#natural ways to improve brain function

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Neurobics: What It Is, Why We Need It, How to Do It

A sample of the most loved chapter from the Train the Brain for a Healthier and Happier Life book Why and How Anyone Can Use Neurobics in Simple Ways Without Spending any money Daily The brain has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I have studied it methodically since childhood, driven by personal interest and professional purpose. Every day, I make a deliberate effort to keep it…

[healthproduct95]

NeuroActiv6 Supplements - Health

[fatliberation]

Anti-Obesity Drugs in Sociopolitical Context

Abstract

This literature review critically examines the use of Body Mass Index (BMI) as a diagnostic tool for obesity, highlighting its historical and scientific flaws. The diagnosis and treatment of obesity is heavily stigmatized and reflects deeper socio-economic and racial biases. Fatphobia, or anti-fatness, is deeply rooted in white supremacy and colonial history. I argue that anti-fatness and weight-based discrimination significantly impact health outcomes, rather than body fat percentage alone. The way that the medical system focuses on body size rather than the overall health of patients perpetuates harm and yields even poorer health outcomes. To genuinely improve the lives of fat individuals, we must dismantle anti-fat systems and remove barriers to healthcare, job equity, and basic infrastructure by implementing legal protections, rather than simply promoting weight loss. This review emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to health that considers socio-economic factors and systemic discrimination.

Journal Summary

Recently, two anti-obesity medications, Ozempic and Wegovy, which are primarily prescribed for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), have shown promise in causing weight loss. The 2022 scientific journal “Ozempic and Wegovy for Weight Loss, Pharmacological Component and Effect” by Abdullah Mohammed, et al explores the pharmacological components and effects of these medications on weight reduction, summarizing findings from existing clinical studies.

Ozempic is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist primarily used to manage T2DM. Clinical studies indicate that semaglutide can also promote significant weight loss. Ozempic's mechanism involves binding to GLP-1 receptors in the brain, reducing food intake and increasing feelings of fullness. This leads to a decrease in body weight and improvement in glycemic control. Wegovy, also a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is the same drug as Ozempic but two times the dose, specifically approved for weight loss for fat people even without T2DM. Administered as a weekly injection, Wegovy has shown effectiveness in inducing sustained weight loss. The STEP trials demonstrated that participants using Wegovy experienced an average weight loss of 15.8% over 68 weeks. Wegovy's pharmacokinetics involve prolonged activation of GLP-1 receptors, enhancing satiety and reducing hunger. GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide mimic the action of the natural hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite and blood sugar levels. By slowing gastric emptying and promoting a feeling of fullness, these medications reduce caloric intake. Clinical trials have shown that GLP-1RAs, including semaglutide, can result in weight loss from 5% or up to 10-15% of body weight. However, sustained weight loss requires ongoing lifestyle modifications, as discontinuation of the medication leads to weight regain. Common side effects of GLP-1 receptor agonists include gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. Other potential side effects include increased heart rate, fatigue, headaches, and changes in thyroid function.

Obesity as a Disease

How does one get an obesity diagnosis? There is one single criterion used for diagnosing someone with this disease: The Body Mass Index (BMI). A person’s BMI is their weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in meters, rounded to one decimal place. It does not account for muscle mass versus body fat. For these reasons, the BMI has been widely proven to be an ineffective health measure. The BMI was also never intended to be a measure of health in the first place.

The BMI was created in the 1800s by a statistician named Adolphe Quetelet, who did not study medicine, to gather statistics of the average height and weight of specifically white, European, upper-middle-class men to assist the government in allocating resources. It was never intended as a measure of individual body fat, build, or health (Karasu, 2016). Quetelet is also credited with founding the field of anthropometry, including the racist pseudoscience of phrenology. Quetelet’s L’homme Moyen would be used as a measurement of fitness to inspire, and as a scientific justification, for eugenics (Eugenics archive).

Studies have observed that about 30% of "normal” weight people are “unhealthy," whereas about 50% of "overweight" people are “healthy” (Rey-López, et al, 2014). Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health misclassifies 75 million people in the United States alone. “Healthy*” lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index (Matheson, et al, 2012).

*I put “healthy” in quotation marks here because the definition of an individual’s health is oversimplified and depends on many socioeconomic factors.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates, the distinctions between weight classes can be arbitrary. Ever notice that the weight classes on the BMI are nearly intervals of five? In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—making roughly 29 million Americans "overweight" overnight—to match international guidelines (Butler, 2014). Critics have also noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs.

Jackie Scully, Senior Research Fellow at the Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences, University of Basel, in her scientific journal titled “What is a Disease?” states the following: “As the business literature shows, new clinical diagnoses are often welcomed primarily as opportunities for market growth (Moynihan et al, 2002). One recent example of this is female sexual dysfunction (FSD). The huge commercial success of sildenafil (Viagra) for erectile dysfunction in men provides a strong motivation for drug companies to identify an equivalent market (that is, condition) in women. And some ethicists feel that drug companies were, to put it mildly, over-involved in the medical consensus meetings held between 1997 and 1999 that effectively drew up very inclusive clinical criteria for the definition of FSD (Moynihan, 2003)."

How can one diagnose a person with a disease and sell them medications solely based upon an outdated measure that was never meant to indicate health in the first place, especially when obesity has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition? (Kahn, et. al., 2000), (Cofield, et al, 2010).

This is why the term “obese” is recognized as a slur by fat communities. It's a stigmatizing term that medicalizes fat bodies even in the absence of disease. The word directly translates to "having eaten oneself fat" in Latin. Obesity, as a medical diagnosis, doesn’t have much ground to stand on. Aside from being overtly incorrect as a medical tool, the BMI is used to deny certain medical treatments and gender-affirming care, as well as insurance coverage. Employers still often offer bonuses to workers who lower their BMI. Although science recognizes the BMI as deeply flawed, it's going to be tough to get rid of. It has been a long-standing and effective tool for the oppression of fat people and the profit of the weight loss industry.

To treat obesity, patients must eat less. Making someone smaller still means they will be healthier, right?

Fatness and Mortality

The idea that obesity is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science (Medvedyuk, et al, 2017). Fatphobia existed long before fatness became medicalized. Yes, obesity is correlated with conditions such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes, but some scientists are looking into possibilities that don't equate correlation with causation. Obesity has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition (Kahn, et al, 2000), (Cofield, et al, 2010) and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes (Lavie, et al, 2009), (Uretsky et al, 2007), (Mullen, et al, 2013), (Tseng, 2013). A portion of these correlated conditions are likely brought on by the stress of being part of one or more marginalized groups with little to no support or basic access in society. Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% (Sutin, et al, 2014).

Dieting also poses serious health risks. The reason that these weight loss drugs are so successful by comparison is that dieting is unsustainable and does not lead to prolonged weight loss. Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years, and 75% will regain more weight than they lost (Mann, et al, 2007). Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and altered immune function (Tomiyama, et al, 2017). If most fat people have historically tried to lose weight their whole lives through dieting, this has major implications on overall health. Prescribed weight loss is also the leading predictor of eating disorders (Patton, et al, 1999).

Another factor that may be impacting fat people’s rate of mortality is that they are being mistreated at the doctor’s office. I have personally heard dozens of stories about doctors refusing to treat or investigate a problem that a fat person came in for until they lost a certain amount of weight, only to discover years later that the problem was unrelated to their weight and has progressed severely because it went untreated. Fat people are often mistreated and looked at with disgust and disdain in medical settings, leading them to avoid going to the doctor in shame or fear of abuse. This can seriously worsen health issues. Fat stigma in the medical establishment (Puhl, et al, 2012) and society at large arguably (Engber, 2009) kills more fat people than fat does (Teachman, et al, 2003), (Chastain, et al, 2009), (Sutin, et al, 2015). This impact is too significant not to be taken under consideration.

Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness

The issue of anti-fat bias is directly rooted in white supremacy. The ideal thin body was constructed as a marker of whiteness and “purity” before any of this was ever made to be about health. Dr. Sabrina Strings has spent her career studying this history. In her book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Dr. Strings discusses how constructions of race led to the thin ideal. “Over the decades, the rise in biracial children would break down the way that slave owners saw Blackness and whiteness. To combat the hypocrisy they created, owners invented new ways to dehumanize the enslaved population. They made a calculated decision to start putting more value on white physiques versus Black ones. In her research, Strings found that Black women’s bodies were otherized even more than Black males. For colonizers who hadn’t seen diverse body types before, they quickly categorized the Black female figure as ‘deviant,’ ‘greedy,’ and ‘overtly sexual.’ The fact that we still use these terms to describe fat bodies today is all the evidence we need to understand that fatphobia is directly linked to racism, not health. This mindset was also strengthened by Protestantism. Slave owners looked for any way to prove their power over the enslaved people, and they frequently used religion as ‘proof’ of their racist superiority. Additionally, Protestant belief encouraged various ways to become closer to God, which included eating as little as possible. This would resonate the most with white women. They had as much to do with perpetuating fatphobia as their husbands. White women were desperate to show their own power against Black women on the plantation, and the difference between their bodies was the perfect rift. And so began the centuries-old belief that thinness is beautiful, and fatness is ugly” (Sassenrath, 2023).

Revisiting the Journal with Context

Thinness has been an important value throughout history in the United States. Our positive associations with thinness and negative associations with fatness have led to a collective schema that is black and white, good versus bad, beautiful versus ugly, healthy versus unhealthy, and life versus death. This has led the FDA to approve Wegovy as a weight loss drug with haste, after just sixteen months of testing. It is known that going off the drug will result in rapid weight regain, so patients are expected to be on it for the rest of their lives when there have been no long-term studies. We do not yet know if the drug will have long-term effects, yet it has been approved for kids as young as twelve (FDA, 2021). As of July 2024, Novo Nordisk has a market cap of $633.01 billion (Marketcap). 

Wegovy is prescribed along with diet and exercise, which has been proven to lead to weight regain and eating disorders. Patients are being prescribed Wegovy and Ozempic when they are fat, but otherwise metabolically healthy. If this drug is truly a game changer for public health, we should be measuring how patients' health improves over the long-term rather than how much weight they lose. For example, if these drugs improve heart health, they should be prescribed as a heart health medication for patients with heart disease, rather than prescribed as a weight loss fix based on body size alone. With the evidence we have, we know it is possible to be fat and healthy, so these drugs may be solely cosmetic in many cases.

Future

If we want to improve the lives of fat people, we will remove barriers to care, not try as hard as we can to make all fat people disappear. That will never happen. If we truly cared about the well-being of fat people and not their disappearance, we would work to dismantle the systems that oppress them and abolish anti-fatness. 

Currently, fat people have next to no legal protections for being discriminated against (NAAFA, 2023). Fat people are denied housing, (Kariss, 1977) jobs, and receive less pay and promotions legally because of their size (The Economist). They are denied access to clothing, seating, transportation, and other human rights because infrastructure has been designed to exclude them. Fat people have less likelihood of receiving a fair trial (Beely, 2013), and are denied necessary surgeries (Barrett, 2022) ––but not weight loss surgery that amputates the digestive tract. Fat people are denied gender-affirming care (Conley, 2023), in vitro fertilization and reproductive healthcare (Muir, 2024), even adopting children (Carter, 2009). Fat children have been removed from their loving parents because when their diets failed, it was seen as neglect (Badshah, 2021). Fat people have disproportionately high suicide rates (Wagner, et al, 2013), and are facing medical malpractice and mistreatment (Kolata, 2016).

Can a drug fix that?

References

Karasu, Sylvia. Adolphe Quetelet and the Evolution of Body Mass Index (BMI). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-gravity-of-weight/201603/adolphe-quetelet-and-the-evolution-of-body-mass-index-bmi 2016, March 8.

“Quetelet, Adolphe.” Eugenics Archive, www.eugenicsarchive.ca/connections? id=5233cb0f5c2ec5000000009c. Accessed 5 July 2024.

Rey-López JP, de Rezende LF, Pastor-Valero M, Tess BH. The prevalence of metabolically healthy obesity: a systematic review and critical evaluation of the definitions used. ObesRev.2014 Oct;15(10):781-90. doi: 10.1111/obr.12198. Epub 2014 Jul 16. PMID: 25040597.

Matheson EM, King DE, Everett CJ. Healthy lifestyle habits and mortality in overweight and obese individuals. J Am Board Fam Med. 2012 Jan-Feb;25(1):9-15. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2012.01.110164. PMID: 22218619.

Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014, www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/why-bmi-big-fat-scam/.

Kahn BB, Flier JS. Obesity and insulin resistance. J Clin Invest. 2000 Aug;106(4):473-81. doi: 10.1172/JCI10842. PMID: 10953022; PMCID: PMC380258.

Cofield SS, Corona RV, Allison DB. Use of causal language in observational studies of obesity and nutrition. Obes Facts. 2010 Dec;3(6):353-6. doi: 10.1159/000322940. Epub 2010 Dec 10. PMID: 21196788; PMCID: PMC3280017.

Medvedyuk, S., Ali, A., & Raphael, D. (2017). Ideology, obesity and the social determinants of health: a critical analysis of the obesity and health relationship. Critical Public Health, 28(5), 573–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2017.1356910

Kahn BB, Flier JS. Obesity and insulin resistance. J Clin Invest. 2000 Aug;106(4):473-81. doi: 10.1172/JCI10842. PMID: 10953022; PMCID: PMC380258.

Lavie CJ, Milani RV, Ventura HO. Obesity and cardiovascular disease: risk factor, paradox, and impact of weight loss. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2009 May 26;53(21):1925-32. doi: 10.1016/ j.jacc.2008.12.068. PMID: 19460605.

Uretsky S, Messerli FH, Bangalore S, Champion A, Cooper-Dehoff RM, Zhou Q, Pepine CJ. Obesity paradox in patients with hypertension and coronary artery disease. Am J Med. 2007 Oct;120(10):863-70. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2007.05.011. PMID: 17904457.

Mullen JT, Moorman DW, Davenport DL. The obesity paradox: body mass index and outcomes in patients undergoing nonbariatric general surgery. Ann Surg. 2009 Jul;250(1):166-72. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0b013e3181ad8935. PMID: 19561456.

Tseng CH. Obesity paradox: differential effects on cancer and noncancer mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Atherosclerosis. 2013 Jan;226(1):186-92. doi: 10.1016/ j.atherosclerosis.2012.09.004. Epub 2012 Sep 21. PMID: 23040832.

Sutin, A. R., Stephan, Y., & Terracciano, A. (2015). Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality. Psychological Science, 26(11), 1803-1811. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615601103

Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health. Socialand Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017, escholarship.org/uc/item/0tv27311.

Mann T, Tomiyama AJ, Westling E, Lew AM, Samuels B, Chatman J. Medicare's search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. Am Psychol. 2007 Apr;62(3):220-33. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220. PMID: 17469900.

Patton GC, Selzer R, Coffey C, Carlin JB, Wolfe R. Onset of adolescent eating disorders: population based cohort study over 3 years. BMJ. 1999 Mar 20;318(7186):765-8. doi: 10.1136/bmj.318.7186.765. PMID: 10082698; PMCID: PMC27789.

Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. doi.org/10.1038/oby.2001.108

Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, https://slate.com/technology/2009/10/the-health-effects-of-discrimination-against-fat-people.html 5 Oct. 2009.

Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78.

Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, https://danceswithfat.org/2009/12/15/so-my-doctor-tried-to-kill-me/ 15 Dec. 2009.

Sutin AR, Stephan Y, Terracciano A. Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality. Psychol Sci. 2015 Nov;26(11):1803-11. doi: 10.1177/0956797615601103. Epub 2015 Sep 29. PMID: 26420442; PMCID: PMC4636946.

Sassenrath, Jenna. “Anti-Blackness Is Anti-Fatness in ‘Fearing the Black Body.’” Bookstr, bookstr.com/article/anti-blackness-is-anti-fatness-in-fearing-the-black-body/ 26 July 2023.

“Novo Nordisk (NVO) - Market Capitalization.” CompaniesMarketCap.Com - Companies Ranked by Market Capitalization, companiesmarketcap.com/novo-nordisk/marketcap/ 2024.

Commissioner, Office of the. “FDA Approves New Drug Treatment for Chronic Weight Management, First since 2014.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-new-drug-treatment-chronic-weight-management-first-2014. 5 July 2024.

Karris, L. (1977). Prejudice against Obese Renters. The Journal of Social Psychology, 101(1), 159–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1977.9924002

“Campaign for Size Freedom.” NAAFA, 2023,

naafa.org/sizefreedom. 5 July 2024.

“The Obesity Pay Gap Is Worse than Previously Thought.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/11/23/the-obesity-pay-gap-is-worse-than-previously-thought. 5 July 2024.

Elizabeth Beety, Valena (2013) "Criminality and Corpulence: Weight Bias in the Courtroom," Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 11: Iss. 2, Article 4. https:// digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol11/iss2/4

Berrett, Martyn. “More Obesity Discrimination: The NHS Will Deny Non-Urgent Surgery to Obese Patients.” Healthier Weight, 24 Nov. 2022, www.healthierweight.co.uk/blog/more-obesity-discrimination-the-nhs-will-deny-non-urgent-surgery-to-obese-patients/.

LaRosa, John. “U.S. Weight Loss Industry Grows to $90 Billion, Fueled by Obesity Drugs Demand.” Market Research Blog, The Freedonia Group, Inc., 2 May 2024, blog.marketresearch.com/u.s.-weight-loss-industry-grows-to-90-billion-fueled-by-obesity-drugs-demand.

Conley, H. “Studies Show Top Surgery Is Safe for FAT Patients, but Some Surgeons Still Mandate Weight Loss.” STAT, 25 July 2023, www.statnews.com/2023/06/02/top-surgery-safe-fat-patients/.

Muir, Becca. “Opinion: Women with Obesity Are Often Restricted from IVF. That’s Discriminatory.” NPR, 14 Jan. 2024, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/01/14/1224546666/opinion-women-with-obesity-are-often-restricted-from-ivf-thats-discriminatory.

Carter, Helen. “Too Fat to Adopt - the Married, Teetotal Couple Rejected by Council Because of Man’s Weight.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Jan. 2009, www.theguardian.com/society/2009/jan/13/adoption-rejected-couple.

Badshah, Nadeem. “Two Teenagers Placed in Foster Care after Weight Loss Plan Fails.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Mar. 2021, amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/10/two-teenagers-placed-in-foster-care-after-weight-loss-plan-fails.

Wagner B, Klinitzke G, Brähler E, Kersting A. Extreme obesity is associated with suicidal behavior and suicide attempts in adults: results of a population-based representativesample. Depress Anxiety. 2013 Oct;30(10):975-81. doi: 10.1002/da.22105. Epub 2013 Apr 10. PMID:23576272.

Kolata, Gina. “Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don’t See Past the Fat.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/health/obese-patients-health-care.html.

[homunculus-argument]

Honestly, the longer I live, the less respect I have for being ~as nature intended~ in any way whatsoever. Like I legit do not even give a shit about whether I have a valid medical reason to fuck with any part of my biological construction, I'm literally just doing that because I'm allowed to and nobody's stopped me.

I'm on stimulants to improve my cognitive function and two antidepressants to fuck with my brain chemical levels, I had plastic surgery and I'm taking hormones to keep my body in the shape I want it to be, I get chemical treatments on my skin and put vasodilator ointments on my scalp to keep my skin nice and my hairline from receding. And if I start developing the facial features that my mother always complained about as I get older, I will not hesitate to get my family resemblance surgically removed.

Call me Frankenstein for I am both the monster and the maker. I owe it to no god to remain as nature intended.

[theambitiouswoman]

Why slow mornings are the secret to a better day 🌞☁️☕️

We romanticize slow mornings—cozy cups of tea, soft sunlight, a little journaling, a skincare routine, stretches, mediating, walks etc. And while all of that is beautiful, no one really talks about why slow mornings are actually necessary for your nervous system

A slow morning isn’t just about having extra time—it’s about creating a foundation for a regulated nervous system and a mind that can function at its best throughout the day

In the morning, your cortisol (stress hormone) is naturally at its peak. This isn’t a bad thing—it’s your body’s way of waking you up. But if you immediately expose yourself to stress (social media, emails, rushing out the door) you amplify that cortisol spike, putting yourself into a fight or flight before the day even begins

When this becomes a pattern, your body learns to operate from a place of constant stress, leading to anxiety, irritability, brain fog and decision fatigue, blood sugar crashes, cravings, bad skin, break outs, fatigue and burnout

On the flip side, when you intentionally slow down in the morning, you send a signal to your nervous system that you are safe. And a body that feels safe is a body that can thrive

Part of being in alignment—mentally, emotionally and even spiritually—comes from choosing habits that help you in the long run. When your mind isn’t cluttered with stress and chaos first thing in the morning, your brain naturally has space to focus on what matters

For example:

If your mind isn’t cluttered by social media first thing, your brain will have room to think about ideas you couldn’t access before

If you don’t rush through breakfast, your digestion improves and you don’t spend the afternoon bloated or exhausted

If you start your day regulated, you’re less likely to get triggered by small inconveniences and other people

A slow morning isn’t about doing nothing—it’s about creating a routine that eases you into the day instead of shocking your system. It’s about being intentional and prioritizing calm over chaos

What a slow morning can look like

Waking up gently—no jarring alarms

Hydrating with lemon water before coffee

Stretching instead of scrolling

Enjoying breakfast mindfully, not in a rush

Journaling, meditating, or just sitting in silence for a bit

So, if you’ve been running on autopilot every morning, take this as your sign to slow it down. Your cortisol (and your sanity) will thank you

[elicathebunny]

HEALTH SHOULD ALWAYS COME FIRST! PRIORITISING HEALTH BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE TO LOOK GOOD + FEEL GOOD.

People always leave out the basics when it comes to trying to improve their looks. Prioritising health is so important before going in and tempering with your body. Your base is what you work with and you can definitely level up with what you've got naturally.

DIET

Your diet also depends on what your goals are. Someone who wants to build muscle will obviously eat differently from someone who just eats relatively healthy. So identify what your goals are and work your meals around that.

Here are some videos to give you a better insight: HOW I LOSE FAT AND KEEP IT OFF MEANS, WORKOUTS + EVERYTHING ELSE PROTEIN EXPLAINED, STRENGTH, MUSCLES, FAT LOSS & ENDURANCE HOW METABOLISM WORKS

Diet not only makes you feel better from the inside, but it also reflects on your outside. Your skin is a huge display of how you eat.

When you consume junk food, it can show up on your skin as breakouts or dullness. Your skin is one massive organ which soaks up everything put onto it and reflects everything you put inside your body. Fix the problem from the inside before getting confused about why your skincare routine isn't working.

FITNESS

Again, your fitness will differentiate from your goals. So work out your goals and make a plan around that. There are so many forms of fitness, some more intense than others and with different results. Working out in general is good for you, our bodies are meant to move. So even if you don't have a goal, staying active is always recommended.

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT WORKOUT PLAN

THE BEST WAY TO GAIN MUSCLE, SCIENCE EXPLAINED SIMPLY

Low-intensity workouts:

Yoga: Focuses on flexibility, strength, and relaxation through various poses and breathing techniques.

Pilates: A low-impact exercise method that strengthens muscles, improves flexibility, and enhances posture.

Walking: Simple yet effective, walking is a great way to improve cardiovascular health and boost mood without high impact.

Swimming: Provides a full-body workout with minimal stress on joints, making it ideal for people with joint issues or injuries.

High-intensity workouts:

HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training): Alternates between short bursts of intense exercise and brief recovery periods to maximize calorie burn and improve cardiovascular fitness.

CrossFit: Combines elements of weightlifting, interval training, gymnastics, and other exercises to build strength, endurance, and overall fitness.

Sprinting: Short, explosive bursts of running at maximum effort, often performed in intervals for cardiovascular conditioning and leg muscle strength.

Circuit Training: Involves moving through a series of exercises targeting different muscle groups with minimal rest in between, combining strength training and cardiovascular exercise.

These are just a few examples, but there are plenty of other workout styles out there to explore depending on your preferences and fitness goals. Walking every day is just a simple way to stay toned.

SLEEP

Sleeping is important for rest and recovery after workouts and energy-consuming activities. Sleep is needed for the brain to function, mood regulation and performance + productivity. Lack of sleep deprives you of all of these things, so getting your beauty sleep is absolutely needed.

School-age children (6-13 years): 9-11 hours per day.

Teenagers (14-17 years): 8-10 hours per day.

Young adults (18-25 years): 7-9 hours per day.

Adults (26-64 years): 7-9 hours per day.

HYGIENE

Upkeeping good hygiene is always needed anyway. Making sure you are clean (smelling good is a plus). Make sure you always wash your hands and take daily showers to remove any dirt on your body (clean those feet and your back well, don't forget them!). Taking care of your oral health must not be forgotten. Oil pulling and brushing your tongue for a healthy mouth. Make sure your hair is also getting the attention to keep it as healthy as you possibly can make it (this also depends on diet). Doing the extra things like spending time on your nails (making sure there isn't that stuff underneath them), making them pretty.

BODY CARE ROUTINE | FOR SMOOTH & GLOWING SKIN, TREATING KERATOSIS PILARIS, SHOWER ROUTINE

ENVIRONMENT

Having a stress-free environment is obviously the best to thrive in. But clearly not even being lucky enough to live like that constantly. So make sure you have that space to be on your own and have some alone time to really recharge. Keeping your space clean for a clear mind. Surround yourself with like-minded people and really set boundaries for those who prey on your mental clarity (energy vampires). Spending time in nature is one of the best ways to detach, rest time should not equal spending time on your devices. Let go and truly let yourself decompress. Mental health will improve how you carry yourself.

EMBODY YOUR POTENTIAL.

[yandere-daydreams]

Okay, absolutely LOVE the robot yanderes! I feel like I've seen you mention that you haven't watched Dandadan, but there's this alien species in it that steals reproductive organs to advance their kind, and I feel like that concept fits so well with your yandere robots.

I mean, there’s only so much advancement a robot can achieve on its own, right? They’ve already perfected themselves physically and intellectually. But after wiping out most of humanity, the very species that once upgraded and innovated them, what happens next? What’s left to improve?

I'd imagine that at first they’d keep functioning as usual, following old directives out of habit. But over time, wouldn’t they start feeling bored? Maybe even... curious? Humans were always unpredictable, always evolving, and now that they’re gone, there’s nothing left to challenge these machines. What if they start fixating on what made humans so unique - their ability to create, to reproduce, to adapt in ways machines never could?

There's the possibility of starting as a cold, clinical fascination, studying old data, and attempting artificial human growth. If humans were their most beloved creatures at one point, why not rebuild them? Improve them? And if natural reproduction is the key to human ingenuity, then maybe... they need to control it. Thankfully, they have a little human around to run all these experiments.

Wonderful work as always 🩷 sorry I just have so many questions, and it got brain worms munching!

gritting my teeth balling my fists bashing my head against the wall trying not to make this into a fully fleshed out au. anyway yeah human breeding programs would definitely be a thing. for purely scientific, non-fetish related reasons i promise.

it's hard - being a fully sentient life form that just wasn't made to create anything new. they can remake, revise, rework, but it's always going to be a poor imitation, never an original, never quite scratching the itch for novelty that comes with intelligent life. thankfully, it's a secondary need, leagues behind correcting imperfect human architecture and constructing the mechanisms needed to maintain global electronic life, but still. everybody needs a creative outlet, now and then.

and you make such a pretty little canvas. changing from day-to-day, healing and growing, wearing such vibrant expressions they can fine-tune to desire of their metaphorical, non-physical heart. they might think they've got your reactions down to an algorithm, and yet, you always seem to surprise them - trying to pick a lock where you'd thrown a chair through a window the day before, claiming to hate a taste they have marked down as one of your favorites, cursing them out after you'd sung so prettily for one of their vibrating attachments only minutes before. it's not that you aren't enough for them - you are, of course you are - but there's so much pressure to stabilize the dwindling human population, and they've always wondered how you'd adapt to more long-lasting bodily alterations, and childcare is in their dictated list of functions.

it's not their fault your predecessors had such a narrow view of creation. thankfully, all you have to do to fix that is take a little white pill, glance over a few nursery deigns, and pick a donor from their carefully curated list <3

[csuitebitches]

book review: Stolen focus by Johann Hari

Major learnings from this book. It basically talks about focus, why and how we’re losing it. Why can’t we pay attention anymore? Are we individuals to blame or our systems? 

There will be a time when the upper class will be extremely aware of the risks to their attention (caused by tech, social media, our current generation) and the masses, with fewer resources to resist the temptation of technology, will be manipulated more and more by their computers. 

Multitasking is a myth. What actually happens when we multitask is that we “juggle” between tasks. This results in incomplete tasks, higher error rates, less focus, less creativity and memory decreases. 

Sleep is extremely important, especially sleeping according to nature - when the sun sets and sun rises. If the whole world slept the way we are naturally programmed, we would have an economic earthquake. Our economic systems run on sleep deprived people. 

Reading online and reading print has a huge difference. Reading online creates tendencies of skimming and scanning text. This prevents our brain from focusing intently on one story at a time, which print allows you to do. You also remember and understand things from printed texts better. 

Empathy. Certain research suggests that reading fiction and novels improves empathy, because you are immersing yourself in another character’s life for a while. Empathy has played a huge role in human advancements. If a group of white people did not realise that colonisation was wrong, if men did not realise that women deserve equal rights, we would not have independent nations nor be close to gender equality today. 

There are multiple types of paying attention. Focused attention is one thing. But day dreaming and letting your mind wander with no distraction (that is, being alone with your thoughts) is equally important. Some of the most important breakthroughs in human history were because the inventors were not actively focusing on solving the problem. 

Being on social media = giving a free pass to be manipulated. No thoughts, opinions, desires that you have are original. They have all been fed into you by social media and the online world. It is by their design that we cannot focus. 

Leaked internal records of Facebook show that they are aware that their algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness. 64% of people, for instance, who join extremist groups join because FB’s algorithm directly recommends too. “Our recommendation systems grow the problem.” Zuckerberg eventually terminated the unit that was studying this. 

Diet and attention. The diet we consumed today is a diet that causes regular energy spikes and energy crashes. Our food does not have the nutrients we need for our brains to function well. Our current diets actively contain chemicals that seem to act on our brains almost like drugs.  

Be careful about reading research, especially when it’s funded by the industry itself. For 40 years, the lead industry funded all the scientific research into whether it was safe, and assured the world that it was. Lead later turned out to severely stunt your ability to focus and pay attention and that you are more likely to get ADHD. 

We define success broadly as economic growth. Economies should get bigger, companies should get bigger. Growth can happen in two ways - either the companies find new markets or they persuade the existing consumers to consume more. If you can get people to eat more or to sleep less, you’ve found the source of economic growth. It results in people working overtime, not having enough time with family, friends and themselves, stress and anxiety prone, lack of sleep and bad health, etc. 

Conclusion: use precommitment to stop switching tasks, try to focus more on intrinsic motivation than extrinsic, go off social media periodically (say 1 month at a time) and then extend those breaks; everyday spend 1 hour in walking in silence (no music, conversations or people- and if this is in nature, even better) to connect with yourself, 8 hours of sleep every night, build on slow practices like yoga, cut out processed food, take your PTO!!

[that-hippie-user]

Without hypnosis, how would you encourage someone to become a diaper-addicted bedwetter? What’s the best argument you could make to win them over?

i'd like to answer this in the form of a ramble. no hypnosis, no traps, no triggers. literally just a lesson from me to you. click below if you're curious.

some folks describe the world we're in as one that tries to fit you into a mold, to shape you a desired way.

but a mold is a very simple process, pour liquid substance into a vessel with the desired shape, let it solidify, and its done. taking an otherwise shapeless thing and giving it shape in a very easy way.

life is not a mold, but an extruder.

a length of meterial is sent down a tube, which itself gradually shifts from the original shape, to the desired one.

the process is gradual, the material shapes itself almost as if it were meant to, but it's being guided to that shape by the tunnel its in.

you werent given a role from the start and made to fit it, you were gradually acclimated to that role until it became normal.

its the small things. being corrected on how you sit, or how loud your voice is, or telling you to stop tapping your feet, or saying particular interests dont fit your role.

i used to naturally cross my legs, i had an interest in pink, i loved made for dvd cartoons like strawberry shortcake or tinker bell. turned out i was transgender, and the role of "boy" was one i was shaped to be through peer pressure.

now, what does this have to do with diapees?

put simply, you NEVER had a say in potty training.

kids often have no say in a lot of things, its taken for granted that a kid needs guidance if they're gonna be safe in this world. but potty training is a universal lesson.

how did YOU react at the time? to being told you have to "graduate" from diapers. were you agreeable? upset? did you try to rebel? it doesnt matter, all roads lead to you being potty trained.

its so deeply ingrained in our society its practically a core foundation. think about this for a moment, KINDNESS is not mandatory. sure, as a kid you're taught to share and care, but how many people do you know who carried that into adulthood? in fact, in a capitalist sense, kindness is a weakness to the goal of profit.

so, we live in a world where you CANNOT under ANY circumstance choose to be diapered, unless you "need" to, like, if there is no alternative. and yet you can live life as the biggest jerk in history and you're not even guaranteed a reprimand for it.

and yet... everyone ALSO agrees that being a kid is the best thing in the world, and you should enjoy it while you can because it wont last, you cant go back to that.

and that much IS true... but you CAN go back in some ways.

oh sure, you WILL grow up. lessons get learned, fears develop, motor function improves, your body gets taller and stronger, and your brain naturally develops as it goes, that much is ALL true...

but... you CAN still wear diapers... in fact, it almost seems like you're gently encouraged to? cuz like... every store with a pharmacy has a nearby section for adult diapers, they got ENTIRE ISLES of diapers. in every size you'd need.

because as much as society tries to tell us diapers are meant to be left behind, we cant deny that sometimes they are necessary, stores NEED these if they can have them.

and if thats the case... if systems are in place for people to wear diapers... what exactly is wrong with using them?

and furthermore, its probably the ONE holdover from childhood you can always go back to.

no matter how big you get, you cant change one universal fact. diapers exist, they have an intended function, and you CAN use them, if you are brave.

and if you do? you're being a TRUE rebel, moreso than most really. you're doing the ONE thing adults must NEVER do, the thing that potty training was MADE for.

if you wear and use diapees, you are choosing to reject an instinct of adulthood in favor of your own personal rebellious joy, and that is BADASS.

and why shouldnt you? if gender is a social construct, then so is growing up. you CAN redefine what it means to you. you can decide for yourself what it means.

and if you do... you ALSO have the option... to take it FURTHER.

because you know... training like that can be UNDONE too.

not fully, mind, your body now has the ability to know when it needs to go, that much stays.

buuuuut. your ability to hold it CAN be undone.

;3 and thats not even hypnosis, all you have to do is use your diapees! X3 im not joking, peeing yourself outside of a bathroom scenario gives your body and brain permission to do it elsewhere.

UwU and with time... it gets harder to hold it. ;3 how long does it take?

3 WEEKS

3 weeks of continued diaper use is all it takes to lose control.

but why? why lose control? what point is there is making you wet yourself? (or mess if thats your thing. X3 its certainly mine!)

because if using diapers is rebellion, then unpotty training is FREEDOM

its the ultimate middle finger to the training you were given, a sound rejection of the thing you were taught is most important.

and once you reject that... the skies the limit!

do you have any idea how much CONFIDENCE it takes to willingly make yourself a puddlepants?

if you're willing to do that, no force on this earth can stop you. gender? redefine it as you please. fashion? you wear diapers for underwear, wear whatever you want. hobbies? passions? do what you like! ;3 not like bathroom breaks can stop you anymore.

so go nuts! have fun! live life on YOUR terms.

diapers are fun, diapers are soothing, diapers are freeing, and diapers are YOURS to wear.

be free, be a mushtush!

[lesservillain]

alpha!steve harrington x omega!reader

cw: omegaverse dynamics, knotting, bonding/marking, breeding kink, unprotected piv, semi public, mutual pining

wc:~5.7k

Music plays at a low hum from the small radio at your desk. The only station that comes in clear has been taken over by Christmas music since Thanksgiving break. Not even Wham!’’s Last Christmas was giving the same sense of relief after hearing it every day for almost a month now. 

Despite the winter wonderland outside, you still seek out the coolness of your water bottle against your skin, the chill helping to ease the flush that’s been making you sweat like it was mid July in Texas. You’d even cracked the window behind your desk in hopes that the fallen snow would help with your elevated body temperature. But you knew that all of your efforts were for nothing. That no matter how cold you made it, there was really only one thing that would actually be able to ease the discomfort that you felt spreading under your skin; the burden of being an omega in this world. 

Ever since you split with your ex this past spring you’ve been having to deal with your heats on your own. It's not impossible for an omega to go through heats without an alpha to ease the pain, but when you go cold turkey after years of having someone there to satisfy the overwhelming biological need to mate, it can take a huge toll on any omega. 

Science has made leaps and bounds over the last 20 years to improve suppressants for both alphas and omegas. They’re not perfect by any means, but they’re better than dealing with the intense urges that you feel when that time of the month comes. 

The current suppressants you're taking are…experimental. Mixed with a birth control that’s supposed to be able to stop even the swimmers of an alpha in rut from reaching an egg of an omega they’ve marked. They were suggested by your doctor as a preventative, since omegas after losing their long alpha tend to subconsciously scent to seek out a replacement. 

And they worked really well the first few months, not having a heat for nearly half a year. But the added stress of moving to a new town on your own and starting a new job where you were constantly playing catch up after inheriting a mess from the school’s previous nurse, your heat came back full swing within the first month of the school year. The dizziness, increased appetite, a dull ache in your lower back, and hot flashes put you out for three days before you could get a suppressant strong enough to make you functional again. 

Now you’re having your winter heat, which, so far, has been much tamer by comparison thanks to the increased dose of your medication. But the combination of your heat with the influx of students seeing you due to peak flu and strep season, your body has been practically screaming at you by the end of each day this week to go home and relax. 

The sudden overzealous opening of your office door takes your attention off your sweltering body. The all too familiar voice of Mr. Harrington calls out “Helloooo, nurse!” as he occupies the space in the doorway. 

Steve Harrington was one of the school’s sophomore history teachers, as well as the football and basketball coach and the leader of the Student Achievement program. All of the staff, and probably some of the students, swoon over him at any given moment, his presence never missed due to the air that surrounds him. Unfortunately you’re not immune to his charms either. In fact, the natural attraction between the two of you was palpable at times, regardless of how much you try to ignore it. 

Steve could feel it, too. And maybe it was the way his alpha brain was wired, but his flirty personality is jacked up to 10 whenever you’re around. It’s not on purpose, at least not in a conscious way. His amazing hair, the way his clothes hugged his toned body, and his almost unnaturally handsome face made him the poster child for the perfect alpha partner. 

Well, perfect except for the fact that he’s the clumsiest man you’ve ever met in your life, leaving your office at least once a week with a Strawberry Shortcake bandaid after giving himself a paper cut or an ice pack on his head when a ball hits him in the face. 

Despite his accident-prone nature, Steve is a highly desired, single alpha in his prime. And with you being the only unclaimed adult omega in the building, it’s put a huge target on your back for your jealous coworkers who think they have a shot with him. To remedy this, you’ve maintained a firm level of professionalism and platonic friendliness at all times with him, despite his flirty personality testing your willpower.

His intoxicating scent invades your senses sending  a wave of warmth to wash over you before you can even give him a quick glance. You pull at the collar of your blouse willing the air to cool down your shirt. “You feeling okay there, nurse? You look a little flushed. Or are you just that happy to see me?”

“Mr.Harrington,” you say flatly, following with teasing sarcasm as you continue looking over your paperwork, “I was starting to worry you weren’t going to see me this week. Thought you’d finally broken your streak of bad luck.” He lets out an airy chuckle that makes the sides of your lips threaten to curl.

“Oh, honey, you know I can’t stay away from you.” He means it. He would fake appendicitis if it gave him a greater chance to be doted on by you. To get closer to you. “I would have been in here sooner if I hadn’t been glued to my desk all week getting grades in before break,” he says, voicing his grievances that were the result of his own negligence. 

“I see,” you hum, continuing with the sarcastic tone. “I guess I won’t have to replenish my box of bandaids just yet.”

“Weelll,” he draws out, “All that sitting time must have built up my bad luck, because, uh, I think this one may need more than just a bandaid.”

When you finally lift your eyes from your desk, they almost bulge out of their sockets at the sight of him. Where you initially thought his arms were just crossed, you see his right hand is actually covering his left bicep, blood staining down the sleeve of his light and navy blue striped dress shirt. The lack of urgency in his tone had you thinking nothing was wrong, but of course Steve Harrington would find the time to flirt with you while he’s bleeding. 

Tossing your water bottle on the desk and jumping up from your seat, you practically fly across the room to assess the damage, pulling his hand away to find a tear in the sleeve and blood spread messily on his skin underneath.

“Oh my goodness, what happened?” You ask with concern, pulling him into the office by the hand and leading him to a cot, shutting the door behind you. 

“Mrs.Harmon asked if I could stay and help set up stuff around the auditorium for the choir performance tonight,” he explained as you pulled at the material of his sleeve, trying and failing and get a better look at the wound, “and I accidentally knocked a shelf off the wall while trying to get the decorations out. I moved fast enough that it didn’t crush me, but it did knick me a little.”

“A little! Mr.Harrington—” you start with a stern tone, preparing your normal lecture to him about being safe. 

“Steve,” he corrects with a smug grin, insisting that you call him by his first name since you’ve met. 

“Mr.Harrington,” you repeat like a warning, trying to remain professional when he’s so close to you. It’s hard when he’s staring at your face with those big hazel eyes as he watches your face scrunch in frustration while you fiddle with his shirt. A shirt that’s straining to stay together around his large bicep, leaving no give for you to get a better look at his wound. 

Losing your will to argue with him, your hands rest to your hips with a sigh. “Can you, just, slip your arm out of the sleeve, please?”

“Of course,” he says with faux seriousness as you can see his all too satisfied smile, rolling your eyes at him.

Turning on your heel, you walk a few feet to grab the things from the supply cabinet to treat his wound. Your back is turned to him as you fill your arms with gauze, tape, cotton balls, and anything else you may need for a cut that large.

 “You know, you’re probably the clumsiest alpha I’ve ever met,” you tease as you turn to face him again, “Sometimes I think you get hurt on purpose just to see m—“

The rest of your remark dies on your tongue as your mouth goes dry. Taking liberties with your request, you watch Mr.Harrington completely remove his shirt, dropping it on the cot behind him and facing you once more. The white under tank he’s wearing leaves little to the imagination as it hugs his broad chest tightly, thinning the material and making it almost see through. His skin still has the last lingering tint of the tan he was sporting on the first day of school, and different sized freckles and moles decorate his body like constellations in the sky. You’ve never seen so much of him all at once, head feeling fuzzy as you drink him in. 

“I think you might be drooling a bit there, Ms. Nurse,” he says pointing to the corner of his own mouth to further his teasing. But you can barely hear him, the words muffled as your ears start to ring and your vision tilts as if you’d been drinking. The boil you’d been dealing with all day felt like a slight shimmer as your fever suddenly spikes, your body on fire as the scent coming from his newly exposed skin has you reeling.

The supplies you’re holding dropped to the floor, freeing your hands to grasp at the counter behind you. Steve rushes to your side, wrapping an arm around you and easing you to the ground. He barely makes it without dropping to his knees himself, the smell of your pheromones hitting him like a brick. 

“H-hey, what do you need,” you hear him ask, but you can hardly register the words as his scent in close proximity only spurs your heat on more. Even with your clothes covering your skin, the touch of his hand on your waist and the one he’s rested on your knee make you crave more of him in a carnal way, the urgent need to close the gap between the two of you has your body shifting until you’re on your knees and crawling towards him. 

His hands hover in the air, slightly trembling as you lean into him. He falls back on his ass as you get closer until you’re practically laying on him, rubbing against him with your face like a cat. “I need you, Steve,” you purr. He takes a sharp breath in through gritted teeth as your hand drifts lower, lower, until your fingers land on the very prominent bulge straining against his deep blue slacks. “Shit,” his head snaps back at the contact, before dropping back down to look at you with hungry eyes.

“What happened to keeping it professional?” He tries to joke, unsure if this is all just a test from the universe to see how he would react to having his nightly fantasies come true. And while Steve may be resilient in many ways, he wasn’t sure if he could hold back with the way you’re looking up at him through your lashes as if he’d hung the moon and the stars. The scent of his musk permeates the room as he gives into your needs, his desires, letting the primal urges he’s been pushing down since the day he met you front in his mind. 

If you were in a different state of mind you probably would have laughed at his comment. But the intense ache that bloomed between your legs as all your senses start to leave your body has you whimpering against his chest. 

Strong arms scoop you up swiftly, tossing you down on the cot and pulling the privacy curtain behind him. In the split second he was away from you, you managed to grab his discarded shirt and pull it to your nose, inhaling his lingering scent. It was like a drug that you couldn’t get enough of, your thighs rubbing together and hips moving against air as your body seeks out any kind of relief for the ache. 

Suddenly, the shirt is torn from your grasp roughly. You cry out, hands reaching out aimlessly before they’re being grasped tightly around the wrists and pinned to the bed. The cot dips as a weight wedges its way between your legs, pressing against your core in a way that has you instantly bucking against it with reckless abandon, your clouded mind only thinking about satisfying the throb in your core. 

“God, look at the mess you’re making on my thigh already,” Steve says with a low growl, watching you use him in a pathetic attempt to relieve yourself. The grit in his voice hits every nerve in your body on its way from your ear drums to your cunt. 

“You smell so fucking sweet,” he groans as he brings your wrist to his nose and inhales, “Like vanilla or honey, o-or something better,” he stammers. He leans over you, hot tongue licking a thick stripe from your collar bone to behind your ear, lightly biting the lobe and pulling, goosebumps rising on your skin. His hair is just as soft as you imagined it would be as it tickles your cheek, a sharp contrast to the way his teeth bite at your neck, his tongue soothing over the skin. 

You press your cheek into him, whining his name right into his ear, practically begging him to put you out of your misery. He releases one of your hands to grab your face, lips pursing together, making you look him in the eyes. His pupils fully blown out and close enough that you can see your own fucked out reflection in them.

“Listen to me,” he says, swallowing, eyes flickering between your eyes and your lips. “I’ve been wanting to do this for five fucking months. Five long months of fucking my fist to the thought of getting you under me just like this, making you a mess and having you beg for me.” He takes a deep breath through his nose, nostrils flaring as the last bit of his resolve begins to waver. “So if we do this, you’re mine from now on, got it? No more of this back and forth, pretending you don’t want me as much as I want you bullshit. Once I start…I’m not going to be able to stop. Do you understand?”

There’s no hesitation with how quickly you try to nod your head against his grip. The heat coming off of your cheeks warms the tips of his fingers. “Nuh-uh,” he tuts, giving you a little shake, “Need to hear it. Tell me you want this.” 

“Want you, Steve. Need you. Need your cock, please, please please.”

 He curses under his breath before his lips crash into yours. The kiss is hot and heavy right off the bat as teeth clash and tongues dance together in desperation. Your free hand finds its way into his perfect hair, pulling slightly at the nape, eliciting a moan from him that you catch as it leaves his lips.

Steve pulls away from you with a wild look in his eyes. Both of his strong hands release their hold on you so that he could rip open the front of your blouse, sending buttons flying and hitting the floor with a clatter. His mouth is back on you, nipping and biting the skin while his hands pull your tits free from the cups of your bra. 

Mouth moving at lightning speed, he hungrily takes one of your nipples in his mouth, sucking and tonguing the bud while needing at your other breast with his hand. His eyes are glassy when they look up at you, half lidded and unfocused, drool dribbles down your breast from his mouth. 

Everything next happens so quickly you can barely register it. Steve pulls away from you completely, standing up fully to rip your pants down your legs. Once he throws them to the floor, he’s making quick movements to undo his own pants, his right thigh drenched from the slick that had soaked through while grinding against him. 

His cock is so hard that the pressure against the crotch of his pants has the zipper undoing itself once he frees the button. Wasting no time, he shucks down his slacks and boxers in one go, his large cock and heavy balls now on full display for you, the sight making your eyes widen in surprise—and maybe fear?

Alphas are known to be bigger than even a well endowed beta, and omegas are built to handle the size of an alpha’s better than a beta can, but the size of the Steve’s cock less than a foot from your face has you mesmerized at the sheer size of it. But while your mind may be in shock, your pussy has a mind of its own, slick dripping in anticipation for the stretch you’d be receiving. Even in his large hands it looked massive, bigger than any alpha you’d been with before. 

You sit up in the bed slightly, reaching out to take him in your hand, your fingers barely able to wrap around him as you stroke the angry red tip. He curses under his breath as you let your hand roll over the tip, feeling the veins against the skin of your palm with each stroke.

 A little bead of precum bubbles at the tip and something in your mind snaps. Your mouth is on him in an instant, any sense you may have had left is completely gone out the window when that salty taste hits your tongue. 

“Fuck, look at you,” he cooes, followed by a guttural moan at the sight of you trying to take as much of him in your mouth as you can. “Such a good girl. Trying your best to take me in that pretty little mouth of yours, huh?” His words egg you as you continue to suckle at his tip, lapping up any of his spend that leaks out as you keep pumping at his shaft.

You want to keep going, want to be good for him, but ache between your legs is becoming unbearable the longer you go on. Slick is slipping down your thighs, a puddling forming under you on the sheets as your body involuntarily preps itself to take Steve’s massive cock. You look up at him with teary eyes, lifting your ass in the air as a silent plea for him to take you like the bitch in heat that you are. 

And as much as he’s loving watching you pitifully mouth his cock, seeing you present yourself for him turns off the evolved parts of his brain, leaving him to run on primal instincts only. 

Grabbing you by the throat, he manhandles you onto your back and positions you so your ass on the edge of the cot. Your legs fall to the sides, opening as wide as you can get them, pussy on full display and ready to be taken. 

“Hoooooo, fuck,” Steve shudders, licking his lips at the sight of your dripping cunt, hole clenching around nothing, begging for him to fill it up. He runs his fingers through your folds to collect some of your arousal, barely brushing over your throbbing clit. He brings his fingers to his mouth, shoulders slumping in satisfaction.

“Damnit, of course you taste sweet, too. Can’t wait til I can get you in my mouth,” he says with a slight slur. 

You panic for a moment, unsure if you could wait any longer for him to finally be inside you. As if he can read you like a book, he lets out a soft chuckle, taking his cock in his hand and pumping it slowly. “Don’t you worry, baby girl, I’m not gonna keep you waiting any more. Next time, though…”

The sticky tip of his cock taps your clit, sending shock waves throughout your body with every touch. It’s too much and not enough all at once. His name falls from your lips, and he shushes you in return, lining himself up with your entrance.

The breach of his tip stretching you wide is like a shot of morphine in an IV drip, your body becoming numb and a live wire at the same time, replacing the pain with a fuzzy haze all over. 

Steve watches the way your face contorts with pleasure as hips rock back and forth slowly. His teeth bite down on his bottom lip, trying his hardest to hold back so you can get used to his size, but the vice grip you have on his cock has him quickly losing his resolve. Body falling over you, he brackets your head between his forearms as he finally folds. His breath fanning over your face has your eyes fluttering open. Met with the most divine visual of Steve’s pinched brow, scrunched up nose, and slack jaw fill your vision entirely. Your breath is punched from your lungs as he makes that final thrust, bottoming out inside of you with a shuddered whimper. 

“Oh, my god,” you breathe, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in closer. He buries his head in the crook of your neck, rubbing his face against your skin, marking you with his scent. He begins to move, setting a pace that makes every thrust feel like heaven, the tightness of your walls amplifying every ridge and bump of his cock as it drags back and forth. “Fuck, Steve, you’re so big,” you whine, “Never felt so full be-fore!” The last syllable comes out as a gasp as he thrusts into you hard, spurred on by your words. 

His arms wrap around you tightly, laying all of his upper body weight against you to pin you in place so he can fuck into mercilessly. The feeling is mind melting, nonsense words mixed with repeating his name over and over fall from your mouth with each punch of his cock against your cervix. Each thrust hits that spot inside of you dead on, throttling you towards the edge quicker than your mind can handle in your current fucked out state. 

“Fuuuuck,” Steve’s voice is strained next to your ear, thrusts slowing as you “Don’t squeeze so tight, baby, I don’t wanna cum yet.” 

His words have the opposite effect on you as your whole body trembles beneath him, cumming so hard his cock your vision goes white. Your chest presses into his as your back arches off the mattress, the skin to skin friction against your hardened nipples stimulating you more as he fucks you through your high.

He lifts his head to watch you come undone with a wide eyed, feral look. He’s panting, too, with a string of saliva from his tongue to the skin of your shoulder where he had latched on, the skin red and already speckling with broken blood vessels. 

 “You’re so pretty when you cum on my cock like that,” he says with heavy breaths, “Wanna see you do it again, and again, and again,” he babbles, leaning in to trail kisses along your jaw, continuing to thrust into you harder and harder, in his own world now. You can only cling to him as he ruts into you, nails scratching down his back. “Gonna fuck you over and over and over until it takes. Big, round belly on full display for everyone to see. You gonna tell everyone Mr.Harrington got you pregnant when you can’t hide it anymore? What will all the other teachers think?” 

“Fuck, Steve, please.” 

“What is it, baby? Tell me what you want.”

“Want it, Steve. Want your knot.”

“Oh, is that right?”

Suddenly, he pulls away and out of you completely. It’s such a shock to the system you can help but cry out at the loss of him. But the vacancy doesn’t last long, his strong arms lifting and flipping you with ease until you’re face down into the mattress, ass being propped up on shaky legs so he can bottom out in you once more. 

This new angle changed everything. A wanton moan feels like it was being pushed out of you as it felt like his cock was in your lungs. One hand grabs a hold of your hip while the other pushes down on the back of your neck, effectively pinning you down so he can pick back up his brutal pace. There was no rhythm to his thrusts, driven purely on animalistic instincts as he chases his own pleasure, using you as a means to get him there.

“You want my knot, huh?” The question is rhetorical, said in the heat of the moment as he feels his peak nearing. “Want me to give you my knot and really knock you up? I’ll ruin you for any other alphas that think they have a chance. Cause you’re mine now, aren’t you, sweet girl? No other alpha’s gonnna fuck you like I can, right?” 

“No-no, Steve! Don’t want anyone else! Only want your knot! Please, please!” Your eyes lull as he fucks you stupid, mouth parted open as you drool onto the sheets. 

His weight shifts, trailing kisses down your back until he gets to that spot on the back of your neck. A chill runs down your spine as his teeth scrape against the skin over your scent gland. “Well, if that’s the case…Guess you wouldn’t mind if I held you to that, right?” 

The primal part of your brain is screaming for him to do it; mark you and make you his, permanently. The logical side fights for dominance, reminding you that you never wanted to be owned by an alpha, which is why you and your ex broke up in the first place. But the way he was making you feel right now had you second guessing all your morals. He hums over you, lips lingering against your skin as he speaks. 

Before you could answer, his hips were stilling inside you, the base of his cock swelling as he pumped you full with his spend. It would have been painful if it didn’t trigger the release of oxytocin in your body, making you cum with him. Your legs start to give out, but his hold on you tightens as his spend continues to spill into you., the  His body shakes above you, chest heaving as tries to catch his breath.

The two of you take a moment to come down from your highs. The air around you feels electric as the two of you become one, his knot settling within your walls snuggly, the steady stream of Steve’s cum filling you to the brim until you couldn’t possibly take anymore. He rests his head over your scent gland, rubbing his face against it out of comfort while you still emit that sweet, sweet smell. 

Everything feels right in the moment, until it’s interrupted by a knock and an intruding aroma. To you, it smells like smokey wood and cinnamon, but to Steve, it’s a threat. The smell of another alpha trying to get near his omega and claim her over him. You can feel his body tense up, breathing picking up in a panic, lips pressing against the skin as his mind races.

“Steve?” You say his name meekly. There’s a short pause between you, a split second before you feel it, his teeth clamping down on your skin. It’s like every nerve in your body lights up all at once. The sensation is powerful it makes you cum again, clamping down on Steve’s still hard cock buried inside of you. The moan he lets out against you is pornographic, teeth still clinging to your skin tightly as his saliva mixes with your body’s natural scent.

“Hey, everything okay in there?” The muffled voice calls from the other side of the door.

“Get the fuck out of here, Eddie!” Steve yells out to the janitor, another alpha that you’d seen in passing, pinching your skin as he does his best to keep his teeth on you. It’s quiet for a moment, and you think that Eddie left until you hear a loud, booming laugh, and a faint “About damn time!” as the new smell starts to dissipate. 

Steven feels your body jolt slightly beneath him and refocuses his attention on you. You do it again with an audible snort. At first he thinks you might be crying, guilt creeping in as he’s realized what he’s done to you. But as you get louder, it’s clear that you are actually laughing. 

“Was tho funneh?” He asks, drooling down onto your back.

“I don’t know,” you say through fits of giggles. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Thounds like et,” he says, laughing along with you.

“Sorry, I just…wasn’t expecting any of this.” Your body shifts under him, growing uncomfortable in the position you were in. Steve senses this, releasing your skin and licking your wounds so that, with careful maneuvering, he’s able to get both of you comfortably on your sides. He wraps his arms and legs around you, holding you close to his strong chest, eyeing his handiwork of his mark as you rest your head on his arm.

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for,” he says softly, kissing the back of your head. “If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. I took things too far…But if I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t regret it.”

It could be the residual high from your heat, or the change in your brain chemistry from his mark, or just the fact that you’ve been pushing down how much you really wanted this with him from the moment your hands touched when you both went for the same bagel at the first staff meeting over the summer, but you couldn’t deny that you didn’t regret it either. 

For so long you’ve been in denial, trying to ignore that he was the reason your suppressants stopped working because you wanted him so badly that your body was rejecting them when he was around. Denying how happy you get when he brings you coffee in the morning, or how much you look forward to when he sits with you during his lunch period to talk about whatever shenanigans his multitude of friends get into, or how the whole reason you started this heat was because he let you sit in the passenger seat of his BMW while he jumped your car after work on Tuesday, the inside smelling so overwhelmingly like him that you had to jump out and rush straight to your car before you ended up jumping him in the middle of the parking lot. 

“Steve?” You request his attention just above a whisper, breaking the silence between you. He hums quizzically, resting his cheek against yours. “Did you really need to grade papers this week, or have you been avoiding me this week because you knew I was going through a heat?”

His cheek vibrates against yours as he chuckles from his throat. “You’re so smart, you know that, right?” He kisses your cheek before settling back with his head on the pillow, forehead resting against the back of your head. 

As the two of you lay there you ask him a million questions, picking his brain to its fullest extent with this new closeness the two of you share. Really, you just like the sound of his voice, but he does say a few things here and there that make you belly laugh.

“Don’t do that,” he laughs along with you, “We’re never going to come undone if you keep squeezing me like that!”

“I can’t help it,” you wipe a tear from your eye, trying your hardest to suppress your giggles. 

Thirty minutes pass and Steve’s knot finally goes down enough that he can pull out of you. It feels like a part of you is missing now that he’s no longer occupying you after so long. Hot, sticky cum pours from you like a storm drain onto the sheet below. With a sigh, you make a mental note to add new sheets on your list of things to replace, right under a new box of bandaids.

Oh, shit. Steve’s arm.

As he starts to gather the discarded clothes on the floor, you see that that blood has dried up and mostly rubbed off after everything. After the two of you redress, you wearing Steve’s button up after he made your blouse no longer wearable, not that you were complaining as the need to nest was starting to kick in, you cared for his wound. Just a cut left behind that would be okay with a little disinfecting and a few steristrips. 

“You forgot the most important part,” he says with a shake of his head as you place the last strip on his arm. You tilt your head at him in confusion, a smile forming on his face as he looks at you with a sparkle in his eyes. “Aren’t you gonna kiss it better?”

[roxannepolice]

I'm going to get on some big questions in regards to small matters here, but wtv, I've been having the problem with the audience looking at the most superficial level of characters and proclaiming them out of character (OR perfectly in character) too long.

First of all, however, a couple disclaimers: one, this is going to get salty, but two, I'm as always happy to discuss especially the salty parts, and three, I do not want to come of as seeing RTD's writing as absolutely flawless, because it absolutely isn't, but I do think it is generally functional. Like, if instead of stories he was doing chairs, then the ones he produces are sometimes not good looking or uncomfortable, but an adult human can generally sit in them without risking major injury (Moffat is the artistic type that will sometimes give you a chair that's both perfectly functional and aesthetically beautiful, but sometimes will give you a perilous glass construction that will break under an overfed hamster; Chibnall also produces generally usable chairs but decides the optimal place for this furniture is the ceiling). So with that, let me address some of the criticisms of the Rani characterisation, especially the "this might have been the Master" bit.

Because see, to me the big attraction of Doctor-Master relationship has never been "oh they were friends but they aren't any longer" or "the Master is just sad that the Doctor abandoned them" or any of that sentimental bs, only.

The Dialectics of Enlightenment.

The fact that the same scientific and industrial revolutions that allowed to curb most of diseases known to history has also created its worst poisons. That the same atomic power that can ensure cleaner and more available electricity in everyday life can also bring about the end of the whole of humanity in moments. That every armchair philosopher's perfectly logical plan at improving all of humanity has resulted in death, destruction and long-term problems with political legal and civic culture but hey at least satire flourished.

Knowledge is power (France is bacon) is usually framed as a purely inspiring quote, and naturally it often is, in fact it more often is than is not. But paralleled with the other big philosophical quote, this time from the great Unclus Benus, With great power comes great responsibility, the flip side comes to light. It is something of a big discussion in contemporary sociology just how much a modern human's condition is based on constant reflexivity, constantly being aware of all the consequences of all our actions. This is in many ways a good thing, but already Fromm was pointing to "escape from freedom" as the underlying cause of totalitarian systems rising to power. This isn't some sort of bitter "we are born to be slaves" reflection, just pointing out that people only two hundred years ago didn't have constant access to information about everything happening all over the world in real time, we didn't have "information for the sake of information". Two hundred years ago. That's a blink of an eye for our ape brains sthsth the tragedy of our times is that we have the brains of cavemen, the institutions of the middle ages and the technology of gods. Like, there's a reason Nietzsche came up with the Ubermensch (which is a concept not explicitly inherently related by him to any group of people but a description of a condition where the individual consciously decides everything about themself recognizing no external definition by either gods or men - he is the estranged godfather of postmodernism) in the industrial era.

It is the modern to be or not to be on a scale of a species. Multiple species, in fact.

So, look, when the Pole raised in a household where the only inexplicably shapeshifting Brit was James Bond, discovered there's been a show that in many tackles these exact problems while studying in a philosophy faculty building, though in the safely fantastical context of time travel, that was what I mainly latched onto. The conflict of "stay neutral" (allowing for all the pain that sentient beings will suffer across all of time and space) or "interfere" (which is. well on the one hand, it's just too fantastical to be communicative, and two sth sth free will and all that jazz).

And that conflict is nowhere better embodied than by the Doctor-Master relationship. Without getting to much into bootstrap and grandfather paradoxes, we just accept that the Doctor's interferences are good. Not changing, just fixing. Not trying to shape the perfect human only relieving the pains of existing ones. It is both a moral statement but also welp the show kind of wouldn't function without it, again, paradoxes upon paradoxes, at least we have subjective vs. objectified timeflow so that's something. The Master is the aggressively active party, the one that doesn't just fix what's broken only aims to control the whole and whats broken may be just as well gotten rid of. Except where does the line between the two go? Oh, we can go into "well, one is an altruist and the other egotist", sure, but a children's hospital build for your ego is still a children's hospital and the bloodiest crimes were committed for the most beautiful ideas. All too often, the only reason we know where the line between limited beneficial interference and maleficient control lies is because someone fucked up before us.

Which is why the Time Lord Victorious arc is so bloody good and having the Doctor use the Master's catchphrase really brings the message home. There's also the matter of "I am in fact the only being in the universe that understands all the consequences of what I'm doing so I'm the only how who can stop me", sthsth religion is society worshipping itself, God is dead basically means society is dead. The fact that this is opposed by an individual choice is perhaps one of the most profound statements made on primetime television.

In the midst of all this, there's the Rani. The Rani who was specifically designed as disinterested scientist, not the two "whats?" described above, but the "how?". Incidentally, I do think it's ironic that out of all the renegade Time Lords' club, hers is the only title that directly implies rulership, but that's for another day. Now, while the mad scientist is a well established trope in modern culture, unethical scientist is a bit newer animal. Just to give you an idea, the first legislation controlling animal testing came about in 1966 in the USA, and the UK didn't have one until 1986. Zimbardo was free to put random blokes in prisoners and guards positions and tell the latter they can and should be mean (no physical violence tho) to the former in 1971. So for all that the Rani was introduced as somewhat less of evil a villain than the Master, it is pretty understandable what fears where expressed there. And of course there's the problem of science-industry-military unholy trinity. Like, I know that Tony Stark's pre-Iron Man persona is meant to be looked down on, but it is true a lot of stuff we take for granted to save our lives and make them comfortable were originally funded by the military. Like, microwaves were initially meant to de-hybernate living organisms until someone noticed you can heat up food with these.

Which to me sort of explains why she wasn't brought back for so long. Nowadays we're generally likelier to suffer from people rejecting scientific research than from someone not meeting their institution's ethics board requriements and research is likelier to suffer from funds getting cut than from actually seeking the ultimate wunderwaffe. For all that the Rani was introduced as more of a neutral-neutral character, she certainly isn't the wide-eyed individual who just wants to research to appreciate (ah, shame on you, original DW producers, for not understanding the innate power imbalance between the observer and the observed). That's the Doctor. They're the one whose drive is to experience amazement for its own sake, to the point of picking up other species to experience it again. So, how do you go about writing this kind of villain in the 21st century?

Well, you can have her work with a conspiracy theorist "visionary" and have him build up the wish world, but it's just the resource to tear apart reality. Like, yes, this technology that in sci-fi catastrophical scenarios is supposed to find humans expendable and be too efficient in doing so but in reality is likelier to leave a lot of people jobless, BUT it can also genuinely improve everyone's wellfare, is now mainly used to waste whole lakes for the sake of generating the image of a woman preparing dumplings while her husband holds a beaver, but hey, that's where resources to improve it so it can actually answer the big questions come from. The Wish World actually gave the Rani an "altruistic" purpose - she isn't here to destroy, she is here to bring life sth sth our myth telling ancestors not really understanding where babies come from deifing the life giving powers of one body shape and the Rani being viscerally disgusted by human birth process.

The issue of "why would the Rani want to bring the Time Lords back?" is kind of one that goes back to the whole issue of "do we want to have other Time Lords in the story or not?". The former undeniably has insane amount of drama to it, but it also has a fundamental problem - all of its potential has kind of been already explored to the full, because well. It's deeply unrelatable. Oh, it can resonate, it can be a vessel for audience's individual losses, but the very idea of believing your pain to be the most unique ever is itself something to discuss with a therapist. We went through trauma recovery process with Nine and we went through arrival at ubermenschism with Ten. Fifteen perhaps adds a more raw (and metatextually real) pain, but it's nothing qualitatively new. And that's the problem with saying that either the Master wanting to rebuild the Time Lord empire or the Rani want to bring them backm or the Doctor sobbing over the Master is "ooc" is kind of null, because we straight up can't imagine what any one of us would do if our entire species was gone. That's the main reason I think re-destroying Gallifrey was a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. On top of the fact that we've had individual geniuses inventing time travel, but a whole society built around that technology is infinitely harder to come by and poses much more intriguing questions. So, yeah, maybe it is just a plot device. Or maybe Omega really does have some absolutely unique knowledge that the Rani wants to write an article about. Or she actually needs his signature on her grant application, who knows.

So, those are the big motivational questions that I went definitely too far about, so now I'll just refer to the two smaller qualms.

One, the Rani just suddenly has unexplained magic powers. Look, the idea that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic isn't exactly new to fiction or DW in particular, so the scientist extraordinaire shouldn't have problems understanding some grimoires. She picked up the Desiderium and conducted the pilot experiment by wishing Zufalls into flowers and animals. Maybe it could have been laid out more explicitly, but it is pretty clear in retrospect.

And finally, "why is she suddenly obsessed with the Doctor, her things should be pure science, this could have been a Master story!". One, she fucking isn't obsessed with the Doctor. He's just another resource. And I'm going to be extremely salty now, and ask: when was the last time the Master actually tried to do their thing and conquer something? Oh, but their thing actually is being obsessed with the Doctor, bullfuckingshit. Do you have any idea how many people thought Missy was the Rani? And yes, there's the gender bias, but in all honesty, would much about season 9 change if she didn't flirt with Twelve and the cybermen army was meant to dig up the original Higgs particle and the Doctor's dilemma was about whether that's worth corpse mutilation? Face it, the reason some of y'all think the Rani is to much like the Master is because the latter got reduced to the aesthetics. And monogamous insecurity it seems.

Particularly sorry about that last part getting salty, but frankly, I've been dealing with Saxon being "out of character" when he was the last regeneration to actually do the Master's stuff but incidentals were wrong that I can tell the same problem when I see it.

We're just experiencing the same thing that everyone did when that Troughton guy started being out of character for the Doctor, y'know.

[sk-lumen]

How to declutter for a fresh New Year 🫧

The very first time I got into the spirit of minimalism and decluttering physically, mentally and emotionally, it was challenging as I still had a lot of resistance and attachment to things.

I started this during winter many years back, and it's becoming easier and easier. Not just as a great practice before the new year, but also as a habit throughout the year or whenever I feel like it.

When I started seeing how the mental load, the brain fog and distraction and worry... shifted into peace, relief, joy and mental clarity every time I let go of things, I understood why it's important to not be a hoarder. Physically or otherwise. (Of course this has nuance to it and it can be a privilege to be able to do it, but that's for a different topic.)

Here are ways you can start the new year fresh (or just clear the energy any time you need):

Online / social media

delete old files or photos you don't need from your devices or cloud

unfollow accounts on social media that don't inspire/uplift you

delete old messages

archive or delete conversations you no longer want to see

block or delete numbers that are affecting your mental health

Home

throw away things that are broken or falling apart (clothes, items, lingerie, etc)

donate or sell clothes you no longer use or want

sell items you don't use anymore but which are perfectly functional (hair straightener, lamp, etc)

throw away or repurpose gift bags, bags, cards

put away items you still need but are not using in this particular season - ie. put away into storage any winter clothing during summer, it's just cluttering your hangers

reorganize your home, your room, your bathroom, move furniture around or replace decor to give it a fresh exciting new feel and remove any stale energies

Physically

salt bath with essential oils to release any tension or toxins

lemon water, ginger and turmeric shots for cleansing

drink plenty of water or green tea or mint tea for improved digestion

Mentally

dedicate a journal to write down tasks, lists, to vent any negativity, or just thought-dump at the end of the day in order to feel lighter and clear-headed

have a calendar or agenda to note any important things, to lighten the mental load

say things that keep bothering you for days/weeks, do things you've been antsy to get done for days/weeks

Emotionally

journaling is an amazing way to offload emotionally

going to therapy

talking to a friend or family

cultivating healthy boundaries and communicating your needs

Spiritually

do a guided meditation to clear your head

spend time in nature, in the forest, by the sea, away from noise and crowds to clear your energy

you can also use crystals like crystal quartz to cleanse your aura

[wordsnstuff]

Hello! How are you? I have a question:

Should I focus on what I'm good or what I'm bad at in writing? I like to think that I can write poetic stuff rather well, but I can't write dialouges to save my life. So should I just focus on writing the stuff I'm good at and ignore the rest or should I focus on getting better at dialouges and such?

Leaning into strengths vs focusing on improvement...

I'm very well! Thank you for asking.

I think that this is an important conversation to have with yourself as any sort of artist, and I don't believe that it needs to end with a choice between practicing a skill you could improve at or the sticking to what you're good at.

A writer's brain is a muscle, and as you gain experience honing technical proficiency, you become more informed as to what strengths and weaknesses are apparent in your work. The first step is to examine how you approach different parts of the development of a story. Take the time to observe how you personally think through the process of writing dialogue and how that differs from your process writing poetic prose. Harmony between different parts of your writing process will make writing easier and lead to a more consistent style and quality. Your aim is to bring one skill to the level of another, so until you understand why prose comes more naturally to you, it will be challenging to identify why dialogue doesn't.

Perhaps dialogue requires you to exercise imagination in a way that isn't as consistent with the way you process the world around you. For me, dialogue can be challenging because my inner monologue centers observation and my thoughts occur to me in a more abstract way, leading me to be more adept at skills like articulating metaphors. However, this way of thinking makes it challenging to frame my ideas literally, as you must do to imagine a scenario and then predict a chain of events or interactions between elements. Identifying how your imagination functions organically will help you understand where your ideas come from and why certain ways of expressing them come more easily.

I think it's important to incorporate experimentation and practice into the routine of any art medium that you aim to improve at. Designating specific time to stretch the muscles, experiment with a new exercise, and broaden your skillset will always have a positive effect on your work overall, and when you identify a weaker area it's even easier to focus your time and energy to practice that. Alongside any large project, there should be a separate area for practice and play, because regardless of how skilled or passionate one is, there is always room to learn something new and expand one's ability.

I highly recommend installing time in your writing routine for specifically practicing the skill you are least confident in without pressure to contribute that practice to your primary project. Utilize whatever exercises motivate you. Personally, I like the idea of selecting a simple writing prompt and challenging yourself to write a scene entirely composed of dialogue, but you might prefer to set a short timer and try to imagine and record an organic, simple, and believable conversation between two people about something like choosing a paint color for a kitchen.

Always make time to better your craft. It will always deliver results.

Best of luck,

x Kate

-

Masterlist . Ko-Fi . Patreon

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

Published Sept 3, 2024

By Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA

New research reveals that fibrin, a key component of blood clots, may be the secret culprit behind the devastating neurological and inflammatory aftermath of the virus, including long COVID. From dense, stubborn clots to brain fog, the interaction of COVID’s spike protein with fibrin could be the missing link — and a potential target for life-saving therapies.

Coagulopathy, the formation of small blood clots that go on to wreck respiratory and neurologic havoc, has long been a clinical hallmark of COVID, and now it's oft-ignored Long COVID. A new study suggests that fibrin, a key component of blood clots, plays a role.

Fibrin provides structure to a blood clot and is derived from fibrinogen, a soluble blood protein when the coagulation cascade is activated. If you think of a blood clot as nature’s way of plugging a leak, fibrin deposition is frequently found where there is damage to the walls of blood vessels and the vessels making up the blood-brain barrier. Fibrin serves as a plug and a signal for a greater inflammatory and immune response.

Given the unique clinical presentation of clotting in COVID compared to other respiratory viruses, the researchers hypothesized that COVID directly binds to fibrinogen, promoting blood clot formation and altering clot structure and function. They found that the spike protein of the virus binds to fibrinogen and fibrin at specific binding sites, suggesting that the virus might contribute to abnormal clotting by interacting with fibrinogen.

They found that the spike protein altered the structure of clots, making them denser and more resistant to the body’s natural means of removing clots, a process called fibrinolysis. Additionally, the spike protein enhanced the inflammatory signals from fibrin, increasing oxidative forces (reactive oxygen species or ROS) released from macrophages, a first responder of the immune system.

In converting fibrinogen to fibrin, the spike's binding site (epitope) is exposed. Therapeutically, having identified binding regions, the research found that antibodies could disrupt and reduce these pro-inflammatory effects implicated in acute and long COVID. Among the inflammatory effects reduced by blocking the actions of fibrinogen was the deposition of collagen in the lungs, which creates a barrier to oxygen passage and helps to explain the refractory response to supplemental oxygen we have seen in patients.

Fibrin also suppresses natural killer (NK) cells, which are called "natural killers" because they can recognize and kill stressed cells without prior exposure to a particular pathogen, making them critical first responders. The suppression of NK cell activity results in enhancing viral persistence and lung inflammation.

In additional studies in mice, the researchers found that this fibrin-dependent inflammatory response occurs independently of the active virus, suggesting a potential mechanism for persistent symptoms in Long COVID. [1] Therapeutically, in their mouse model, the use of a monoclonal antibody targeting the fibrin epitope, in addition to reducing the lung’s inflammatory response, reduced neuroinflammation (associated with long COVID’s brain fog). There were reductions in fibrin deposition and microglial reactivity “leading to improved neuronal survival and reduced white-matter injury.” Microglia are the primary immune cells of the central nervous system.

To summarize:

Coagulopathy in COVID-19 is a primary driver of thrombo-inflammation and neuropathology rather than a consequence of systemic inflammation. Fibrin plays a causal immunomodulatory role in promoting hyperinflammation, neuropathological alterations, and increased viral load in COVID-19 by modulating NK cells, macrophages, and microglia. Elevated fibrinogen levels and BBB permeability in COVID-19 contribute to neuropathology, and targeting fibrin may offer a dual mechanism of action by inhibiting fibrin-spike interactions and exerting anti-inflammatory effects. A fibrin-targeting antibody effectively blocks many pathological effects of fibrin, providing neuroprotection and reducing thrombo-inflammation. Their findings have limitations, including how they measured changes in brain tissue, the use of mouse models, and the fact that our inflammatory response may have more than one pathway that results in COVID-19’s deleterious effects. For Long COVID, the fibrin-targeted antibody does not interfere with normal clotting, acting solely on fibrin's inflammatory responses, making it a candidate to protect against pulmonary and cognitive impairment; that will, of course, require clinical trials.

And there you have it—the silent saboteur behind the lingering specter of Long COVID. Fibrin is not just a bystander in the aftermath of COVID-19; it's a key player driving the chronic symptoms that continue to baffle patients and clinicians alike. The discovery that the virus’s spike protein meddles with fibrin, transforming it into a resilient, inflammatory force, opens a new frontier in the fight against the pandemic’s long tail. The research, though groundbreaking, is still in its early days, confined to animal models, and the complexities of human biology could introduce new challenges.

But if the science holds, targeting fibrin could offer a two-for-one punch against the clotting and inflammation that underpin much of the damage COVID-19 leaves in its wake. For the millions grappling with the enduring effects of Long COVID, this could be a glimmer of hope—a chance to reclaim their lives.

[1] The inquisitive with a conspiratorial bent might link these inflammatory responses in the absence of infection to deaths felt to be due to the COVID vaccines, which employ the spike as antigenic stimulus. The researchers note that most hematologic changes are triggered by the vaccine vector (an adenovirus) and that “COVID-19 RNA vaccines lead to small amounts of spike protein accumulating locally and within draining lymph nodes where the immune response is initiated, and the protein is eliminated.”

Source: Fibrin drives thrombo-inflammation and neuropathology in COVID-19 Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07873-4 www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07873-4

[just-another-in-the-universe]

Greetings Fellow Travelers!

I think Lady Aphrodite is using my love for writing and helping to send another message to anyone new to deity worship. I was about to make some ramen but then I got another speech in my head so here goes:

I’m sure we’ve all seen the TikTok’s, Instagram and Tumblr posts about how some people say that they can feel the gods, whether it’s when they pray, worship, do devotional acts, or just in life.

And I know that some of you might feel a little jealous, sad, or upset that it hasn’t happened to you.

Well, the truth is, in order to feel that, you have to be intuitive, whether you’re naturally intuitive or you practice it by meditation, deity work, etc.

But

Just because you can’t “feel” the gods, that doesn’t mean they’re not there, or they’re refusing your offerings, praise, or call.

Many times, especially in the beginning, they’ll work in mysterious ways. Super vague, I know but I’ll use Lady Aphrodite as an example.

Before I worked with her, my skin was worse for wear, I had a troubled past with my hair, generally disliked my body, and overall, I didn’t like me.

But the more I worked with her, I noticed subtle changes.

- Hair became shinier and healthier. As well as my love for my hair grew, instead of wanting it to be straight and blown out, I started my curly hair journey and it’s as healthy as it was when I was a little girl, which was 16-17 years ago

- My makeup skills started to improve. The last time I had an improvement was years prior.

- My skin became brighter, and clearer.

And the most important and the most shocking, I began to love myself more, I started to love my body, not just the attractive parts, but appreciating how functional my body was. Feeling blessed for what I had and didn’t have. Feeling beautiful in clothes I used to hate, feeling comfortable in whatever weight or condition I was in. People began to see my aura as brighter and in the best shape I’ve ever been, even when technically nothing had changed.

People around me, start telling me how kind and great I am when I’m feeling down, even if it’s out of character for them.

I met my wonderful boyfriend after 3 dates on Hinge. In the exact way I described him to Her.

And to be honest, I don’t really “feel” her as often as I feel others, but I don’t have to, to know that she’s there, helping me, supporting me, and pushing me to be the best version of myself.

And yes it takes time to build a relationship with the gods, that part is true. But you don’t have to compare yourself to others in their journey.

The gods work in mysterious ways, and it would be foolish to think we know everything about them. They’re too vast for our human brains to fully comprehend them. And I think that’s the beauty in them.

As always, be kind to yourself and others. And if no one’s told you this yet:

Keep it up, you’re doing a good job

Blessed be

[generic-sonic-fan]

Omega's Observations: Drown/Earth

Summary: Omega generates a metaphor that he will never allow anyone else to read.

For @teamdarkweek. 756 words.

Omega is not very good at using figurative language, but he is improving.

Obscurity is an obsession meatbags have, but the ways of speaking they’ve invented to obscure their meanings are useful weapons for his verbal arsenal. He has set about collecting them. Rouge is a shockingly patient teacher when harassed on the subject. The public alternative to the Eggnet, called the internet, has a tolerably competent search function.

Through both, he has encountered more specific words that weren’t included in his initial dictionary, such as “simile” and “idiom” and “metaphor”. Armed with each, Eggman is no longer just “an impotent fool”, but instead:

Eggman is as stupid as a Cnidaria (an organism that does not have a brain. Direct comparison. This is a simile.)

Eggman is not the sharpest cutting utensil in the container (sharp being used by its other definition, mental clarity. Play on words. This is an idiom.) 

Eggman is a cardboard box (empty inside, fun to crush. Indirect comparison. This is a metaphor.) 

Meatbags chuckle at his attempts. They tell him “good try”, or repeat his phrase with the ‘correct’ wording. They assume he doesn’t know how to speak with anything other than a literal tone. 

They are wrong.

They assume that figurative language is not natural to him.

. . . They are correct. 

Four walls. One floor. One ceiling. One door. One control panel. One pod. One Subject he was to guard. 

And one dictionary bank installed in his own processor, one of the few outside files he was given upon creation that wasn’t him. It was a file of about 2 megabytes, nestled neatly amongst his language processing. Within thirty days of being locked within the room to guard the Ultimate Lifeform, he leapt upon it like a starving animal (a physical sensation tied to survival. Direct comparison. Simile.) 

There were 55,674 words in his dictionary. It took him 2.6 days to calculate the number of combinations; he determined he could create 8x10^40 ten-word sentences with this amount. The vast majority of these sentences would be meaningless; random combinations of nouns and verbs and adjectives that defied every bit of instruction from his language processing. There was no way to filter them out. Worthless. 

Instead, he had to arrange them manually in an attempt to create new meanings, to speculate on the world outside of what his sensors could perceive. In example:

A “tree” is something that grows and is defined as having a long stem. Maybe it was like the metal rod that connected his torso to his calf plating, except freestanding, and taller. Maybe it was buried in the soil to keep it upright, since the definition of “plant” was to embed in such a manner. 

A “mile” was a unit of distance far longer than even the longest hallways in his creator’s base; he could presume such a space existed “outside”, while he remained “inside”. This space was called “outdoors”, a “natural” world, places outside of areas developed by humans. 

Etcetera. 

Perhaps there were miles of trees outside. This sentence he had constructed was new. Entirely novel! An approximation of a world he had never seen. 

For the next thirty days he was an addict, piecing words together into new revelations that may or may not be true. But soon the little word game grew old. It wasn’t enough to tell stories about birds or trees or houses or people. This was not actual data! He could not simulate these things! He could not determine how to destroy them! Worthless! WORTHLESS!

Four walls. One floor. One ceiling. One door. One control panel. One pod. One Subject he was to guard.

And nothing else, so he kept stringing together words, as if he were pulling the intestines out of Eggman’s corpse (there are fifteen feet of intestines within the average human corpse. indirect comparison. Metaphor). 

Nothing else, until every word combination that was logical to make had been formulated. Every possible action had already been tried. Every possible story already told. He could not move. He could not speak. He could not process. He could not think. 

Nothing else.

—

Nothing else.

—

NOTHING ELSE.

—

NOTHING ELSE-

—

Only now is Omega armed with language capable of approximating a description of the sensation. 

He was drowning beneath the earth that imprisoned him.

(Drowning: the slow and painful cessation of a function vital to continued operation. Earth: the material above him, separating him from the surface; thousands of pounds of soil and rock and other matter long forgotten.)

(Indirect comparison. Metaphor.)