled by how riled up you’ve gotten your poor neighbor. 

“I’ll see if it’s possible for a brat like you to behave first,” he says, parting your thighs. The breath he lets out at the sight of you is shaky. “Look at that,” he says, thumbing your wet folds. 

You’ve been left wanting for his touch for too long, so your head falls back at the sensation of his hands against your plump lips, “I like feeling you there,” you admit, your voice breathy.

He hums, pleased, and continues to stroke you, fingers dipping in and out of your wetness, before he removes them and sinks down to his knees so his face is level with your cunt. 

You allow your legs to fall open further, and he places his rough palms on the insides of your thighs to ensure they’ll stay that way. His hot breath fans against your folds, making you quiver with anticipation. When he leans forward and starts to eat you out, the only coherent thought you can think is: he knows what he’s doing.

It’s embarrassing, how you were talking so much talk, trying to woo your handsome neighbor with your honeyed words, and now the only thing coming out of your mouth is a series of whines and gasps as he glides his tongue along your folds. You bring your hand down, knotting it into Nanami’s golden hair, but he’s quick to remove it.

He tsks, “None of that. You’re going to be quiet and sit still like a good girl.” 

Be quiet and sit still? When he’s making you feel so good? Does he know he’s asking the impossible? 

You begin to whine before he interrupts you, “Do you want me to keep going?”

Wanting him so badly for the entire night and getting only a taste of the pleasure he can give you, it’s making the space between your legs hurt. Truthfully, you’ve been aching for him this whole time, and you just want to feel better.

He’s watching you, sharp eyes evaluating what you’ll say next, even though he knows the truthful answer to his question. 

Defeated, you nod. He smiles. “Good girl. Now, stay still for me.” 

He returns to his spot nestled between your thighs and pushes his tongue through your folds once more. The action would have earned a delighted sigh from you if you weren’t trying so hard to keep it in. Your teases must have really gotten to him if his retaliation is this cruel. 

It becomes harder to pretend you’re unaffected by his touch when his tongue begins to close in on your clit, all swollen and sensitive. He’s been circling around the area, never making direct contact until now, when he gently flicks his tongue against it. Your body seizes and your mouth opens wide in a silent gasp. 

He waits a moment, seeing if you’ll crack, but you don’t. 

“So good,” he purrs, and warmth flows into your lower stomach. 

His hands squeeze the flesh of your thighs as he encourages the tornado of heat twisting in your stomach with the gentle licks of his tongue on your clit. You should be given an award for how well you’re holding up, fighting to keep still and letting the man pleasure you how he wants all without allowing the noises your body needs to make escape your lips, which are now swollen from biting into them. 

“Alright, I think you’ve proven you can be good when asked to be,” he says, kissing your clit, “So you don’t have to restrain yourself anymore.” 

You should have learned your lesson by now, it wasn’t easy to stay quiet when all you wanted to do was moan Nanami’s name, but, even so, you're eager to push your neighbor’s buttons a little more. So you lie, saying that it “wasn’t even that hard to sit still.” 

He pauses, which strikes both fear and excitement into your thundering heart, as he assesses your statement, disapproval etched into his sharp features. 

“I didn’t want it to be too much for you the first time,” he says, “But if you want to continue to act like a brat, I’ll just have to deal with you like one.” 

Then, with ruthless candor, he locks your legs in place by circling his big arms underneath them and clasping his hands together just above your lower stomach. His strong forearms are pressing down on your hips, rendering you pinned to the mattress beneath you.

“Kento, uh-wait–ah”

His mouth is on your heated core again, nuzzling the flesh before taking his clit into your mouth and sucking, hard. You buck your hips up, instinctively trying to escape the intense sensation, but his iron grip makes your effort all for naught.

Then his tongue rolls over your clit in his mouth, whiting out your vision. Your lips gasp his name, and then repeat it in a far more strained and strangled manner. He’s being so rough, tugging at you like a loose string in a sweater and unraveling you faster than you can take.

“I thought it wasn’t hard to keep quiet?” Nanami mocks, “I think I’ve heard my name two times just now.” It’s less than a second after he speaks for his mouth to resume the merciless stimulation to your clit. 

“No, not–ah–not hard at all,” you say, pretending like you don’t have to rack your brain to be able to respond to him. 

“Is that so? Tell me more.”

He’s asking too much and he knows it; you can’t focus with him touching you like this, each lap of his tongue washing away the start of every coherent thought. You moan as a response, hoping he will let you get away with it. 

He doesn’t. “Darling,” he states. He wants the truth.

It all comes out like a waterfall, with your resolve eroded away by the waves of pleasure hitting your body. “Okay–okay–it–was–hard–to–be–quiet–and–I–I–just–need–you–to–keep–going–please–Kento–I–need–it.”

He presses a soft kiss to your clit as a reward. “That’s a good girl.” Then, he continues to tend to the growing want splitting apart your body with calculated licks and sucks along your ridges.

Much to Nanami’s satisfaction, you allow the whimpers and whines your body wants to make flow out of you, finally finished with being so difficult. He likes how needy and pliant you've become, especially since he’s been waiting to have you like this for a while. Dirty thoughts have been plaguing his mind since the block party when you were wearing a sundress that hugged every delectable curve and dip of your body. He remembers the exact color and pattern of the dress, because he's the type to be observant, which also means he's the type to know when he's getting you close.

“Fuck, Kento,” you gasp.

The way you're squeezing your legs together and quickening your breath tells him to keep his movements consistent, and in doing so, his tongue takes you to your climax in an embarrassingly quick amount of time. A final lap of his tongue unleashes a white-hot river of pleasure that twists around your core, making you gasp Nanami’s name as if he could do anything about it. Your body locks up: hands squeezing his forearms with your fingernails digging into his skin and your head falling back onto the mattress as you endure the sensation. 

He crawls up next to you on the bed, talking you through it as you writhe. “That’s it, pretty girl,” he croons, watching your eyes flutter and listening to the sweet sounds of your pleasure-drunk babbling. “You’re doing so good.”

When your endless moans settle back down to panting, he cradles your cheek, asking you, “Are you alright, sweet thing? Was it too much?” His other hand is stroking your thigh in soothing patterns, delivering gentle pushes of pleasure as the disorienting buzz vibrating through your body fades away. 

Catching your breath, you lean into his rough palm, “M’okay.” He smiles softly as he swipes his thumb along your cheekbone in gentle caresses, a stark contrast to the hard erection pressed to your thigh. It’s funny, how he’s pretending it isn’t even there, but you feel it, warm and throbbing against your leg.

He’s gotten his way, so it’s only fair that you get a turn, too.

Your eyes flick up to his face and your fingers play with the collar of his shirt when you say, “Now I wanna take care of you.” Your hand, still a little shaky from the impact of your orgasm, travels down his warm chest to the bulge in his pants. When you begin to stroke him over the fabric, he hisses and you smile up at him. “Seems like you need some attention, Kento.” 

God, you’re such a tease, even after making you cum so hard you couldn’t see. If anything, it spurred you on. 

He tries to say something, but you squeeze his erection and he’s unable to get his thoughts straight. Taking advantage of his weakness, you push his shoulder back, laying him down on the space on the mattress beside you. Then, you settle on top of him, sitting on his big legs with your hands near the notable outline pressing through his pants. 

“It’s been such a long night,” you coo, unbuttoning his shirt so you can run your palms up and down the planes of his abs, careful to not get too close to his waistband. He watches your fingers as they skim his hot skin, a gentle and unconscious thrust of his hips pressing the clothed aching into nothing. 

“Let me help you,” you offer, eyes lidded. He can’t take much more of this anymore, not after being teased all night and then seeing the face you made when you came on his tongue. 

“Alright,” he concedes, breath uneven as your fingers approach his waistband, a pleased smile spread across your face.

You unzip his pants and pull down his briefs, freeing his throbbing erection and quickly taking it in your hands, running your fingers up and down his length in a loose fist. It twitches underneath your palm. 

“Poor Kento,” you say as you stroke him, “So pent-up and needing to be taken care of.” 

“You did this to me,” he responds through his teeth.

“Then I’ll make it up to you.” You lean forward, your lack of underwear allowing you to align your dripping hole and his cock with ease. And when you sink down on him, taking him deep inside of your warmth and bearing the delightfully painful stretch the movement comes with, Nanami sees heaven itself.

His hands clamp down on your hips as you begin to ride him, stabilizing yourself with his shoulders. The tight hug of your walls squeezes around him as you bounce up and down and make such sweet noises that compound the pleasure tearing through him. 

“Fuck, darling,” Nanami says, eyebrows pressed together, “You feel so good.” 

You smirk, leaning further forward, and capturing him in a messy kiss. The new angle has your clit brushing against the base of his dick as you grind, reinvigorating flames that lick the insides of your stomach. You’re moaning again, now into Nanami’s open mouth as he bucks his hips into you, chasing the release your warm walls are teasing him with. He’s been so disciplined this whole time, waiting to make sure he’s taken care of you before he got to fuck you, and now that he has, he isn’t holding back. 

His thrusts are messy, quite unlike the thoughtful flicks of his tongue when he pleasured you. He can’t think straight when you feel this good. 

“Seems that you like this,” you laugh, voice breathy and coated with arousal. 

“Of course I do, dear,” he says, fingers squeezing at the flesh of your hips, “You’re—fuck—worth the wait.” 

Your grin is victorious as you watch how he falls apart beneath you, chest heaving and a light pink glow spread across his nose and cheekbones. Nanami, who’s been watching your face—it’s his favorite place to look when being intimate—notices your delight. 

“Is this what you wanted?” he asks, but it’s not accusatory, rather, amused.

If ‘this’ is referencing you having your hot next-door neighbor beneath you eagerly meeting your grinding hips and filling you up with his cock like it’s his life purpose, then yes, this is exactly what you wanted. 

“It–ah”—his thrusts have gotten harder—“it is.” 

“Is that so?” he asks, and then his hands wrap around your wrists, taking them from his shoulders and holding them by your sides, pulling you down so he can thrust harder and deeper into your cunt. “Let’s see if you can take it then.”

The wetness and cum from your orgasm have slicked your insides copiously, so it’s the pressure of having him so deep, kissing your cervix, that you’re having trouble adjusting to. Your mouth is gaping in silent gasps, the words fucked out of you, and your eyes are rolled back as he pistons himself in and out, his pace unforgiving. And there’s nothing you can do about it, with your arms pinned to your sides, you’re at his complete mercy as he slams his hips into your wet cunt.

“So f-fast, Kento,” you manage to say, “fuck.”

“I said I would treat you like the brat you are,” he responds.

Maybe this will teach you to not push him so far. 

Or maybe it won’t, because having him so rough with you, pushing you to your limit, fucking you like he’s punishing you, it’s what’s stirring up a second orgasm deep in your stomach. 

“K-Kento, feels s’good, my god–”

“That’s what I thought, dear,” he groans, “Figured you liked it rough. Can feel you clenching around me.” 

He doesn’t sound like the gentleman you thought he was when he talks like this, but you love it.

You throw your head back, forcefully nearing your breaking point as he pulls you into him. His grip crushing your wrists, but the sensation is unfelt when you finally cum all over him.

An unbridled whine rips through your throat as your fingers curl into fists, your body shaking but unable to move due to Nanami’s hold. So all you’re able to do is stay upright as Nanami pulls you down into his dick once more, the contraction and spasms of your walls throwing him over the edge, and empties his load deep in you. His face is contorted in pleasure and he groans as your canal grants him the release you’ve teased him with all night.

The moment his grip on your wrist relaxes, you double over, falling down into the safety of his warm, broad chest. His dick is still inside you, but the sensation is not unwelcome; it feels nice to be connected to him as you cuddle. 

You trace the lines of definition on his chest, his slowing heartbeat calming you. Nanami’s hand snakes underneath the oversized shirt to rub slow circles on your back. “How are you doing?” he asks, soft and sincere. 

You nuzzle your head into his chest. “I’m good, a little tired though.”

“You’re welcome to spend the night.” 

A warm, fuzzy feeling buzzes around your heart.

“But first, please, allow me to run you a bath. I can’t have you sleeping uncared for.” 

You suppose you’ll have to get used to this kind of treatment. 

“Okay,” you smile.

[birdie-in-arcadia]

All In

I've been made aware (thank you anon!!) that I accidentally posted a duplicate of chapter 7 instead of an updated chapter 8, and I apologize greatly for that. As I've been saying, the world of Birdie is not a peaceful one at the moment amid family emergencies, but I appreciate you all for bearing with me! So, without further ado, here's chapter 8 with a bonus POV from Vessel. I hope you enjoy! <3

CHAPTER EIGHT — FREQUENCIES UNSPOKEN  (My Point of View) 

The rain comes back in the evening, soft and steady as it streaks against my window, creating a watercolor of the lights outside. My dorm room glows gold beneath the lamplight, the air steeped in that familiar blend of wood polish, paper, and the lingering trace of vanilla chai tea. Two guitars rest between us on the rug, mine older, worn in all the right places; his darker, sleeker, tuned by ear with the kind of precision I still aspire to find. 

We’ve been trying to write for the last hour, half-formed ideas scribbled in the margins of our notebooks, but nothing sticks. The music won’t come. Or maybe we’re both too caught up in something else tonight. 

Vessel leans back on his palms, gaze drifting toward the window. The curtain shifts in the cool, damp breeze. His silhouette glows faint in the candlelight. “It’s just one of those nights, I suppose,” he murmurs. “What do you mean?” I ask, his voice gently bringing me out of my daze. “Where nothing fits, nothing sounds good or makes sense on paper.” I glance at my notebook and chuckle dryly. “I know the feeling.” 

He’s quiet for a moment, then gestures toward the guitars. “Play me something. Something you already know.” I hesitate, fingers twitching, nearly stuttering my reply. “You first.” He raises an eyebrow, but there’s a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Alright.” 

He picks up his guitar, adjusts the tuning slightly, drop D, I think, and strums a single, slow chord. The sound is deep, resonant, humming in my ears and travelling to rest in my chest. Then he begins to play. The song is unfamiliar, something soft and lilting, almost hymn-like. His voice follows a moment later, barely above a whisper, but clear. His voice is the type that sounds unexpectedly from a quiet corner, and every head in the room pivots to find its source immediately as if it’s some primal, cellular-level call from nature. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before, and it absolutely fascinates me. 

“...and no matter the cost of rain... I will shelter you all the same...” 

There’s something in the way he sings, careful, but not cautious. Like each word is carved from pieces of him. By the time he finishes, I’m still frozen in place, guitar untouched. He glances up, sheepish. “Too much?” I shake my head slowly. “It was beautiful, Vessel, truly.” I tell him, and I wish I could help him see just how sincere I am about this. His voice takes every bit of my pain and makes my mind go quiet, and that is an incredibly rare occurrence for me. There’s always something swirling around up there. “You’re not just saying that?” he asks, his eyes unguarded. “Not even a little.” I tell him, shaking my head to enunciate every word. His cheeks color faintly, but he doesn’t look away. He smiles at me. It’s small and only reaches one corner of his mouth, but it’s still a smile, and I’m a bit taken aback at my own cardiovascular system as I feel my chest tighten, and my heart begins to race. There is just something about this awkward, enigmatic man that causes my body to betray me. 

My fingers find my guitar. The strings feel familiar beneath my touch, but suddenly weightier. Like the silence after his song still lingers in the wood. “I don’t know if mine will measure up,” I say, adjusting my grip. “Don’t compare,” he replies gently. “Just play.” So, I do. It’s a song I’ve known since I was sixteen; one I used to sing alone in my bedroom when I needed to feel something steady. The melody is simple and beautiful, something I taught myself. I sing it softly. Not trying to impress, just trying to be understood. 

“Somehow I’ve found a way to get lost in you... Let me inside, let me get close to you...” 

When I finish, I keep my eyes on the fretboard. The room is still. Then, his voice, quiet and sincere: “You have a beautiful tone. Very warm and the natural vibrato is splendid.” I glance up, startled. “You really think so?” He nods once, his eyes sincere as he looks into mine, and I can’t help but smile. “You too, y’know,” I say. “Your voice, it lingers. Incredibly soulful and comforting, really.” I finish, and I hope I haven’t said too much, but I meant every word. He doesn’t say anything back, but he smiles at me again, really smiles. His teeth are pearly white and neat, his canines more prominent than the rest of them. He looks down for a moment, then he looks back up at me, and suddenly I can feel every hair on my body stand on end. His gaze isn’t boyish and nervous now. It’s heavy and... longing. His eyes scan up and down my form as I shift in front of him, suddenly aware of the way he’s looking at me. It’s almost hungry. 

Something shifts in the space between us. The air thickens, just a little, like the pause between two notes that haven’t quite resolved. He doesn’t look away, and neither do I. But neither of us says it. He breaks the silence first. “Earlier,” he begins, voice quiet, gaze softer than before, “at the market… I didn’t mean to act strange.” I pause for a moment to ensure that he’s finished speaking. “You weren’t,” I say gently. “Not really.” 

He exhales through his nose. “I just didn’t expect it to feel like that.” he says, and my stomach drops a bit. “Like what?” He hesitates for a moment, then: “Like maybe I’d been taking something for granted.” I watch him closely. “I didn’t think he was flirting,” I whisper. “Not until he asked for my number.” I finish, my gaze softening on him. “I know,” he says. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.” his eyes meet mine. “You could’ve.” I say, and he pauses. He takes a deep breath, then says, “I didn’t want to ruin the… whatever this is.” He gestures vaguely between us. My breath catches, eyes going wide for a moment. Neither of us corrects the word this or the notion behind it. 

The record player hums low in the corner, forgotten. I shift slightly, closer, but not touching. “Do you ever wish things were simpler?” I ask. He lets out a quiet laugh. “All the time.” I look back up at him, and my nerves flare, but this needs to be said. “I mean… us.” His eyes meet mine, and they're almost quizzical. He doesn’t answer right away. Then: “I don’t wish it was simpler necessarily. I just wish I knew the rules.” I tilt my head slightly as my brows furrow slightly. “What rules?” I ask. “The ones that say how close you’re allowed to get before it stops being just… music.” 

My face smooths out as my eyes widen slightly. My skin is buzzing and my mind is a tsunami of thought and words, none of which I should say aloud. I offer something smaller, less demanding yet still true. “I really like playing with you, Ves,” I whisper, and he nods, his shoulders visibly relaxing a bit. “I love it.” he replies simply, and if you were to hook me up to a monitor in that moment, it would read a flatline. 

We spend the rest of the night sharing songs; old favorites that spark nostalgia and feelings we’ve packed away, new experimental and thought-provoking tracks. We exchange fragments of ideas and wordless melodies are passed back and forth like secret classroom notes folded in half. Nothing else is said, but everything is felt. 

(Vessel’s Point of View) 

The rain returns like a second skin, soft and unassuming, washing the windows in gentle streaks. It catches the glow of the streetlights outside her dorm, painting blurred halos that dance across the floor. The inside is warm, golden, and peaceful. There’s a candle burning near her desk. I can smell it; something sweet and comforting, like vanilla and maybe cardamom. 

She’s here, barefoot on the rug with a guitar in her lap, and I am utterly, quietly infatuated. I sit opposite her, posture relaxed to hide the tension beneath my skin. My own guitar rests beside me, freshly tuned, but untouched for the last several minutes.  

We’ve both been pretending to write for the better part of an hour, scrawling the same few chords and half-rhymes across the page, but the truth is, at least for me, the music is already here. It’s sitting across from me in an Evanescence tee and messy braid, humming low to herself while her notebook holds her attention, like she’s not already the center of mine. 

My gaze drifts to the window, to the dim outline of the city behind the curtain, and I feel her watching me. “It’s just one of those nights, I suppose,” I say quietly, voice barely above the rain. “What do you mean?” she asks. Her voice brings me back like it always does, gentle and grounding. 

“Where nothing fits,” I murmur. “Nothing sounds good or makes sense on paper.” She glances down at her notebook and lets out a soft laugh, and I must look away for a moment. There’s something about her laughter, like it’s meant for the walls of a home, not a studio or this tiny dorm room. It’s something genuine, something I want to continue hearing. 

I gesture toward the guitars, attempting to shift the focus and bring us both out of our brain fog. “Play me something. Something you already know.” 

She hesitates, and my heart stumbles at the way her fingers twitch over the strings. She’s shy. It’s endearing in a way that makes my lungs feel too small to hold any necessary amount of oxygen. “You first,” she says. 

I raise a brow but can’t help the smile that creeps in. She doesn’t realize yet how much I’d do if she asked, if she just looked at me the right way. “Alright,” I say, and pick up my guitar. 

I drop the tuning into D without thinking. My fingers move automatically over the frets, and I begin to play something soft, unfinished, one of the pieces I always come back to when I’m not sure what to say. My voice follows, hushed but steady. It wavers a bit with my nerves and vibrato, but I continue anyway. I keep my eyes low, focusing on the chords, and I try not to let my nerves show. But I can feel her listening. She listens like she’s learning me this way. 

“...and no matter the cost of rain... I will shelter you all the same...” 

When I finish, silence settles between us after the last note. I finally look up from my trembling fingers still in position on the fretboard. She’s still staring, guitar untouched. Her expression is soft, stunned almost. It makes something flutter low in my stomach. 

“Too much?” I ask, suddenly unsure. She shakes her head. “It was beautiful, Vessel. Truly.” I swallow. There’s a part of me that wants to believe her, and a bigger part that wants to taste her lips as they say my name like that. I shake that thought form my head. Too much too soon, man, damn. “You’re not just saying that?” I ask, shifting my focus. 

“Not even a little,” she says, slow and deliberate. I can’t look away from her. Her eyes shine in the candlelight and her face, soft and sweet, makes my brain short-circuit in the most divine way. Her words curl around something raw inside me and make it feel a little less empty. 

I smile, small, but real. She sees it, and her own smile grows, and I swear the air shifts in that moment, and I feel it in my chest. It’s something fast, something dangerous. 

She picks up her guitar and I watch her hands; watch the way she adjusts her grip. “I don’t know if mine will measure up.” 

“Don’t compare,” I tell her. “Just play.” I’m desperate to hear her. She begins to strum the intro to her chosen song, and I lose the ability to breathe properly. Her voice isn’t loud or trained, but it’s moving. Moving in that way only truth and trust can be; quiet and intimate, like she’s handing me a part of herself I’m not sure I deserve. 

“Somehow I’ve found a way to get lost in you... Let me inside, let me get close to you...” 

I close my eyes for a moment, and that’s all it takes. The feeling rises again; this helpless, hungry ache in my chest. The wanting. The wishing. The need for her to be secretly singing this song to me, because I know I was singing for her even if she doesn't yet.

When she finishes, the silence is louder than before. I manage to say something, anything to fill the silence because I swear she can probably hear my heartbeat. I comment something about her tone, her vibrato, and I mean it. God, I mean it. I want to tell her how her voice curls around me like a jumper fresh out of the dryer and how I’d have it as the only track in queue on the endless record player that is my mind. 

“You really think so?” she asks, and I nod quickly. Too much. I’m thinking too much, shit. Her smile hits me like a sudden warmth in winter, and I feel that familiar heat that floods my belly when I think about her smile. 

“You too, y’know,” she says softly, her voice adding to the heat stirring low in me. “Your voice, it lingers. Incredibly soulful and comforting, really.” 

My heart stutters. I look down, trying to gather myself. When I look back up at her, she shifts slightly, and suddenly, I see her. 

Not just with my eyes, no. I feel her. Her presence overtakes the room, filling every pore on my skin. The soft slope of her throat, the curve of her cheek in the lamplight, the way her chest rises and falls with every breath... It all feels dangerous now; a slippery, magnetic slope. 

And I don’t look away. I can’t. I let it show for once; the hunger, the ache, the endless want. 

Something shifts between us, like gravity’s been recalibrated. My eyes trace her form before I can stop them, and when I meet her gaze again, it’s like standing at the edge of a precipice. But she doesn’t flinch; she doesn’t even pull away or try to shift the focus. I feel my sweats suddenly becoming tighter, and I all but roll my eyes as I slide my guitar over that area, ashamed of biology being rude as per usual. 

She speaks first, grounding me again. “Earlier, at the market…” I nod, breath catching as my focus returns to the elephant in the room. “I know, I’m really sorry for going cold like I did. I just... didn’t expect it to feel like that.” I tell her. “Like what?” she questions. As she should. She deserves an answer. 

“Like maybe I’d been taking something for granted.” I reply, my voice wavering with the fear that I’ve just said too much. She watches me closely, and her voice drops to a whisper. “I didn’t think he was flirting. Not until he asked for my number.” 

“I know,” I murmur. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.” I reply honestly. I really didn’t have a right to get as worked up as I did when I saw that guy talking to her. It’s not like she’s spoken for. Yet. 

“You could’ve.” The way she says it, so gently, like timid granted permission. “I didn’t want to ruin the… whatever this is,” I say, gesturing a finger between us. And it’s true, I don’t want to screw up what we’ve got going on here, because it’s become a crucial part of my life. 

I want to touch her, to pull her into my arms and love her 'til there's nothing left of either of us. I want to tell her, God, I want to tell her everything; how I think about her voice hours after I return home, how the scent of her candles or perfume linger in whatever I'm wearing, and how I keep the article in my bed so I can breathe in her scent until it fades. How I dreamt about her last week and woke up breathless and messy. But I don’t, because it’s not time yet. I can tell she’s been hurt before, so I have to let her do this at her own pace. I know in my soul that she will be well worth the wait. 

“Do you ever wish things were simpler?” she asks. I laugh under my breath. “All the time.” I answer honestly. She looks at me again, differently this time, braver. “I mean… with us.” 

My heart seizes in my chest. This is it. “I don’t wish it was simpler, necessarily,” I say, a lie. “I just wish I knew the rules.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. I want to bash my head into a wall. 

She furrows her brows. “What rules?” I exhale through my nose, gathering the courage, and reply, “The ones that say how close you’re allowed to get before it stops being just… music.” 

And there it is. The truth, softly spoken but hanging in the air between us like dense smoke. She stares at me; her mouth slightly open, but she’s quiet, she’s glowing. 

“I really like playing with you, Ves,” she whispers. I nod, unable to help the smile. “I love it.” She has no idea how much I mean it, or how much I wanted to say a different, much heavier three-worded phrase instead. 

We spend the rest of the night trading melodies and holding back words we’re both too afraid to say. Every note, every glance, every quiet laugh feels like a secret we’re keeping from each other. But I hope, I really hope one day we’ll be brave enough to speak them aloud. 

@yourgirlisa @houseofsleeptoken @wormm-mom @lynzeequitlollygagging @blackcherrywhiskey here you go! Let me know if you'd like to be added here :)

[shortshifter]

I really love the sun & moon dichotomy, don’t get me wrong. It makes sense from our perspective here on earth, they are a perfect metaphor for opposites that compliment each other, and it’s poetic that the moon reflects the sun’s light, etc. Light and dark, good and bad. The moon has the power to block out the sun and does so regularly. Eclipses are the epitome of balance and their equal standing, right?? They are the perfect pair, rivals-- [starcrossed] lovers even-- and a great dynamic to explore in art!

...It just alsooo is very funny to me how they’re often viewed as equal celestial aspects…like they are on two MASSIVELY different scales as far as celestial bodies go, and that part of it is so understated and underutilized!

Like this is the difference we are talking about realistically:

Even in this depiction I tried to draw, the sun isn’t technically big enough! Stay with me now:

Here’s a more accurate one from Wyoming Stargazing’s Website:

Do you see what I mean??? Don’t even get me started on the MEGA STARS out there that make our sun look like a speck of dust catching the light.

There are other pictures that encapsulate this better, but here's one:

Sol is our star. And these are all stars IN the Milky Way with us! Remember how small moon and earth were compared to it. And how small humanity is compared to Earth! (I love a good interaction of different sizes, but I do understand at some point it is very drastic and difficult to actually do anymore. But it certainly doesn't need to be a 1:1 with real life.) Don’t ponder the scale of the universe too long, you will have a crisis if you realize how small humanity is in the grand scheme of things.

Our life on earth IS so, so tiny. It’s not even funny, we are the speck that Horton found. And yet there’s also so much that’s on that scale from our perspective too, like ants and single-cellular organisms and they’ll never be able to grasp the size of the world any better than we can the universe. Y’all—

I’m not saying aliens and complex life don’t have certain size limits similar to ours, but there is far more room out there than we often think about. We have trees that grow massively beyond what we consider sustainable for it. That's not including the organisms made of whole colonies of connected organisms like fungi and some trees. I mean the singular organism big ones, which are still trees by a landslide btw:

We of course also have some pretty big animals, but we already know a lot about those and I'm talking about all types of life on earth. A massive plant-based (or something non-carbon out there) alien is not so far-fetched.

We only have our own planet and solar system for reference, and what we’ve been able to observe beyond it. Surely there’s a cosmic limit to planet sizes too, but…we’ve only seen so much out there in the past century. We don’t know that.

tl;dr: We could expand what we think possible in our stories to reflect that uncertainty and possibility. It’s just so interesting to add scale as a factor to the sun & moon dynamic and in other ones that may fit.

Space is BIG and it is easy to forget that when our own tiny big world, in our wide little solar system, is all we do-- and may ever-- know firsthand.

[adiaryofnonsense]

Happy MerMay #11 (I’m pretty sure)

I know I haven’t really been posting… I don’t really have an excuse I’m just really bad at this lol

Elysia Crispata also known as the lettuce sea slug! (And yes, its scientific name is pronounced Crisp-ata. Like crispy lettuce! It’s adorable!) she is the third installment of my sacoglassan sea slug series.

Sacoglassan sea slug science sss-below (I couldn’t come up with another S word)

Elysia Crispata is unusually large compared to other Sacoglassan sea slugs (reaching and max size of 15cm or almost 6in while other slugs like E. Chlorotica only gets to a max of around 60mm or 2.4 inches) along with its unusual size Elysia Crispata also eats and unusually wide variety of food. Most Sacoglassans only eat one type of algae, they typically live in and on their chosen food source, then they usually take on traits from their specific algae. Elysia Crispata, however, can eat a wide variety of algae, and they are often found on bare rock and coral by divers (that’s why I gave her the skateboard :))

What makes their ability to eat a versatile food source so interesting comes back around to kleptoplasty (which I talked about a little in my post for Elysia Chloritica) Kleptoplasty is an ability solely belonging to sacoglassan sea slugs—it allows them to uses photosynthesis.

Sacoglassan sea slugs are also known as sap-sucking or solar-powered sea slugs because the slugs eat the cellular content of algae like sap, however, the chloroplasts do not get digested. Somehow the sea slugs have managed to figure out how to host and use the chloroplasts for themselves!! They steal (klepto-) photosynthesis (-plasty)!!! It’s so cool! They are so cool! I love them!!!!

[atticus-no-uta]

I Was Catfished and Scammed By My Mother in Law

Chapter 1

So, before I begin..I know I should have NEVER entertained this as long as I should have. I know I was in the wrong, and that I'm a liar, a cheater, a prick, whatever. Whatever name you want to call me, just get it out of your system now because I am going to need you to gather whatever little bit of sympathy you have and put it towards me for now.

I was recently catfished by my mother in law.

My name is Danny, but you may know me as AlphaGoneFree on TikTok where I participate in live streaming asking my supporters to send me money, since I’m now broke because my MIL drained pretty much everything I own. You may also be wondering how I even got into this mess. This is embarrassing to admit, but I used to run a secret Instagram account where I would post reels of me eating pounds of Thai food, shitting in a cardboard box, and hotboxing myself with the smell until I would cry. I did it because the comments would be so shocking that it would give me engagement, thus giving me money. Little did I know, it was connected to my PERSONAL FaceBook account…so pretty much everyone I know saw it. Including my parents, people I went to highschool with, Ash, my ex, and Santina, my mother in law.

Shortly after my video leaks, I tried to delete all of whatever was uploaded, but it was too late. I couldn't even play it off like I was hacked because my face was in all the videos. My parents had seen them and kicked me out of the house! I couldn't live with Ash because her mother hates me and Ash needs to take care of her full time. This is humiliating to admit but…my NFT startup isn't necessarily the most successful. You see, I had invested 100,000 dollars (Count it, one-hundred-thousand..) into Trumpcoin. About 20 minutes later, that sweet, sweet trust fund from daddy was down the drain like a mentally ill 17 year olds busted hot pink-box-dye-damaged bangs on a summer night in 2020. That was my second strike, and the poop hotbox was the straw that broke the camel's back.

In a matter of weeks, I went from shitting in boxes to sleeping in them. I was BROKE and DESPERATE. At least I still had my cellular device…however my notifications were dryer than Joe Biden's ballsack. That was until one day I got a text from Discord user sticky_tofu_japanophile…the love of my life. Or so I thought.

Here’s how our little online meet-cute went.

@sticky_tofu_japanophile: Hey >_< !!!!

@AlphaGoneFree: What's a beautiful princess like you texting a lonely knight like myself?

As I patiently awaited a response from this new bombshell who had recently entered my murky swamp water of a life, a huge OBESE shadow seemed to block all sunlight from my view, like some sort of twisted blackout curtain. I'm not even joking, the shadow was so huge I thought we were going through a surprise solar eclipse or maybe the sun had exploded 8 minutes ago. But alas, it was just my girlfriend Ash.

“What the hell are you doing here, fairy?”

Her voice violated my ears like how an unruly priest in the 1960’s would violate a lone altar boy. I begrudgingly looked up and managed to escape only two words.

“Fuck off…”

All of a sudden, I was being kicked so hard in the stomach I couldn't breathe. She kicked me so strongly, I almost wondered if Ash was secretly a man. That’s when I started to look past the giant ogre blocking 97 percent of my view and I saw Santina sitting in her car typing away at her cell phone. As she typed, I heard my notifications go off.

That's when things started to get REALLY strange.

[theantarwitch]

About medicine in witchcraft: Health spells, Professional Healers and Unprofessional scammers (And two healing spells from me)

Lately I have been seeing a dangerous amount of medical dangerous videos in our usual witchy spaces (specially in Instagram, since I refuse to use TikTok) and that bring me here in one of my long rants who nobody really cares. But, as a healer with lot of medical background, I have to.

First, for the love of your deity, don’t take these damn vids seriously. I’m not a doctor but I know enough that a huge ton of what they put there is medical misinformation dressed as mystical powers.

I’m not asking you to become a doctor, but at least remember: Physical symptoms are NEVER caused by one single illness, and you HAVE to rule out all the possible physical illness before even consider it a symptom of your superpowers.

Yes, some minor things like a random ear ringing or a random tingle on your hand doesn’t need you to run to ER, but at least THINK about mundane causes to it.

Your ear ring? Are you using headphones a lot? Loud music? You shower and water entered on your ear? You are taking meds? Stress? Your neck is stiff and affecting your inner ear? You are neurodivergent?

Your hand tingle? Is the same hand in what you use your phone 20 hours at day? You sleep over that arm? Your shoulder is stiff? You use a mousse a lot? You practice a sport and the nerves are tired? Did you drink coffee or Red Bulls?

And I’m not even mention REAL illnesses, this is just a bunch of mundane causes! So how you dare to believe in more deeper topics of spiritual stuffs, if you have zero critical thinking in something so mundane and basic as your own body? How you plan to be an efficient witch if you don’t even doubt about these things? How you even dare to talk about your deity if you believe anything as a sign?  

An advanced witch bases their path in three big needs:

Need of study (Books or google, spend months or YEARS reading and learning)

Need of critical thinking (Think, think and ask, be curious and compare data, question it)

Need of wise skepticism (Don’t fall into the “The government want me to believe this but I’m smarter” or “Vaccines do harm, people don’t need calcium, there is brick’s dust on ketchup” kind of mindset (Yes, these are things I heard). That’s not skepticism, that’s being a Facebook Boomer Mom. Skepticism is question everything and to always be suspicious, but is neither “don’t believe in anything because I’m so smart that I can see the lies”.

And healers, my beloved healers. As one, I have to say it on the most real way: LEARN SOME MEDICINE. Specially before to do public claiming that can really hurt others.

Why learn medicine? Because as happened once… A lovely lady did a spell to lose weight. She got gastroenteritis and spent a week on the bathroom. She lost weight? Yes. In a dangerous unhealthy way? Yes. She recovers her weight back after go to the doc? Absolutely.

The body is a fine machine, a ton of process, hormones, parts, that you will always ignore and omit.

Another big mistake: “Spell to Boost my Metabolism”. Do you even know what a metabolism is? What it does? Do you even know that it has three main functions of metabolism? (Conversion of the energy to run cellular processes; conversion to building block of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and the elimination of metabolic wastes). When you “boost your metabolism”, what you are aiming to do? You even know what your body need of these three…

“Spell to boost my Immune System”… Again, what part? Do you even know that your immune system is “slow” or it is just working against an illness as it should? (Reaction is not the same than an immunodeficiency) Are you aware that your body can be doing great and you will be pushing to get an overactive immune system? (And getting Asthma, Eczema, Hay fever, Food allergy and any other kind of allergy, Lupus, Type 1 Diabetes, Inflammatory bowel disease, Celiac, etc.).

Please, if you use “detox spell” in any way, just stop. Period.

If you are not willing to spend a couple of weeks at least in the damn Wikipedia, or you are in a rush, at least aim big and general, do a classic “Health/Healing spell”, that is focused on that, bring health where is needed. “My body gets healthier. My body gets health where is needed” It can’t go wrong, since you purposely don’t specify where or which part, you just do a “Somewhere I need it, and since I can’t know it, the Cosmos may know it and aid me”. If you need spells to focus a healing in a body part, maybe you need a doc, not a spell…. (Get a doc. If is so simple to not need a doc, then your body will do it without need a spell anyway)

You can also do the same with Physical Strength Spells (again aiming to boost what you don’t know what it needs to be boosted and avoiding to boost something that it DOESN’T NEED IT).

And if you are a Healer who really want to have a 90% of effectiveness on focalized and specialized healing spells, then time to study. You will need to know about hormones, chemicals, physical process, all the systems, nerves, bones, nutrition, meds… And pretty much being able to discuss with you client (to put in a way) about literally all their medical history.

And a gently offer to anyone who actually read all this shit, I give a couple of “simple” ideas for you all:

Regeneration Spell: Just a Healing spell, aimed to “attack” where is needed, but it focusses in a cellular level. General Healing spells usually are so general that include things like disposal of waste, mineral absorption, water absorption, digestion, hair growing, skin growing, muscle develop, and pretty much EVERYTHING that’s happening on your body right now, even including the gut bacteria. A Regeneration Spell will focus in each single cell of your body, from skin to bone, to neurons, to T Cells from your immune system. All. Something that your body do (except with the neurons) but that get slower with the age. This spell focus on restores damaged or missing cells to full function (you can help it to happen better with a good balanced diet, some basic exercise, proper sleep, and trying to reduce stress)

Big warning. BE SPECIFIC “My cells will get regenerated where my body need it to be healthy and in full function” or something like that. Why SO specific if the healing spells are general? Because Cancer.

Yes. Cancer. A cancerous tumor is failed cell of your own body. Our beloved bodies kill around six infected or cancer cells each DAY. Eventually (if you live enough or if your immune system gets weak) one of them will grow your body be on troubles. If you do a regeneration spell without that proper aim, you will also help to any cancer cell to regenerate, hence you can cause you a HUGE DEAL in a future. Will not happen 100% of the cases, many of these tumors can be not cancerous (benign) yet give you problems.

How do the spell? Just as any healing spell. Do your way.

Homeostasis Spell: What’s is homeostasis? Is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism, a state of steady internal physical and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. Is a stable self-regulated process of equilibrium between interdependent elements. In simple words, is the perfect state of full pure health of your body. Is a healing spell without the “but”.  

What it affects? ALL in the most basic small internal way. Body temperature, fluid balance, the pH of extracellular fluid, the concentrations of ions, blood sugar, oxygen, hormones, etc. If the body do it properly, then is balanced, in an optimal functioning, hence healing itself without big issues.

This spell helps specially (or BOOST) the body on regulate itself despite the many changes in the environment, diet, or level of activity. In this case, you don’t need to be specific, since homeostasis seek for health naturally. Do your regular healing spell but like “My body reach homeostasis”.

So. Rant and all made, I think is time for me to shut up. See you around, and check if you need drink water, sleep, rest, stretch, food, meds or hygiene!

[scientistswishingwell]

Thoughts about lichens, extraterrestrial fertilization, and my “leftovers” cookies.

Leftovers Cookies, without the leftovers. Originally made because I had leftover cookie batter from two types of cookies. Now I do it on purpose. Tastes like not being able to decide between cookies and brownies and getting both.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 c. butter

3/4 c. granulated sugar

3/4 c. packed dark brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips (I find I like to do 1 c. Mini and 1 c. Regular or chocolate chunks but I’m not gonna tell you what to do)

1/2 c. Dutch process cocoa.

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients except the cocoa. Split the dough in half and refrigerate one half. Add the cocoa to the remaining half. Refrigerate the cocoa half. Sorry, but the refrigeration is important. No slacking here. You can make the dough and refrigerate overnight, or make it in the afternoon and have fresh cookies after dinner. But you do gotta wait.

Once the cookie dough has cooled enough to be firm, preheat the oven to 375F. take some of each type of dough and mush them together a little bit into a ball about 1 inch in diameter. Don’t totally mix them. Place on a baking sheet with parchment or some other nonstick element. Bake for 9-11 minutes, depending on how gooey or crispy you like.

If you’re feeling really fancy, dust them with any of the following: coarse ground sea salt, flaked finishing salt, cocoa powder, coarse sugar for sprinkling, etc. If you are someone who likes nuts in your cookies, first of all, why, and second of all, you can use 1 cup of chopped nuts.

Okay, onto my baking thoughts. Hear me out.

Extraterrestrial fertilization, the idea that life originated in some other place in the universe, and was carried to earth by some kind of comet or something, is a really fun idea, but my least favorite theory for a few basic reasons. One, it seems so incredibly unlikely. And two, it really just passes the buck to another planet. How did they get life to pass on to us? It has to have originate somewhere.

That being said, my latest obsession with lichens led me to this hypothesis. It’s a little gushier than the average hypothesis, but I’m hoping you forgive a girl for putting poetry in her science now and then.

Bear with me, and imagine this:

A lichenous body is transported from unfathomable distances away via a meteor, comet, or a bit of exploded planet. It survives this voyage by being nice and cozy within its intergalactic shuttle, just enough so that the following things occur:

1. The organism is *mostly* but not entirely protected by the rocky body it is carried on

2. Since no self-respecting organism would attempt to do anything but keep the metaphorical lights on in this situation, the lichenous body goes into hibernation. This will have to involve an abrupt stop of cellular function, made possible by the freezing vacuum of space, for most of the critter, but enough time for a portion of the organism to create endospores. The endospores function as essentially a little package of nucleic genetic information wrapped up in as much of a bunker as the cell can build before it dies. Best case, the cell body remains intact, making an extra layer of protection for our little nucleic acid package.

2.a. The endospores formed by the cells are bare-bones. Basically, they ONLY have enough information to keep the lights on.

3. The rocky body, by some miracle, crashes into earth. It is solid enough so that it does not burn up entirely on entry, but small enough that it does break up a bit, freeing our extraterrestrial samples. Best case, it lands in the ocean, or some other deep body of water, so that it can cool down a bit.

4. The endospores “hatch” upon reaching a vaguely habitable environment. The endospores develop into bare-bones cells. They no longer know how to cooperate with another organism, but if they could be, they would be grateful for the sacrifice of their interstellar crewmate. Possessing essentially only nucleic acids (probably ssRNA or a precursor), all these cells know is Eat Hot Chip and Replicate.

5. A couple million years later, we have a bunch of cells that have figured out how to do things other than replicate. They have adapted to many environments and now want to start doing cool shit but don’t know how yet. One of the cells engulfs a smaller cells and saves it for later, in a membrane pocket. The big cell forgets about the tiny cell, and the tiny cell continues doing its own thing. The tiny cell realizes this is kind of cool, being protected, and starts sharing with the big cell. The big cell appreciates this, and decides not to eat the little cell. It even gives the little cell some extra generic information, just to hold on to. An ancient, evolutionary memory is unlocked of cooperation for the sake of not just surviving, but thriving.

6. The world’s first eukaryotic cell replicates. Mitochondria and chloroplasts are born, and those without them figure out other ways to cooperate to build micro communities. Micro communities become organisms, or blobs of goo, or microbial mats, or gardens. The cells all remember what they used to be before they got here.

[indignantlemur]

Hi ! Hope you doing ok !

Very specific question here : I wander how, in your opinion, could Andorian metabolism react to Shigwaï venom ?

Few things to know : The venom is delivered through the stingers located on their forearms most of times.

Males toxin is rather meant to exsanguinate, with similar effects to rodenticide and whom composition contains vitamin K antagonists. Therefore very effective on species with steel-based blood.

Females on the other hand, is mostly neuroactive, with similar damages a virulent cyanide poisoning would cause on a human being.

Both sexes venom contain substances (similar in structure to methamphetamine)  causing cardiac arrhythmia to fasten the progression of toxins into the target organism.

I don’t know if you can get something out of that…but I’m curious to see what comes to your mind since Andorian metab is closer from insectoids, with a complete different blood type ? Or which kind of symptom could be noted (it can be reality accurate or not tbh, just have fun hehe) ?

(And no, it's not related to an AU in which Haza is trying to kill Tysess ! I swear !)

Hello Zier! <3 Oh, you're really coming at me with the biology questions like that? I see how it is! (affectionate)

Alright, first and foremost: I am not a biologist or a chemist. The following is just me, an anthropology student, doing my best.

So I established in an earlier post that Andorians have hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin, hence their blue blood. Hemocyanin differs from hemoglobin in a couple of ways: one, it's bigger; two, it binds to 96 oxygen molecules versus haemoglobin's four; three, hemocyanin floats freely in the blood, rather than being packed into cells (which we call red blood cells). Hemocyanin binds oxygen using copper atoms - this is important, so remember this.

Now let's look at hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is very efficient at what it does, despite only having four oxygen binding sites using iron atoms, because the structure of hemoglobin uses cooperative binding - which boils down to being easier/more readily done - rather than the non-cooperative binding frequently found in the majority of hemocyanin-blooded creatures, though some hemocyanin-blooded creatures do exhibit cooperative binding, too.

So, what does cyanide do? The short version is that cyanide stops aerobic cell metabolism. Cyanide can be absorbed through the skin, inhaled, or ingested - and because it's a relatively small molecule it's absorbed very, very quickly. Once absorbed, cyanide interferes with the uptake of oxygen by hemoglobin by binding with the iron atoms - effectively halting cellular respiration by blocking the reduction of oxygen to water. Effectively, cyanide suffocates the victim by shutting off the cells' ability to use oxygen.

You'd be tempted to think that means that cyanide wouldn't affect copper atoms, right? Nope. Cyanide likes a lot of metals! It'll bind with iron and copper. When oxygen-bound hemocyanin is exposed to cyanide, it forms a cyanhemocyanin compound and prevents the hemocyanin from binding to oxygen, resulting in a sudden halt to aerobic cell metabolism - but it also does something kind of neat at the same time! When cyanide reacts to oxyhemocyanin, it turns the blue respiratory pigment (copper) colourless!

So, to summarise: cyanide will definitely fucking kill an Andorian, and probably turn most, if not all, of their blood into a colourless fluid. If a female Shigwai's toxin behaves like cyanide, it will be just as toxic. The cardiac distress aspect just means it'll happen even faster than cyanide's already quick kill-time, which in Humans averages to about two to five minutes with a lethal dose of 1.5mg per kilogram of body weight. Keep in mind, this is for acute exposure, not chronic. Chronic exposure is it's own thing.

As for male Shigwai toxin, exsanguination is a little weird for Andorians because they have a very unique semi-osmotic circulatory system. Their clotting factors and platelet responses are a little bit different from Humans, as a result, and it's difficult to predict what exactly their bodies would do with a blood thinner. I think it's most likely that they would lose a great deal of blood, certainly, but their lack of extensive blood vessels means it still wouldn't be comparable to what a Human would lose from a similar wound. Unless the injection site was deep enough to damaged one of an Andorian's few very deeply situated major blood vessels, that is. Then the prognosis doesn't look so good.

As for symptoms: putting all of this together, I think it would be reasonable to expect: suddenly feeling winded, dizziness, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, heart palpitations, rapid heart rate, headache, nausea/vomiting, confusion, and weakness. More severe symptoms would include loss of consciousness, seizures, internal organ damage, and death.

For Star Trek shenanigans, a brilliant physician could probably save the patient by immediately cycling out the contaminated blood for fresh blood - but there's a lot of handwavium required for that, and the time needed to set everything up alone would exceed the minimum kill-time for acute exposure.

Again, I am neither a biologist nor a chemist. If I got something wrong, please, please, please correct me! In the meantime, hopefully I managed to answer everything effectively.

(Poor Tysess.)

[an-alexa-k]

On Yellbot Dot Online

Over on @lazardotsocial I’ve gotten into the habit of writing essays about each generation, discussing generally thoughts on the project. I've been enjoying it, so now I’m going to do that for Yellbot.

Yellbot obviously was inspired by the classic Endless Screaming bot, but also because I had an ActivityPub idea and the yelling was an easy way to try it out. A neat technical detail of Yellbot is that there aren't any accounts or users. I have database tables for posts and follows but nothing for each individual bot. When someone looks at an account, all the information is created on the fly. When I’m making new posts, I look at all the letters people have followed and make posts for them. Until someone looks at or follows a letter, it doesn’t exist and it doesn’t need to exist.

This enables behaviors that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. You couldn’t make Yellbot on twitter - you’d have to create over a billion accounts or get permission to create as many accounts as you wanted, whenever you wanted. Neither option is realistic. But by having my own server and connecting to the larger ActivityPub network, it’s easy. A centralized service could never.

Now, yelling isn’t very valuable but I think this basic structure here could be applied elsewhere. You need two things:

1. Something that can be reference just through a username, like a name, definition of behavior, a start state, etc.

2. A behavior that happens occasionally – those are the posts.

So, you could have

Each account is a zipcode that posts whenever there’s a dangerous weather alert.

Each account is a wikipedia page that posts whenever the page is edited.

An account for every book on Project Gutenberg. When someone follows one it starts posting the book, sentence by sentence (in the style of Bedtime Story Bot). When it finishes, everyone gets unfollowed and the account is deleted, until someone follows again and it restarts.

Something like Sam Lavigne and Tega Brain’s project The Good Life – an account for each e-mail address and it posts each e-mail in real time.

Each account's username defines the rules for a cellular automata and each post is a generation.

Thinking up examples and possible applications lead me to thinking about what kinds of information ActivityPub is suited for. For example, here in Chicago every bus station has a 5 digit code on the sign. You can text to a number to receive schedule updates. So you could make a server with an account for each bus station.

Like this. Image from the Chicago Transit Authority

But what would it post? Nobody wants to know every time a bus arrives at a station. That’s too many posts cluttering up your timeline and all but the most recent one are irrelevant. Similarly, you wouldn’t want to receive the temperature through ActivityPub, because you only care about the current temperature, not all the past temperatures.

When you make a post on Mastodon, your server sends the messages to all the servers of accounts who follow you and they’re responsible for storing and displaying them. That’s the “publish” in ActivityPub. This makes it suited for activities where having the entire history is desirable - you don’t want to know just what your friends said most recently, you want to know everything they said. For cases where only the most recent version counts (like temperatures or buses), you’re better of letting the client request the data when they want it.

(I have loose thoughts here about Robin Sloan’s Spring ‘83 protocol, which is a person-to-person social communication system that doesn’t maintain any kind of history and (if I’m understanding the protocol correctly) doesn’t guarantee that you see every board from the people you follow. You couldn’t build Yellbot (or something equivalent) in Spring ‘83 due to key limitations, but the board format would be well suited for a dashboard type application.)

If your behavior doesn’t happen too often, you could still use ActivityPub and it wouldn’t be too annoying even if you don’t care about history. And it would have the benefit of putting the information someplace you’re already checking. If you’re already checking your the timeline daily, if a piece of info is added in there, you’re guaranteed to see it. That’s a big advantage and in many cases it'll be worth the clutter. I think daily is infrequent enough but exact amount of time would vary by person.

This project was an extension of the ActivityPub implementation I did for Lazar gen 7 and it takes the implementation a couple steps closer to totality. I have another project, which I put on hold to make Yellbot, which requires a complete implementation and it seems a lot more manageable now. So there may be more ActivityPub in the future, although no guarantees about how far in the future.

[so-much-for-subtlety]

What ad and tracking blockers do you use for your phone? I’ve been wanting to download some but they always look a bit sketchy

So there are two main types of blockers: blockers that run at network level and blockers that run in the browser (actually browser blockers have two types as well, some that just hide the ads, and some that block them from loading in the first place).

you can try this page as a test to see what type of things are currently blocked (if you’re using Firefox you might get some blocking already) https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock.html

I have don’t actually run anything on my phone, instead I have a DNS server running on my router that uses a blocklist so any request to load ads or tracking gets blocked at my router (there’s a few versions of this but most popular is pi-hole).

The benefits of this approach is:

Automatically works for all devices on network (I have 21 devices on my home network so this is important for me!)

completely local (no reliance on any third party service and very very fast)

no subscription/recurring costs

completely configurable to add/remove certain websites services as desired

Disadvantages:

Only local network (if I’m on cellular I don’t get any protection)

more complex to set up

you have to buy some hardware like a raspberry pi (about $60)

Dosn’t block ads in video like YouTube

But here are some other good options:

—

Instead of running your own dns server locally you could use a third party DNS server (you already are, but you can switch to use one that also does blocking).

Some of these DNS services might be paid or free, and some of them might harvest your data :/ some might also not have the resources to run a free fast DNS so might block ads but might slow down a bit, and the free options are also not configurable. I think a trustworthy free public DNS option is AdGuard DNS.

—

If you use desktop (or android), I think the best option is uBlock Origin which runs in the browser. It’s free, open source, trustworthy but not supported by iOS (yet, maybe in the future). The main benefit of browser based blockers like uBlock origin is that I think they are more successful at blocking ads in videos like YouTube (although I think YouTube is always fighting against that so not sure who’s winning right now).

—

If you’re using iOS, AdGuard also has a native iOS blocking app which will be faster, but unfortunately isn’t free and I honestly can’t make sense of their pricing structure, but I did search and see you can get a lifetime license for $20 here which probably makes sense over a monthly subscription.

—

it’s a lot of info to take in!

if you’re using a desktop browser (or android) I’d start with uBlock Origin.

if you’re on iOS, I would probably start with their free AdGuard DNS option first and see how fast it is, and if not great maybe try their paid app.

[thequietmanno1]

TheLreads, Vigilantes ch 91, Replies Part 1

1) “Alright Knuckles, here comes the airplane, now open wiiiide~ “- Hood’s got a big hand to give to Knuckles. 2) “knuckles please, just eat the fucking sandwich, he worked really hard to make it for you”- Given how big we later see Hood can ‘grow’ his hand to, you’d need to cut it down to size first to make it fit…except, Hood’s other secondary derivative abilities make that practically impossible too.

3) “Dammit guys, this place is rented, stop ruining the walls, the insurance does not cover this type of tomfoolery”- AFO deliberately did not insure the building just to leave the Manager stuck with the costs of the damage whilst he skedaddled. 4) “Alright knuckles, now tell me, what is the plan against a foe who’s stronger, just as fast, does not tire, and can regenerate? I hope you do have a plan ready”-  Oh don’t worry, Knuckles has a plan alright…

5) “See this on a positive light: You definitely got to see a once in a lifetime underground fight, that’s for damn sure.”- ‘Once in a lifetime’, because it’s the end of your lifetime. 6) “Hey, welcome back you two, now that you’re done resting, are you ready for some true fun?”-  Since Hood doesn’t seem to have quite the full range of abilities he later does against Endeavour, this Trio probably does have a decent chance of taking him out…sadly, they decided to go for the smart option, rather than actually risking it all to win it. Gotta keep to canon, even if it’s being stretched quite thin now. 6) “Alright knuckles, but did you at least told them what plan B was? Because I’m afraid they haaven’t developed telepathy. Not yet at least.”- Plan B. The Nuclear option. Bring the fist of God down upon the sinners. The ‘we’re gonna hand this over to the big guns’ plan. There can be only one method to achieve that… 7) “-Furuhashi when he’s told that he needs to adhere to the established canon”-  Us when Furuhashi adheres to established canon at the expense of letting his actual characters have the cool moments.

8) “Oh god don’t even joke about that Kurogiri, this seems like the sort of shit would be pulled to solve this fight, and I already dread it. We don’t need a Skyegg 2.0. “- ….Awkward Cough. 9) “so, it is like he

like he has

some sort of

of

hyper regeneration

that’s what you mean, Knuckles?”-  Again, in the interests of trying to fix the massive plot hole this would open up, I’m gonna have to stick with believing it’s just adjacent to healing, and that all Hood is doing looks like proper healing from an outside perspective, but instead is more akin to him sewing his wounds shut and forcing his body back into a humanoid shape afterwards – and given that it’s implied All Might really smashed AFO’s head good, that much blunt trauma is apparently beyond his quirk’s ability to fix- though it might be how his cranium un-deformed afterwards. Like, from what we can tell, he left nothing above the jaw but a red stain, so AFO, if not having hyper regeneration yet, must have had something that promoted cellular growth at least, if only to get his body pieced back together into a semi-stable form. 10) “Oh wow, AfO really fumbled this one then, that’s you mean? So much for being the best asset- Well, I suppose from the technical standpoint he really is the best Nomu around… even before he became a High-end.”- He was the best prototype they had on hand, easily deployable in the field, but he was still a work in progress – in fact, the trigger tests and the like seem to have been a means of continuing the work whilst not letting Hood out into a major destructive rampage with his increased power down the years, since we know he only gets stronger than this.

(Vigilantes ch 21)

11) “Oh jesus fuck it speaks, oh don’t tell me this is some bullshit prototype Nomu that AfO will eventually steal and perfect before stamping his own copyright brand on them.

I already don’t like where this is going.”-  Well, it turns out that there was already-existing Prototype Nomu for a while before Teruo, but I guess all of them were further refined through the fruits of these tests into what became the High-Ends. Guys like Teruo seems to be the first steps in verifying how well the body of an ordinary person who’s not been surgically prepped for the changes can balance multiple powers and abilities whilst retaining their sanity and sense of self, before AFO further refines the process into creating better bodies capable of withstanding the strain of the powers at the expense of the mind- after all, He’s got brains enough for all the Nomu. The concoction of chemicals injected into Teruo and those like him seems to be initial tests run to bring out first the dormant, secondary quirk traits hidden underneath the primary manifestation of the quirk’s power, resulting in Teruo’s body changing to become stronger and more amphibian-like with added electrical shocks on top of that. Technically, these are all derivatives of the same single quirk, but they manifest as being similar to having multiple powers into one body. Further refining whatever chemical process that Teruo and the café crew gets pumped up with is presumably the reason why the Nomu have similar, yet disseparate skin colourations as a visual indicator of their power levels- whatever toxins they’re injected with to allow them to withstand the  strain of multiple quirks causes permanent changes to their skin tones as a side effect, with the heavy-duty chemicals making them black-coloured, and the less-severe strains keeping them plainer, closer to a ‘normal’ human’s skin tone, especially if they’ve been kept away from the light of day for an extended period of time- and given what all the Nomu look like, it’s not like you can just cobble one together in your backyard like it’s a family treehouse.

(Vigilantes ch 33)

12) “And that makes them extremely dangerous, as they are sparing no expenses to get what they want. We already have a theory on what their reasons are, and this is more of a point towards it, because AfO only wants to improve the formula to create the Nomu, rather than the petty money that he could get from it.”-Pretty much the same- it’s likely that refined trigger is what allows the Nomus to withstand the strain of their multiple quirks, at least up to a point, meaning that the chemical process of enhancing their body to withstand the pain is as much a necessary part of the process as the ‘physical’ remodelling that Ujiko does.

13) “Dammit knuckles, there is a fighting going on, stop criticizing the dude, he’s doing his best, alright?”- He and Nomura both have that n common at least. Always pointing out the flaws and the downsides in their opponent’s tactics, though Knuckle at least also turned that into advising Koichi on what other things he can do with his Quirk.

14) “But unfortunately not enough to overpower his hyper regeneration, I’m afraid.”- Hood’s stitching skills are better than Knuckles’ needlework.

15) “Alright knuckles, we know you kick ass, but I’m still worried on how you plan to take this foe down. I mean, I know you won’t, because canon, but still I want to know how you planned to.”- His plan was, ‘Buy time, then peace out’.

@thelreads

[skinbeautystore]

Bakuchiol and Retinol

Bakuchiol and Retinol: My Honest Experience with These Powerhouse Skincare Ingredients

As a licensed esthetician and someone who's deeply passionate about skincare, I’m always on the lookout for ingredients that truly make a difference in the health and appearance of my skin. Over the past few months, I’ve been incorporating both bakuchiol and retinol into my skincare routine—and I’m genuinely impressed by the results. In this post, I’ll break down what these ingredients are, how they work, how I personally use them, and why they’ve become must-haves in my skincare regimen. Whether you’re new to retinol, curious about bakuchiol, or wondering if you can use both together, keep reading! TABLE OF CONTENTS What Is Retinol? What Is Bakuchiol? Can You Use Bakuchiol and Retinol Together? Best Bakuchiol and Retinol Products Is Bakuchiol or Retinol Better? What Is Retinol? Retinol is a well-known derivative of vitamin A and a gold-standard ingredient in dermatology. It helps accelerate skin cell turnover, stimulate collagen production, and reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and acne. I've used retinol on and off for years, and every time I go back to it, my skin feels smoother, looks more radiant, and my pore size appears tighter. But, like many of you, I’ve struggled with the initial side effects—dry skin, flaking, redness, and irritation. This is where bakuchiol comes in. What Is Bakuchiol? Bakuchiol is a plant-based, gentle alternative to retinol derived from the babchi plant. You may wonder, how does Bakuchiol work? It works by stimulating collagen production and promoting the turnover of skin cells. It’s been gaining popularity because it offers similar skin-renewing benefits as retinol but without the harsh side effects, making it ideal for sensitive skin types. Think of it as retinol’s calm, plant-powered cousin. I first discovered bakuchiol when I was looking for a plant-based retinol alternative during a time when my skin barrier was compromised, and wanted similar anti-aging benefits. I was skeptical at first, but after a few weeks of use, I noticed softer, more even-toned skin—and no irritation at all. It was a game-changer that gave me amazing results! Can You Use Bakuchiol Serum and Retinol Together? This is one of the questions I get asked most frequently—and the answer is yes, with a little caution. While both ingredients work to renew the skin, they do so in slightly different ways. Bakuchiol is anti-inflammatory and antioxidant-rich, making it a great buffer to retinol’s sometimes harsh effects. When I started using both, I introduced bakuchiol in the morning (it’s safe for daytime use, unlike retinol) and used a low-strength retinol at night. The combo has worked wonders for my skin—fewer acne breakouts and blemishes, smoother skin texture, softer fine lines and wrinkles, and a more glowing youthful overall skin tone. My Favorite Retinol Bakuchiol Products In My Skincare Routine Here are a few skincare products that I’ve personally used and recommend from Skin-Beauty.com: - Eminence Bakuchiol + Niacinamide Moisturizer – This lightweight serum absorbs quickly and is perfect for all skin types and is gentle enough for daily use. It reduces fine lines and wrinkles, minimizes dark spots, and improves firmness. - Julie Lindh Skin Expert Ageless System Retinol Resurfacing Treatment – I love this retinol formula. It’s effective in reducing signs of aging and improving skin texture by promoting cellular turnover. Like many retinol products, moisturizing sunscreen is necessary because the use of retinol makes the skin more sensitive to the sun. Final Thoughts: Is Bakuchiol or Retinol Better? Honestly, it depends on your skin type and what your skin can tolerate. If you’re sensitive or just starting out, bakuchiol is a fantastic retinol alternative to begin with. If your skin can handle more active ingredients, retinol remains the go-to for fast, visible signs of younger-looking skin. But the real magic, in my experience, happens when you find a way to include both—strategically and consistently. Ready to Try Bakuchiol or Retinol? If you're looking to add bakuchiol, retinol, or both into your skincare routine, we've got you covered at Skin-Beauty.com. Browse our curated collection of professional-grade products and start your journey to radiant, healthy skin. Shop Bakuchiol Products Shop Retinol Products Read the full article

[bisluthq]

Look I don’t want to be all fear monger, but Covid is fucking scary. I still mask and I’d seriously recommend it.

Covid is a vascular thing, the symptoms show up in your lungs and feel like a respiratory infection type thing, but it affects your blood vessels. This is why people have issues with blood clots and heart issues after an infection (NOT EVERYONE of course though 🤍). The thing is, because it fucks your blood vessels, it can fuck up ANY part of the body, particularly the brain for some reason. There are so many studies that have shown the acceleration of Alzheimers and Parkinson’s post covid (something to do with the protein dump or brain deterioration that shows on special scans - idk all the words, but you can google it). Those brains were already sick, so it made the sickness worse, which makes sense - it’s added trauma/ pressure. Some brains are fucking smoother and different lobes have shrunk post covid.

Autopsies have shown at a microscopic level organs SHREDDED. Like imagine a cushion attacked by a cat, it’s got the claw marks but it’s still held together, but then make it super super tiny, that has been visible post COVID autopsies in brain tissue, heart, lungs, and other organs. Even veins.

It is such a serious virus, I hate that we live in a capitalist society that forced everyone back to work for the economy only for it to crash anyway because of politics. I feel like the person in a disaster movie yelling about the asteroid about to hit earth and no one will even look at a telescope - like covid is SO BAD! And it’s not like other viruses where you build an immunity to it after infection - you may have a different viral load, and therefore have a more mild or severe case each infection - but each infection does damage to your insides, how badly you get damaged really seems to be the luck of the draw. And some people have had it heaps and bounce back fine and get pregnant easily! But then there are little kids showing the signs of dementia already!

So I highly recommend everyone get a blood test post covid and get all the usual stuff but also ask for the Dr to add D-Dimer to your blood test. It’s a blood clotting marker. It CAN be elevated at different parts of your menstrual cycle, typically right before your period, so you want to get it around 10 days after your period completely stops for a more accurate insight. If your blood clotting marker is high, that’s a good indication that your body is still fighting off covid at a cellular level, it’s not necessarily an indication of a blood clot though just because it is high (your platelet and red blood cell results will help drs assess your risk), but if it’s elevated there are things you can do - like take aspirin because it’s a blood thinner - that helps your body work more effectively because you’re not using heaps of extra energy to push thicker blood - you know, pouring cake batter or water - water will go through the straw easier.

There are heaps of Covid conscious communities online though with great advice on prevention (masking, air purifiers, meeting friends outdoors instead of close quarters like a crowded bar type environment, etc) and support for different symptoms that have lingered, even if it’s just confirming your sanity.

I’m sorry I’ll stop doom posting. But also knowledge is power, you know? I mask because I know the above and I don’t want to freak people out but it’s reality and at least if you know the risks you can make an informed choice.

very very important