#Critical Velocity

[amemesiella]

this whole interaction doesn't even mean anything ngl but the idea of rt being unexpectedly familiar with the infamous dashcon ballpit is exceptionally amusing

[sergeantsporks]

Hunt-low would actually be really interesting if you explored the way their respective traumas would occasionally fuck up their relationship & also focused on BOTH their traumas instead of just making them cute, but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation.

[pyrotechnicdarts]

obsessed with this comment on the beau and percy scene in vox machina vs mighty nein

[hauntingblue]

Justice for jolyne wdym emporio defeated pucci

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Wow well I didn't think they'd just come right out and say "hello this is Rasputin and he's going to fight Xivu Arath because they are both 'war gods' but differ in important ways, please consider these parallels, 5-page essay due next Tuesday" but honestly if it makes gamers notice then you know what 5-page essay and it's due on Tuesday.

[t3l3k1n3t1c]

i think it's so silly how when you come out to aroace as someone they automatically think like. you don't love at all. like i am So Full Of Love you wouldnt even KNOW!!! you WISH your heart was as full as mine. i love my friends and my pets and my family etc etc etc.

[scientia-rex]

Wound Care

Ok so, take this with a BIG grain of salt, because I may be a medical doctor BUT you need to know how much wound care training we get in medical school: none. Zip. Zilch. There may be medical schools where you do, but mine wasn't a bozo factory and there was NO wound care training. Everything I know I learned from one of several sources: an intensive 2-day wound care course I did in residency (highly recommend), the local Home Health wound care nurse (highly recommend), a completely batshit insane old white male doctor who started our learning sessions by yelling Vietnam War stories at me (do not recommend), a hospital wound care nurse (highly recommend), and experience (oh god do not recommend).

The first thing you need to know is that wound healing varies dramatically across the course of a lifespan. Kids? Kids will heal. If they don't, get their ass to a pediatrician because there's something genetic going on. Young adults will heal. Middle-aged adults will heal. You know who doesn't heal for shit? The elderly, and people with severe illnesses, and people with uncontrolled type II diabetes.

Your body needs several things in order to heal. It needs macronutrients, so you need to be able to EAT protein, fat, and carbs. If you are on total parenteral nutrition, aka TPN, aka IV nutrition, you are going to be worse at healing. If you are starving yourself, you are going to be worse at healing. If your body is desperately funneling all the calories you take in to surviving your COPD or cancer, you are going to be worse at healing.

It also needs micronutrients. If your diet sucks, you won't heal. Take a multivitamin once in a while.

There are two CRITICAL skin components to healing: collagen and elastin. Guess what we stop making as we age. Promoting collagen isn't just good for "anti-aging," it's good for NOT ripping your skin apart. Taking oral collagen is probably bullshit because your body is going to have to disassemble it to get it across the intestinal membranes to absorb, but it's also harmless, and if your diet REALLY sucks, who knows. Give it a try. Collagen is made of amino acids; think protein.

Another absolutely crucial component is blood flow. As people age, they start to develop cholesterol plaques lining arteries that eventually pick up calcium deposits. This makes blood vessels less elastic, which is a problem, but eventually also blocks them off, which is a much bigger problem. If someone has the major blood flow to their feet decreased by 90% by arterial stenosis, they are not going to heal for shit AND their foot's gonna hurt.

One component of blood flow I hadn't thought about before going into medicine is fluid retention. The way your body works, blood exits the heart at a very high velocity, but slows to a crawl by the time it gets into capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in the body. Water is a very small molecule and can leave the blood vessel, especially if there aren't big, negatively-charged molecules like proteins like albumin in the blood vessels to hold the water there. And we're built for this--some water is supposed to leak out of our blood vessels when it gets to real little vessels. It gets taken back up by the lymphatic system and eventually dumped back into the bloodstream at the inferior vena cava. But if you aren't making albumin--for instance, in liver failure--you may leak a LOT of fluid into the tissue, so much that your legs get swollen, tight, the skin feeling woody and strange. This isn't fixable by drainage because the fluid is everywhere, not in a single pocket we can drain. And because it puts so much pressure on the tissues of the skin, it often results in ulcers. Congestive heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure--these are all common causes of severe edema, aka swelling due to fluid in the tissues. And they're a real bitch when it comes to wound care, because we have such limited resources for getting the fluid back out, which is a necessary first step to healing.

Pressure is another common cause of wounds. Pressure forces blood out of those little capillaries, so you starve the cells normally fed by those capillaries, and they die. It's called pressure necrosis. Very sick people who can't turn themselves over--people in the ICU, people in nursing homes--are especially prone to these wounds, as are people with limited sensation; pressure wounds are common in wheelchair users who have lost some feeling in the parts of their bodies that rub against those surfaces, or diabetics who don't notice a rock in their shoe.

So, if you're trying to treat wounds, the questions to ask are these:

Why did this wound happen?

-Was it pressure? If it's pressure, you have to offload the source of the pressure or else that wound will not heal. End of story. You can put the tears of a unicorn on that thing, if you don't offload the pressure it won't heal.

-Was it fluid? If it's fluid, you have get the fluid out of the issues or else it won't heal. You can sometimes do that with diuretics, medications that cause the body to dump water through the kidneys, but that's always threading a needle because you have to get someone to a state where they still have juuuuust enough fluid inside their blood vessels to keep their organs happy, while maintaining a very slight state of dehydration so the blood vessels suck water back in from the tissues. You can use compression stockings to squeeze fluid back into the vessels, but if they have arterial insufficiency and not just venous insufficiency, you can accidentally then cause pressure injury. The safest option is using gravity: prop the feet up above the level of the heart, wherever the heart is at, at that moment, and gravity will pull fluid back down out of the legs. Super boring though. Patients hate it. Not as much as they hate compression stockings.

-Was it a skin tear because the skin is very fragile? This is extremely common in the elderly, because they're not making collagen and elastin, necessary to repairing skin. If this is the case, make sure they're actually getting enough nutrition--as people get into their 80s and 90s, their appetites often change and diminish, especially if they're struggling with dementia. And think about just wrapping them in bubble wrap. Remove things with sharp edges from their environments. I have seen the WORST skin tears from solid wood or metal furniture with sharp edges. Get rid of throw rugs and other tripping hazards. I had somebody last week who tried to a clear a baby gate and damn near destroyed their artificial hip.

The next critical question: why isn't it healing?

-Are you getting enough nutrients? Both macro and micro?

-Are you elderly?

-Are you ill?

-Do you have a genetic disorder of collagen formation?

Fix why it's not healing and almost anything will heal. If you're diabetic, find a medication regimen that improves your sugars and stick to it. If you're anorexic, get treatment for your eating disorder. If you have congestive heart failure, work with your doctor on your fluid balance. Wear the damn pressure stockings. Prop up your feet.

If, after those two unskippable questions are done, you want to do something to the wound--apply a dressing, do a treatment--that's a whole other kettle of fish. I'll write that later. The dryer just sang me its little song and I need to put away the laundry.

[mariowritesforyou]

Try writing a "plot irrelevant" scene

We all have it drilled into our our literary heads: every piece of writing, every scene, every beat, every single sentence has to have a purpose or be justified for its inclusion on the plot.

I'm a big fan of justifying my narrative decisions but sometimes the writing can't have a purpose right from the moment it's being written.

So much bandwidth is allocated to the intensive brain-intensive process of putting stuff to words, I feel I should myself some slack if I can't fit them into the overarching themes or theses.

This especially becomes a problem on longer works where there's so much room for meaning and mistakes and mishaps. Worrying that everything has to be foreshadowing or pay off or symbolic can sap the enjoyment of building a scene and thus, kill the velocity of writing it.

So, how about if we just don't care for a bit?

Write a scene or sequence that you sort of know might make the cutting room floor, but has something in it for you if you write it, be it spending time with your favorite characters, coming up with lines for later, or fleshing out the tone. Imagine outlandish meetings of characters that would not meet otherwise, see how they react to situations unseen inside the plot.

You see, we know that readers need variety in a story, but the writers need the variety too. There's a point of critical saturation where chipping away at something will yield diminishing returns whose solution is often to rest by doing something different. Your brain will still be working on that plot thread you left on pause, but in a freer, open and more relaxed state on the background.

A bit of horizontal progress can go a long way for vertical progress.

[yurimother]

GL Webtoon 'Amongst Us' Creator Announces Kickstarter for Book Two

Webtoon Author Shilin Huang announced Friday that she is set to begin crowdfunding efforts to fund a second bound volume of her GL series Amongst Us in March. This comes aftera four-year gap following a successful Kickstarter for the first volume, Soulmates, which exceeded its CA$ 17,000 funding goal five times over.

Amongst Us is a slice of life webcomic about eccentric musicians and girlfriends Veloce and Blackbird. Set in the modern day, the series jumps between their lives as young adults and their first meeting in school. It is published for free digitally on Webtoon, Tapas, X (formerly Twitter), and the author's website.

The series is an alternative universe spin-off of Shilin's long-running fantasy webtoon Carciphona, although it is entirely separate from it and can be enjoyed without having read Carciphona.

The second Amongst Us book will feature episodes 21-48 of the series.

Amongst Us has received praise from fans and critics for its striking characters, humor, and artwork. I awarded the first volume a perfect 10/10 score, praising it as "a masterful combination of comedy an subtle romance."

Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the series and released a new edition of the first book in August of 2023.

You can check out Amongst Us – Book 1: Soulmates digitally and in paperback today, and read the full webtoon for free online.

YuriMother makes a small affiliate commission from sales to help fund additional coverage.

[bones4thecats]

Tfa Autobots fearing J reader, would be Optimus, Bee, Starscream and Jazz, also J reader is part of the elite guard

TFA Fearing the Murder Drones J! Reader

Characters: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Starscream, and Jazz (Transformers Animated) Requester: @zinnia1506 A/N: These are short due to lack of many ideas, but I do hope you like it otherwise. ⚠️ Spoilers/Trigger Warnings for: Nothing bad ⚠️

Disclaimer: This contains zero spoilers for the show Murder Drones

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Optimus Prime ══════════════════════════╝

⚔️ You scared this guy a lot. No other words.

⚔️ Known for your slight arrogance and obvious workaholic nature, all that had energon flowing through their cables knew that you were not someone to mess with under any circumstances

⚔️ Optimus was surprised to see you come out of the Steelhaven with your two fellow Elite Guard members, Velocity and Nickel, and the other two guards, Sentinel Prime and Jazz, along with your leader, Ultra Magnus

⚔️ It was when Starscream lunged at Ultra Magnus that you merely blasted him away, a cocky smile appearing on your face as you criticized him

"You're pathetic. Going at someone from behind? Just shows how much weaker the Decepticon cause has gotten in the past many cycles."

⚔️ Now he understood Sari when they first showed up on Earth...

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Bumblebee ═════════════════════════════╝

🐝 Bee admired, yet was scared of you, when you came in during one of his classes with your fellow teammates, Velocity and Nickel, behind you. You tried teaching them fighting skills, only to fail with Bee's idiocy

🐝 You glared at him as he tried stinging Nickel, he may be a weaker member of the Elite Guard, but he could be useful. Sometimes...

🐝 Nodding at Velocity, she smiled sadistically, jumping in with her servos transformed into multiple spinning-blades. She then attacked Bee, making him panic and run

🐝 Sentinel scoffed as you looked at him, your head tilted slightly to ask him what was wrong

"This Guard is getting weaker by the cycle... I swear..."

"Completely agree with you there, Sent'."

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Starscream ════════════════════════════╝

💫 You were one of the best Autobot fighters, and when you saw Starscream aim his blasters at Ultra Magnus, you just snapped into work-mode

💫 Jumping up, you spread your wings, flapping them to push you towards the Decepticon as he looked at you in shock

💫 Your long tail emerged and wrapped around his neck, causing him to fly into the air with you while the others observed. Sentinel, Jazz, and Ultra Magnus just sighed as you inserted your tail's tip in the 'Bots neck, injecting him with acid

💫 He wailed in pain as you scoffed and kicked him away. Starscream then stood up shakily whilst yelling about how he'd find you and make you pay sometime

"Go ahead, 'Screamy. I'd love to hear that squeaky voice of yours scream in pain as I tear your wings apart."

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Jazz ═════════════════════════════════╝

🎷 Jazz liked being around you, but he had to admit, you could be quite scary despite your seemingly-polite front

🎷 This was proven when you grew tired of listening to Velocity and Sentinel argue. You slammed your servo against the panel, wrapping your tail around the two 'Bots before slamming them into the nearby desktop

"If you two don't shut your intakes, I'll shut them for you. Capiche?"

🎷 The two nodded erratically as you let them go, throwing a datapad at Nickel before walking out of the control room. No doubt you were going to train your heart out against a dummy

🎷 The white mech just watched with slightly widened optics and a nervous demeanor as you walked away, thankful that he wasn't the center of your anger

[jishyucks]

Happy Holidays! The Universe Hates Me. — hrj

‣ pairing: huang renjun x reader

‣ genre: fluff, academic-rivals-to-(implied)lovers, forced proximity, kinda slice-of-life

‣ wc: 3.7k

‣ summary: You don’t hate many things, but you could proudly say that you hate snow and Huang Renjun. And now that the universe has decided that it was a great idea to have you snowed in with the smartass himself, you’ll gladly add the universe to that list.

‣ warnings: slightly one-sided rivalry (more so Renjun’s developed feelings before reader so he’s acting on it before reader even gets what they’re feeling), the pair eat some cup ramen, set in that weird period where they dk how they feel

‣ an: I rly thought this was going to be easy to write but sike (⊙_⊙) ig its bc its basically e2l and these r difficult to write,, I was excited to write Renjun's but idk if I did my own idea justice,, anyways I hope it's still a fun read!

Series Masterlist

You’ve never been so nervous for a final in your life.

Sure, you didn’t find the content difficult, nor did you feel lost. Hell, if you were asked to explain the content with no aids, you can confidently do it. 

The only reason why you were so nervous for a damn final was because you knew that Huang Renjun was going to do better than you. Why? You’re not sure. But you had this gut feeling that his name was going to be listed right above yours on that stupid list and you were not going to let that happen. 

“You need to go home soon, okay?” Karina frowns. She’s all bundled up, a scarf tightly wrapped over her face to shield her from Jack Frost. She knows how much of a workaholic you were, especially when it came to Renjun, “It’s getting late. It’s already dark out and there’s no one else here. Text me when you get home.”

You nod, “I will, I promise. I’ll just finish this last lesson and then I’ll leave. I’m hungry, anyway.” 

Her stern expression softens underneath her scarf and she teasingly ruffles your hair, “Talk to you later, honeybun.” 

You wave and watch her leave before turning back to the scattered papers in front of you, your laptop burning holes in your eyes because you’ve been staring at it for way longer than a physician’s recommendation. The final was on physics, something that wasn’t your strongest suit. It was probably because the way your teachers decided to word the questions on exams screwed you over—but then again, you couldn’t blame your struggles on that. 

Maybe you did just suck at physics. 

Your eyes scanned the lesson you were currently studying, quietly reading it under your breath so that you could process the information—critical threshold… velocity… laminar to turbulent… fluid and momentum… the dissipation of energy…

“Ughhhh!” 

Your heart drops to your stomach, eyes almost slipping out of their sockets at the sound of another person groaning. You clearly remember Karina just saying that there wasn’t anyone else here. 

Then who in the actual fuck…

Your mind jumps to conclusions and thinks up the worst-case scenario. It could be a ghost… were you Scrooge and the ghosts here to visit you? No fucking way… you loved Christmas… Or it could be a murderer. But what kind of murderer groans before he reaches his target?

Using this as an excuse to procrastinate, you quietly push your chair away from the table and stand up. You can recall that the groaning echoed from the back of the library, so you begin making your way down to the back of the room. Your attempt to keep your footsteps quiet, barely lifting them off from the ground.

You guess you were making your way in the correct direction because now you can hear the sound of muffled music. You suppose it was coming out of the other person’s headphones. 

As you approach the end of one of the aisles of books, you bend over and peek through the cracks between the books. Your eyes betray you, not focusing on the figure sitting at one of the tables because the books are in the way. Leaning closer, you squint to get a better look at the figure studying, head bopping to the music blaring through their headphones. 

Who is that?

When your eyes finally adjust, you curse under your breath.

Personally, you would rather it be a murderer on the other side of the shelf. 

Because Huang Renjun of all people? Here? With you? Did the universe hate you or something?

You let out a faint groan, squeezing your eyes before you go to turn back to your table. 

Of course, Huang Renjun would be here and studying late. There’s a small tiny part of you that wasn’t even surprised that Renjun was the only other person at school at this hour. There was a reason why you felt like he was seriously going to do better than you on this physics final. He worked for it despite being naturally intelligent. 

“Fucking Huang Renjun,” you gently let your forehead fall forward, making a gentle thud against the table. Fucking Huang Renjun because, suddenly, you no longer feel hungry and you now desperately wanted to finish a week’s worth of content before leaving. Sure the idea was immature—doing all this for some guy who thought he was smarter than everyone else—but you couldn’t help it. This was how it’s been since junior high. 

And old habits die hard, right?

For the next 2 hours, you push yourself to study for the stupid final, eyes straining as you continuously shift them between your laptop screen and your papers. And you say push yourself because now that you had the knowledge that Renjun was sitting metres away from you, you somehow could not focus for the life of you. It was like he had cast some spell on you to do anything but focus on physics. 

You groan. You have been reading the same paragraph on boundary layers for the past ten minutes, hyper-aware of Renjun. The words blur together, and you become hyper-aware of Renjun's presence nearby. Despite your efforts, your mind wanders, and occasional stolen glances in his direction betray your attempts at concentration.

With an irritated sigh, you shake your head, attempting to bring yourself back to the task at hand. Why the fuck is Renjun occupying so much of your headspace?

Feeling defeated, you reach forward, roughly shutting your laptop closed before you begin bunching your papers up together. Not a single fibre in your body even cared if it was organized or not—that was for you to worry about later—because you just wanted out of here and away from Renjun before he completely plagues your mind. 

Finally, you throw your bag over your shoulder and begin making your way out of the library. 

Meanwhile, Renjun, who was managing well with his work catches sight of your figure leaving, winter coat zipped up to your nose. 

“Wait, Y/N!” 

You turn back to find Renjun pushing his seat back, getting up to make his way towards you. 

“Ugh,” you roll your eyes. You continue making your way out of the room, ignoring Renjun’s calls for you to stop. 

The mature response would be to, well, stop and listen, but after Renjun just indirectly wasted 2 hours of your life trying to absorb some information on physics, you didn’t want anything to do with him. You just wanted to go home and eat, before you pull another all-nighter to make up for the lost time. 

“Y/N!” 

You were jogging now, treating the situation like Renjun was some kind of monster coming after you. It was odd that Renjun was keeping up with you, tailing you like he was one of those salesmen trying to get you to try a sample of their product. 

You’re relieved when you see the front doors of the school ahead of you, streetlights illuminating through the small half-windows. You feel your feet pick up its pace, eager to finally get out of the building and get fresh air. 

“Y/N!” Renjun’s out of breath, “You can’t leave!” He reaches out and quickly grabs your wrist. The contact causes shivers to run up your arm and you’re quick to pull your limb back. 

Brows furrowed, you sent him daggers through your glare, “And why not?” 

Renjun fishes his phone out from his hoodie pocket and he holds it up despite you not being close enough to see anything on it, “The news. All the roads are closed. No cars on the roads. We’re stuck in here until they say everything’s clear.” 

“You’re lying.” Your stubborn ass refuses to believe Renjun. 

Renjun huffs, “Just check it for your fucking self if you don’t want to believe me.” His arms crossed and he pushes all his weight onto one leg. 

Reluctant to look stupid, you slowly pull your own phone out. You realize that you actually haven’t looked at any notifications lately, all your focus directed toward studying. When you finally look at your phone, you’re met with tens of notifications, both from the news app and a handful from your family members and friends, mainly Karina, who are asking if you’re going home soon or if you’ve gone home because of the news the city sent out about the roads. 

“And why didn’t you leave?” you say awkwardly, “When they sent the warnings out?” 

Renjun swallows his spit, “I didn’t see any of them either. I was too caught up with studying.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you mutter. The realization of the situation starts to sink in—you're trapped at school, possibly overnight, and your only company is Huang Renjun, the boy who’s decided to make himself the bane of your existence. Then, you find yourself teetering between relief that you're not alone and frustration that you're stuck with Huang Renjun of all people.

Your eyes flicker at Renjun, who’s waiting for you to say something to him. And you do, “This is all your fault!”

Renjun’s mouth falls open slightly, the space in between his eyebrows wrinkling at your accusation, “How the hell is this my fault? I didn’t tell the damn city to close the roads!” Renjun holds himself back from raising his voice, but the emptiness of the halls causes it to bounce off the walls. 

“If I hadn’t seen you studying and being the overachiever you are, I would have gone home earlier,” you argue back. The second it slips from your lips, you realize how stupid you actually sound—but you don’t say anything. Without saying another word, you push past Renjun intending to return your spot in the library. 

Renjun, however, isn't one to let things slide. He follows you back into the library, his frustration evident in the tight set of his jaw. "So, it's my fault you chose to stay? That you didn’t see the notifications?” 

You shoot him a glare over your shoulder, not slowing your pace. "I chose to stay because of you! Trying too hard being a model student." 

Despite it being pretty clear that the argument was childish and that it was going nowhere, you and Renjun were far too stubborn to back down. 

Renjun scoffs, catching up to you. "Trying too hard!? I study because I take my education seriously. Maybe if you put in half the effort I do, you wouldn't be lagging behind."

"Oh, spare me, Renjun.” Your blood boils at his condescending tone, whirling around to face him and eyes ablaze with frustration. "You're insufferable, you know that?"

This is where you can see Renjun physically falter. The stress in his brows goes slack and there’s a shift in his expression, “Insufferable? Y/N I—”

"Whatever, Renjun. I really don’t want to speak to you right now.” You roll your eyes and turn your back on him, “Now, If you’ll excuse me, I have a fucking final to study for.”

Ignoring his attempts to keep the conversation alive, you make your way back to your table, your anger simmering in your chest. Renjun watches you go, a mixture of annoyance and something else in his eyes.

The library becomes a battleground of silent tension, each of you (mostly you) seething in your own space.

You set your table back up the way it previously was. Then, you quickly send your friends and family texts explaining what had happened and why you weren’t home by now. 

You attempt to start where you left off, the words Boundary Layers practically taunting you at this point. The phrase is pissing you off and you’ve read it enough times for you to be able to recite the sentence from the textbook perfectly. 

Wave interference, you read, eyes blinking at the screen—something about paths intersecting and creating new patterns of unity… discord… 

You let your eyes do the rest of the scanning, not exactly absorbing any of the material before you move on. At this point, you feel like not studying entirely. Besides, you weren’t exactly in the right state of mind to be absorbing material. 

The clock at the front of the library reads 8:28 and you feel like taking a nap is the best idea right now. It’ll help you cool off, pull you back in the right headspace and perhaps help you with the all-nighter you’ll probably pull tonight. 

Twisting your body, you pull your jacket off of your chair, folding it to create a makeshift pillow. Sliding your things aside, you place the pillow in front of you and shimmy your butt back against the chair before leaning forward to rest your head against it. In all honesty, it wasn’t the most comfortable place to rest your head, but it will have to do for now. 

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

The shuffling of feet and the clattering of objects woke you from your nap.

You don’t move, nor do you open your eyes, all you do is listen to try and figure out what the hell is going on. Through the fabric of your jacket, you can hear that Renjun is moving things around on your table and you can’t help but feel your anger shoot up. 

You keep your cool on the outside, pretending to stir in your sleep before you peek through half-opened eyelids. 

You’d honestly find this part funny if you were watching a drama. But the thing was, you weren’t watching a drama. And it was anything but funny. 

Slowly, you raise your head to get a better look at what Renjun was up to, fully expecting him to be messing with your belongings. You guess you were doing your job correctly because Renjun seems to not have noticed you looking at him. 

The scene (you embarrassingly admit) warms a piece of your heart just by a little bit—and you hate that it does.

Renjun’s trying to keep your papers organized, stacking them horizontally and then vertically to keep them grouped in the stacks you already had them in. He had even moved your laptop to a safer spot, off to the side. 

The reason why he was doing all this was sitting just across the table from you and to Renjun’s left. 

Two cups of instant ramen.

“What are you doing?'' Your voice comes out more hoarse than you’d like, but it was probably because you’ve been napping for what felt like an hour or two. 

Renjun freezes, lips parting slightly and eyes growing two times its size when he realizes that you’re awake. Sure, he would have had to wake you up sooner or later, but you waking up on your own wasn’t part of his plan. He should’ve done all this a bit quieter. 

“I…” He starts. Renjun gulps and pulls back, wringing his hands through sweater paws. 

You wait for him to give you a coherent reply, looking at him in hopes of forcing one out of him. 

Renjun’s at a loss for words, afraid that you wouldn’t quite get him if he explained his reasoning. He leans over and wraps his hand around one of the noodle cups, gently sliding it toward you. 

You blink at the steaming cup in front of you, caught between annoyance and a peculiar sense of gratitude. "Are you trying to make this situation bearable or something?" 

“Well it wouldn’t be fair competition if only I was able to eat, would it?” Renjun shrugs. From his hoodie pocket, Renjun pulls out a plastic fork wrapped in tissue, one he had probably taken from the cafeteria, and places it next to your cup of noodles, “Eat.” 

You blink at the noodles and eye the boy suspiciously, “You didn’t do anything to it, did you?” You mistrustfully pull the fork toward you, unwrapping it before you dip it into the soup. 

“Of course not… I’m not evil.” A scoff shoots out through Renjun’s nose. 

Renjun pulls out a chair from your table, taking a seat before pulling his own cup of noodles toward him. 

Your eyes linger on Renjun for a moment longer, contemplating whether or not you should believe him. Eventually, hunger wins over skepticism, and you take a cautious bite of the noodles. They taste surprisingly good, given the circumstances. 

For a while, there's a strange quiet as both of you focus on your meal. The only sounds are the occasional slurps and the storm outside rattling the windows. It's a bizarre scene, you and Renjun sharing instant ramen in the middle of the night, trapped at school. Who would have thought? 

As you dig into your food, you start feeling a shift in your mood. The annoyance from being woken up slowly turns into a grudging acknowledgement that Renjun tried to make things a bit less crappy. It's kind of funny when you think about it. You two had a small argument earlier, and now here you are, quietly sharing a meal. It's like an unspoken agreement, maybe a truce, even if neither of you is ready to admit it out loud.

Meanwhile, Renjun seems engrossed in his noodles, occasionally glancing in your direction as if gauging your reaction to the impromptu meal. He looks like he wants to say something, but he’s not choosing to do so despite the tension that is usually present in your interactions being strangely minimal. 

Finally, you break the silence. "Where did you get the noodles?"

He looks at you, brows raising at your willingness to start a conversation. "It’s not my first time staying past dinner. I have a stash in my locker."

“Not surprised,” you mumble. You pick the cup up and bring the rim up to your lips. Tipping your head back, you take sips of the soup, feeling the warmth of the fluids fall into your stomach like a hug. 

“Oh, shut up,” Renjun groans, “Or else I’ll take the noodles back.”

“Lucky for me,” you look at him and laugh, “I’m finished.” When you plop the fork back into the cup, it makes that noise you hear when you scratch the cardboard. 

Renjun hums. "Well then, I guess you owe me one. After all, you're enjoying the hospitality of my secret noodle stash." 

You roll your eyes, trying to maintain a facade of annoyance, but there's a glint of amusement in your eyes. Of course, Renjun would take this opportunity to gain something for himself. It was such a Renjun move. It’s always been like this. "I could've survived just fine without your instant noodles."

He chuckles, taking the last slurp of his own noodles before he deems himself finished, too. "And yet, you still ate it all up like a starved puppy.” 

There’s a beat of silence before you lean forward, resting your head on your propped arm, “I guess I should say thank you, huh?” 

Renjun grins and you only notice it because it’s more evident in his eyes than it was on his lips. He was seemingly pleased with your acknowledgment, but he quickly covered it up with a nonchalant shrug, "Don't mention it.” His voice comes out soft, mirroring the setting, “If you passed out from hunger under my watch, wouldn’t want that tainting my ‘model student’ image.”

You give him a side-eye, feeling the sudden need to tease him, “Don’t lie, Huang Renjun, you secretly care about me.” The statement was mostly a joke, so you think nothing of it. You stack your empty cup onto Renjun’s and stand up to throw it out. You don’t notice the way Renjun freezes in his seat for half a second.

“And what if I did?” Renjun shrugs. He gulps and feels the sudden need to flee the situation—Why did he say that? 

You turn to face him, surprised by his response. Renjun's casual demeanour, though slightly defensive, holds a hint of genuineness. It's a side of him you're not used to seeing, and it catches you off guard. 

"What if you did what?" you ask, feigning ignorance to see if Renjun would elaborate. A part of you is afraid of what he’s going to say. 

“What if I did care about you?” Renjun’s playing with the corner of one of your papers, creating a sound that fills the silence between the two of you, “I don’t hate you as a person, you know… I get that we always compete in grades and extracurriculars but… I don’t hate you as a person.” 

The confession makes your heart skip a beat and you catch yourself beginning to chew on your bottom lip, something you do when you’re nervous. The unexpected sincerity in his words causes you to halt your own, a momentary pause in your banter. You've grown used to the constant back-and-forth, the verbal sparring that characterizes your interactions with Renjun. This, however, feels different. 

"You're messing with me, right?" you reply, half expecting him to smirk and dismiss the entire conversation as a joke.

“What do you think?” Renjun retorts. 

You take a moment to think everything through. You have a good feeling Renjun’s not joking, that he really doesn’t hate you as a person, and you can’t help but think about the other possibilities of what this meant. Then you think about how you feel towards Renjun because you guess you at least owed him that. 

“You don’t need to say anything now,” Renjun assures, “It’s… confusing. Even I'm still figuring things out… I just know that I don’t hate you.” 

"You're not as insufferable as I claim you are,” you begin cautiously, “But it pisses me off that you both distract and motivate me when it comes to school.” And this was true. Today was a good example of that, though you weren’t entirely sure where these stem from. 

Renjun raises an eyebrow, his lips curling into a half-smile. "I'll take that as a compliment.” 

You roll your eyes. "Don't get too ahead of yourself, Renjun. I’m just saying—” “—Saying that you like me more than you think you do?” Renjun interrupts, “I know, I know.”

Your eyes narrow at Renjun, “You wish.” 

A moment of understanding passes between you, and for the first time, the competitiveness in your dynamic softens. It's not yet a friendship, but it's a recognition that there's more to each other than the constant rivalry. 

Renjun laughs, which transitions into a yawn. He acknowledges your comment with a hum, “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up in a bit so I can study?”

You playfully roll your eyes, a small smile lingering on your lips. 

“Well it wouldn’t be fair competition if I didn’t, would it?”

tags: @tytrackfebreze @lovesuhng @hoonieji @niinjo @dinonuguaegi

an: the next few parts of the series might be posted a day late (until Felix,, but we'll see!). Next up is Jisung which I feel like will be ADORABLE. ty for taking the time to read! I would love to hear your thoughts even if its something short! hope you enjoyed it!

[leonawriter]

Hey, d'you think Kaito had flashbacks to being fucking shot at when his monocle was knocked off his face like that?

Before he realised it was a high-velocity football aimed at his head?

And I'm gonna be That Person and say that if Shinichi hadn't had perfect control over that ball, or if it'd strayed due to the wind or anything, then Kaito could have been facing a brain injury at the very least. Not funny, Shinichi! Not funny!

Do you want your dad to tell you you're guilty of the death or injury of a family member?!

Thankfully the narrative doesn't have time for that and wants to show them both being cool, so Kaito is instead able to just smile fondly at his smallest critic. Like, "there he goes again, terrorising me as usual."

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Parker Solar Probe lines up for final Venus flyby

NASA's Parker Solar Probe executed a short maneuver on Aug. 26 that kept the spacecraft on course for the mission's seventh and final planned Venus flyby on Nov. 6.

Operating on preprogrammed commands, Parker fired its small directional thrusters for about 17 seconds, changing its velocity by less than a mile per hour, and setting its trajectory some 386 miles (593 kilometers) closer to a targeted approach point about 240 miles (380 kilometers) above the Venusian surface. The mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, where Parker was designed and built, monitored the activity through NASA's Deep Space Network antenna station in Goldstone, California.

Yanping Guo, Parker Solar Probe mission design and navigation manager at APL, said precise positioning and timing are critical to the Venus flybys, in which Parker uses the planet's gravity to tighten its orbit around the sun. The upcoming flyby will be closer to Venus than the previous six gravity assists, and the final piece of a mission design that will swing Parker to within just 3.8 million miles of the sun's surface—the closest the spacecraft will come to our star.

"Venus 7 is the critical gravity assist for Parker Solar Probe to eventually achieve its minimum solar distance," Guo said, adding that the team will likely conduct an additional, smaller maneuver in late October or early November—after the mission's Sept. 30 solar encounter—to shore up the spacecraft's path to Venus.

After flying by Venus, Parker will make the first of at least three planned passes at that unprecedented distance—while whizzing past the sun at a record 430,000 miles per hour—on Dec. 24, 2024.

Parker Solar Probe is currently in its 21st orbit, about to begin a science encounter that culminates on Sept. 30, 2024, with a close approach (known as perihelion) of about 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) from the solar surface.

[seat-safety-switch]

Imperator Butterpants, my charge for the weekend, had treed a squirrel in the park. Normally, I would help out the dog - that’s what is humans are for - but there’s a complication. A nearby toddler birthday party would be ruined by the sight of my aunt’s Pomeranian ripping a domestic rodent in half for fun. That’s the tragedy of the commons, right there. Exactly what Plato was talking about.

As a result, I squat gently and prepare myself to pick up the dog in a caring embrace. This feels natural, comforting. I am communing with my ancestors who tamed his ancestors, and in a moment I will have experienced the sensation of another living thing obeying my demands. Nothing doing. Butterpants turns around, snaps at my face, and dislodges my 3M Tekk P100 respiratory-particulate-protection bayonet fitting mask slightly. We are going home, I declare to a dog that does not understand English.

Luckily for me, I have prepared a vessel for transporting the dog. It is a sidecar consisting of an old bumper car, hastily welded with leftover Home Depot fence strapping (don't worry, I ground off most of the galvanization) to the side of a Razor Pocket Mod child's electric scooter. Well, I say "child's," but we both know that's some bullshit that I trot out to make the cop think it's impossible that I break the speed limit on this pink piece of plastic. In actuality, I know that there is no way that the officer is tuned-in enough to electronic engineering to realize that the several hundred pounds of lithium ion phosphate pouch batteries ziptied together under the seat is easily enough stored energy to launch this thing into low earth orbit should I decide to whack the throttle bare open. Plus, it means I can ride in the bike lane, which is good. Have you seen what kind of maniacs drive cars?

Despite what I just told you, I pin the throttle nonetheless, knowing that the aggregate resistance of the battery cables momentarily turning to a liquid will act as a sort of dynamic throttle control. We are off, both figuratively and literally. You might have encountered in the past a dog wearing "doggles," which is a portmanteau of the word "dog" and "goggles." Eye protection for dogs is absolutely critical at these kinds of velocities, and it is for that reason that I have placed a welding mask on the muzzle of my aunt's dog, protecting him from impacts with bugs, gravel, and other multi-use-pathway users.

We get home in quite a hurry, so much so that I have to use my neighbour's garden hose to extinguish the foam-rubber tires bonded to the rear hub motor. Imperator Butterpants is dazed initially, having reached a land speed formerly only attempted by dogs named Laika, but soon recovers. And, hey! We got that squirrel after all, although I'm pretty sure I'll have to peel it off of the welding mask and run it through a strainer before I can put it in with his Ol' Roy.

[milk5]

It's nearly impossible to determine the immaterial nature of the microgreens in your meal. Some call it spirit or soul, but I personally disagree with the usage of paranormal terminology in this context. It's surely an observable physical phenomenon, we just don't know how to observe it with modern technology. Each batch of microgreens, they have polar properties. Some are negative, while others are positive. If you eat one too many of the negative-wave sprouts, your body immediately shuts down. It's death, but not as we typically know it; all of your cells simultaneously fail, rather than the rapid cascading of bodily system failure that we're more familiar with. If you meet the threshold for positive-wave sprouts, your cells seem to become highly resistant, if not immune, to damage by any means. We're presently working with a 129 year old woman that has been eating home-grown cilantro microgreens nearly every day for the past fifty-or-so years. Gunshots, shrapnel, extreme temperatures, radiation exposure; they don't do anything to her. Her cells harden, and the high-velocity bullets or shards of metal flawlessly transfer kinetic energy through her body harmlessly. Her body temperature never reaches a critical, or even uncomfortable, level. The radiation does nothing to her whatsoever. We've tested many more typically-fatal circumstances, but none of them have affected her to even a minor extent. She doesn't feel pain anymore. The same cilantro microgreens seem to have a negligible impact on any other organism that consumes them.

More strangely, the polarity of a particular batch of microgreens appear to have no connection to species, nutrient exposure, soil terroir, or really anything that we can measure presently. Perhaps there's some sort of hidden variable that we will discover in the future.

For the concerned microgreen-lover, don't worry about it so much. Negative-wave greens appear to be "canceled out" by the consumption of positive-wave greens and vice versa; given our inherent insensitivity to the forces involved, it seems that most humans intuitively maintain (near) balance. It's extremely improbable that any given individual would reach either one of the critical points in their natural lifespan, but it's not an impossibility.

[allwormdiet]

Arc 6: Tangle, Concluding Thoughts

Lotta emotional highs and lows to get through here, so let's not dawdle

Okay, from the top now

Brian Laborn is actively evading all of my attempts to understand him. I will discover what makes him tick no matter how long it takes, and I will know whether the furniture building was meant to be a date or not

Speaking of which, my God 6.3 was fucking awkward. Some of that I'm certain was intentional, and good job at that, but holy shit I was actually uncomfortable with the way Aisha is described on her first appearance. Like I guess that can be chalked up to Taylor being awkward and mean but I'm gonna be real, I'm eyeing Wildbow on this one, if there's ever a fucking Worm Revised Edition that had better be on the rewrite block

Uhhhhh, lessee, what n-ahh. The gallery job.

I'm torn on this one, honestly. The build-up was solid, the entrance was delightful, and in the moment-to-moment stuff the fights were fun, but... the Undersiders went in with like half the Protectorate's numbers, and then proceeded to fight a wholeass PRT squad and then every hero there, and beat almost all of them. The Wards didn't do jack shit before being taken out, Assault and Battery got one cool team move and then were dusted, Triumph got downed by a dog, Velocity... Velocity found out a critical flaw in what gets sacrificed in the name of full power efficiency.

Someone on Discord pointed out that Miss Militia using the machete against Regent was actually a good way to discourage him from making her arms move, which is honestly smarter than I initially gave her credit for, but she still wound up puking inside her own costume so it's not like she's coming away from this smelling like roses.

Armsmaster and Dauntless are the only heroes who come out of 6.5 to 6.7 not looking like complete chumps, and Dauntless doesn't have a whole lot of personality on display so he barely counts as a character.

Overall it feels like the Protectorate heroes lost a lot of their bite with this entire sequence. The Undersiders are getaway specialists, thieves who don't pick fights unless they're sure they can win, and they just challenged like one of the highest-rated heroes in the Protectorate and his entire squad and came out of it in one piece. I'll grant that between the ambush conditions and the functionally unmatched battlefield control provided by Grue and Skitter that they tilted multiple factors in their favor, but that still doesn't feel all the way sufficient.

It should've been a lot closer, I think, and in some places it was already pretty close.

I hate Coil's entire vibe so much, I hate hate hate this dude. Smug motherfucker with his choreographed limo rides and coin tricks and shit. I'm gonna have to put up with this for a while, I can fucking feel it, goddamn him.

Somewhat relatedly, Tattletale... I don't like her less but I'm keeping a closer eye on what she says and does. If she's actually vibing with Coil and not just working with him as a matter of opportunism then that. Doesn't reflect great on her.

Hebert family continuing to break my fucking heart. I swear to god these two are gonna take fucking forever to mend the rift between them, and it's gonna involve at least a half-dozen more near-death experiences, goddammit

Edit: fuck me forgot the interlude

Birdcage scares the shit out of me, I think what makes Dragon’s role as architect and warden even worse is that she clearly takes no joy from the act.

Bakuda died as she lived, with bombast and sudden, violent cruelty.

Ahh, fuck, what even is supposed to be next in the story. Leviathan is close, right? I don't know if he's showing up the very next thing but I've been wrong before. God I hope there's, like, a second to breathe before an Endbringer rolls up.