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ddarker-dreams · 9 months

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random yan chrollo blurb because i can't stop thinking about him even if i try . 🙏

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“… Are you still sure?”

“I’m still sure.”

“Swear to me.”

“I swear.”

“That wasn’t sincere enough… swear… swear on the Troupe. In the name of their, uh, honor, or whatever.”

“Honor?” The word sounds humorous coming from Chrollo’s lips. “Very well. I swear on the honor of the Phantom Troupe that I won’t go back on my word.”

You sit across from a formidable opponent. Fate has decreed this your lot, so you’ve taken what has been forcibly thrust upon you and sworn to crush it. However, at this stage, you’ve modified your parameters to be more realistic. The new, somewhat more obtainable goal is to leave a dent. Or a scratch, perhaps.

For this dream to be realized, risks must be taken. The risk in this case is a willingness to interact with a man named Chrollo Lucilfer. His is a species defined by its tenacity. Through trial and error, you’ve concluded that typical avenues of escape aren’t in the cards. Nothing concerning the life you lead now is ordinary, so creativity and a solid vision are paramount.

Your adversary sits leaning forward, his elbow on the table, forearm extending upward, and palm open. He observes you with the degree of amusement he always does, content in waiting for you to make the first move.

You take a deep breath. Oxygen floods your being and blood circulates in full force. Every system in your body is primed and ready, there’ll be no better window, so you take it, springing into action.

Contact is made with his outstretched palm. You steady your footwork for better balance, then pull, demanding everything your muscles can deliver and then some. This immense exertion of force is the culmination of your efforts. Hours of scheming by the window, exercising self-control not to pour salt on his strawberries so he’d be more affable to your requests, running mental calculations and simulations…

… Alas, it’s not enough.

You pitched a pseudo arm wrestling competition where you could use any means necessary to make him budge. You didn’t dare stipulate that you successfully pull his arm down, your hubris doesn’t extend that far; but the slightest movement on his part would spell your victory. A victory that’d have him fulfill any request your overactive imagination could conjure up. These terms and conditions were smoothed out in a verbal binding contract.

His countenance is the same as it would be if he were flipping through a book or pulling his phone from his pocket — entirely casual. He isn’t even straining himself to maintain this stalemate. It’s possible that his physical strength is simply beyond your understanding, as is that parapsychological phenomena he refers to as Nen.

“What,” you heave, disbelief coloring your tone, “Is your body made out of?”

“Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen—”

“It was rhetorical, Mr. Alchemist,” you cut him off.

He simply shrugs and smiles. Somehow, his arm still hasn’t moved an inch throughout that exchange. The thought of this metric gives you pause. An idea is sown and imbued with life in the span of a few seconds.

“Ah, that’s the expression you get before you say something endearing,” he comments, almost dreamily.

You ignore him and straighten up, ready to argue over technicalities like your life depends on it. Seeing that you’ve abandoned your previous scheme, he relaxes back into the chair.

“I have a case. How do we know your arm didn’t move… an atom to the side?”

Chrollo tilts his head. “An atom?”

“Yes. If an inch is a unit of measurement, there has to be something smaller. So maybe your arm didn’t move an inch, but it moved the width of an atom. Are you following me?”

“...”

You barely comprehend it.

One second, you’re standing, the next, you’re sitting, with arms and a familiar cologne engulfing you. You can feel the low rumbling of his chest. He chuckles into your ear and secures you tighter against him upon sensing your instinct to struggle. Scowling, you cross your arms while he regains his composure.

“Don’t be cross with me, dear,” he smooths out your shirt, as if it’d exonerate him of his transgressions. “I’m not laughing at you. You’re just… everything. Everything I need. I’m sorry. Please finish your point.”

“Court’s adjourned.”

“That’s a shame. When might it reopen?”

“Never, you’re sentenced to death. No appeals.”

“I thought you opposed capital punishment?”

“Each second that has passed since this conversation began has regressed my views by a decade each.”

"I'll just have to hold onto you for the time being then."

All you can muster the strength to do is sigh.

#just realized this is the first time chrollo's ever apologized in a story of mine and it's for the dumbest reason here hjrtkmge #yandere chrollo x reader #chrollo brainrot

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gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat · 7 months

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Group H, Round 1, Poll 9:

Propaganda under the cut

Ianthe Tridentarius

She is trying so hard to be the main character by lying and manipulating her sister, her cavalier, her mentor, her ?love interests? (Spoiler???) And also god. Not sure how it's working out for her but she does love to lie and manipulate

Worstie Ianthe is the DEFINITION of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is one of a set of necromancer twins that are the heirs to their houses rule. Except wait, only she is a necromancer and she has spent their entire lives doing necromancy for the both of them. She is constantly mean to their cavalier, Naberius, who she occasionally nibbles on like a chew toy, before eventually killing and eating him to ascend to sainthood. She goes to gods spaceship with another woman who ascended to sainthood who she has a crush on, this other woman is like…. Both incredibly mentally unwell and also haunted by at least 211 ghosts. Ianthes method of flirting with her? Gaslighting her about the corpse that keeps moving around and hiding under her bed. For no real reason tbh. She is clearly plotting to overthrow god, and at the moment that consists of her manipulating him while he’s too sad about his long term partners betraying him and subsequently exploding to really care. She dresses in terrible outfits and makes soup by burning onions to the bottom of a pot, putting meat in and some vegetables and then it doesn’t taste like anything so she puts in a few teaspoons of salt so it tastes like a few teaspoons of salt. She had her crush amputate her arm and regrow her a new one out of bone and it’s one of the horniest things I’ve read in my life.

"Gaslight = told her lobotomized (she helped), schizophrenic girlobsession that there was no corpse under their bed, even tho there totally was. Gatekeep = girl did NOT share the secret to god-like ascension. She kept that shit to herself until it was time to eat her boytoy, and by then everyone knew already. Girlboss = she has a non-necromancer twin sister, and literally Everyone thinks they r both necromancers because Ianthe is so good at it. She reverse engineered ascending to the aforementioned ascension without even completing any of the supplementary tasks. She held her own in a fight against a 10k year old lyctor. She becomes the figurehead of her entire empire. "

She uses a man as a chewtoy in the first book, literally gaslights the protagonist of the second book about a corpse, and elder-abuses God when he gets depressed in the third book. Nobody is doing it like her.

Dives headfirst with no regrets while basically laughing and covered in blood into murdering her cavalier once she realizes what the gothic locked room mystery/competition leads to while everyone else is questioning it, helps perform lobotomy on harrow so she doesn't remember the person she loves, manipulates everyone to get to the top

idk just everything about her

her relationship with her sister is incredibly Bad, she fosters codependency and views Corona(the sister) as an extension of herself. This does not stop her from keeping up the con that Corona actually has magic (She doesn't, it was always just Ianthe) for 22ish years and every single person who interacts with them falls for it. She killed a man against his will (most dying for this purpose specifically go willingly) and she consumed him and she will be burning his soul for eternity. She's completely repulsive and still somehow incredibly hot.

she takes advantage of the fact that the main character is prone to hallucinations. at one point she gaslights the mc into believing that the corpse under her bed isn't real just because she can. she reverse engineered a set of very complex trials on her own without anyone realizing she had the skills to complete them normally. she's also babysat god through his drunk and pathetic era.

Artist:@starcanist

Remy the Rat

Gaslight- 'hmm? Me? Steal papers? I'm just an innocent little ratty rat.' Gatekeep- I would debate he's gatekeeping food and taste from the other rats because they just don't GET it. Ugh! Girlboss- doesn't he own a rat restaurant at the end?

#round 1 #group h #tlt #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius #cw ianthe tridentarius #ianthe the first #Remy #Little Chef #Ratatouille #runner's note: not to be biased but that's my absolute participant here. Let this fight be fun and challenging #also Ianthe. Queen of the greatest amount of propaganda

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voidpetrova · 3 months

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shoulder to cry on — obx men x reader

ONE-SHOTS

☄. *. ⋆ content warning(s) & genre: swearing, drug abuse mentioned, child abuse, assault is mentioned, previous relarionships mentioned, pining, slight unrequited love, death mentioned, suicide mentioned — hurt/comfort

˚♡ ｡˚ synopsis: comforting the obx men during their time of need, helping them heal and cherishing the fact that you're their rock

✧.*

sometimes, the pain of growing up with too present of a father figure is just as harmful as the lack of one. JJ MAYBANK grew up without a mother, she had left him and luke many years back, while jj was just a kid. he didn't deserve it, he didn't ask for it. he had yearned for the love of his mother, the love he would never receive. he was sure his father blamed him for it, for her leaving and never coming back. every fuck-up of his was just another reason for luke's resentment.

luke had his moments, ones where a switch would flip, and his son was the apple of his eye. it was an artificial pride, jj knew it, too. but it never stopped him from smiling, from the temporary joy that filled him to the brim, the fabricated chance that his father was proud of him.

every one of the pogues had seen the aftermath of their arguments, but no one really tried diving deeper into them. no one thought to do something about it, to take action. they all had their priorities in the way—the treasure, ward, the cross—things that jj helped with, but when would the favor be returned? he cried, body trembling with broken sobs, the thought of his pain going unnoticed rubbing salt into the wound. it didn't go unnoticed.

“c'mere, baby,” never in his life did he see himself breaking down in front of anybody, let alone a girl. he didn't harbor enough trust to let loose like that. it was his way of thinking, until you came along. you were the ray of sunshine that finally peaked, bursting through the clouds and the façade that he had so carefully put up. you were his anchor. “i'm here now.”

you were there, you really were. he sobbed, the cold tiles of the floor brushing his bare, bruised legs. he reached out to you, his breathing heavy. tears slid down your cheeks as you took him into your arms, wrapping them around his back as you pulled him in closer than ever. you were his real home, the person he felt safest with. “gonna come live with me, let me take my boy in,” you rambled through tears, his face buried in your neck as you listened to him. you listened to the way he sobbed, and you knew all he had longed for was unconditional love. “i love you, j, i'm so proud of you, so proud.”

all he could do was cry. you would take him in, your parents would take him in. all he felt was love, despite the years of craving it. he nodded through his sobs, and for a while, you sat there. you sat there with him in your arms, stroking his hair while you both cried. in the end, it was okay, because he knew he was safe.

✧.*

nothing ever went to waste. no amount of hard work; blood, sweat and tears—none of it ever went to waste. it was a fact JOHN B needed help accepting. it wasn't that he didn't want to accept it, but he couldn't. every obstacle he had come across sent him into a spiralling abyss of insanity, and he needed help finding his way out.

the time he had spent following his father's tracks, the time he had spent as a refugee—away from you, away from his friends—, the time spent on trial and in a prison cell, none of it ever went to waste, and he never could've done it without you. he had his moments, episodes where he would lose it. it all became too much for him, but the moment came when he watched ward's legacy come to an end, watching his boat blow to pieces. it was all over.

you were the one that caught him when he had collapsed, falling to his knees. you fell right with him. it was all over, it was, finally, all over. he couldn't find it in his heart to believe it, to accept it. he ran a hand through his hair as tears rolled down his cheeks, his breathing elevated as he watched the frenzy of flames in the water.

“it's okay, it's done,” you had brought the words to life as you searched for his attention, hands cupping his cheeks and wiping his tears away. it was all over, a brief, temporary but, nonetheless, existent peace was in store. “you did so good, john b, it's over.”

he knew it was all over the minute he heard it from you, his arms wrapping around you and pulling you in. he found all the peace he needed in your presence, your warmth. knowing you had been there the entire time, knowing you would always be there. it was all he needed.

✧.*

papers were scattered across the floor, the room dark and quiet. he didn't need the silence, it was the last thing he wanted. his thoughts ate him alive, sweat trickling down his temple as he sat on the floor, hands pressed against his ears as if to mute the voices in his head. the voices told POPE HEYWARD that he would never amount to anything, that all of his work went to waste. he would never be significant amongst the pogues, not as much as jj and john b. he would never be significant in his father's eyes, in the eyes of the future. no scholarship, no future. nothing. as if there was nothing in store for him.

the only source of light had come to life when his door had cracked open, the light in the hallway embracing his features, his red eyes and the tear stains on his cheeks. his father had let you in, guiding you into his room almost immediately, a worried expression on his face. you frowned when you saw him, running to his feet as fast as you could.

“pope,” you began, pausing to scan the mess in his room. the scattered papers, the broken pencils and books that had been torn apart. “talk to me, baby, what's the matter?” he couldn't meet your gaze as he shook his head, allowing the tears to fall freely. all he wanted, more than anything, was a chance at life.

when he finally began breaking down, he didn't fight back as you pulled him into your arms. you felt him tense up, but the feeling lasted a split second, no longer. “there's nothing for me out there, is there?” you could barely make out what he was saying through his tears. your warm hand stroked his cheek as you shook your head, planting a kiss on his forehead.

“got such a bright future, pope, i promise,” you whispered, and it meant something to him. all the pushing, all the fighting he had been doing just to be important. he wanted to find his place, wanted to make everybody proud. “just don't forget me when you're out studying in new york, when you're rich and famous, living in a villa.” he laughed through his tears, and you couldn't resist joining.

despite joking, there was a hint of seriousness in your words. “i won't, i promise.” his words had come out more clearly the second time around. you placed another kiss onto his forehead, “you've come so far, pope. i'm so proud of you, you're gonna be great.” it meant something, more than when people pushed his limits, his capabilities. it was enough to know, at least someone, thought he was doing enough.

when you separated from his touch, he felt his heart stop, his eyes searching your return the following second. you offered him a soft smile as you showed him what you were doing, picking up what had been discarded and thrown around the room. the papers, the books. picking up pieces of him, putting them back together.

✧.*

things had a way of falling into place the same way they had a way of falling apart. sometimes, fate was nice, and decided to show a way out. an exit, despite the previous challenges that awaited completion. RAFE CAMERON was lost, he had no way out, it seemed. a glass child—an abusive, narcissistic sociopath, that's what he was, right? everyone knew him as an aggressive, spoiled cokehead. no one thought to ask why? how?

bags of the white powder remained on his table, sealed shut, two weeks after ward had killed himself. sometimes, he found himself contemplating taking a few lines, knowing his body had grown accustomed to them. two weeks, he had been clean for two weeks. he couldn't have done it alone, he knew that. waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare with a dry throat, in cold sweat. it wasn't something he could fathom doing alone.

“it's not your fault, rafe,” for the first time in a long time, he was quiet. for the first time, he was the one doing the listening. he listened to you, he had to. “you did so good, baby. you protected him, your family. it wasn't sarah or rose, it was all you.” every little sacrifice, every little thing he did, was him ripping a piece of himself off to save his father. all he ever wanted was to matter, to be his son. not a pawn or a disappointment, he wanted his validation. when ward died, everything seemed to go with him, his love included.

tears clouded his eyes and he sniffled, throat growing thick with tears as he listened. “he's gone, rafey. he's dead, and we can't bring him back,” you sat yourself next to him, fingers desperately grazing his face as you brushed away the tears that fell loosely. “but he died loving you, and you know it. none of this would have been possible without you. he died proud, knowing his son saved him. none of us could do it, it was all you.”

it was everything he needed to hear. he couldn't imagine crying in front of his girlfriend, any girl, as a matter of fact. it was different with you. you didn't tell him to man up like barry did, you didn't tell him he was alright, even though he wasn't, like ward had. you listened, you comforted. you took him into your arms as he finally began to cry, using your free hand to throw the powder-filled bags into the bin next to the sofa. he cried, like never before. there was no limit with you.

“good job, rafey. did so good for him.” he didn't care about the coke, he didn't care about the withdrawals. he didn't feel the need for any of it, not while he was with you. you kissed his cheek as you pulled him in closer, letting him stain your shirt as he continued to cry. you would let him come to you during any time of need, you needed to keep him afloat when he needed it the most. and he loved you for it.

✧.*

you had healed a heart you didn't break. maybe you were his guardian angel, maybe you were sent by a higher power, maybe you were what sealed his fate. TOPPER THORNTON knew he had his phases, specifically, the period he spent chasing a girl who wanted nothing to do with him. he wasn't her destination, he was just a stop along the way. he was good to sarah, he always let her come back to him when she wanted nothing to do with john b. after every argument, he accepted her temporary presence, even though he knew she'd always go back to him. he accepted the love he thought he was meant to receive, before meeting you.

he had stopped letting her come back, he let you heal his heart, even though it wasn't yours to heal. he let himself fall apart. for once, he was someone's to fall apart and put back together. he couldn't play the savior anymore, it was all you. it was you who treated him to dinner, who made promises—not to break, but to keep. you were the one who distracted him from his mother, his past, the peer pressure and mistakes along the way.

“they don't define you,” is what you'd tell him. it took convincing, it took repetition, but it stopped going in one ear and out the other. he finally realized it once he har started floating adrift, straying and going towards rafe and kalce, who had him coked up, in the presence of girls who wanted him drunk with his wallet full. each time he came back, drugged and drunk, you waited for him. it began to dial down, he had started declining the offers. getting himself back, with your help.

you knew how thankful he was, and you knew you couldn't leave him be. when you prepared him breakfast in bed, you knew that all your work could go down the drain at any moment, but you didn't care. you never stopped. it was worth it, to you. it was worth seeing the way his face lit up. for once, it was him receiving love, as much as he gave.

✧.*

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femoso-seben · 7 months

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Immortal Shenanigans

Task force 141 x immortal Freader

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3

TW: Gore, implied gore, violence, blood, Torture

Well, shit.

Like a sardine in salt, you could not slip out of this. You weren’t killed no simply knocked out. You awoke chained up and sore. You look over to see a group of armed men watching you. You realize what your fate has in tale for you, and you feel your lips twitch into a smile.

How fun.

The task force slowly explored the large warehouse. The smell of blood was strong. Blood coated the ground, so much blood. This was a killing place. The men turn to each other with a grim expression.

“HAHAHAHA!” They froze and slowly began to inch their eye to the noise. Peer around the corner and witness a violent scene.

There that mysterious girl, YN was chained down her leg and being sawed off. Blood pooled on the ground and all over the frazzled men. They kept trying to kill her, yet she kept coming back.

“Is that all you got?” You tilt your head laughing. It was incredibly painful but this was the funniest thing to you, as funny as being burned alive by witch hunters.

“Shut bitch!” One yes shooting her in the eye. You slightly fall forward pain disappearing before waking up in pain. How many rotations have you gone through? Maybe 10? Were you killed 10 times?

That’s fun.

“Hey, how long are we gonna do this, I’m bored.” You finally ask smile dropping as you gaze into the eyes of your supposed killer. He glared at you and hit you in the face.

“You punch like a bitch,” you grumble the chair falls down. Blood soaks down your arms and you rip your arms out of the demonic hold of the restraint. You slip your hands out and silently wait for them to set you up.

“Tell me how you know them!” The terrorist bellows hitting your neck with a machete.

“Bro, are you trying to get baptized in my blood? Because Jesus Christ will accept you—“You were hit hard in the sternum by a foot. They had these hateful gazes burning into your soul. You snicker and begin to laugh, religious people are so funny.

Someone prop you back up. You twist your body grab their gun from them and begin to shoot them. They shot back riddling your body with bullets. So much blood oozed out of the wounds. All of them fall dead and you untie your foot with the machete.

“Damn, what a moment.” You groan stretching your body out. You pick up your sawed-off leg and begin to reattach it to your body. You look around, there is so much blood on the floor. Like a perfect mirror.

You whistle and pull your phone from one of the dead terrorists. You took a selfie covered in blood sounded by your blood. You're so tempted to post this saying photo shoot. You chuckle and walk through your own blood.

“What the hell!” You look up to see those four again. You give them a peace sign and a large smile.

“Hey boys,” you call out walking up to them giggling.

“Is all this blood yours?”

“Who else?” You asked back like it’s obvious. It was there was no other dead body here.

“Why is there so much blood?”

“I have a lot of blood,” you shrug.

“Why the fuck were you laughing,” the mustache man ask… you really have to ask them for names.

“What’s your name?”

“Price, this is Gaz, Soap, and Ghost.”

“Dumb but ok.”

“Why were you laughing?” Ghost asks.

“Look at it from my perspective, that’s shits funny.”

“You were being tortured.”

“Nothing more painful than being set on fire.” You retort like it was obvious.

“You have been set on fire?”

“Soap, I was around during the witch trials in Europe. I was burned alive several times,” you nod your head with a smile.

“Why were you being tortured?” Price asked arms folded.

“They thought I was with you, not the fact I’m a very nosy archeologist who was following after my pots!”

“What is with you and pots? Is this a sexual thing?” Gaz asks, you turn to him with a ‘what the fuck,’ look.

“No, I’ve been around for the progress of pot making. To me, pots tell an unspoken human history.” You explain to Gaz who only nods but still looks at you with mild disgust.

“They thought you were with us?” Soap ask.

“Yeah, apparently you guys are being watched…” you state, “Did that box of pots get back to the museum?” You ask.

“Yes. How long have you been here?” Price asks.

“Maybe three hours, what day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Rad I’ve been here for three days,” you laugh and walk off.

“Where are you going?” You stop walking and turn around.

“My Airbnb, why?” You ask turning back to them. What’s with their deal?

“If you’re being targeted, we have to keep you safe,” Price steps forward looking down at you. You sigh and nod understanding their standpoint.

“Let me make a call though my colleagues must think I’m a flake or something. I mean I am, but I don’t ghost people like this.” You laugh and call your archeology buddies.

“What is her deal?” Soap asked looking at you with concern in his eyes.

“I don’t know mate, maybe it’s the price for being immortal?”

“She’s all over the place, manic if you ask me.” Ghost mumbles. The others nod she is manic a little wild, and definitely needs to be on medication.

The task force slowly led the enigma of an immortal with that back to base. How will they explain this to Laswell? They look at her covered in blood and riddled with holes. In her clothes. She looks perfectly fine besides her outer appearance.

“I miss historical violence.” She states breaking the silence.

“What!”

“Yeah like whipping, beheading, hanging, ugh just being tortured brings back some fond memories.”

“Your fucking weird.” Soap states.

“That is true!”

“You’re insane.”

“That is also true!” You adamantly agree with their sentiment.

“Why do you agree with them?” Ghost asks leaning forwards to see your face.

“Because I did lose my mind, being immortal fucks you in the head in a way so unique it makes you crave for something.” The others grew quiet that makes perfect sense.

“Also I’m the worse at getting shit done, if you think you procrastinate I can take decades to do something.” You honestly state.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the most insane thing you’ve done?”

“Besides diving off Niagara Falls, I say being a nurse from the American Civil War all the way to the Vietnam War.” The entire truck grew silent. You’ve seen war.

“Really?”

“I dressed up as a guy and became a field medic. I’ve seen a lot of death, I was there in Japan when the atomic bomb dropped.” You state somberly. The truck grew cold as no one wanted to say anything. They’re shocked, you're a veteran, and they didn’t even realize that.

“I was one the first to suggest a special unit to take on harder missions the average soldier couldn’t do. And here you all are,” you smile looking at all of them with a sense of pride. They were your making, indirectly but still yours, just like your living descendants.

“So… you’re a medic?”

“I was a medic not anymore.”

“You’re a veteran?”

“Technically I’m not because I lied when I was a nurse and then a field medic.” You explain to Soap who’s trying to wrap his mind around this new information.

“Oh, also I was in New York when 9/11 happened. That was horrific.” Everyone seemed to hold their breath, Ghost joined because of 9/11, so this was a big shock for him.

“You have a colorful history,” Price mutters breaking the silence with his calm demeanor.

“What can I say, I live long enough to be around when shit goes sideways.”

The truck arrives at this military base and they lead you to HQ from the looks of things. People stop moving and just stare at you, you completely forget you’re covered in your own blood. You’re used to being stared at, always doing dumb things.

“John— on my God!” You look over to see a middle-aged woman stepping backward.

“Laswell, this is the woman who we’ve told you about.”

“The immortal one?”

“Yup.”

“Hello, Laswell.” You turn to her with a warm smile.

------

1.3K words

@josieguts

#soap cod #141 #cod x reader #call of duty #captain price #john soap mactavish #modern warfare 2 #cod mw2 #kyle gaz garrick #task force 141 x reader #crack fic

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krakenartificer · 1 year

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Today in "I understand why it happens but it's still frustrating"

I've been looking into topical magnesium, more commonly known as an "epsom salt bath". And, like, on the one hand, "alternative medicine" is a great source of ideas for treating medical conditions, and basically every single existing non-alternative medicine has been the result of doing some science on "alternative medicine" techniques. And on the other hand, the placebo effect is both strong and very real, and humans are terrible at understanding randomness, which is why we even invented science. You really do gotta check, you always gotta check. AND, back on the first hand, humans are eerily good at finding patterns, to the point where there probably ought to be a Humans Are Space Orcs story about it, and a lot of humans, whose conceptions of reality have been put through some pretty intensive stress testing, believe that epsom salt baths work. AND, on the second hand, we invented science, we have science, we ought to use science.

So anyway, several studies have looked into whether topical magnesium has any effect, and in 2017 someone went through and did a meta-analysis of it, and admittedly some of the studies were insufficient to draw any conclusions from them, but still, none of them showed any kind of evidence that there was enough happening here that it was worth looking into further. Since (despite our best efforts) you can't test everything, it makes sense to prioritize doing real amounts of research on things that are showing promise in the initial trials.

EXCEPT

none of those studies, nor the meta analyses, acknowledge that (quoting directly from the National Institute of Health)

Assessing magnesium status is difficult because most magnesium is inside cells or in bone. The most commonly used and readily available method for assessing magnesium status is measurement of serum magnesium concentration, even though serum levels have little correlation with total body magnesium levels or concentrations in specific tissues [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/, accessed 2023-03-28]

All of them checked whether topical magnesium influenced the amount of magnesium in the blood. And it does not. But that result is entirely consistent with the expected result if topical magnesium is absorbed into the skin: if your soft tissues, which hold 39-49% of your magnesium, are deficient, then you would expect it to stay in the nearest tissues, and not make it to the blood.

Which is not to say that this proves epsom salt baths work: this is the same result you'd expect if they don't work at all. Which is to say, the experiment would be expected to have the same result regardless of whether the hypothesis was accurate or not, which is to say, this was bad science. It tells us absolutely nothing. And it's especially frustrating because an experiment to test the actual claim would have been quite a bit easier -- measuring range of motion and muscle pliability is much cheaper than taking blood samples. A double-blind, randomized controlled trial would have been actually quite straightforward to carry out.

All of which is to say, I'm kinda thinking about buying 100 lbs of magnesium sulfide and finding myself some test subjects

#raina rants #science #medicine #there is no alternative medicine there is only medicine with sufficient evidence and medicine without #biology

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very-straight-blog · 2 days

Note

Controversial take but I FEEL LIKE Vaemond would probably side with the greens. I don't know, the fact that he was the one who said that iconic line of a queen sits on the throne, the side-eye to Rhaenyra when he was giving a eulogy about salt running through Velaryon blood, the trial. I don't know, he's amazing, I love that dude.

Vaemond owns my respect, completely. Of course, people chose sides for various reasons, but I also think he would have been highly likely to join the greens. He chose to tell the truth and just...slay. Cool dude.

#ask #vaemond velaryon #house of the dragon #hotd #team green #pro team green #opinion

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lively-potter · 3 months

Text

— trials of athena ; three

— genre ; enemies to lovers, kinda slow burn, friends to lovers

— warnings ; a hella lot of cursing, some typos ( of course 🙄😬 ), mature themes, smut, athena doesn’t like feelings, fluff, smut, angst, some violence, a teeny bit of blood and gore, JK’s a dick fr

— intro, teaser, part one, part two

— find me on Wattpad ; LivelyPotter

— word count ; 1.7k

— taglist ; @ahgasegotarmy116 @jk97bam

-- a/n ; this is one of my fav chapters here, folks. stay tuned for the crazy ride, lmfaooo.

— chapter three ; expresso; make friends with it

♡

May 22nd, 2023 6:42 AM

Blankly staring into space, waiting for the coffee pot to fill up, I was hardly fazed by my mother yelping loudly once she got a good look at my face.

I was women enough to admit I looked like a fuckin' train wreck. My hair was fuzzed up (probably matted), my eyes held the darkest circles known to man, and my eye bags had freaking bags. Let's not even forget to mention to red mark, in the shape of a hand, which was my own doing – of course, but I'll get to that later.

North followed closely behind Mom and could barely contain his horror. And if North reacted the way he did, you knew it was bad.

I didn't get any sleep since I was rudely woken up by the intolerable lettuce head and his flavor of the night. After telling Sawyer enough to feed his curiosity, I got off the phone, huddled up, and prayed that I wouldn't hear anything else.

But no. My luck had to be shitty and I had to go through listening to the lady next door get choked by my neighbor's monster dick and then proceeded to scream and shriek all night for fuckin' hours.

No matter how many pillows I put over my ears, I could still hear everything.

Mom's brow drew together in concern as she hesitantly stalked closer to my hunched-up form.

"Jesus fuck," North nearly bellowed while he stomped into the kitchen, to take my face in his huge hands. "What happened to you?"

I looked up at him with dead, tired eyes and dragged my feet towards the coffee pot, where I slowly filled up my jug and turned to look at them.

"I only got an hour's sleep last night." I said dryly, a frown marring my lips.

Mom still watched me curiously and sidled past me to make her own, significantly smaller cup of coffee.

North raised a dark brow and leaned back against the counter whilst crossing his burly arms across his chest.

"Geez." Mom winced, knowing how much I valued my sleep. "Stay up late writing again?"

"No." I sneered at the thought of my salt slug of a neighbor, "I was rudely woken up by the sounds of fuckin' giggling and shrieks – I tried to ignore it, but once it began to get louder, I got up and stumped my fuckin' toe!" I snapped outraged, steam practically coming out of my ears.

I sucked up the iced coffee aggressively, earning startled looks from my parents.

"Then – and then when I got up, limping to my fuckin' window, I saw that women hit her knees in front of the fuckin' neighbor and pulled his dick out of his pants – it was huge if you were wondering – and when I tried to go back to sleep after seeing that mortifying image; I. Could. Not." I hit the counter with my fist as it emphases each hissed word.

Mom and North looked like a couple of deers caught in the headlight – their eyes bulged out, and mouths opened like a couple of fishes.

"You know why?" I said slowly, eyes not once blinking once.

North gulped and slowly lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

Mom looked like she wanted to bury herself alive to get out of this conversation.

"Because all I could hear was the sounds of fucking choking and that fucking headboard hitting against the wall like this –" I imitated the sounds by smacking my hand against the wall, entirely enraged.

*bang*

*thump*

*bang* *bang* *thump* *thump*

*bang*

North winced, looking tortured as I reenacted the sounds of the headboard hitting the wall. His head fell back, and I caught him murmuring for the lord to strike him down, so he didn't have to go through this conversation.

He should consider himself lucky I was in no mood to be reenacting the choking and gagging sounds.

Mom closed her eyes and rubbed them, looking equally tortured.

"Hey!" I pointed an accusing finger at him, "You were the one to tell Pops to give me that room – so the only reason I went through this is because of you!" I barked, raking my hands through my knotted hair, which was sticking out in every direction.

My shoulders heaved down in exertion and I finally calmed down and sipped my coffee slowly after my blow up.

Mom and North looked frightened to approach, but Mom did step forward and eyed my red cheek.

"What happened to your cheek, sweetie?"

North perked up, needing to know as well, but at the same time, not.

I shrugged and slowly picked up my coffee and held it in my hands.

"I smacked myself across the face after I saw his monster pierced dick – I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming." I spoke causally, taking a big gulp of iced heaven.

Mom immediately choked on her coffee, and North jumped into action to pat her back as she coughed. She looked up at me, green eyes wide. North looked uncomfortable and refused to look me in the eyes while a blush stained his tanned cheeks.

"What the fuck." He coughed, blinking.

"I'm going to bed." I said, pressing a kiss to Mom's cheek as I passed.

She eyed my forty once tumbler filled to the brim with coffee and raised a brow. "After all that?"

"Yup."

As I was leaving; i heard North start to speak.

"Sang, I told you that girl had been spending too much time with Sawyer."

***

May 22nd, 2023 6 PM

"You look like shit, baby girl." Gabriel tutted, kneeled beside my bed, touching a matted curl with a horrified face. I swatted his hand away, and turned around, pulling my duvet over my head.

"Dad." I groaned once my safety blanket was taken away, "Haven't you heard the saying, 'don't poke the bear'?"

"I have." Gabriel grinned, and wrapped his hand around my wrist and pulled me to my feet. I swayed and yawned, "get your ass up, babe. You need to eat and shower. You look like you haven't showered in fuckin' weeks."

If any of you wondered where I got my potty mouth from; meet Gabriel Coleman, ladies and gentlemen.

Gabriel took my face in his hands and pressed a kiss to my fluffed hair. "I'll fix that hot mess as soon as I can, 'kay?"

"Okay." I mumbled, half asleep.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and followed him downstairs where we joined the rest of our family. Mom gave me a warm kiss on my head and ushered me to a seat beside Nathan, after I had greeted Papa with his normal hug and a kiss on the cheek.

The males in my family looked at my face – mainly my hair as we ate. They asked no questions, which meant Mom and North already filled them in.

Speaking of North; he still hasn't been able to look me in the eye.

"Dad?" I asked, looking up at Nathan. He looked down at me with his normal soft smile that was only reserved for his family. "Did you have a good day?" I asked, making sure I asked all my family this question.

None of them asked how my day was in return – as they already knew.

All except Nathan.

"I did, my little peanut." He rubbed the top of my knotty hair, which received a scolding from Gabriel.

"Oi! Don't touch her fucking hair, dickwad." Gabriel groaned, "I got so much work to do."

"How was yours?" Nathan looked back down at me with a smile.

Everyone in the room froze – all except for me.

I brightened, "I'm so glad you asked! Well, if you're so interested in knowing—"

"Don't!" North nearly bellowed, eyes alight with panic, he crumbled back in his seat, looking like he aged years as he held his face in his hands. "You don't want to know, brother. Trust me." He begged, for the first time in his life.

Nathan paled and looked down at me questionably.

My mouth opened to answer him, but they were all regrettably saved by the doorbell ringing.

North jumped up, "I'll get it."

He didn't try to hide the fact that he was running out of the room. I huffed and crossed my arms.

We listened to North answer the door, and when he called for Mom – my interest was piqued. I slowly snuck out of my chair and listened in.

My eyes widened once I heard that familiar melodic voice – strong, deep, and soothing.

"Thank you once again, Sang." He said, sounding...kind? Kind? KIND? This fuckin' ass tart was capable of being nice? Wut the fuck.

"It was nothing. We hope you enjoying living on Sunny Vale Court." Mom said brightly, "if you ever need anything, we'll always be here."

"I won't." I grunted, crossing my arms.

I can hold a grudge, okay? All you judgmental fuckers can go suck a fat one.

Mom, North, and that inconvenient fire drill of a neighbor quieted.

Gabriel's eye bulged out the moment I pushed my long sleeves up my forearms and prepared to stomp to the door.

"Fuck." Silas' eyes widened in horror, and in an instant, he was on his feet and grabbing me under the arms, hauling me into his arms.

"Not today, my little love." He chuckled lowly as I fought to get out of his arms to give that salt slug a good talking to. Gabriel followed us up to my room and helped deposit me into the bathroom.

"Shower, Athena." Gabriel cackled, "and then I'll fix that rat's nest of yours."

I groaned lowly.

Damn it.

I threw off my clothes while making a promise to myself.

I'll get that little fucker next door if it's the last thing I do.

A/N

this is probably one of my favorite chapters thus far. if you love athena, just wait til you meet my beloved sawyerweiland. i hope you loved the chapter, and I hope athena put a smile on your face and made you laugh.

thanks for reading!

#jeon jungkook #bts fanfic #jungkook x oc #wattpad #bts jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jeon jungguk #jungkook x original character #jungkook angst #enemies to friends to lovers #enemies to lovers

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anderscim · 1 year

Text

welcome to wild theories with bagel

this one is… quite unlike the other posts as this is almost entirely speculation and probably has a lot of room for rebuttal

(it’s a theory after all)

this is mainly about teruko and her (possible) connection to the killing game.

take this with a grain of salt as always

//drdt prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 spoilers

// blood warning from about the second half of the post.

also i go on a giant tangent here. so quick warning about that as well

i’m just thinking back to this motive secret:

“How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you’ve done in your life is worth killing for. This killing game is all your fault.”

as of now, we’ve been told (by David) that this was Xander’s secret, but I highly doubt it. for me, this is mainly because when everyone was sharing who’s secret they had at the 2nd trial, David hesitated and asked to go last—there’s really no reason to do that unless David wanted time to think about what to do and/or fully process the situation before taking action (plus going last would give David the added benefit of knowing whose secrets are already revealed).

not only that, Xander’s bonus episode and secret quote seems to imply that his secret is actually the one Min has (“You’re constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn’t matter that it’s not your fault, just that you didn’t go with them”). Xander’s survivor’s guilt seems to be a major motif for his character, so logically it would still be plausible for his secret to be related to the Chariton incident and his guilt.

in that case, who’s secret does David actually have?

unfortunately, it would be quite difficult to try to deduce this through that last sentence (and i don’t think i have to explain why), so i decided to go back to the first sentence—which implies that whoever this motive is about has too many secrets that they don’t want to remember and/or discuss.

i can clearly recall one character that explicitly mentions this:

i don’t recall anyone else saying something like this, but please correct me if someone did actually say something similar

additionally, each one of Teruko’s accidents that she’s survived as a result of her luck can become “secrets” that are worded to incriminate her and give her a motive to murder. after all, whoever wrote these secrets have done so in a way that paints the other characters in a bad light—there’s really no reason to exclude Teruko’s “secrets” from that treatment.

but if that were the case, is there a proper explanation as to why “this killing game is all [her] fault?”

as i’ve mentioned before, the secrets are specifically written in a way to incriminate the participants and taint their image. even Hu mentions this at one point:

and to be completely honest, if someone were to explicitly write that a killing game was a specific character’s fault, it would probably be to throw the cast off. it would be extremely imprudent to specifically implicate someone as a potential mastermind otherwise. after all, that’s essentially putting the entire killing game at stake.

however, despite the fact that these secrets are written to implicate the cast, most of them do have factual evidence to justify some part of it.

here’s where i get into wild theory territory:

what if Teruko is indirectly responsible for the killing game, just not in the way that we’d think?

let me elaborate on how this could actually happen (and this is gonna get long):

think back to the opening scene of the prologue. whoever it was that was injured here, they seemed very… determined to end the killing game “all by [themselves].” or kill teruko.

// (pink) blood warning from here on out

•

from here i’m going to pay a lot of attention to specific wording and such so please take this with a grain of salt

oh also this is gonna go on a tangent lmao

as seen here it seems that Teruko and the killing game are directly correlated to each other. this person here says that even if the killing game doesn’t end, Teruko must die—which seems to imply that her death could be a possible solution to the killing game, even if it is eventually revealed to not be one. after all, in a situation like this it wouldn’t make sense for this person to mention two seemingly separate things one after another if they weren’t related to each other somehow.

also this might just be me, but i just wanted to bring attention to this line:

“all by myself… i must end this killing game.”

this implies that whoever this person is, they want to end this killing game independently, by their own effort. specifically asking Xander to kill Teruko with no justification or reason why, in that case, doesn’t really make sense as it’s entirely dependent on the decision and whims of another person.

and besides, this may again just be me, but Xander mentions how he needs to “trust in [him]self” that killing Teruko would be worth it:

this may imply that Xander attempted to murder Teruko out of his own instinct, and/or Xander deduced that the person who wrote that note to kill Teruko was himself. whether that’s because that note was in his own handwriting, or something from his memories told him so, i’m not sure.

also, recall the fact that some of the cast’s memories have been removed. for example, Xander doesn’t actually recall when he lost his eye.

someone else said this in a YouTube comment (that i unfortunately cannot find, but i’ll see if i can find the screenshot and put it here later), but—in that original prologue cutscene, there’s a fork under the person’s hand.

Xander’s eye injury, as we saw in chapter 1, has indents on it that look similar to claw marks. but based on those indents, it is actually plausible that those injuries were done by something similar to that fork (the fork in the prologue cutscene has four prongs, and the injury seems to have been caused by something that had four,,, uhh, prongs/claw bones). however this is purely speculation so this may be entirely wrong.

if this does happen to be correct, though, this could possibly imply that Xander was the person in the prologue cutscene. in that case, it is possible that Xander himself wrote the note to kill Teruko.

trusting “himself” to kill Teruko would, in that situation, actually make sense.

but as we know, killing Teruko is a challenge in on its own, whether that’s by attempting to incriminate her or attempting to directly murder her. she even declares this herself.

actually, little side note: ��no matter what” is seen in both this scene and the prologue cutscene—and they’re highlighted in both cases. just thought it was interesting because it gives off “unstoppable force meets immovable object” vibes lmao

though this could definitely be more important than it seems right now

this has been kind of true. in the first chapter, we saw Teruko almost getting killed multiple times, and her surviving all of them. first with Xander attacking Teruko, second with Min attempting to frame Teruko to ensure her own survival (and don’t forget about the detail of two people voting for Teruko for some odd reason—not sure why, but this could suggest that someone other than Xander was aware of this situation? that’s the current weak point of my theory, unfortunately). so as far as we can tell, attempting to kill Teruko proves to be very difficult as her luck carries her though each incident, even if she didn’t want to survive them. it almost seems like an impossible feat with the amount of luck she has.

the thing is, the fact that killing Teruko is nearly impossible adds to my personal theory: “what if the killing game is only running because Teruko is alive? what if killing her effectively ends the killing game?”

look i can explain it okay

as far as we can tell, Teruko actually has a lot of advantages compared to the others in the killing game:

her distrusting nature makes her less vulnerable to being lured into a trap

her luck. that’s all i have to say

MonoTV is giving her some advantages himself, which seems a little… suspicious.

okay on second thought let me elaborate on that last bullet

think back to ch2 ep2-3. MonoTV is the one that asked Teruko to do some chores for him in exchange for MonoCredits—which are essentially tokens that allow Teruko to get others to leave her alone.

what’s interesting here is, MonoTV doesn’t set any restrictions on when she can’t use them (although that could be just because Teruko cut him off). in that case, couldn’t she theoretically use one if she’s about to get murdered or something?

and I also find it weird that MonoTV asks Teruko specifically (as well as follows her around) to do that chore. since there were so many other people that Teruko talked to when MonoTV was still following her, he technically could’ve walked up to anyone. therefore, it could be a possibility that MonoTV intentionally did that to give her an advantage.

just me? okay

anyways what i’m trying to say here is that the series itself seems to be gradually giving Teruko more advantages and opportunities that prevent her from being killed. although that could point to her being the mastermind, i kind of explained with the secrets why that seems unlikely.

but if my theory of “killing Teruko will end the killing game” proves to be correct, the true mastermind actually benefits from giving these added advantages to Teruko—it makes it harder for Teruko to be killed, which effectively keeps the game running.

which indirectly makes Teruko responsible for the killing game—by literally just being alive.

this. uh. was a lot of small speculation and details. that could probably be proven wrong.

besides we’re only mid-ch2 at the time of writing this

so feel free to refute me on ANY of these points—i will listen. for all i know i could be wildly wrong

and as always, take this with a grain of salt.

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #bagel’s train of thought #teruko tawaki #GOD THAT WAS A LOT OF THEORY #i speculated waaay too much in this lmao #btw i got influenced by y’all’s theories while making this #so honestly just gonna give credit to the entire drdt community for this long post #take this with a grain of salt. as always. i could be horribly wrong #fangan #fanganronpa #bagel attempting to string together multiple coincidences to make a theory in 1.6k words

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scotianostra · 9 months

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On 6th August 1881 Sir Alexander Fleming was born in Lochfield, near Darvel.

Well before Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin he tried to convince doctors in the field hospitals of World War One that treating wounds with antiseptic, not only cleaned the wounds but also lowered the soldier’s natural resistance to infection because they were killing white blood cells. His mentor Almroth Wright believed that a saline solution – salt water – should be used to clean deep wounds, because this did not interfere with the body’s own defenses and in fact attracted white cells. Fleming proved this result in the field.

Wright and Fleming published their results, but most army doctors refused to change their ways, resulting in many preventable deaths.

After the war Fleming discovered an enzyme called Lysozyme, an important role in the prevention of bacterial infections, while this was an important breakthrough in preventing infections in the first place it had little or no effect on many other microbes that infect humans. Lysozyme is present in the body, for instance it is i in tears, saliva, sweat, and other body fluids, It destroys bacteria that attempts to enter our body through these passageways. In the case of tears, they protect our eyes from bacterial invaders.

Fleming had left a jar of mould unattended during a holiday. On returning to work he noticed that a jar of Staphylococcus bacteria – a green yellow mould – had covered the dish except one area which was clear of the bacteria – rather like a halo effect.

This was Fleming’s great Eureka moment – the moment he correctly deduced that some antibacterial agent had crept in and successfully stopped the bacteria. He later identified this antibacterial agent as a rare form of Penicillium notatum which had drifted in from a mycology lab nearby. He later talked about the importance of chance in this discovery.

"I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance."

Fleming named this fungus penicillin and tried to grow it in his lab. He published his discovery in the “Journal of Experimental Pathology” in 1929 but did not receive much attention at the time as most of his clinical trials had been inconclusive and penicillin could not be produced in large enough quantities to be useful. Fleming was convinced that the fungus had limited usefulness but his research was taken up by two researchers from Oxford University named Ernst Chain and Howard Florey. These two were successful in producing purified penicillin which became indispensable during World War II, and helped to save thousands of lives through its use in antibiotics. In 1945, as a result of their combined efforts and discoveries, Fleming, Chain and Florey were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

So the untidiness of a Scottish scientist ultimately led to countless many lives being saved, Fleming himself predicted that one day the antibiotics might be less effective, as is the case nowadays, we wait in hope of another "accident"

#scotland #scottish #history #medical history #bacteriolagist #penicillin

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smol-feralgremlin · 7 months

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Trials Through Blood and Salt: WIP Intro

For months Sylpha has been living with an overwhelming sense of dread with no apparent cause. Frequent trips around Alcadia to find the source of her unease has uncovered nothing to alleviate it.

Months after declaring he'd never lead anyone again, Aldon is forced to take on the role of clan leader in order to force a stop to the murders perpetrated by the two nightstalkers that Koric created some time before his defeat. He rejoins the Council of Leaders, stepping back into in a familiar role reluctantly, but determined to make things right between nightstalkers and everyone else.

But even his return to being a leader and consulting with the rest of the Council doesn't help Aldon when it comes to trying to help Sylpha figure out the feeling of wrongness she has. Nor does it help when Valda mentions that Cal is getting restless as well.

And then strange sails bring in a figure from Koric's past. Clan Leader Reshira Tolirrus of Shorshyr.

In the wake of Reshira's arrival, events spin rapidly out of control as Reshira and Sylpha butt heads, with everything coming to a head in a catastrophic consequence for Sylpha.

As Sylpha seeks retribution, Aldon is left to try and balance safeguarding the country he loves from a foe the likes he and the rest of Alcadia has never faced, while trying to follow the woman he loves even when she makes it clear she doesn't want him around.

#heyo i finally made a fucking wip intro after *checks notes* ...after an unknown amount has already been written #oops #gremlin writing #Defenders of Alcadia #Trials Through Blood and Salt #writeblr #original writing #writers of tumblr

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tobiasdrake · 6 months

Text

A body has been discovered! 3-1 Investigation begins. And I despise this investigation with every fiber of my being.

And now we get to the thing that most hinders my enjoyment of 3-1: The part where the game didn't just take the cool new protag that I was enjoying playing away from me, but did so by fucking gaslighting me for thirty hours. Screw you, 3-1.

Because it's obvious. It's fucking obvious that Kaede couldn't have killed Rantaro, from the moment you first see the crime scene.

I caught Kaede taking the ball. I missed Kaede setting up the track. And then I caught Kaede dropping the ball in the vent. So I had two out of three of the pieces for the attempt. I was genuinely scared that she might be the killer. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw this, because one look at this crime scene and you know it can't be her.

It's the blood that's the problem.

For Kaede to be the killer, Rantaro would need to be struck in the top of the head. This would cause him to fall backwards and spray blood on the floor.

Instead, Rantaro was struck in the back of the head, falling forwards and spraying blood on the bookshelves in an upwards arc that climbs higher than the tops of anyone's heads. It is physically impossible for Kaede's dropped shot put ball to have created this scene.

It's okay. Kaede isn't the true killer. She's the decoy, setting up for the reveal of the true killer.

...

This, right here, is a big part of why I loathe this case. In 1-5, the Mastermind fabricates a false murder. But over the course of the case, it becomes clear that there's something nefarious going on here, to the point that Kyoko even outright calls it a trap.

The Mastermind pins you into a corner, but you're able to survive it and come right back in 1-6 to keep sifting the facts and ultimately nail her for it. 1-5's facts are clearly wrong but the wrongness comes through over the course of the trial and it segues directly into confronting the real truth immediately after.

3-1 opens with that case and then solves it incorrectly on purpose. It won't be revisited for another 30-40 hours. They wrote a bad mystery, solved it wrong on purpose, took away the cool and interesting protag we were playing as to replace her with another boring sadboy, and then told us, "No, YOU were wrong for seeing the obvious truth in front of you!"

While fully intending to go back and sheepishly admit that yeah, we were right, they were gaslighting us by writing badly on purpose and then killing off Kaede for no reason at all. The mean-spirited bait-and-switch is not made better by the knowledge that Kaede only died so the game could lie poorly about the facts of the case that are plainly visible in front of our eyes. (And to make Shuichi feel sad.)

And that's the point, really. It's supposed to piss you off. It's written badly on purpose because the central theme is about whether a truth that's a lie is a lie that's truthier when the truthiest lie is the truth. They're trying to be clever by creating a mystery where a pleasant lie is a better alternative than the truth but also that truth is a lie concealing a greater truth behind a lie of an even greater truth.

They're telling a bad story on purpose and patting themselves on the back about how smart they're being. It's thematic. But it's still just a standard case of "We think this person did it, but actually this other person did it." We just never get to that "other person" step until way later in the game because the characters here are a cavalcade of fuck-ups. No matter how smart it thinks it's being, it's still a bad mystery solved wrong on purpose.

3-6 is the salt in the wound of 3-1, in a game that wears open contempt for the brand, its characters, and the very concept of the mystery genre itself on its sleeve.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #revisiting drv3 #kaede akamatsu

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gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat · 4 months

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Semifinals, Poll 2

Propaganda under the cut

GLaDOS

I mean, obviously.

Ianthe Tridentarius

idk just everything about her

Artist: olivecow (deviantart)

#decisive battle #semifinals #Portal #Portal 2 #GLaDOS #GLaDOS Portal #GLaDOS Portal 2 #tlt #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius #cw ianthe tridentarius #ianthe the first

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oknerd3 · 5 months

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“It’s not a home.”

Gift for: @aggressivenesswhilecrying for @mcyt-halloween !! Their pinch hitter dropped out last minute so i wrote lol. Sorry if its a bit rusty, I haven't written a full fic in a while but this was fun! Martyn's always a fun character to play with.

Warnings: Blood, beheading, canon typical violence, death

“I don’t know if I can do it, me lord.” He mumbled, gripping the axe in his hands, Red Winter Is Coming. He squeezed it, like the wood would collapse under a slight push. It remained sturdy, strong. Surrounded by fields of carrots, all ready to be harvested. Black Heart Altar. A place familiar to Martyn by now, the same stone beneath his feet he remembered.

Ren’s head was bent down, waiting for the strike. He saw Ren’s lips move but he didn’t hear the words. He knew what his king wanted, though. He always did. So, he swallowed his breath and raised the axe into the moonlight, hesitating just long enough for Ren to turn to ask him to hurry, when he burrowed the axe into Ren’s neck, with two messy chops. Blood was sprayed across the crops, a painful use of royal blood.

Martyn shook as he stepped closer to Ren’s body, feeling sick at the stillness. He collapsed to his knees beside his king, bruising his legs with stone.

The stillness did not last for long, though, because the moment Martyn bent down and tried to grant some dignity to his king by crossing his arms, the head, still detached from the body, shot its eyes open.

Martyn dunked his head into the salt water along the beach, then leaned his head back and wiped his face clean. Turning red always meant the same nightmare, of his first game, his first death match, when he failed his king by doing the task asked of him. Yes, that is not what happened, his trial gave them an edge they would have been decimated without, but that was not the point. Ren was his king, his partner, and now, in a new place with a new person who he could genuinely trust to lead?

These last few games, Martyn had united himself with people who didn’t have such a strong connection as he did with Ren, yes they may have bossed him around more, but Scott was.. and now Scott was trying to rival that of which he had with Ren. It was ludicrous to think someone could even compare.

But whether they compared didn’t matter because both were Martyn’s partner and some part of him knew that a new nightmare would come with this ally-ship too. Because when he swam after Scott with the express mission of killing him, he didn’t feel the itch of guilt he did when he took Ren’s head. There wasn’t much difference between the times, trading time away to gain more later.

Maybe he’d gone numb to it.

With his own form of conclusion, Martyn jumped into the sea and swam. Him and Scott reunited later in the day and struck a tenuous alliance with what was left of TIES until-

“Martyn!” Scott shouted, half playful, as he usually was in these games. It was almost funny how both logically and carefree Scott played. It reminded Martyn of himself, or maybe just the time back then when this was truly a game. Either way, Martyn answered in kind.

Scott huffed and laughed through his words, “They tried to kill me.”

Martyn’s blood went cold. His mean gill, put in danger. It was completely unacceptable. “Who did?”

“Etho and Impulse.”

“Right. That’s it, they’re dead. Just as quick as that, they’re dead.”

Martyn drew his sword, bared his sharp teeth, then started to prowl, looking for his new targets he’d been steered to. He hadn’t been this confidently close to winning in a long time and he wasn’t about to let it squirm from his grip, not with his partner by his side.

Martyn had learned by now, after all these seasons, that one was easy enough to kill, especially with Scott. They got it down so the only person who stood in their way was Impulse. Impulse explained the plan, where he died and Martyn left victorious. Scott interrupted with what Martyn’s and his plan had been earlier. “As their forefathers”. On late nights, sorting chests and filing away for bed, the morbid questions were always asked on the server. And on one night, Scott and Martyn explained they’d fight it out, just as Scar and Grian had at the start of it all. Martyn and Ren had the same agreement, after all. At the time, it sounded like a good plan, a logical one. But now the cards were down and Martyn was met with killing his partner again.

And he was blood thirsty.

Martyn stayed in armour while they stripped of their own, narrowing their time to zilch. He stared

Scott down, checked his pocket while Scott, ever a generous soul in this world, handed Impulse some food.

Then Martyn surged forward and killed Scott by throwing hot magma at him and running him through with his sword.

It was clean and fast. Scott didn’t get the chance to move or speak before he was dead. He didn’t even scream. Flat time placed in Martyn’s hand, with no struggle of his own. He barely had to chase Impulse for the leftovers. He won, he had finally won, after four death games of trying to win, he won, through killing his guiding hand. He screamed in relief. He had won and he didn’t need to bite and claw for his time.

Over an hour of time to go, Scott’s body was burnt and tossed to the side, still slowly bleeding, half overshadowed by his red clothes. Maybe that’s why they always ended on red life, to hide the colour of a corpse.

Martyn had settled down from the bloodlust. There was no one left to kill, just bodies scattered around the map. And none of them mattered besides this one. Scott had given him time, in more ways than one, and they had played the game smart together, they’d done well. It wasn’t Scott’s fault that he trusted Martyn to play another game.

Staring into Scott’s eyes, he realized that no, Scott wasn’t anything like Ren. They were kind and strong leaders, but beyond that there was no similarity. But maybe that was all the similarity that Martyn needed. A gentle, guiding hand, to tell him who to rip to shreds. Scott never had the collar on Martyn that Ren did. Scott was his partner, but he was never his king, his lord. Now it was time to untie himself from the Coral Isles, or Dogwarts, or whatever home was keeping him awaiting a command.

Martyn lowered his sword to one side of Scott’s neck and moved it through to the other, then did it again, fertilizing the grass under him with merman’s blood.. And for some reason he knew, this beheading wouldn’t be in any of his nightmares to come. And when he got to the end of the line, his heart clenched, stopped ticking away, and he fell to the ground. The watchers were done with their fun.

#mcyt-halloween #tw blood #tw death #inthelittlewood #scott smajor #rendog #fanfiction

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outpost51 · 4 months

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ROY G BIV tag

tagged by @void-botanist over here, ty ilysm bb <3

Rules: Search your your writing for the colours of the rainbow and post the excerpt.

low/no pressure tagging: @sparatus @thetrashbagswasteland @teamdilf @omniblades-and-stars @lag-train @commander-krios @vacantgodling

shoving the rest below a cut for dash courtesy, also violence

RED

from Stellar Parallax, Chapter 2: Red Fish, Blue Fish

You could die, you fool! “Better dead than whatever the fuck you want me to be,” Jane rasped. It screamed with a thousand voices. Her ears felt wet. Metallic salt seeped into her mouth. She was on the ground. Pieces of the beacon rained down around her. Rain poured into her mouth and nose, washing blood into her sinuses and making her choke until she retched. Faces blurred in and out of view, vaguely familiar ones and one she remembered for sure, stark white against the blood red sky. It looked wrong, though, and it took until ship engines howled overhead and unconsciousness had nearly taken her away to figure out why. Fear didn’t look right on the bogeyman.

ORANGE

from Stellar Parallax, Chapter 9: Unshackled

Jane had been hospitalized for two weeks following the Skyllian Shitshow — less for the gunshot wound and more for ‘being a danger to herself and others’. The food had been unremarkable at best; allegedly, psych ward ate better than regular hospital patients for morale reasons, and all she could think at the time was how much it would suck to be bedridden and eat worse food than the shit they shoved at her through the door hatch. The worst had been tomato bisque, viscous and orange and somehow tasting of nothing but black pepper and whatever pills they’d ground up and mixed in.

YELLOW

from Stellar Parallax, Chapter 7: H(a)unt

Nihlus stepped between Jane and the stairs, but before she could chew him out for blocking her shot, his body rippled, organic flesh burning to ash and floating away. The thing that looked back at her had too many eyes and too-sharp teeth and the tree beneath the endless glass ocean shattered the surface with spires. The spires stretched up, up, up to the ceiling, like children begging for a parent’s love. But the great black ships were just things made of metal and wires and hate. They weren’t capable of love. Some monstrous creature painted up with white and blue kissed her brow with the muzzle of a Vindicator. Its fingers looked like the spires still growing towards the stars, and its mouth was peeled back in a permanent grin. Jane’s lip curled up to match. She would show these things she had teeth, too. That hers weren’t an empty threat. That she had used them before and would use them again. Behind the shadowy figures presiding over her trial for crimes against the Old Machines, a yellow-striped geth uncloaked. Its big yellow eye stayed trained on her Firestorm like it was the biggest threat in the room. She’d just killed a man with a plastic fork. She didn’t need a gun to be dangerous.

GREEN

from Stellar Parallax, Chapter 4: Unfortunate Things

Jane didn’t have clothes of her own since they had to evacuate so quickly, so he’d gladly given up one of his PT shirts and a pair of sleep shorts once Williams and Dr. Chakwas got her cracked out of her armor. She practically drowned in them, but they did the job, even if they made her look so incredibly small. She’d always been on the shorter end, and all the muscle she put on over the years still didn’t bulk out her scrawny frame much more, but she was so… larger than life, it was easy to forget how physically unimposing she looked out of armor and not armed to the teeth. And with teeth, too. Unfortunate things happen in battle, John. Ruthless. That’s what they’d called her after Torfan. If he believed nothing else, he knew that descriptor was true, especially after their final test in N-school. Especially after she’d gunned down a retreating man. Her eyes had looked so hollow afterwards; he’d expected anger, something hot and hissing, coiled up like a viper ready to strike, but there was no life in that deep green lake. That looked personal, Commander. It was. He couldn’t reconcile that person with the small, fragile thing lying so concerningly still under so many blankets – they’d had a hard time getting her body temperature stable, Dr. Chakwas said. They had to sedate her, too, and it had taken Nihlus to restrain her long enough to get the IV catheter in. What had that thing done to her?

BLUE

from Stellar Parallax, Chapter 12: Dig (unpublished)

The seagrass had been lost to the river for a long time, but the river couldn’t take that memory from her, of a scrawny boy with minnow-grey plates and eyes like tidepools. “Really?” Garrus drawled. “I give you the last of my lunch, and this is the thanks I— ack!” Jane shook the tingle from her knuckles and pushed off his keel, then offered him the same hand. “Stabbed a salarian with your fork, too,” she snorted. “So that’s two I owe you. You look good.” Her mouth curled up. “Even without the tinfoil hat.” Garrus rubbed the sore spot from his throat as he stood. “Think I liked you in the hospital gown better,” he groused. A blue flush had already darkened his throat. “You’re still a bad liar, Garrus Vakarian.” Jane socked his bicep and turned back to their shore party.

INDIGO

from Blinding Neon, Shades of Grey, Chapter 1: Hello World

It’s dark when she enters, save for a floor lamp in the corner. One of the show droids, the rabbit, lurks beside the chair that’s turned away from her, a hulking indigo mass that looks far fucking bigger than it does on stage. Someone has traded its stage look for a far more muted suit, finely tailored pinstripes emphasizing every inhuman bend and curve and making it appear taller, endless, looming.

VIOLET

i know i used pink shhhshhh from The Unlikely Adventures of Bitchface and Go F*ck Yourself, Chapter 6: Playing With Fire

Taking another breath, Dillon pushed all thoughts of Zadimus being an asshole out of her mind. He was right, not that she’d admit it out loud. The line of energy glowed a dull violet as it stretched on and on, deep underground, as far as she could sense. She flexed her fingers towards her feet, then closed them, trying to feel the hum solidifying in her hands as she guided it upward. The less she strained, the easier it got to pull, and the higher it rose, the stronger the buzz became until finally she felt it right beneath her feet, tingling her arches where she balanced on it like a tightrope.

#sneeps.txt #stellar parallax #blinding neon #unlikely adventures

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featherwurm · 3 months

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Because you're going to be stuck seeing dozens more sketches of her, here's my PC for BG3:

Zatavia “Tav” Felix, Zariel Teifling, Monk of the Open Hand, She/Her, 45

Tav talks about herself (at level 1 at the beginning of the game – spoken with strong ‘just some guy’ energy):

“My name is Tav. I am a wandering monk, seeking little more than knowledge and skill, making my way through the kindness and generosity of others. As a child, my anger, difficulty, and defiance lead to my entering of a monastic enclave in Baulder’s Gate. I flourished under routine and discipline, growing with my fellow acolytes, working, learning, and training. At twenty, I was deemed worthy enough to set out on my own path. I spent the next couple decades of my life traveling Faerûn, occasionally returning to Baulder’s Gate. I have found and lost love, luck, pain, and trial on the road, but as I am now, I walk by myself.”

Some more info and a full body ref below the cut:

favorite weapon: Hands but she carries the Gold Wyrmling staff to keep a firebolt cantrip on hand (particularly nice with her now-explosive blood)

style of combat: Off-tank utilizing ki resonating punch for crowd control and furry of blows/other disabling attacks for larger enemies

most prized possession: She isn’t material, and would walk away from physical things in a heartbeat but she does seem to keep her earrings on at most times though, some sentimentality there (a gift from an old friend)

deepest desire: A cold pint after a long day of hard work or travel, a bath, some banging sex, and a good nights rest before doing it all again

guilty pleasure: Fancy little cakes/sweets, the occasional cigarette (used to be something all the acolytes did – contraband at the monastery makes it interesting)

best-kept secret: Her full name (she is fine with her first name but thinks her last name is embarrassing – some forefather’s invention to try to make the lot of them ‘lucky’)

greatest strength: Bull-headed resolution and kindness

fatal flaw: Stubbornness and empathy (doesn't always listen well once she has an opinion)

favorite smell: Salt Spray, petrichor, campfire, pine, sandlewood

favorite spell or cantrip: Firebolt, Tasha’s hideous laughter

pet peeve: Too much background noise, multiple people trying to talk to her at the same time

bad habit: No eye-contact, not paying attention, picking violence first

hidden talent: Actually plays the lyre and sings fairly well if given the chance

leisure activity: Sleeping, fucking, exercise, meditation – not necessarily in that order

favorite drink: Dark beer, orange juice, black coffee

comfort food: Mushroom soup, lychees, rice pudding

favorite person: Karlach (in Tav’s mind this is in pink font with little hearts and glitter n shit – she’s smitten – it’s gross. She loves all her friends though very much.)

favored display of affection (platonic and/or romantic): Hugging, kissing, touching, hand-holding, tail-holding, overall despite the sort of stoic and serious bearing she’s terribly touchy and cuddly. Also a big gift-giver if she can manage it (she doesn't have much money and doesn't keep it when she does) – if she finds it it’s yours if you need it/want it.

fondest childhood memory: After a few months in the monastery getting used to the routine and work, waking up one nondescript day and just finding herself calm and ready to be awake and alive (she spent much of her childhood angry and frustrated, and at 12 after some discussion of secondary school, apprenticeship, or other options, she and her family agreed that monastic training would be the best thing for now – and it actually suited her very well.)

#Bg3 #baulders gate 3 #Tav #OC #Zatavia

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