#and a relatively small group of us showing up at around the same time and being in the same situation

[thethingything]

the sun's started rising around the same time it does in late spring so now I've got that weird nostalgia for when I first showed up in the system and I'm also stuck thinking about when Lucy was like "September is the March of the year" because while that's kind of a ridiculous quote, I do get what they meant with it

[your-averagewriter]

Imagine the Spiderverse characters meeting Miguel's assistant

Including: Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Hobie Brown, Pavitr Prabhakar Miguel O'Hara, Peter B. Parker

Miles Morales - Miles is taken to meet Miguel and he was warned of his cold exterior but he wasn't warned about Miguel's assistant and her bubbly persona. You walk in and instantly his eyes are diverted from Miguel to you as you introduce yourself. You smile at the group and apologise for Miguel's bad mood as well as shaking Miles' hand upon meeting him and he swears he'll never wash that hand. Now he definitely wants to joining the Spider Society if he gets to see you everyday, after a while he comes back to see you asking you cute little questions and using bad pick up lines.

Gwen Stacy - Gwen also meets you when meeting with Miguel except it's not in his office, it's when she is 'enlisted' to the Spider Society. You saved her from the anomaly and whilst you did, she couldn't tear her eyes off of you and didn't snap out of it until Miguel was shouting at her to help. Afterwards, every time she saw Miguel, you'd be near (as his assistant) and she'd make up excuses to get to talk to you despite her awkward exterior. This includes 'bumping' into you when you go to lunch as she knows your schedule and checking with Miguel for the smallest of things.

Hobie Brown - You were actually the one who spoke to Hobie first at the Spider Society. Lots of people were put off by his 'extreme' exterior but you just thought he looked cool and naturally you wanted to tell him. Hobie was slightly confused by the small woman walking up to him and when you started complimenting his punk pins he was even more confused but also intrigued. He found out you liked similar music to him despite you're 'normal-looking' attire and he basically fell in love with you: the cute girl who liked punk music.

Pavitr Prabhakar - Pavitr was a relatively new Spiderman and was struggling to get to grips with certain skills so Miguel assigned you to helping him as you were of similar age. As soon as Pavitr saw you walk out from the portal in your Spider suit he was hooked and when he saw you take off your mask? He was even more hooked, sticking to your side throughout missions less for the safety aspect but more for the closeness and even after you've finished the short mentor programme with him he still hangs around you at the Spider Society not that you minded. You were perfectly happy having the puppy like boy following you around, keeping you company.

Miguel O'Hara - Miguel had a habit of scaring off every assistant assigned to him but that stopped entirely when you were hired. He expected you to be the same, nervous girl he always gets assigned but when you walked in you brought a couple of empanadas with you (not knowing his obsession with the food) which immediately gave him a good impression of you. After days of you working for him, his harsh stares became softer just for you and he understood the reactions you received from other Spider people that came to meet him. Afterall even he couldn't resist you're cute smile and friendly persona.

Peter B. Parker - When Peter met you he didn't know that you were Miguel's assistant but that probably only made him like you even more. You met when he bumped into you, after all he's not the most self aware of Spidermen. He was surprised to see such a unique Spiderperson as when everyone's wearing the same suit it's hard to stick out but you're kindness and friendliness really melted his heart. He, like Gwen, would make excuses to come and see you, his friendship with Miguel making it easier to come up with things. It's always "I need to show Miguel this new food from the canteen" or "I need to tell Miguel something I remembered about Miles" although he always means "I just wanna see (y/n)" and Miguel always knows.

-

AN: I thought I'd try this new format. If you guys would like more fanfics with this format then let me know as I really enjoyed writing this!

I hope you enjoyed reading!

[barefoothighlander]

everlong

so I got a req for a mute!reader and I loved the idea, I’m by no means an expert on the disability but as someone who tends to go non-verbal when anxious I thought I’d write a little one shot with Ghost cause I feel like he’d be really good at reading expressions and body language so.

warnings: fluff, mentions of anxiety, mentions of violence, mention of alcohol, gn pronouns

The team finally had some time off, no missions to worry about, nothing weighing down their shoulders. Soap had suggested a visit to the beach, he owned a small cottage on the coast and invited the team up for the weekend, Ghost was hesitant as he usually enjoyed spending his off time at home with you, but decided some fresh sea air might be nice.

The drive was long, a few hours south before you arrived, majority of your time spent with him was quiet, he wasn’t a man of many words and you liked that about him, never having to answer any of the same pestering questions about your day. He was very tactile though, always a hand on your back or thigh, keeping you aware of his presence, throughout the drive he kept an eye on you, glancing over as you stared out the window watching the trees pass by.

He was good at reading you, knowing when you felt anxious or angry just by the way you held yourself, always positioning himself accordingly, whether you needed space or just wanted to be held, he would always accommodate. He knew this weekend might be a bit stressful for you, you weren’t especially close with any of the team, you had formed a small friendship with Gaz considering he also spoke minimally but you felt awkward around the others, always listening patiently and nodding along to their stories.

You didn’t want them to think you disliked them in any way, it was just that sometimes words wouldn’t come to you. You struggled with conversational cues, especially considering Soaps slang, so you typically just say quietly, small nods of affirmation or head shakes of disagreement.

When you finally arrived at the cabin you let the breeze wash over you, the smell of salt flooding your senses.

“Finally ya two ‘ave made it” Soap walks towards the car with wide arms, you give him a polite smile.

“Thanks for the invite Johnny”

“Of course, anything to give the team a break,” He says, elbow nudging you, he gives you a slight side eye, still not used to your silent state as he helps grab the bags from the trunk, walking them into the house.

He shows you around, explaining the history of the plethora of decor and guides you to your designated room, it was small but comfortable, a relatively large en suite bathroom attached. He leaves allowing you to settle into the room, you sit on the edge of the bed, hands nervously running over your arms.

Ghost kneels in front of you, soft hands covering yours, “Oi, it’ll be alright love, i’m sure he’ll do all the talking”

You give him a meek smile before you move to the bathroom, changing into a bathing suit and a light coverup considering the attire you wore for the drive was sweatpants.

You leave the room, hearing laughter from the back deck, advancing towards the group of men all sitting around a table, Price and Gaz were already there, the Captain enjoying a cigar while Soap was letting them in on all the activities available.

“Finally, everyone’s here,” Johnny says as you sit down beside Gaz, in front of Simon.

“Good to see you” Gaz leans in whispering, you nudge him lightly with your shoulder in response.

The men continue talking, Price and Ghost running around preparing dinner. You all say for a while enjoying the sun, the men swapping war stories and drunken tales from their time on deployment.

Once you finished dinner Soap had brought out a bottle of scotch, insisting it was the best but you shook him off, deciding instead to go for a swim. You gaze at Ghost, silently informing him that you were leaving and he nods, you walk towards the dock on the water, the sound of the tides growing louder.

“Where they off to?” Soap asks

“Got sick of you lot” Ghost responds, a smile forming on Price and Gaz’s face as Johnny fakes insult.

The water was warm on your legs, your cover-up forgotten on the sand as you slowly walked in before dunking your head. It was quiet under the water, a kind of quiet that you never got, the screams and noises of war etched in your brain, even at home the car sirens and constant shuffling seemed to fill the air. You stay under for a few seconds, pushing back up to catch your breath and looking out, it’s vast, a literal ocean of blue and you can go anywhere, you’re wading your arms in the water, enjoying the sensation of it rippling over your skin before the noise of movement makes you turn your head.

Simon is slowly making his way out to you, bare aside from his swim shorts and you smile, it was rare to see him without his mask outside of the comfort of your home but you never got sick of his face, his body is gleaming in the sun as he nervously takes his steps, you can’t help but be amused by his state.

“Always hated the ocean,” He says, arms wrapping around you, his chin resting on the top of your head, you simply shake yours in response, body falling back to brave against him.

“It’s true, too many things I can’t see trying to kill me out here” His words perplex you, the man worked in actual war zones, where his life was on the line daily and yet the ocean was what he feared, a few small fish and the occasional stray algae set him off.

You close your eyes, listening to his steady breaths as the water laps by your sides, the sun is warm but nothing compared to the heat emitted from him, it’s comforting.

The two of you stand for a while, just enjoying the comfortable silence aside from the sounds of the birds flying over head, the few yells from Soap as he clearly gets passionate about his story telling.

“Right I’m gettin all wrinkly” Ghost says, his palms facing the sky as you take his hands in yours, leading him back to shore. You walk up the the house, his hand resting at the base of your spine as you watch Gaz get overwhelmed in a fit of laughter after Johnny had knocked over a glass, cursing something in his slang.

“You gonna go shower?”

You nod in response, squeezing his hand before entering the house and making your way to the bathroom. You turn on the shower before stripping and stepping in, the warm water cleansing off all the salt from the ocean. You must’ve lost track of time considering a few minutes later Simon steps in behind you, taking up half the shower as he leans down to grab a shampoo bottle, squeezing some into his hand before he urges you to face away and his fingers start running through your hair working the product through it.

You hum quietly in response to his touch, he was so gentle with you, his large hands moving to cover to your forehead as the water rinses the suds away. You turn back to face him, planting your palms on his chest as he kisses your forehead. He holds you against him, his touch soothing your stress as his hands roam over your back, lightly massaging the skin.

“Thank you for coming”

You look up at him, his gaze soft as his hand pushes the wet hair off your face, your lips quirking in a silent of course as the two of you stand under the warm stream.

Once finished he had turned the two off, stepping out to wrap himself in a towel before handing you one, allowing you to dry yourself off before exiting the room to change into comfier clothes. The air had cooled in your time inside, Price designating himself as fire builder, and he had been quite successful, a decent sized bonfire sat in the sand of the beach as Soap and Gaz sat around, drinks in hand.

The men had finally cooled off after their rough dinner, Johnny becoming more tired as the alcohol settled in his system, resorting to listening to whatever the radio was playing and watching the flames in front of him crackle. You joined the team, setting yourself close enough that the warmth from the fire tickled on your skin, these were the moments you loved the most, the comfortable silence, no one felt the need to fill it with meaningless conversation, you could all just enjoy eachothers presence, secure in the safety of being back home.

[kirisakiss]

— hi guys!! i’ll be updating this every few days so check if you wanna know more! :)

Character profile (WIP)

“let our blood intertwine the way our love does.”

TW: Suicide mention, child abuse, neglect (?)

GENERAL INFORMATION

— KANJI: ヴァンソーン・ヒカリ

— RŌMAJI: Vanthorn Hikari

A living puppet, one of the many attempts of Karlheinz to create the perfect creature, Hikari was adopted alongside the Mukami brothers from the orphanage, but was kept locked in Rotigenberg for a long time as Karlheinz experimented with her. Lilith, he called her, his first prototype.

— ALSO KNOWN AS:

Lux Mortis (Real name) Lilith (by Karlheinz) Bitch-chan, Hypocrite-chan (by Laito) Lux (by Ruki and Azusa; her real name.) Hika-chan (by Kou) Hikari (by Yuma) Annoying woman (by Kanato)

— HER NICKNAMES FOR THE DIABOYS:

WIP

PERSONAL INFORMATION

— AGE: 18 (physically) — BIRTHDAY: January 25th — SIGN: Aquarius — STATUS: Alive — RACE: Human? / Doll? / Homunculus? / Humanoid thing? — GENDER: Female — SEXUALITY: Bisexual with no lean! — HEIGHT: 167 cm — HAIR COLOR: Brown (dyed), Bone white (natural hair color) — EYE COLOR: Turquoise — OCCUPATION: 3rd year High School Student at Ryoutei Academy — AFFILIATION: Karlheinz, Mukami Family — RELATIVES:

Karlheinz (Caretaker?)

— HOBBIES: Drawing — FAVORITE FOOD: Rice and Curry — CV: Saori Hayami

APPEARANCE

(insert an illustration i havent done yet !) WIP

PERSONALITY

WIP

HISTORY

Born to Lysandra Mortis, a woman renowned for her otherworldly beauty and rumored to possess magical powers, Hikari's early years were tainted by tragedy. 

Lysandra, a prostitute whose enchanting beauty captivated her clients, met a grim fate at the hands of one of them, leaving behind a small baby with eyes as bright as the stars. Lux, as she was named, was born into a country torn apart by conflict, and her mother’s death added to the countless casualties of the war. Her father was never in the picture; leaving her orphaned and alone at a young age. Lux was placed in an orphanage, where she endured years of neglect and hardship like the majority of children that were victims of the war. 

Lux inherited her mother’s rare beauty, which captivated those around her. She was considered a beautiful child, with bright turquoise eyes resembling gemstones and ivory, long wavy hair, decorated with a pale, almost doll like skin; which made her stand out among the multitude of children. 

Thanks to this, Hikari was given nice treatments, she was given beautiful clothes, toys, and delicious food that she had never even seen in her life; along with a room of her own that was in a better state than the others. However, her beauty became both a blessing and a curse when the orphanage's caretakers, desperate to make ends meet amidst the chaos of war, started offering children up as merchandise and "entertainment" for the aristocrats in the country. 

Lux was one of the first children to be offered, and she quickly became one of the most popular among the aristocracy to use. She quickly gained fame by being compared to her mother, some of them called her“little Mortis”, directly comparing them. They enjoyed seeing the bruises form in her skin, and the contrast the scarlet of her blood made against the white of her hair. 

Her innocence was ripped from her without a warning, leaving behind scars that ran deeper than the surface ones showed. 

Hikari’s only comfort was a small group of kids she met through Kou, a bright child that approached her one day in the aristocrat-filled clubs, a victim of the same fate she had endured. 

One day, a tall man with white hair, arrived at the orphanage, promising hope and happiness to Lux and her friends. Karlheinz was his name. He took Lux and four boys to the demon world, where Lux would see her best friends for the last time. 

Waking up in an unfamiliar room, Lux found herself alone with Karlheinz, who revealed they were in Rotigenberg, her new home. Karlheinz, aware of Lux's potential from her mother's stories, began experimenting with his magic on her. He gifted her a new heart crafted from his powerful magic, granting her abilities beyond those of a normal human. His plan was starting, and she was to be one of the first subjects.

However, as his experiments progressed, it became apparent that Lux's severe trauma rendered her unfit for the role of the perfect "Eve" he so craved. “Lilith” he called her. The original, broken one. 

Disappointed by his failed experiment, Karlheinz slowly withdrew his presence from Lux's life, leaving her alone in the tower where she had been subjected to his experiments.

The abandonment by Karlheinz, after initially showering her with attention and affection, shattered Lux's fragile state of mind. Faced with reminders of her past torment, she resorted to drastic measures to cope with her pain, including cutting off her long, silver hair that made all the memories from her childhood come back like a knife against her skin.

Years passed, and just when Lux had resigned herself to a life of solitude, Karlheinz returned with a new proposition. He presented her as a crucial component of his Adam and Eve project, a pawn in his game now started game with fate. He renamed her Hikari, meaning "light," perhaps as a cruel reminder of the beacon of hope she once represented. Desperate for a sense of belonging, Lux accepted her new identity and dyed her hair brown as a symbol of her desire to leave her painful past behind, she grew it again, but kept it shorter than it used to be in her childhood, and resorted to wearing thick chokers again. 

She had one mission, to serve as motivation for them to fulfill his plan. She was then sent to the Sakamaki mansion under the excuse of a new bride, her true motives hidden beneath a façade of compliance and obedience perfectly crafted to charm the potential "Adam"s.

RELATIONSHIPS

WIP

ABILITIES

Immortality - Hikari ceased to age due to Karlheinz's experiments, and cannot die of natural causes. Her immune system is almost perfect, so human illnesses don't really affect her, she can only die if the wounds are too much for her body to heal itself.

Faster Healing - Her body has the ability to heal from injuries at an accelerated rate. Wounds that would be dangerous to humans heal within a short moment for her.

Enhanced senses - Hikari’s senses are heightened to be more than a normal human's. She can see better, hear better, and moves with grace and agility that surpasses human limitations.

Magic - It's unknown if Hikari's talent with magic is due to Karlheinz own magic or due to her mother's supposed one; but it seems she has an easier ability to it than a common human.

ETYMOLOGY

Hikari's name is written in katakana, but can also be written in kanji as 光.

Both of her names Hikari (ヒカリ) and Lux (ルクス) mean "Light" - Lux being in Latin and Hikari in Japanese, her name just seems to be a translation unlike how the Mukami's have different original names. (Like Yuma being called Edgar and Kou Emilio).

Her last name "Vanthorn" (ヴァンソーン) comes from the word "Vanus" in Latin, which means "vain" and the English word thorn.

Her real last name, "Mortis" comes from the Latin word "Mors" which means death.

TRIVIA

WIP

[arminreindl]

Prehistoric Planet Croc Ideas

So this was a thing I did on Twitter in anticipation of Prehistoric Planet. Obviously crocs (in this case meaning crocodylomorphs) were a pretty massive part of earth's fauna during the late Cretaceous, and seeing as the first season featured NONE I came to speculate which taxa could hypothetically make an appearance. Now part of the challenge for myself was to come up with a new, interesting contender every day in anticipation of the show's release, each based around the confirmed episides we had and restricted purely to taxa from the Campanian and Maastrichtian. While it took a lot of energy, I did manage to do so. Hell, halfway through they dropped the reveal of Simosuchus, which I had saved for later.

Obviously we didn't get much still, but I'll regardless post my list of candidates and ideas here, perhaps third time's the charme for a lot of these (tho for convenience I'm still ordering them by S2s episode titles). I'll also try to break them apart roughly by biome, starting with islands. PS: I'd love to hear which crocs people would have loved to see themselves. Any on this list or stuff I didn't even mention? Let me know I'm curious.

We got a shit ton of island crocs from the Cretaceous actually, which you can broadly divide into two categories. The crocodiles of the European archipelago as seen in the top row. Featuring the small, possibly shellfish eating Acynodon (art by Adramelech89), the incredibly widespread Allodaposuchus which did have some possibly semi-terrestrial forms (art by Alejandro Blanco, Aina and Agnès Amblás) and Aprosuchus, a tiny terrestrial critter from Hateg (art by @knuppitalism-with-ue). They already give a nice diversity between tiny durophages with blunt snouts, large, more traditional crocs and lanky land species.

The other island category concerns Madagascar, which had a lot of attention in season 2. Discounting Simosuchus, we got Araripesuchus tsangatsangana (art by Scott Hartman) and Mahajangasuchus (art by Mark Hallet). Both are really cool. The former is yet another smaller terrestrial species that may not actually be part of Araripesuchus, while the later is a massive, 4 meter relative of the famous Kaprosuchus that took to the water independently from all other crocs and has been nicknamed "Hippo croc" for its weird skull. Really I'd have loved to seen an episode entirely dedicated to this place.

Next up we had the badlands episode, which oh boy has a lot of contenders from the clade Notosuchia. Brace yourself.

Here again I could split these in two categories. The first is just general badland taxa. There's Ogresuchus for example, from Spain's Tremp Formation (art by Aina and Agnès Amblás). A relatively small sebecid found in a sauropod nesting site. And we all know what PhP does with baby sauropods. Or the long-necked Gobiosuchus (art by @yoofilos) from Mongolia, which may look like its related to the other ones in this category but actually is a far more ancient type of croc.

The far bigger group concerns South America's Notosuchians. ALL OF THESE are from the Bauru Group, with some even from the same single formation. You got Stratiotosuchus (again by Joschua Knüppe), a large terrestrial baurusuchid that filled the nische of mid sized carnivore in an environment shared by sauropods and abelisaurs. There's Pissarrachampsa (by Felipe Alves Elias), another baurusuchid I decided to feature because we have evidence of a nesting site that shows they only had few eggs. A great opportunity to show their tender side. Uberabasuchus (justin_an74), part of the bizzarly proportioned peirosaurids. Adamantinasuchus (by Deverson da Silva), a small, lanky Notosuchian and of course the heavily armored omnivore Armadillosuchus (by the ever talented Júlia d'Oliveira). Hell you could do a full episode just on the foodweb of the Bauru Group (Godoy et al. 2014).

Then there's swamps, which I'll just use to dump all the crocs that don't fit into the other categories.

As you'd expect, freshwater would be ideal for crocs with a more traditional semi-aquatic lifestyle, here represented by three forms. Jiangxisuchus (image by Li et al. 2014) is a paralligatorid, which are tiny crocodilians from the Cretaceous and Paleogene of east Asia. We honestly don't know what they are, some say alligator relatives, others say they are closer to crocs. But its small and cute. Then there's Roxochampsa (artist of the model I couldn't find), which looks suspiciously crocodilian but is actually a relative of Uberabasuchus from the badlands, hell it appeared in the same formation. Still, I reasoned that I'd throw it into this category because I already proposed so much for badlands (none of which came true but hey). And then there's Denazinosuchus (art by Andrey Atuchin). Again it looks deceptively like a modern croc, but is actually the last remnant of the goniopholids, crocodyliforms that were prominent animals in the Jurassic and early Cretaceous. It could have brought both taxonomic diversity nad highlighted croc resilience till the end.

When it came to picking out crocs for Oceans, it got tricky. Obviously season 2 tried to differentiate itself by being set more in the open ocean, not the coast, and true pelagic crocodiles weren't around by the end of the Cretaceous. So I had to settle for coastal animals. There's Sabinosuchus (Schiller II et al. 2016), a cousin to Sarcosuchus and, like Denazinosuchus, one of the last of its lineage. Also its from Mexico which is rarely talked about for its fossils. Rhabdognathus (Ghedoghedo) is a distant cousin, a slender snouted dyrosaur. Unlike pholidosaurs, dyrosaurs actually did really well after the KPG impact and spread around a lot, living way into the Eocene. And finally Chenanisuchus (art by artbyjrc), which like Rhabdognathus was found both before and after the impact that killed the dinosaurs.

And the final two I shall talk about, both of which I thought/hoped would appear in the North America episode. Again, there's certainly overlap, both would have just as much fit into swamps, while many others would have also suited North America. Regardless, here's Brachychampsa (Tom Parker) and Borealosuchus (Chris Masna), both iconic animals from the Hell Creek Formation. One closely allied with alligators and caimans, the other more basal with a head-shape more similar to todays crocodiles.

Now obviously there'd have been a lot more. Part of the challenge to myself was to try and be as diverse as possible, rather than just listing 10 different baurusuchids I went with only two, tried to include as much of the world as possible, etc.... There's also the fact that some really awesome taxa, Titanochampsa, Brachiosuchus and Eurycephalosuchus, all incredibly unique or interesting, were published too late to have been considered for the show. And now, in hinsight, we obviously know that with the exception of Simosuchus none of them made it in. Which is a shame, but maybe next time.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New proof for black hole spin

The supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy M87, made famous by the first picture of a black hole shadow, has yielded another first: the jet shooting out from the black hole has been confirmed to wobble, providing direct proof that the black hole is spinning. Super massive black holes, monsters up to billions of times heavier than the Sun that eat everything around them including light, are difficult to study because no information can escape from within. Theoretically, there are very few properties that we can even hope to measure. One property that might possibly be observed is spin, but due to the difficulties involved there have been no direct observations of black hole spin. Searching for evidence for black hole spin, an international team analyzed over two decades of observational data for the galaxy M87.  This galaxy located 55 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Virgo harbors a black hole 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun, the same black hole which yielded the first image of a black hole shadow by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2019. The supermassive black hole in M87 is known to have an accretion disk, which feeds matter into the black hole, and a jet, in which matter is ejected from near the black hole at close to the speed of light. The team analyzed data for 170 time frames collected by the East Asian VLBI Network (EAVN), the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the joint array of KVN and VERA (KaVA), and the East Asia to Italy Nearly Global (EATING) VLBI network. In total, more than 20 radio telescopes across the globe contributed to this study. The results show that gravitational interactions between the accretion disk and the black hole’s spin cause the base of the jet to wobble, or precess, much the same way that gravitational interactions within the Solar System cause the Earth to precess. The team successfully linked the dynamics of the jet with the central supermassive black hole, providing direct evidence that the black hole does in fact spin. The jet’s direction changes by about 10 degrees with a precession period of 11 years, matching theoretical supercomputer simulations conducted by ATERUI II at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). "We are thrilled by this significant finding," says Yuzhu Cui, lead author on the paper summarizing the research she started as a graduate student at NAOJ before moving to Zhejiang Lab as a postdoctoral researcher. "Since the misalignment between the black hole and the disk is relatively small and the precession period is around 11 years, accumulating high-resolution data tracing M87 structure over two decades and thorough analysis are essential to obtain this achievement.” "After the success of black hole imaging in this galaxy with the EHT, whether this black hole is spinning or not has been a central concern among scientists," explains Dr. Kazuhiro Hada from NAOJ. "Now anticipation has turned into certainty. This monster black hole is indeed spinning." “This is an exciting scientific milestone that was finally revealed through years of joint observations by the international researchers team from 45 institutions around the world, working together as one,” says Dr. Motoki Kino at Kogakuin University, the coordinator of the East Asian VLBI Network Active Galactic Nuclei Science Working Group. “Our observational data beautifully fitted to the simple sinusoidal curve bring us new advances in our understanding of black hole and jet system.”

TOP IMAGE...The black hole’s spin axis is assumed to align vertically. The jet’s direction is almost perpendicular to the disk. The misalignment between the black hole spin axis and the disk rotation axis triggers the precession of the disk and jet.  CREDIT Yuzhu Cui et al. 2023, Intouchable Lab@Openverse and Zhejiang Lab

LOWER IMAGE....Top panel: M87 jet structure at 43 GHz based on bi-yearly stacking data observed from 2013–2018. The white arrows indicate the jet position angle in each subplot. Bottom panel: Best fitted results based on the yearly stacked image from 2000–2022. The green and blue points were obtained from observations at 22 GHz and 43 GHz, respectively. The red line represents the best fit according to the precession model.  CREDIT Yuzhu Cui et al., 2023

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi,

I'm an amateur novelist working on two books, and I'm close to finishing the first one. The problem is, I wrote it without dividing it into chapters. Could you kindly offer guidance on how to effectively divide my manuscript into chapters? Thank you for your time.

Have a lovely day - Annie💌💌

Dividing a Manuscript into Chapters

Chapters are made up of one to three scenes, so really what you're looking to do is find the scenes and group them together into chapters.

Scenes are like mini-stories that have their own central character, conflict or dilemma, and beginning/middle/end. A scene tends to take place within a relatively small interval of time, in a specific location. A scene ends when one of the following things happen:

-- the scene conflict is either resolved, leads to a setback, or creates a new question that the reader will want to have answered

-- the scene dilemma is resolved and leads to a decision (that must later be acted upon)

-- there is a big change in time (a few hours)

-- there is a big change in venue (biology class to gym class)

-- the POV character needs to change

So, the first thing you need to do is read through your story and break it up into its individual scenes using the information above. Once you have your scenes marked out, you can start grouping related scenes into chapters.

The scenes within a chapter should feel related in some way and will usually take place within related locations and a relatively short period of time.

Let's look at some theoretical scenes:

Scene 1 - Mindy is at the breakfast table with her family talking about her first day a t a new school.

Scene 2 - Mindy meets Jake on the bus and he agrees to be her tour guide for the day.

Scene 3 - Jake meets Mindy in the cafeteria at lunch and shows her around the school after they eat.

Scene 4 - the next afternoon, Mindy is in her backyard and has a video call with her sister where she talks about her new friend Jake.

Scene 5 - Mindy gets a text from Jake after her call with her sister, and is then asked by her parents to babysit her smaller siblings.

Now, to group these scenes into chapters...

Scene one is in Mindy's POV and takes place at her home the morning of her first day at school. Scene two, also from Mindy's POV, takes place on the bus on the way to school, so a little later that same morning. These two scenes are closely related because they share a POV character, both have to do with Mindy's first day at school, and since the bus takes her from home to school, it's not a significant change in location from home. So, scene one and two can be in one chapter together.

In scene three, we switch to Jake's POV, and we're now in the middle of the school day and focused not on preparing for Mindy's first day of school but actually living it. So, we know we're going to start a new chapter here.

With scene four, we're back in Mindy's POV and it's the next afternoon. Since we've jumped to a new POV, a new day, and a new location, we know we're going to start a new chapter.

Scene five takes place shortly after scene four and in the same location (home), so we can group scene four and five into one chapter.

I hope that makes sense!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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[metalnecklace]

Please Let Me

Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader (plus size)

Words: 3225

Warnings: Slight age gap (reader is in her late thirties/early forties, Joel is his age just after the show), Mentions of period, Mentions of blood (from period and from violence), Canon Typical Violence, Panic Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Ellie.

Notes: This is a second part to Be Good to Me, but can be read as a stand alone. There is just a few small mentions that allude to the first part. This mostly comes from me wanting to take care of Joel because he needs a hug at the very least.

Summary: Joel knows how to take care of people, but it’s time someone takes care of him.

Masterlist Part 1

Joel and I had been getting used to our new routine. Instead of him coming over a few times a month when my period hit, he was coming over all the time. Better yet, I was even going over to his place just as much. Ellie enjoyed having another woman around, and Joel just enjoyed being around me.

It was all going well. We worked together, and he comforted me when I needed it. The only issue was I never felt like I was doing enough in terms of comforting him.

Until we had no other choice.

A group of infected had been traveling through one of our patrol paths, which Joel had immediately volunteered to help clear out. What he didn’t expect was for me to do the same.

He had begged Maria to keep me home and send someone else, but I had been stubborn. After having to stay home from the last few patrols due to period pains, I still felt that need to make up for what I felt I lacked. Joel had insisted that I stay behind, that there was nothing to prove. I didn’t care.

Maria knew I was capable, and didn’t feel the need to find anybody else. So we were sent on our way.

The trail had been relatively quiet for the most part, until we reached the area we had been warned about. We could hear the infected making their way through the woods and had one job: clear them out.

Our guns were loud, but we were able to take down about four of them before they turned to attack. There were at least four more, which was more than we had already anticipated, until another pack came from behind us.

If we had known how many there actually were Maria would’ve sent more people with us. But we did our best.

Joel’s eyes glazed over in a way I hadn’t seen before as he was quick to aim his shotgun, fire, reload, repeat. He was methodical, mesmerizing, almost distracting.

I was right there next to him, taking out one infected after another. Never missing a shot. We finally cleared them after only a few close calls. Joel had walked toward the bodies to be sure there weren’t any still moving when I felt something grab my shoulder.

“Joel!” I screamed out, second nature, as if my body knew what I needed before I did.

His eyes raised to mine, searching for a sign that I was okay for a split second before he aimed his gun over my shoulder. A shot rang out through the air, and a thump sounded on the ground behind my feet.

My blood had gone to ice from the surprise and panic that had flooded my nervous system, but I was luckily unharmed.

Joel still raced to me and held my face in his trembling hands.

“Are you okay?” He was frantic, his eyes flickering to every point on my face. “Are you bit?”

I raised my hands to hold onto his forearms, steadying my breathing again. “I’m fine, Joel, I’m not bit. I’m okay, I promise.”

His eyes slid closed, and he placed his forehead to mine. Our breathing synced as we rested in that spot for a moment.

“It’s okay, Joel,” I whispered into the space between us as he still cradled my face. “We’re okay.”

“I know,” he breathed into our limited space. “I know, I know, I just…”

He trailed off, breathed in deep, and stepped away.

“Let’s get back, okay? I think we’re done here.” His words were calculated, his eyes distant and looking anywhere but at me.

“Okay,” I murmured.

I rode in front while he made sure to keep watch the entire way back. It was absolutely silent, reminding me of before. Before Joel took care of me, before I let him in, before we found a safe haven in each other. Sadness welled within my chest, but I knew it had to wait until we could get to the comfort of our private closed doors. Whether it was mine or his.

Maria was waiting for us at the barn with Tommy, both looking concerned. The two of us must’ve been a sight, considering the blood that was matted into my hair and back of my jacket, and Joel looked like the stone cold statue he used to when he first returned to Jackson. He still had that look around certain people, but not around me.

“Joel?” Tommy asked, going to the older man and taking the reins of his horse.

“They’re taken care of, we’re okay,” Joel responded. He then clapped a hand onto Tommy’s shoulder.

“We’re okay,” he repeated, as if he needed to convince himself more than his brother.

He then turned and walked out of the barn before anybody else could question him further. Maria looked to me for more of an explanation.

“Uh, we’re okay,” I said, wanting to slap myself for the parroted response. “We are. I think he’s just a bit shaken up. I’ll take care of him.”

Tommy and Maria exchanged a glance, but I didn’t linger, needing to find Joel. I walked out of the barn and looked around for where I might find him, but he was gone. I sighed, ready to walk home and hope to find him waiting for me, when I heard something.

It sounded like a gasp, a sharp intake of air from something just around the side of the barn that faced the woods. I rushed over and turned the corner to find Joel bracing himself against the wooden wall with one hand, the other gripping his chest like he needed to reach in and squeeze his heart.

“Joel?” I called softly to him, stepping toward him with caution. I hadn’t seen him in that state before and wasn’t sure he wanted me to, considering he was hidden from everyone else. But he clearly needed help.

He lifted his head and looked to me, making me pause in my tracks. His eyes were glassy, tears already having tracked down his tanned cheeks, and his lip trembled around his labored breathing.

“Oh, Joel.” I went to him, placing my hand over the one laid on his chest, and slipped my other one around his neck.

My fingers slipped into his unruly locks and I pulled him into me. Suddenly his arms wrapped around me and pulled us together even tighter. With his head buried in my neck he fell apart, piece by piece.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasped out, muffled by my jacket and hair. “I’m so so sorry, I panicked. I wasn’t quick enough, you could’ve been bit, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

I let him ramble through his grief as I held his head and trembling body to me. We stood there interlocked until his breathing finally evened out.

“Do you need me to get Tommy?” I asked, unsure if he really wanted me to be the one to pick up his pieces. Even though I wanted to, and I would if he asked me.

He pulled away, shaking his head. “No, don’t get Tommy. I don’t need to worry him. I just need to get home.”

I nodded, caressing his cheek with the hand that had been in his hair. “Let’s go home.”

We walked together with an arm around each of us. Some of the townsfolk watched us as if still shocked to see evidence of Joel Miller’s softer, caring side. As if he hadn’t been showing it long enough. I felt both a pride that I got to see that side of him, and a sadness that others didn’t. I wished everybody could see him for the man that he was.

The man that fought, knuckles bloody, for the ones he loved. The man that fell apart when alone, scared to lose the ones he loved. The man that was both sunshine forever warming my soul, and the moonlight I needed to light the darkness.

He was everything.

We came upon my house first, and when I looked to Joel he nodded in approval. Since we had begun our relationship we kept clothes at each other's places. I knew we would eventually move into one, but it hadn’t been long enough for that. We still liked our space, even though most nights one of us would show up at the other's door, unable to sleep without the peace we brought each other.

One night we had met each other halfway, laughing in the dark street until we decided which house would suffice for the night.

Him choosing mine was probably also because he didn’t want to worry Ellie. He trusted her enough to take care of herself for the night, and she knew where he was whenever he didn’t go home. She was like him when it came to caring for their loved ones, and we both knew her heart would be in the right place but Joel needed more peace in that moment than what she usually brought. No offense to her, of course. She always knew how to cheer me up.

I had a feeling that bad jokes and puns weren’t going to be much help, if the way he was still trembling was anything to go by.

We shuffled into the house and kicked our boots off. I hung up my jacket on the coat rack and helped Joel out of his. His eyes still looked distant, but the colour had started to return to his cheeks. I was grateful to have him standing in my home, grateful we were physically okay.

“Why don’t you grab a shower, I’ll get some food going.” I turned to go to the kitchen but his hand gripped my arm.

“Please,” he whispered.

I looked at him, taking in a man whose strength inspired me to get through any day, still seeing that strength show through his fear and grief. I recognized how hard it was for him to ask for help and show me his feelings the way he was, and I appreciated him even more than I thought possible.

Together we walked toward the bathroom. The water came on and started to heat up while we got ready to get in. He let me strip him bare, the act caring and a show of love, before I followed suit.

We had enough hot water to wash the grime and blood that covered us, and he allowed me to do so with his eyes shut tight, breathing starting to regulate through his pouted lips. My fingers burrowed into his hair, scrubbing away the sweat and grit that held onto his locks so tightly. I wondered briefly as he let out soft sighs and moans at the attention if he ever allowed himself to bask in such simple pleasures such as massaging his scalp. Or if instead he just rushed through the process, trying to be as clean as possible without the joys that could be brought from such an action of self care.

My hands slid to his shoulders and chest, but his hands came up to stop me.

“You don’t have to,” he muttered, his eyes opened but lowered. “I can take it from here.”

I shook my head, the droplets of water tapping me on the shoulders. “Please let me.”

He dropped his hands back to his sides and closed his eyes once more. I slid my palms up his chest and over his shoulders, then down his arms. My fingers squeezed lightly as I wrapped them around his biceps, then his forearms. I lifted each hand and scrubbed soap all over, massaging his palms and wrists. After a while I felt his gaze on me, and looked to see him watching my actions. It was like he was transfixed, couldn’t look away as I did my best to help him clean up.

My hands made their way to his ribs and stomach, and I instructed him to turn around so I could wash his back. The knots that were burrowed under his skin were like challenges that I tried my best to undo without pushing too hard. Joel felt like glass under my hands, even though the scars that littered his body proved he wasn’t. But I didn’t want him to shatter anymore.

When I reached lower to his hips I felt his hands place themselves over mine.

“I can take care of the rest,” he mumbled over the water. “You should probably get some of this water before it’s done.”

I kissed his shoulder and hummed in agreement, grateful that he gave me space under the warm spray. Blood swirled at our feet, but it didn’t belong to either of us. Joel had helped me shower a few times when I was bleeding profusely, and it never bothered him. When the blood washed out of my hair I felt him tense up before looking away.

It felt good to finally be clean, even though the hot water ran out right before I washed all the soap off my body. We both got dressed into sweatpants and t-shirts, and made our way into the kitchen. I knew he didn’t want to leave the house, so I searched the cupboards for any snacks I had laying around.

“I think I might just go to bed,” Joel said from behind me. I turned to see him knuckling at one of his eyes with a fist, his hair a mess and clothes slightly rumpled, and my heart squeezed in my chest at the sight.

“You’re not hungry?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You eat, though. I just need some rest, is all.”

I smiled meekly at him. “Okay, hun. You go lay down, I’ll be there in a few.”

He turned and walked away without another word. I quickly shoved one of the homemade granola bars I had made the day before into my mouth and grabbed a couple others to stash upstairs. Joel said he wasn’t hungry, but I knew he would wake up starving in the middle of the night. I also poured a glass of water, chugging it down and filling it back up to bring to him.

The lights were off in our bedroom, but once my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could make out his form on the bed. He always laid on the side closest to the door, making sure he was a barricade between me and whatever horrors he dreamt would break in through the night. However, he was starting to get used to the comforts that Jackson brought, along with the safety, and allowed himself to relax enough to turn his back on his lookout so he could cuddle with me and finally rest.

I placed his water and potential snack on the bedside table and decided to take matters into my own hands. He startled a bit when I pushed against his shoulder, and he turned to face me.

I lifted my chin to gesture that he should move to the other side of the bed.

“What?” He asked, puzzled by my request.

“Move over, baby,” I whispered in the dark, as if we needed to keep quiet. “Please.”

Joel still seemed confused but he did as I requested. Before he could turn around to face me I slid into the bed behind him and proceeded to tuck one of my arms to my chest while the other slid around his ribs to his middle. He sighed when I pressed myself up against him, plastering my body to his back until I couldn’t go any closer.

“What’re you doin’?” His voice rumbled through his back and I found myself nuzzling my face into his neck. The smell of warmth and faint leather keeping me grounded to the earth.

“Taking care of you.”

He sighed again, his ribs expanding under my arm. “Why?”

I smiled against the soft t-shirt he wore, his shoulder a hard muscle underneath.

“Someone has to.”

His laugh was quiet, but it was like music to my ears as his shoulders shook slightly.

We laid like that for a moment, letting our bodies relax further into each other. Eventually he reached his hand down to my thigh and pulled my leg up over his hip so I was fully wrapped around him. When I was settled he took my hand that had found itself splayed against his chest and brought it to his lips. He smudged kisses across my knuckles and then laced his fingers with mine back against his chest.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I just… I was so scared, sweetheart.”

I felt his ribs stutter around a breath. My heart ached for him but I knew I had to let him work through what he was feeling.

“I can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if I was slower, because I wasn’t fast enough as it is.” He choked out a sob, squeezing my hand. I squeezed back once and placed another kiss on his shoulder. “What if I can’t protect you anymore? I couldn’t live with myself if-“

Another sob broke through him, cutting off the rest of his sentence.

I held him as his body trembled.

“I can’t lose anybody else.”

My heart shattered hearing him say that. I sniffled, not realizing I had started to cry with him.

“I know, Joel,” I whimpered. “But you didn’t lose me. I’m right here. I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“But what about next time?”

“There’s no telling what next time will bring. All we can do is be here, right now. Okay?” I kissed his shoulder again, then leaned forward to kiss his neck. “So be here, with me. Please.”

He nodded slightly. “Okay, darlin’.”

“Get some rest, okay?” I whispered, my eyelids sliding shut from the heavy day.

The silence blanketed around us, while we held each other. His breaths soon became steadier, deeper, lulling me into a deep sleep. I woke up with a start because of Joel rolling me onto my other side.

“Joel? Wha-“ I was flustered and groggy. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting comfortable,” he grunted, finally rolling me over and tucking my body against his. It was his front pressed up against my back, with one of his arms under my head and the other locked around my middle.

“But I’m taking care of you,” I whined even though I closed my eyes again, settling into him.

“I know, darlin’, and you did such a good job.” He kissed my neck, making me squirm against him. “But now I need to hold you, okay? I just need to feel you.”

I hummed, pulling his arm up between my breasts so I could hold onto him. “Okay, Joel. I’m here.”

He chuckled, the puff of air tickling my neck.

I felt sleep pulling me under, further and further until I was balanced between feeling the weight of Joel’s arm holding me down and the drop off into dreamland. Though there wasn’t a single dream that was better than the reality of waking up next to that man. Finally, when I was too far gone to be fully aware of my surroundings I heard Joel speak. Just once before he, too, followed me into sleep.

“I love you.”

———

Taglist: @sullyosully @ashleymsnodgrass

[mantisgodsdomain]

Chilaios server ramblings the first. Being in this server has blasted our brain and awakened our capacity to ramble for screens upon screens at a time and although we have more coherent offerings many of them are waiting on one of the people who features heavily in conversation okay-ing us posting 21 screenshots heavily featuring them. Transcript below cut.

A set of screenshots of a Discord conversation, featuring us, Mantis God, nicknamed Speculative Vore Cookbook, and no one else because we cropped them out.

So! Whiskers, and greetings involving them.

We will preface this with the note that we are, of course, trying to keep with half-foot mannerisms and such reading as ever so slightly more expressive and thus "childish". Which is to say, fun things like lots of movement that would be thoroughly impractical for a larger species, that they can get away with because being smaller means that moving around simply burns less energy with less half-foot to move around.

With whiskers allowing for them to detect motion and vibration Very Well, especially, you get an excellent avenue for movement and, especially, tactile interactions being key in social situations.

With what we've already done: we've set up the brief bump of whiskers as a greeting - probably not necessarily a very strong bump, but one that lets you feel the other member of the conversation… being there, for lack of a better word. This also, by design, will put both participants fairly close to each other, physically.

We think it is perhaps Fun if "polite" for half-foots looks very physically close to other races, both due to Being Smaller making a small distance be bigger for them in terms of relative space, and due to the fact that a good chunk of their senses are hooked up in absurdly sensitive senses that stretch a very long way and are very hard to obscure compared to senses like sight.

"Polite", with humans, generally looks like… focusing a good chunk of your attention on your conversational partner. Showing that you're Paying Attention, that your primary Thing you're looking at is them. Obviously this is simplifying a lot, human communication is an eldritch horror of Niceties, but a lot of it more or less boils down to "showing you're paying attention to the other guy and their cues".

So: how to do that with this particular set of senses?

Half-foot hearing, at the very least, most likely means that it's going to be next to impossible to go through a conversation without listening to Other Things, whether you like it or not. Likewise, your conversation will not be private. Every other half-foot in the area will hear you (which might also mean that things like keeping track of multiple strands of conversation at the same time might be a more common skill). This also means that Lower Volumes are probably going to be crucial for casual conversation, because absurdly sensitive hearing means that "normal volume" talking is going to be Fucking Loud.

It honestly might be polite to, like… briefly disengage mid-conversation, if only because there's A Lot of input going in here, and you probably want to disengage every now and then to check on Everything Else. It's a very big world and you are a small prey animal that lives in probably fairly close-knit social groups, which has been gifted with the ability to check on people halfway across the house. Might as well pause to check for Other Things.

With Addition Of Whiskers, you've also got a fun, useful tool to "tether" the conversation a bit more. You're already close; might as well use those convenient things with the flexible range of motion for social cues. Probably ramping up the closer you are with someone. Touch whiskers to let them know you're Present And Listening. Have concern easily conveyed through using your useful Check For Things That Are Wrong On This Surface appendages. You just have to be close enough to pull off some light touch with whiskers that sprout very far off of your skin for it - with the unfortunate caveat that that looks like a lot closer for taller races and you are now getting up close to your fellow half-foots and conspiratically whispering while occasionally swivelling an ear over to check on the rest of the room or glance at someone else around.

We'll be damned if we know if we're presenting this Functionally, but: if made a bit more tactile, there's also the bonus of the fact that it might feed back a bit. Humans already need a certain amount of touch to be healthy. and the half-foot threshold might be a bit higher. This can lead to Fun Paths.

We're hunting for a good way to work this, and it's not working very well. More or less,, when you're a species that requires More Touch than the average other species, and you're surrounded by species that don't really Get That, where you're very capable of creating social faux passes or making yourself come off worse by seeking it, you can easily get into Fun Situations. The closer that a given half-foot is to someone, the more tactile that they'll probably want to be, which can cause some Very Fun culture clash.

Our concepts for this are somewhat vague but we think it's fun if all the races have similar points of Clash btw. We have been grouping dwarves, gnomes, and half-foots together in the same general "evolutionary group" which share enough cues to be Compatible while still being Not Quite Close Enough To 100% Get It.

(we have also grouped tallmen, orcs, and ogres into the same group. elves are just kinda off doing their own thing. kobolds are an unrelated convergent evolution in the same way that mermaids are humanoid and probably at least partially sapient but still not Human)

Might be fun if Senshi specifically has hung around the orcs for long enough to get socialized more towards their mannerisms. Weird dwarf who doesn't quite Get social cues that most dwarves pick up on who also just so happens to have more knowledge of the slightly more tallman-leaning group of body language.

We were going somewhere with this but we forgot.

Anyways half-foot affectionate head bonk as a Close Friends And Family Greeting that specifically isn't brought out around other races due to The Issues

Thank you for tuning in to our brief general takeover if we have the brain for it later we will maybe cohere this into a post of some description

BTW we have been basing our elves partially on ungulates this is partially because we think it's very fun to pull on the "mystic" qualities of animals like deer and horses for elves, partially to add our favorite wretched group of herbivores, and partially because we think it's fun if elves are Fucking Weirdos with traits like "weirdly elongated bones in the limbs that actively make fine control more difficult but Look more graceful and delicate to the human eye"

fucked up in there

[ningauinerd]

Time to infodump about the animals I'm supposedly a nerd about.

All pictures in this post are N. yvonneae, the southern ningaui (Image credit: Owen Lishmund)

The ningauis (in the genus Ningaui, if you can believe it) are a group of tiny dasyurid marsupials native to the arid and semi-arid regions of Australia. Smaller than their close dunnart relatives (very close, as I will explain later), and with broader hindfeet, ningauis were first documented by western science relatively recently by Australian mammal standards. Although some specimens had been collected previously, being haphazardly assigned to planigales (another genus of miniscule dasyurids), it wasn't until 1975 that the genus Ningaui was erected and its first two species were described - N. ridei, the Wongai ningaui, and N. timealeyi, the Pilbara ningaui. A third species, the southern ningaui (N. yvonneae), was named in 1983.

Oh, and in case you were wondering where the name "ningaui" comes from, it refers to tiny beings from Aboriginal mythology that come out at night, are covered in hair, have notably short feet and eat their food raw. Most of these traits are also shared by these little marsupials, hence why palaeontologist Mike Archer (the original author of the genus) found it to be a fitting name for them!

(Image credit: glandarius)

Ningauis are small - really small, some of the smallest land mammals in fact. With the tiniest individuals being only 5 cm long, not including the tail, they are about the same length as Australia's smallest native mammal, the long-tailed planigale. However, ningauis are significantly chunkier and therefore usually weigh a couple more grams, meaning planigales win in regards to all-around tininess. The very largest ningauis still only reach about 8 cm in length and 14 grams in weight.

What they lack in size they make up for in ferocity however, as they follow the typical dasyurid trend of becoming increasingly savage the smaller they get. Tasmanian devils, despite their reputation, are actually quite relaxed when handled - on the other end of the spectrum, ningauis, which are around a thousand times smaller than a devil, will try to murder you, your family and everyone you hold dear if they find themselves captured. But, despite their best efforts to chew the fingers off of every field mammalogist in inland Australia, they aren't very strong.

remorseless beasts (Image credit: Tina Gillespie & Miss.chelle.13)

These ferocious predators feed on a variety of different prey items, the majority of which are small invertebrates - in the case of the Wongai ningaui, they prefer prey that is less than a centimetre long. However, they will also go after larger prey, having epic duels with grasshoppers, spiders, centipedes and even small skinks which they subdue with a crushing bite to the back of the head. Unlike their dunnart relatives, the shorter, broader feet of ningauis allows them to climb into shrubs and grass clumps.

All ningaui species are extremely similar to one another, so much so that the Wongai ningaui and southern ningaui are almost externally indistinguishable and the Pilbara ningaui can only be told apart by looking at its foot pads, teat number and skull. However, they can usually be distinguished by distribution. The Pilbara ningaui is the most range restricted, being endemic to the central and western Pilbara region of western Australia. The southern ningaui occurs in three disjunct populations across the southern semi-arid zone, whilst the Wongai ningaui is distributed widely across much of the interior. All species show a strong preference for environments dominated by spinifex grass (Triodia), which they use as shelter.

A ningaui takes shelter amongst the spinifex (Image credit: Euan Moore)

In regards to how they are related to other dasyurids, ningauis fall in the tribe Sminthopsini together with the kultarr (Antechinomys laniger, another species I really need to cover sometime) and many species of dunnart (Sminthopsis). However, recent phylogenetic studies have consistently recovered both Antechinomys and Ningaui as being within the Sminthopsis lineage, meaning that both ningauis and the kultarr are, in essence, just weird dunnarts. With Sminthopsis as we currently understand it being highly paraphyletic, a revision of the genus is needed.

[csykora]

Random general question, but what is something about sports medicine--anything relevant to that topic--you wish more sports fans understood?

This was extremely fun to think about! There are a lot of things I'd like people to know about just because I think it's neat, but a rough list of the things I really wish people were taught:

Yes, there's sugar in Gatorade and other sports drinks. That's the point, that's why it was created that way. When your body is doing work, your body needs fuel. A huge percentage of athletes show up to their sports activities under-hydrated and by the end are clinically dehydrated. If you like how your drink tastes, you're more likely to drink more of it. That's the priority. While plenty of people need to manage their personal glucose intake at various times for various reasons (most of those times won't be while they're working out, when they're burning energy and are at risk of their blood sugar dropping), if you have not been told that you need to manage your blood sugar, you do not need to manage your blood sugar. Sugar-free electrolyte drinks are not "healthier": I actually wouldn't say that any one thing is "healthier" for everyone, because different people's nutritional, metabolic, physical, etc needs are completely different.

It has been suggested that blood sugar spikes may effect certain areas of athletic performance, but it's not thoroughly established that this does happen, for who, or which areas of physical performance are affected, or whether there are other areas of performance that it may have a positive effect on, and there are plenty of other things that also affect performance. (Also, despite the standardized glycemic index being used to estimate how different foods affect blood sugar, this actually varies because different people process foods differently, and even the same person might process foods differently in different situations).

This one is something I wish many current hockey coaches understood.

On that--different areas of physical performance are different. Explosive strength or speed vs. enduring strength or speed require different types of muscle fiber, different metabolisms, the works. Other qualities like speed and precision can have a reciprocal relationship. Different kinds of muscle development work well for different tasks. One area of performance can actually impair other areas of performance: there is no one universal athletic build or training regimen that will result in an athlete doing well in all areas.

This is also something I wish current hockey management understood, because I'd really love to see more physical diversity of athletes in more specialized roles. I'm actually fine with it or even excited when a player isn't an "all around guy"!

It is extremely difficult to measure the physical factors in human performance without the social factors (and we should probably try less to). When you measure "men" against "women", you are not just comparing genders, you are also comparing two groups of people who have had different access to physical activity and athletic training, been encouraged to be active in different ways, etc.

Also, in pretty much every area of the athletic performance, the spectrum of "male performance" and the spectrum of "female performance" overlaps, with the significant majority of people living in the normal area for both.

(Including, for the record, the amount of testosterone in your body. Which has no clear single impact on performance.)

Athletic ability is not the same as health. And neither of them have much of anything to do with how much body fat you have. The extreme of human performance is not "ideal" human performance: we made sports up, and in many cases they require us to move in ways that are very different from the movements we evolved doing.

(Also, I don't think health should be idealized either)

Traumatic brain injuries don't just happen when you're hit on the head. That might be a relatively small fraction of the times that they happen! What matters is the internal forces acting on your brain and spinal cord. Sudden changes in speed or direction like falls and certain collisions can and will do the job. So while penalizing sports plays that involve hits to the head is a good idea, I think fans shouldn't let that appease us as the only change that pro sports make to prevent TBI and CTE.

TBIs are also not "the most dangerous" of sports injuries. I'm not sure if there is an objectively most dangerous one, honestly, outside of things that cause instant death. TBIs can have profoundly difficult and serious impacts on people, and so do many other injuries that affect the way someone moves, feels, their pain, or how they see themselves. We shouldn't let pro sports appease us when they focus on CTE and avoid addressing other injuries, either: they absolutely will use the attention on CTE as cover.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

‼️ aita for looking out for a friend?

(all 17, pronouns provided for everyone included other than me)

so I have a relatively small friend group, including people who I'll call T (they/them, my best friend), G (he/him, the friend the title is referring to), and B (she/her, we don't get along). B and I have been on our high school theater team for 4-ish years together, right from the first show post-quarantine to (hopefully) our last senior show in April next year. Last year, my friends T and G joined for a murder mystery show and G LOVED it. we performed it, went into summer, and came back for our senior year. Now, it's important to note that B, T, and I are also on our school's robotics team and off season events typically fall around the same day of theater competitions (dont ask why there's theatr competitions, we mainly do them for fun). B has already said that theater is more important to her than robotics, so our theater director decided to do a two person show.

Our director had already said she wanted B and G to play the parts in the show, but we all asked for an audition anyway. Auditions come around, all four of us audition. We actually talked about doing a different show in our senior meeting a week before that had 5 roles, but everyone agreed that the two person show would be better. B decided to bring up a year old issue we had where I was venting about only getting minor supporting roles where I either die or spend half the show off stahe. I had said in that conversation that before roles were casted, I wanted B's roles. It was the biggest role in the show with no time off stage and I felt like I was at a point i could handle it, but B got the role and it was fine! I was chilling with my yelling role. Well, B heard this and interpreted it as me saying I could do her role better and stormed out of class after yelling at me about it.

This went unresolved for a YEAR because everytime I tried to talk about it she'd either yell at me or change the topic. And now she was using it as a petty argument to show that I'd be upset if I didn't get a role. This isn't even the worst thing that's happened between us, but let's get back to the aita.

So, as of the time I'm submitting this it's only the first week of rehearsals. B and G are both almost off book, which is impressive for G because this is only his second show. He's absolutely amazing at his role but has a habit of getting the idea of his lines and paraphrasing them (if that makes sense? like if that line is "it'll only be a second, let me check." he'll say "let me look ill only be a second"), but beyond that he's REALLY good at making you feel the proper emotion already. The Main issue with him already is he's missed two days of rehearsal, which wouldn't be bad if we weren't so late starting. He missed one day for a sport meet and one day for his sisters birthday, which was understandable to everyone other than B.

B lives, eats, and BREATHES theater at this point and if you don't take it as seriously as she does, she'll try to get you kicked off the team. Since G missed two days, B thought he wasn't taking it seriously enough and decided to tell our director. G was absolutely devastated, he was already misses an event that'd get him really good contacts for the field he wants to go into because B asked the director to make all of the rehearsals mandatory BECAUSE he wanted to do the event. He came to T and I to talk about it and I decided to go to rehearsal that night to warn the director B was trying to get G kicked off. B's full reasoning for trying to kick him off was that he wasn't prioritizing rehearsal and hadn't memorized his lines yet (again, first week).

Rehearsal went absolutely amazing, they were both almost completely off book for one of the longest scenes and did it so soso SO WELL. Once rehearsal ended after 3 hours and B left the room, I went to go tell the director. The director immediately shut me down and told me if B had something to say I don't have to warn her. G and I left trying to wrap our heads around what to do. I didn't want him to be kicked off and deal with the shame of not feeling good enough and he felt insulted that someone he thought was his friend would go through so many hoops just to pretty much sabotage a hobby of his. We agreed that if the director went through with kicking him off we wouldn't go down without a fight.

But, that was that, and I got home and joined a call with some other friends to decompress from how stressful the entire situation was. I would've been completely de-stressed if it weren't for the fact B texted me an hour after rehearsal ended with just "what happened between us?" Apparently, our director had told her that I was trying to warn her that B was gonna say something. I realized that B still thinks we're on good standing, friends even, when I absolutely do not.

I don't know how to go about telling her that any thread of friendship between was severed a long time ago, but I think me trying to protect G and keep him on the team was the final straw for her. I can't tell if I'm just blinded by my dislike of her or if I really fucked up in this situation.

What are these acronyms?

[svngiem-remade]

CONNECT THE DOTS | lfx

🧸 pairing. lee felix + gn!reader

synopsis. your boyfriend looked so adorable sound asleep on the couch, so angelic... but you were bored. and you had a marker.

🌙 wc. 1.8k | au. idol!au; established relationship; domestic fluff

Sunday had always been your favorite day of the week.

When you were younger, because your relatives from Jeonju used to drive all the way up to Seoul to spend the day together with you and your family, then as you got older and started pursuing your dream of becoming an idol, it was because it was the only day that wasn't as packed as the others, which gave you the chance to finally rest a little— and now, because you spent it lazing around with the man currently sprawled on your new, very comfortable, couch.

As soon as you'd moved in together a month ago in this small studio apartment right on Seoul’s outskirts, you both agreed to deem the last day of the week as Lazy Sundays. All you would do was wake up whenever you wanted, eat whatever your stomachs craved, and huddle under a thick blanket as you watched funny videos on your TV— basically doing everything you didn't have time to do during the week.

And needless to say, they were a great chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep, mainly if the week that just passed had been particularly packed with schedules; so falling in a deep slumber on the sofa as you watched a movie or right after eating was more common than not for the two of you.

Luckily, your group's new album promotions had ended that Thursday, so your company gave you and your members a short break before resuming work as normal in a few days, which gave you the chance to rest well before the weekend, though the same couldn't be said for Felix.

He’d been practicing non-stop with his own members for weeks now, preparing for the upcoming comeback— he was completely exhausted and it showed, since he’d been napping for 3 hours straight in the living room and showed no signs of waking up as you gazed at him from the kitchen.

The atmosphere inside of your apartment was so relaxing and peaceful you’d started dozing off too— the retro radio you’d bought from a vintage store a couple of days earlier playing soft tunes, the sweet smell of the candle you and Felix had made together not long ago lingering in every room of your flat and the warm sun rays creeping through the kitchen curtains warming up your bare skin and wooden floor as you heard Felix’s soft snores almost made you want to nap right there, on the kitchen table— until the kettle beeped, signaling that the water boiling inside of it was ready.

You sighed and got up, not without an annoyed grunt, and took the mug your boyfriend had gifted you as a souvenir when he had gone to Paris for the first time with his group, and you held on to it dearly— after all, it was the first ever gift you’d ever received from him while you were still in the friend phase years back, and just seeing it made you remember how young, timid and blushy you both were at the time.

You smiled, filling your mug with hot tea and then walked over to the couch, sitting down on the soft white carpet to avoid making Felix move, since he was basically occupying the whole couch with his body.

Sipping on your drink and then placing it down on the coffee table in front of you, you turned your head around to face your boyfriend’s sleeping features, falling for him all over again.

His pink lips were slightly agape, letting out the softest of snores, as the lower part of his face bathed in the warm afternoon sun rays, which highlighted his freckles. Your heart leaped at the sight.

You loved his freckles wholeheartedly and you hated how rude comments about his beauty marks made him feel insecure, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, mainly you.

You'd always thought that freckles really suited him— suited his warm personality, his sweet behavior, and cute little face, and you never failed to tell him that whenever you felt the slightest hint of insecurity when you happened to mention them in front of him.

“So pretty, Lixie.” you whispered, turning your body all the way around to sit more comfortably. You smiled and raised your hand to brush a strand of black hair out of his face and tucked it behind his ear, though you didn't move your fingers from him, but instead started stroking his cheek, carefully so as to not wake him up.

And as you always did when he was deeply asleep, you started counting his freckles one by one, trying to spot new, or heart-shaped ones like the ones he had on his cheek and next to his left ear, “—Oop, a new one.” you giggled to yourself when you saw another one right under his left eye, lightly tracing it with your nail.

You immediately pulled back your hand when he frowned in his sleep and pulled up the blanket you had covered him with all the way up his head, making you huff out a “Sorry, sweetie.” and get up from the floor, downing the now cold tea from your mug.

You walked into the kitchen and left it in the sink, your eyes casually spotting the pink and red markers you had left on the kitchen counter that same morning, not really knowing what to do with those when you found out they were actually tattoo markers and not regular ones. You scowled and grabbed them, opening the red one and trying it out on your palm— it was actually a really vibrant and pretty color, but when would you ever need to use th–

“Oh! I’m such a genius!” you screamed (quietly) and rushed to the living room, sitting down on your knees once again to face a still fast-asleep Felix, whose head had finally emerged from the blanket.

You couldn't contain your excitement; at last, you had the chance of doing what you’ve been wanting to do ever since you'd met him— you weren't going to waste your chance, “Ready to become even prettier, Lixie?” you squealed, caressing his exposed forehead before pecking it.

“Don’t worry, they’re washable~” you sang, taking the pink marker in hand and popping off the cap, staring at his cheeks and nose, trying to figure out where you should start.

You hummed, hoping— praying— he wouldn't flinch or wake up when you closed the space between his cheek and the wet tip of the marker, “Please, please don't wake up just yet, brownie boy. I’m begging you.” you whined when he suddenly turned on his back just as you'd started drawing.

He mumbled something and folded his arms over his chest, now snoring louder than before. You bit your lip as you stared at the obnoxious pink line you’d just drawn on his cheek, trying to hold back a chuckle as you kneeled and, carefully, started drawing another line, connecting it to the one you'd previously made to form a big heart.

You leaned back and giggled happily at how well it turned out, immediately dipping down and drawing even more pink and red hearts on his cheeks and nose, “You’re looking so adorable with these all over, Lixie.” you whispered, pecking the tip of his nose before continuing.

Your faces were inches away— your brows furrowed, lips puckered in concentration as your free hand stroked his head lovingly.

When you felt satisfied, you backed away a little from his face, admiring all the big, medium, and small-sized hearts you’d drawn on his cheeks and that connected or highlighted every single freckle he had— you’d even written a small ‘ily sunshine’ on the bridge of his nose, “Ahh, so cute! I gotta take a picture!” you whispered with heart-eyes, patting your pockets.

As you whipped out your phone from your pocket, put it on camera mode, and pointed it at his face, you gasped dramatically when you saw his eyes were wide open, “Are you done?” he said groggily, stretching his arm to reach your cheek and pinch it gently.

“I— uhh, yes…” you bit your lip and blushed embarrassed, looking away from him until you heard him let out a hearty laugh. You pouted when you noticed he’d taken your phone and was staring at himself through the camera, “Yah! Don’t make fun of me! I wanted to do something cute.” you whined, getting up from the carpet and starting to walk towards the bedroom with the full intention of sulking for the rest of the day.

However, his back hug stopped you from doing that, “It’s very cute, I agree.” he whispered, leaving a peck on your temple and rocking you left and right slowly. He knew you loved when he did that. And, as always, it worked— you almost forgot why you even wanted to hide in the bedroom.

Felix started pecking your cheek and the side of the neck, caressing your forearms with one hand, since his other one was gripping both your wrists tightly over your chest, “I’m still tired, stay with me, will you, hm?” he asked tiredly, already backing to the couch and dropping on it with you still in his arms, not even waiting for a response.

He laid sideways, bringing you with him, and covered your bodies with the blanket at your feet, huddling close to your back. You sighed and relished his warmth, “Do you really think it's cute or are you just lying to my face?” you asked with a frown.

He hummed and nodded, playing with your fingers, “Yup, I love it actually. It's a visual representation of how I feel whenever I see your pretty face.” Felix said, making you blush, “Plus, I was awake the whole time. It's cute how many pet names you call me when you think I’m sleeping.” he giggled, kissing your hair.

Your breath hitched in your throat— oh, how you wished the earth would swallow you right in that moment, “Yo-You’re kidding, right?” you stuttered. You'd never called him a name other than his own in front of him— you were more on the shy side and rarely expressed your love and affection directly in his face, so him catching you doing exactly that flustered you.

“Why would I?” he answered, turning you around to face him and see the many pink and red hearts decorating his features, which made you smile widely and puff your cheeks, annoyed by how adorable he looked, “Aah, you’re so cute!” he suddenly exclaimed, hugging you closer and pecking you all over.

You both giggled when he started lightly tickling your sides as you tried to wiggle out of his embrace, “I love you, Lixie.” you said unexpectedly, making him stop his actions to kiss your lips and look at you in the eyes with sincerity.

“I love you too, so much.” he said back, rubbing his nose with yours and kissing you softly as he grabbed the pink and red markers from the coffee table behind you without you noticing.

You screamed when he suddenly tackled you on your back to hover over you with a grin, swinging the markers in front of your eyes, “How about we match?” he asked, and who were you to say no to THE Lee Felix?

please reblog, comment and like, feedback is very much appreciated, plus, I love reading your thoughts!

→ masterlist.

taglist : @strayingawayy

© SVNGIEM — do not copy, translate or claim as your own.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Fossil Novembirb 6: Tropical Denmark

Septencoracias by @quetzalpali-art

We have a whole host of early Eocene ecosystems filled to the brim with birds - such a reversal from the Cretaceous and the Paleocene! - that we had to keep highlighting these ecosystems. So, next on our list is the Fur Formation of Denmark - another very early Eocene ecosystem, right after the PETM, that shows how Neoavians diversified so rapidly in the wake of the K-Pg extinction.

Associated with volcanoes, this ecosystem was periodically buried in ash, leading to the exceptional preservation of its fossils. It was a tropical forest, like most of the world at that time, near the coast; allowing the fossils to preserve a variety of marine as well as arboreal species. So, good news for us bird lovers!

In fact, there are so many different birds in this ecosystem, I can't possibly list or talk about them all. So, I'm just going to have to do my best to summarize!

Eocypselus by @saint-nevermore

This formation shows the oldest known members of many bird groups still found today, which is an important piece of the puzzle of Neoavian evolution. The earliest Rollers, Trogons, Swifts, and Ibises are all known from this ecosystem - as well as a wide variety of other birds that have older representatives, such as the Lithornithids.

In fact, for all the absence of Palaeognaths in the Cretaceous and earliest Paleocene, around the PETM the Lithornithids really took off - pun intended! They were found all over North America and Europe, which may have given them a prime position from which to radiate to the rest of the world... and evolve into the Palaeognaths we have today? Maybe. More work on that question is, of course, necessary.

Other interesting birds include Morsoravis, the early Parrot-Passerine relative with flexibly zygodactyl feet and kinetic skulls, allowing them to manipulate food and climb around on trees - common in its ecosystem. What's wild is this was very similar to the foot of living mousebirds - which are nowhere closely related to Parrots or Passerines - showcasing this as a case of convergent evolution in avian feet! That happens a lot, actually...

Rhynchaeites by Diego Ortega

Septencoracias was another fantastic bird of this ecosystem, being the oldest known roller. Previously, it was thought that rollers only appeared in the Miocene, so this pushes back their origin by tens of millions of years and also indicates that modern-type rollers appeared very early on in avian evolution. Furthermore, Septencoracias was found with fish in its gut, indicating that rollers at the time had a wide variety of food sources!

Eocypselus was another fascinating fossil of an early swift-hummingbird, ie, a relative of both groups but not more closely related to either. This showcases that these birds evolved their small size first, before specializing into the niches they hold today. It was black in color, and was probably an insectivore, like its living relatives!

The first ibises showed the long beak distinctive of the group, as seen in Rhynchaeites/Mopsitta, and had long legs for wading just like in living members. And relatives of modern rails, Messelornithids in the form of Pellornis, were wading along the shoreline right with them.

Eoglaucidium (a Sandcoleid), photograph by Ghedoghedo

In fact, one thing that's becoming clear about birds is that they tend to repeat the same ideas - locked in to certain developmental constraints, such as not re-evolving arms, they try out different ecologies that work well and continuously convergently evolve those adaptations over and over again. Wading, flexible feet, climbing and perching, the list goes on!

We'll see that continue throughout this series, but of course, unique adaptations will continue to come up in spades! These are birds we're talking about here.

Sources:

Mayr, G. M., A. C. Kitchener. 2023. A new fossil from the London Clay documents the convergent origin of a “mousebird-like” tarsometatarsus in an early Eocene near-passerine bird. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 68 (1): 1-11.

Mayr, 2022. Paleogene Fossil Birds, 2nd Edition. Springer Cham.

Mayr, 2017. Avian Evolution: The Fossil Record of Birds and its Paleobiological Significance (TOPA Topics in Paleobiology). Wiley Blackwell.

[the-cannibal]

I love your writing so much! Can I please request Bo Sinclair (or the sinclair brothers if you’d prefer) with an s/o who is unhealthily obsessed with them? Tysm! I understand if you don’t want to do it and you can completely change the topic to whatever you’d like or not do it !

Awww thank you so much! That means a lot to me! This prompt is so interesting I’ve been thinking about it all morning and I’m so excited to do it for you! Thanks for being the first person to request something, I hope you like it!

Bo Sinclair X Reader who is unhealthy obsessed with him

Gender neutral reader - they/them and you is used

Written on mobile so sorry if the format is weird

You had known the Sinclair’s practically your whole life. The brothers were your best friends. You did everything together, you’d sneak off to each others homes to play, eat lunch together and skip classes in grade school. But there was one Sinclair you were closer to.

Bo. Ever since the first time you met Bo you had a special bond with him. You would always want to hang out with him. Lester wants to play tag? Can Bo come along? Vincent wants to show you how to draw? Well how about Bo join in too!

Bo didn’t think much of your… Clinginess. You were his best friend, so it made sense why you wanted to be around him so much. In fact, he actually quite liked how clingy you were to him. It was no secret after all that his parents were good to him, which is why the two of you usually hung out at your house or outside somewhere. So the fact that someone wanted his attention, wanted to talk to him and listen to him, he adored it.

But you didn’t just “want” Bo. You craved him. You always felt a special way towards Bo. When you were little you didn’t know what those feelings were. It wasn’t until you were a teen you realized you were in love with him. So you began showing Bo your love. You’d bake him his favorite sweets and cook him meals, you’d help him with cars, you’d bandage up his wrists when he had been picking at them and making them raw and irritated. And when his mama got sick you were there to listen to him vent about all the things he was feeling and what was running through his mind. Despite the fact you hated his parents for what they did to him and his brothers, you’d never talk bad about Trudy. You knew Bo had a complicated relationship with her and somewhere deep down in him he still loved her, even though she didn’t feel the slightest bit the same for him. Her world was Vincent. Bo and Lester were just extras she had to “put up with”.

And then Bo killed his father.

Bo would always tell you that his dad committed suicide. That the death of his wife drove him mad. But you knew the truth. You saw it after all.

You were going over to bring Bo a box of old car parts you had stolen found for him, when walking past the window to Victors office, you saw Bo holding up his shotgun and pointing it at the man. You saw him pull the trigger, and Victors blood and brain splatter on the window. The sight made you smile, you were proud of Bo for standing up to that sick son of a bitch and putting an end to everything once and for all. But you couldn’t tell Bo that, so instead you turned back to your home and pretended like you saw nothing. The box of car parts helped cheer Bo up after his fathers “suicide”.

A few years later and the two of you were adults now, and you had finally won Bo over. He was officially yours now and yours only. You moved into Ambrose relatively soon. The town had always been small, but you had began noticing it was getting smaller. And then one day you saw a group of people roll into town, claiming something was wrong with their car. Bo being the kind man he is offered to help them, and told them to go to the house of wax to keep themselves entertained while they waited.

“Darlin can you help me for a sec?” His sweet voiced called out to you.

“Of course, Bo! Whatcha need?” You skipped over to him with a smile.

“Well it looks like they have a broken fan belt, problem is that I don’t have the right size here. Could you go into town with Lester and get one for me?”

You nodded with a smile. And he smiled back down at you. “Thank you, darlin, I appreciate it.” Bo wrote down what he needed on a piece of scrap paper and sent you on your way. You were happy to help Bo, and you got to hang out with Lester! That was a bonus!

When you got back to town with the part you noticed those peoples car was gone, and so was Bo. So you knocked on the basement door to ask Vinny if he had seen them. He shook his head and you thanked him with a smile, turning to walk away but stopping midway. “By the way, those are some neat sculptures you got down there. Trying to keep up with your ma’s art?” You asked with a sweet smile. Vincent nodded. “Ah, I see. Well you did a great job as always! It almost looks real.”

And that was when you found out the brothers had been killing off the town one by one and anyone who crossed in it. You found the pit soon after that, or well, you smelled it. But best of all, Bo thought you were completely in the dark.

He’d wake up, give his partner a kiss before waving goodbye to them as he went out to get some more muses for his twin. Meanwhile his partner was subtly helping him out. They’d make sure their partners clothes was clean of any specks of blood, clean the garage extra carefully, and of course give him the biggest sweetest smiles. You had watched Bo do his special little hobby, in fact watching him became a part of your routine. And he suspected nothing.

“Welcome back, honey!” You shouted over your shoulder as you put dinner in the oven. Tonight was your turn to cook. Bo mumbled a hello back to you and slumped on the couch. You frowned, tossing the over mitt onto the counter, and making your way behind him. “Something happen?” You asked with concern.

Bo sighed, rubbing his temples and leaning his head back. “Jus’ been a long day,” He answered. “I’m so exhausted.”

Without needing another word you wrapped your hands around his shoulders and began massaging them, doing your best to work out some knots. Bo melted into your touch with a sigh. “You always now exactly how I like to relax.” You hummed with a giggle. “I know a lot about you, Beauregard. A lot more than you think.”

“Is that right?” He spoke. “Alright smarty, what else do you know about me?”

You hummed in thought. “Well, I know despite all the blue you wear your favorite color is actually green.”

Bo snorted. “You know my favorite color? Big deal, that’s too easy.”

“I’m not finished,” you spoke, moving your hands to lightly massage his scalp and temples. “You don’t like any green. You like a darker green, like a fir tree. You also hate neon colors because they hurt your eyes.”

Bo simply hummed in response. He was slightly impressed, he’ll admit.

“But I also know things about you that even you yourself doesn’t know.” You said, getting Bo’s attention and making him perk up. You swung around the couch and lightly kissed him on the nose. “Like you ain’t as sneaky as you think.”

Bo chuckled and grabbed you by the waist, pulling you into his lap and covering your neck in kisses. “What’s that supposed to mean? You know where I hid your birthday present or somethin?”

You giggled and shrugged. “Maybe,” Your moment was interrupted by the over timer. You got up and took the dinner out and looked back at Bo. “I think ill take some of this to Ms. Locket , if you don’t mind.”

Bo’s face twisted to a sad pout, a very fake one. Oh how he’s never been good at faking emotions, other than a charming southern man. “Didn’t y’a hear? She passed away this mornin.”

You frowned, slowly setting the food onto the counter and looking down. “Oh…” you mumbled. “She was so sweet…”

“Oh darlin, come here.” Bo held his arms out and took you in, holding you close. You buried your head into his shoulder and could smell gun powder. “I know it’s sad, but you’ll get through it. I know you will.”

You hummed and smiled, gripping your hands around Bo tightly. Around your Bo. Yours and yours alone. He might not know just how enamored you are by him, but that’s okay. Because you know, and that’s all that matters.

[hopelessdelusional]

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

⚠️TRIGGER WARNING FOR SLIGHT MENTIONS OF HOSPITALS, BLOOD, AND DEPRESSION⚠️

You sit in your car smiling at your phone, sure your friends drive you crazy but you wouldn’t have made it this far in life without them.

A year ago today you were laying in a hospital bed watching the same “Friends” episodes that aired on the small TV that sat in front of you. You had gotten into a small car accident, thinking the worst of it was just a concussion, but you were proven wrong when your doctor walked in the room with a clipboard and a frown on her face.

“Ms. L/N, it seems you have a genetic disorder that we didn’t know about. It turns out you have Hemophilia, which is basically a disorder where your blood doesn’t clot normally and when you injure yourself it’s very easy for internal or even external bleeding can occur. Now, it can be treated easily but you have to be careful…”

Those words never left your brain, constantly ringing in your ears. You never thought you’d be the same. Taking on a physical illness like that caused you to struggle mentally as well, struggling to get back in the swing of things. The constant doctor visits, parents calling every day, random relatives texting you, it was exhausting. You were exhausted.

However, you had the best group of friends, who supported you no matter what. They gave you a reason to get out of bed, and even giving you a reason to go to bed when it was an appropriate time. Yes, the journey was hard but you had family and friends right next to you, and that’s all you had to think about. In order to get through the bad, you have to get to the good.

That’s how you ended up here, sitting in the parking lot of the most packed out studios in Los Angeles. That’s also how you got to working again, finally summoning up the courage to put your résumé back out there, and to your surprise getting hired almost immediately.

“I dunno Toshi, it just happened so suddenly I didn’t have any time to adjust to take it in or-“

“n/n I swear to god if you don’t accept this, they are literally the top modeling agency of LA. This is an opportunity of a lifetime.”

You sighed and sat back down in your rolling chair, watching your best friend stare at you from your bed disapprovingly.

“Okay. Okay fine. Whatever I‘ll take it.”

You slowly look up at your best friend who is grinning back up at you.

“I knew you had it in you.”

You walked in through the double doors, showing the receptionist your ID, and finding your way around the building. Eventually you met the agent that you spoke on the phone with. It was refreshing to see she was as kind looking as her picture on the website, but you couldn’t for the life of you remember her name. She immediately jumped up to greet you.

“Good Morning Ms. L/N! Thank you so much for coming in today. I knew as soon as I saw your name on my list of possible photographers I wanted you here ASAP. I love your perspective and the way you capture models flawlessly, There was no way I was going to deny you!”

Taken aback by the sudden energy and kindness that this modeling agent had offered, you smiled and chuckled along with her as she rambled. She walked you through the main hallway and then finally into the main photography unit. It was even bigger than you remembered, many different corners of the unit being used for different sets and shoots. Some ridiculous, like come cologne add with a shirtless cowboy and some majestic, like a mermaid photoshoot.

“Before we start,” the agent stopped suddenly causing you to stumble, but you quickly picked yourself back up and you rose your eyebrow at her.

“My client is a bit…moody. He is beautiful and capable of anything you throw at him, but because of his…attitude…you have to be hard and confident. He admires that.”

She smiled at you like what she had just said was normal, then continued walking.

You no longer wanted to look at the other shoots, now trying to muster up as much confidence and professionalism as you could. What did she mean moody?! You groaned internally, regretting getting out of bed and putting on jeans for the first time in weeks.

“All right! Here we are. Bakugou! Meet your new photographer! She’s the one I was talking about the whole way here, I mean she is just incredible and-“

Suddenly, all the air got punched out of your lungs. That was him. That was the bad kisser that you made out with for an hour and a half at that stupid party! God you hated alcohol, why did you even go?! Why are you even here?! You should run, you should run as fast as you can and never come back.

Instead, you swallowed back your emotions and stuck your hand out, flashing a smile that you hoped didn’t make you look like you’re constipated.

If he recognized you, he didn’t make it obvious, although there was a slight twitch in his left eye, something you remember him doing when you lowered your hand down his stomach and down his-

“Pleasure to meet you! I’m excited to have the opportunity to work with you.”

He kept our eye contact, which both made you uncomfortable and a little excited. He was wearing a tight black shirt that had a slight v-neck, hickeys being showcased beautifully on his skin. You now remembered why you jumped him in the first place, that fire in his eye, beautifully sculpted muscles, a jawline that could kill, and those prominent lips that made you want to pull him close all over again. No wonder he’s a model he’s fucking perfect.

He hesitated before taking your hand in his, shaking it slightly, giving you a brief flashback of those very hands on your waist just two nights ago.

“Yeah, can’t fucking wait.”

You couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but instead of lingering on the moment you let go of his hand first, and turned your body to the agent again.

“I have all of my equipment with me, so just give me a second to set up and we can start!”

The agent beamed at you once more before running to get the rest of the crew. You shot a quick glance at Bakugou before smiling gently and walking away. You didn’t want to look at him long for too long, scared you might get too distracted. You were here for a reason, you had to be confident and most importantly professional. You’ve worked with hundreds of models, he wasn’t any different.

You’ve been in the photography game since you were 15, slowly building up your skills. You had done so many graduation photos, weddings, family pictures, and that was all before you were 18. By the time you graduated high school you had enough money to leave your home town and start going to a college that fit you just right in LA. That’s how you met Hitoshi, and through him all the rest of your friends. Ever since then you’ve been slowly building up your career and you have a newfound pride in yourself. Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be in a stable career they love in their early 20’s.

You bent over to plug in the last wire, before turning back around to find Bakugou’s agent. Cursing when you realized you didn’t see her, your eyes quickly found Bakugou, who was looking at himself in the mirror fixing his hair. You sucked in a breath and quickly walked over to where he was standing. You lean on the desk to catch his attention, and thankfully he seemed to stop what he was doing and turned his body towards yours.

“What’s you agent’s name?”

He stared at you for an uncomfortable amount of time before he grunted, looking away.

“Some professional, can’t even remember your fucking client’s name.”

You cocked an eyebrow at him, crossing your arms to show you didn’t appreciate his answer.

“I’m gonna ask you again. What is your agent’s name.”

That seemed to do the trick, because he looked back into your gaze, almost challenging you. You kept your stare, having years of staring contests with Hitoshi up your sleeve. However, you were taken aback when he smirked, causing you to glance at his lips for a split moment before returning back to your stance.

“Allison Marks, now don’t forget that.”

You smiled politely and uncrossed your arms.

“Oh I won’t, even when i’m drunk I always seem to remember things when it comes to you.”

You chuckled, watching a small blush creep on the tips of his ears, before he rolled his eyes looking away.

“Damn right, no one could forget me in a million years.”

You scoffed, starting to walk away from him, but he grabbed your hand before you could fully leave.

“And L/N, don’t get too distracted, we have a job to do.”

His face was neutral but his eyes told you everything you needed to know. His eyes was clouded with confidence and lust, leaving your brain to wonder back to that night again.

He let go chuckling and you walked off in a trance.

Fuck. This was gonna be a lot harder than you thought.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

gold rush

hello my dearest followers/readers! if you’re just now reading this welcome to Wildest Dreams, the Model!Bakugou Katsuki x Photographer!Reader, and if you’re coming back oh boy did i have fun writing this😈

i literally haven’t posted fan fiction since my watt pad days, whew. also ummmm i didnt proof read this so…have fun with that…love you!!!

fun facts! ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

- no matter the gender y/n always says “yes ma’am” in response so someone asking her to do smth (unless the other person is uncomfortable)

- i got the idea of the blood disorder bc my sister has smth similar so i know a bit abt it, however do not be scared to correct me or tell me any information about the disorder!

- can u tell idk what a studio unit thingy looks like😀😀😀no like all i can think about is those scenes in New Girl back when Cece was a model and they showed where she worked…that’s it

- sho used to be SUCH a dry texter but after a couple of years the gang got him to be more expressive and energetic

- the convo at the beginning of katsuki’s texts is actually inspired by a real convo my friends had 🤭

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