#but I don’t have a virus or infection on top of all of that

[evilwriter37]

Almost back to my baseline dose of prednisone (20 mg a day) and I haven’t had a cortisol crash from tapering down. It feels good to not have some sort of virus or infection! Woot woot!

[reasonsforhope]

"A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a real-time air monitor that can detect any of the SARS-CoV-2 virus variants that are present in a room in about 5 minutes.

The proof-of-concept device was created by researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine at Washington University...

The results are contained in a July 10 publication in Nature Communications that provides details about how the technology works.

The device holds promise as a breakthrough that - when commercially available - could be used in hospitals and health care facilities, schools, congregate living quarters, and other public places to help detect not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but other respiratory virus aerosol such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as well.

“There is nothing at the moment that tells us how safe a room is,” Cirrito said, in the university’s news release. “If you are in a room with 100 people, you don’t want to find out five days later whether you could be sick or not. The idea with this device is that you can know essentially in real time, or every 5 minutes, if there is a live virus in the air.”

How It Works

The team combined expertise in biosensing with knowhow in designing instruments that measure the toxicity of air. The resulting device is an air sampler that operates based on what’s called “wet cyclone technology.” Air is sucked into the sampler at very high speeds and is then mixed centrifugally with a fluid containing a nanobody that recognizes the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That fluid, which lines the walls of the sampler, creates a surface vortex that traps the virus aerosols. The wet cyclone sampler has a pump that collects the fluid and sends it to the biosensor for detection of the virus using electrochemistry.

The success of the instrument is linked to the extremely high velocity it generates - the monitor has a flow rate of about 1,000 liters per minute - allowing it to sample a much larger volume of air over a 5-minute collection period than what is possible with currently available commercial samplers. It’s also compact - about one foot wide and 10 inches tall - and lights up when a virus is detected, alerting users to increase airflow or circulation in the room.

Testing the Monitor

To test the monitor, the team placed it in the apartments of two Covid-positive patients. The real-time air samples from the bedrooms were then compared with air samples collected from a virus-free control room. The device detected the RNA of the virus in the air samples from the bedrooms but did not detect any in the control air samples.

In laboratory experiments that aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 into a room-sized chamber, the wet cyclone and biosensor were able to detect varying levels of airborne virus concentrations after only a few minutes of sampling, according to the study.

“We are starting with SARS-CoV-2, but there are plans to also measure influenza, RSV, rhinovirus and other top pathogens that routinely infect people,” Cirrito said. “In a hospital setting, the monitor could be used to measure for staph or strep, which cause all kinds of complications for patients. This could really have a major impact on people’s health.”

The Washington University team is now working to commercialize the air quality monitor."

-via Forbes, July 11, 2023

-

Holy shit. I know it's still early in the technology and more testing will inevitably be needed but holy shit.

Literally, if it bears out, this could revolutionize medicine. And maybe let immunocompromised people fucking go places again

Also, for those who don't know, Nature Communications is a very prestigious scientific journal that focuses on Pretty Big Deal research. Their review process is incredibly rigorous. This is an absolutely HUGE credibility boost to this research and prototype

[kick-a-long]

Stuff like this is why I get so pissed off at accusations of genocide and apartheid.

Why would a genocidal country pause a war to vaccinate at least 90% of Gaza kids against polio as soon as the first case of a two year old paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus is confirmed? If they wanted gazans wiped off the earth they would keep the war going and vaccinate Israeli kids and citizens. If they wanted them dead they would never vaccinate “the enemy.” Russia wouldn’t do that.

I see you dickheads in the comments, “it’s for optics! Plus they must be worried about Jews getting it from them! That’s the only reason they want to vaccinate anyone. Plus vaccines are poison even checked by the WHO! They probably have autism in them!”

If it’s an apartheid why would Palestinians have access to the same places and bodies of water as Israelis? And if they don’t why would Israel vaccinate. The Regan administration didn’t respond to the HIV outbreak in the 80s because they hated gays and drug users and wanted them sick, spreading it, and most importantly dead. During peace time to their own citizens.

All Israel would have to do is ignore the outbreak.

Vaccines work. Polio is one of the most devastating diseases a kid can get. There’s no medication that can stop the damage once you get the virus. Lil kids die from diarrhea, are paralyzed for life and if they’re immune system doesn’t stop the paralysis at their legs it climbs up their bodies and once it hits their diaphragm (the muscle that lets you breath right under your rip cage) kids as young as a few months old to their teens will die from lack of air. Both are the absolute worst and most painful ways a person can die. Waking nightmare delusions from dehydration and low oxygen on top of the physical pain.

Nazis infected Jews with this shit intentionally to study how polio affects children. Israel is stopping in the middle of a war to end the polio outbreak when they are still trying to rescue kids so young they have spent the majority of their lives on earth in Hamas captivity. And after only one kid was confirmed with polio type 2, the one that causes paralysis.

How can it be a genocide or an apartheid when they are literally helping safeguard Palestines next generation of kids?

[artist-issues]

I like Koba because he’s the perfect photo-opposite of Caesar, and the perfect villain for that franchise.

I like that the movies took their time and characterized him carefully, even in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, before anybody knew that he was going to be the villain in the second movie. The researchers are like, “he knows the drill, he’s been through a lot of labs.” When he’s just a dumb brute animal, with no superhuman intelligence, he causes the virus to be released to humanity. Remember how? By pretending to be calm when they put him in the scanning machine, but then thrashing suddenly and knocking that one lab assistant’s mask off, infecting him. He did that before he was self-aware and super-intelligent. He was a bitter and angry creature, and a cunning and vengeful creature, long before he got super-smart. And they keep that cunning bait-and-savage-switch character trait way later, in the second movie, when he pretends to be a silly monkey and then brutally murders humans when their guards are down.

But then when he is freed, and the humans are supposedly gone at the start of the second movie, I love the nuance that he wasn’t interested in overthrowing Caesar.

He was happy being the second-in-command. He had the opportunity to leave Caesar to get eaten by a bear in the opening scene of that movie—and instead he saves his life and looks horrified when he thinks Caesar is dead. They have a camaraderie. And he genuinely jokes around with Blue Eyes and tries to make him feel better after the younger ape is clawed by the bear.

Basically, it really was as if all he wanted was to wipe out the humans. When he thought they were gone for good, he was not the same bitter brute you see pushing Jacobs to his death or seizing the opportunity to beat up Will. He was happy just being one of Caesar’s advisors, living in the woods with the other apes.

But then humans come. And all this hate is back. And he still trusts Caesar and follows Caesar’s leadership, even if he thinks they should wipe all the humans out and satisfy his bloodlust from the beginning. He still submits to Caesar. But then Caesar pushes it by offering to basically help the humans do their work. Koba hates humans, and Caesar appears to be choosing them over him. And on top of that, you can see that in every confrontation he has with Caesar, Koba is interested in what the other apes think of him. Caesar stands up aggressively when Koba shouts at him, and Koba becomes aware that this is getting confrontational in front of everybody and backs down. Caesar almost chokes him out and Koba looks around at the other apes watching before asking forgiveness and regrouping.

So this means that there’s an element of wounded pride AND feeling like an outcast among the apes already mixed in with Koba’s hatred of humans, after Caesar doesn’t agree with him/punishes him. Then you can see Koba go from being a team player to being self-protective, and he starts using the other apes instead of being interested in them as family.

After realizing Caesar will never hate the humans, Koba basically had a choice to make. He could choose the apes, even though it has been revealed that they don’t share his hate. Or he could choose his hate—but he can’t have both, because the apes don’t want to hate humans if it means war. And we see that he wouldn’t give up his hate.

Koba’s own hate completely swallowed him up, to the point where he saw not only humans, but other apes, as disgusting. He starts killing just to kill. After the bloody war starts, he completely stops trying to manipulate Blue Eyes or gain the other apes’ approval. He just kills apes that disagree with him and humans in his way, alike.

Caesar points that out in their final battle. But that’s what makes Koba such a good opposite to Caesar. Caesar is, like I said in the other post, all about “family.” He’s all about protecting the apes he chooses to regard as his family, and it’s usually “protect them from hate.” But Koba doesn’t really regard the apes as his family. Maybe he was starting to, when he thought all humans were gone forever and was grateful to Caesar for freeing him from the labs, and there were no problems. But the truth is, while Caesar is all about making choices that protect, Koba is all about making choices that hurt.

And that’s what’s interesting. Caesar is defining what an “ape” is, and he knows it. He knows that he has a whole super-intelligent new species as his people, and they’re still deciding, every day, what being an “ape” means. And so Caesar struggles the whole second movie with the fact that apes and humans aren’t actually inherently different. Not when it comes to hate.

But if you think about it, that’s what separates the apes meaningfully from what they used to be: savagery. Just straight-up, plain “I feel mad so I’m going to lash out and rip up anything near me.” They got what from the serum? Advanced intelligence. Reason. Koba gets to the point where he can’t be reasoned with, and won’t show mercy or any of the “higher” sensibilities that come with that “higher being/human” thing the “evolved” apes have.

So when Koba chooses to be that way; when he chooses hate; when Koba chooses to kill his “family,” then Caesar kills Koba. Because Caesar is showing all the apes watching that final showdown: “true apes” do not kill and endanger one another. True apes protect each other. Koba only protects himself. So he doesn’t get to be an “ape” entitled to the same protection Caesar gives all his followers, and expects them to give one another.

I like that. Because Koba will kill anything that threatens or hurts him. But Caesar will only kill those who won’t let go of their hate—whether they’re human or primate.

I also just love the acting of the guy who plays Koba. And I love that he looks and moves more savagely than the other apes, even though he’s supposedly got the same level of intelligence and comparable experience to Caesar, the most “refined” ape. I love the way he talks, and I love, like I said, how careful and well-thought-out his characterization was.

[reagi-df]

New au: resident evil.

I have no self control

Don’t post when half asleep

The turtles are bio weapons created by scientists experimenting with different strains of the T-virus, which created the K-Virus. They were later found by Chris Redfield and taken back to BSAA HQ.

The turtles where top secret and where kept inside for the minority of their life’s. They were trained and the Mad Dogs unit was created.

Raph was infection while on a mission causing his own DNA to mutate uncontrollably, which resulted in Leo having to kill him.

Leo resented working with them and just tolerate having to deal with Redfield, mikey, despite all the hardship they’ve been there still manages to be the sunshine of the twins. Donnie also tolerate Chris but knows there are far worse place to be.

Leo and Donnie have a special link between each other, their usually deployed as a pair as their both highly effected in getting missions complete, however even if they are highly effective and work well together they also cause a lot more destruction in their wake.

I’ve been watching stuff todo with resident evil, so my knowledge is limited so far

[covid-safer-hotties]

COVID-19’s summer surge shows no signs of slowing down - Published Aug 17, 2024

Asurge in COVID-19 infections has swept the country this summer, upending travel plans and bringing fevers, coughs and general malaise. It shows no immediate sign of slowing.

While most of the country and the federal government has put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, the virus is mutating and new variants emerging.

Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer tracks individual infection numbers, experts think it could be the biggest summer wave yet.

So far, the variants haven’t been proven to cause a more serious illness, and vaccines remain effective, but there’s no certainty about how the virus may yet change and what happens next.

The highest viral activity right now is in the West, according to wastewater data from the CDC, but a “high” or “very high” level of COVID-19 virus is being detected in wastewater in almost every state. And viral levels are much higher nationwide than they were this time last year and started increasing earlier in the summer.

Wastewater data is the most reliable method of tracking levels of viral activity because so few people test, but it can’t identify specific case numbers.

Part of the testing decline can be attributed to pandemic fatigue, but experts said it’s also an issue of access. Free at-home tests are increasingly hard to find. The government isn’t distributing them, and private insurance plans have not been required to cover them since the public health emergency ended in 2023.

COVID has spiked every summer since the start of the pandemic. Experts have said the surge is being driven by predictable trends like increased travel and extreme hot weather driving more people indoors, as well as by a trio of variants that account for nearly 70 percent of all infections. Vaccines and antivirals can blunt the worst of the virus, and hospital are no longer being overwhelmed like in the earliest days of the pandemic.

But there remains a sizeable number of people who are not up-to-date on vaccinations. There are concerns that diminished testing and low vaccination rates could make it easier for more dangerous variants to take hold.

“One of the things that’s distinctive about this summer is that the variants out there are extraordinarily contagious, so they’re spreading very, very widely, and lots of people are getting mild infections, many more than know it, because testing is way down,” said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University.

That contagiousness means the virus is more likely to find the people most vulnerable — people over 65, people with certain preexisting conditions, or those who are immunocompromised.

In a July interview with the editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, the country’s former top infectious diseases doctor, Anthony Fauci, said people in high-risk categories need to take the virus seriously, even if the rest of the public does not.

“You don’t have to immobilize what you do and just cut yourself off from society,” Fauci said. “But regardless of what the current recommendations are, when you are in a crowded, closed space and you are an 85-year-old person with chronic lung disease or a 55-year-old person who’s morbidly obese with diabetes and hypertension, then you should be wearing a mask when you’re in closed indoor spaces.”

Schaffner said hospitalizations have been increasing in his region for at least the past five weeks, which surprised him.

“I thought probably they had peaked last week. Wrong. They went up again this week. So at least locally, we haven’t seen the peak yet. I would have expected this summer increase … to have plateaued and perhaps start to ease down. But we haven’t seen that yet,” he said.

Still, much of the country has moved on from the pandemic and is reacting to the surge with a collective shrug. COVID-19 is being treated like any other respiratory virus, including by the White House.

President Biden was infected in July. After isolating at home for several days and taking a course of the antiviral Paxlovid, he returned to campaign trial.

Biden is 81, meaning he’s considered high risk for severe infection. He received an updated coronavirus vaccine in September, but it’s not clear if he got a second one, which the CDC recommends for older Americans.

Updated vaccines that target the current variants are expected to be rolled out later this fall, and the CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older should receive one.

As of May, only 22.5 percent of adults in the United States reported having received the updated 2023-2024 vaccine that was released last fall and tailored to the XBB variant dominant at that time.

The immunity from older vaccines wanes over time, and while it doesn’t mean people are totally unprotected, Schaffner said, the most vulnerable should be cautious. Many people being infected now have significantly reduced immunity to the current mutated virus, but reduced immunity is better than no immunity.

People with healthy immune systems and who have previously been vaccinated or infected are still less likely to experience the more severe infections that result in hospitalization or death.

Almost “none of us are naive to COVID, but the people where the protection wanes the most are the most frail, the immunodeficient, the people with chronic underlying illnesses,” Schaffner said.

[greytongue]

mutually-assured attachment

-

cw/themes: you’re both touch starved, reader is an agent assigned with leon on a mission. he’s kind of an authority figure to you? he was one of the first people you were assigned with as a rookie and he’s always given you pointers. you disobeyed an order. he’s not mad just disappointed.

-

you and him were having an argument. not a screaming match, but he was frustrated and so were you. you, leon, and a few other agents were assigned on a mission. a virus outbreak in asheville, north carolina. the town was in the latter part of chaos when your squad arrived, most of the people had been evacuated. you guys were the cleanup crew for the remaining infected. you had left your post to save a a stray civilian almost crushed from debris. you were somewhat apologetic, but held your ground.

“i understand you want to save everyone, but if you’d been gone any longer, it would’ve been detrimental to the plan.” he said, arms crossed as he leaned on the edge of the office desk.

“i know, and i’m sorry. but casualties are absolutely unacceptable to me. i know i can’t save everyone, but i can try.” your shoulders were drawn back square, confident.

this was just like you, he thought. even though your impulsiveness to try and save literally any civilian in site caused problems, he respected that. more than that really, he found your steel morals attractive.

leon sighed after a brief silence hung in the air. “i worry about you, is all. i don’t wanna see you getting hurt on accident knowing i could’ve done something to prevent that.”

“leon…” you stared at each other for awhile after his caring words left his lips. god, his lips. you’ve always felt something for him, even if you had more than a few dozen disagreements under your guys’ belts.

you subconsciously moved forward, his arms falling to rest on the desk behind him, almost inviting you closer. you hesitantly placed a gentle hand on his hard, broad chest. you both shivered at the contact. in this line of work, the only physical contact you get is punching and kicking your enemies. to cause harm.

this was different. this touch was to soothe. this was gentle. this was new for both of you. his muscles felt like stone, your hands absorbing the warmth radiating off him. you felt his heart quicken underneath your hand.

he let out a somewhat controlled, shaky exhale. warm breath fanning across your forehead. his much larger hand came to rest on top of yours. palms calloused and rough. his thumb rubbed gentle back and forth motions across your knuckles, before slowly, ever so slowly, lifting your hand up to his plump lips.

his mouth hovered over your hand that was enveloped in his, giving you time to pull away. you didn’t.

leon closed his eyes, pretty long lashes coming into your view as he gently placed a kiss to your hand. you shuddered, you hadn’t received a kiss in so long. let alone such an intimate gesture. ever the gentleman.

he left his lips on your hand after he delivered the kiss, eyes fluttering open to meet yours. something in you snapped at that and you wrapped your arms around his waist, taking a bold step between his legs. you had effectively pinned him against the desk he was leaning on your entire conversation, your nose coming to bury deep within his collarbone to inhale his musky scent. you had gotten a taste of these soft touches, and you wanted more.

he inhaled sharply at your daring movement, his arms instinctively coming to rest on your shoulders. leon bit his lip to push a groan back in his throat when he felt you breathe in deeply. it was like you were trying to become one with him, you were so close.

your hands travelled down to his hips and squeezed as your lips parted to place open mouthed kisses along the column of his throat. he let his head hang back, soaking up the attention and you growled in delight at the newly given access, pushing farther into him and it rocked his body back. he propped a hand on the desk to keep his balance and another cupped the back of your head. his eyebrows furrowed and mouth fell agape with a moan as you nipped at his pulse, you smiled into his neck at that, flicking your tongue over the bite.

he groaned and rolled his head to the side, back to front, and resting the side of his head on yours. leon’s hands began to wander over you, squeezing and massaging over your sides, your hips. a particularly hard squeeze dangerously close to your ass had you pulling away with a strained gasp. this was his chance. he was the one this time to take a step between your legs, quickly gripping the back of your thighs and hoisting you up onto the desk. his desk. the speed of his actions had you almost laid out flat on the glossy surface, you managed to prop yourself up on your elbows. you sighed and looked up at him, but his eyes were on your swollen and spit slicked lips.

he stepped forward so his hips pressed up against the side of the desk and in between the space where your legs parted for him. he hovered over you, his shadow resting over you like a veil. his sizable hands rested near your shoulders, caging you in. not only that, but it was his eyes too. leon’s gaze was on you, yours on him. you two stayed like that, taking each other in. breathing in each others air, your scents. you rested fully on your back, he leaned forward as you did. your considerably smaller hands cupped his surprisingly soft face. thumbs tracing over the cheekbones, his plump lips. it barely took guiding him to your own to finally kiss.

you sighed into it while he hummed, relief washing over both of you as the tension in the air broke. his head immediately tilted slightly to deepen the kiss, the sides of your noses brushing against each other as your lips moved in sync.

hands began to roam. you left one of them to keep cupping his cheek, and the other slide down to feel at his back, his shoulders, anything. you locked a foot around one of his legs to keep him in place, but one of his hands gripped the underside of your knee and pushed it up to rest on his waist. you both groaned as this pushed your hips flush against each other.

it had been open mouthed kisses, until leon had enough and finally began tonguing at your bottom lip. you parted your lips and your tongues met. as this continued, both of your movements progressively became rushed, heated, haphazard. you had to pull away to properly catch your breath when he started feeling up your hips like that.

“holy shit..” your head fell back against the desk, eyes shut and feeling lightheaded from lack of oxygen. he took the chance to kiss his way down to your neck, doing what you had done to him earlier. you rolled your head to the side to give him more access, whining when he began to lick and bite.

“promise me,” he mumbled between a swipe of his tongue and a press of his plump lips against your skin, you shivered as his hot breath fanned over your throat.

“mmwha-?”

“promise me you won’t get yourself into trouble.”

“c’mon, kennedy,” you scoffed, brushing his hair out of his face when he looked up at you with confusion.

“i’m /always/ getting into trouble. you’re the one who gets me out of it. we’re a perfect match, yeah?” you let out a hearty laugh as he shook his head.

“you’re gonna be the death of me.” he rumbled low in his chest as he slowly uprighted himself back into a standing position, to which you made a disappointed sound at. he was the one to scoff this time.

“let’s go, we’ve got reports to make.” he outstretched a hand, you took it with a mumble of disagreement.

“yeah, yeah.” you hopped down to your feet. he was turning to head for the door, but you grabbed his wrist. soon as he turned his head in your direction, you pressed a quick peck on his pale lips.

“wanna finish this later? we could go to my place, watch a movie? if you’d like.” you scratched the back of your neck awkwardly, feet shifting. god, why are you now feeling nervous? he snorted while doing a once over on you, you were so obvious.

“sure thing, rookie.” he proceeded to walk out the door without another thought, gesturing you to follow. you were right with him.

[glade-constellation]

I think I’m starting to realize that Nexus may be one of the most misunderstood characters in the show.

Am I a fan of Nexus? No, not really. I find him funny to watch because, besides EAPS Monty, he says the most out of pocket shit. Never know what to expect when he opens his mouth. But besides that, I just can’t find any interest in him.

That being said, I recently have been doing a deep dive of his character to prove a theory I had, which turned out to be partially canon in today’s episode. I didn’t think Nexus had the Ruin virus, I don’t think he ever had it. After watching one of the introductory episodes in EAPS, I started to theorize that Nexus became what he is purely because he is a Moon. I still think this is true, and was simply sped up by the harvesting of dark star power.

This might be a long post, so strap in.

So. Nexus. I don’t feel dramatic in saying he’s possibly one of the most hated TSAMS characters, or at least most of the fandom’s least favorite. A good bit of the fandom believed he was infected by the Ruin virus, or was just a victim of terrible story writing, because it just didn’t seem possible for him to go this far. Sure, he was deeply traumatized by Solar’s death on top of many other things, but that didn’t seem like it would turn him completely evil. I was also one of the people who believed the Infection theory, as shown by my many posts during Nexus’ corruption arc.

Funnily enough, it was Eclipse of all characters that changed my view of Nexus and who he is. During “Eclipse and Puppet meet the NEW SUN”, Eclipse makes a very big point in relating himself back to the original Moon. It’s something I remembered from Eclipse’s lore, but had never really sat down and thought over. I believe @/samoftheswamp had a post that I 100% agreed with. Eclipse has all the memories of the original Moon before the separation, but is only made up of the kill code and very small fragments of Moon coding-wise. Everything else about Eclipse in that regard was filled in by Sun. He then continued to tear apart his own coding to make Bloodmoon and Lunar. Despite all of this, due to his memories, Eclipse still very much considers himself to be the original Moon.

How does any of this relate to Nexus? Simple. The coding and memories. Despite Eclipse and Nexus being completely opposites in both of those things, Eclipse still falls in line with Moons far more than he does Suns. V4 Eclipse talks a lot about how much his old self, and even current self, acts so similar to Moons. Though he appears as a Sun, Eclipse is a Moon by emotional and psychological standards.

I would also like to point out that Solar specifically say the only reason he was different from most Eclipse’s was due to his Sun’s influence. Everything that happened to Eclipse also happened to Solar up until his Sun decided to try and help him. That means that Solar also falls under the Moon category.

Now that we’ve established who counts as a Moon, let’s get into why this is important. One thing every single Moon has had in common so far is their villain arc. Moon has had several mini ones, mostly influenced by other people. Eclipse was a villain up until very recently. Solar was almost a villain until his Sun stepped in. Killcode was a villain until his change of heart. Bloodmoon was just, a villain. Hell, even Cringe Dimension Moon went evil. And now we have Nexus.

Am I saying all Moons are destined to become villains? Yes, but no. I think all Moons have a possibility of becoming a villain, and it is their choice to be one or not. Every Moon we meet tends to go through some sort of catastrophic event that leads them to this choice. OG Moon was built with a kill code. Eclipse, Solar, KC, and Bloodmoon all were a piece of that kill code in some way, on top of other trauma in some cases. Nexus never had the kill code, but he’s been through several different instances of trauma. He literally woke up to the world under Eclipse’s rule. He also had to witness the death of someone he considered a brother in his very own arms. All of these characters have had an instance where they were able to choose between being good or evil. Solar shows that Eclipse didn’t have to be evil, his coding wasn’t fully controlling his actions. He chose to be a villain. Killcode was evil by design, but chose to become good, whereas Bloodmoon was accidentally created as a murderbot and chose to stay evil.

I really want to focus in on Eclipse and Solar real quick. A lot of these characters are antithesis of each other, but Eclipse and Solar are supposed to be the perfectly representation of “what if”. Solar’s whole existence shows that Eclipse chose the path he went on. Could he have been influenced by the kill code? Yeah, definitely. That’s totally an option. But Solar was just as corrupted by our understanding. The only reason he was able to become good was because someone stepped in. Someone treated him like a person and showed him a different way. Eclipse never had that, and ended up choosing the path of evil since that influence was never given to him.

All this to say, it is completely in character for Nexus to have chosen the path of a villain by his own volition. Moons have always been portrayed to have the ability to turn evil. It has never actually mattered what their coding is or what trauma they have been through, every Moon has had a moment where they have had to make a choice. Will they be a hero, or become the villain they were “destined” to be?

I do not think Nexus was of complete clear consciousness when making this decision. Not because of a virus or kill code, not even the dark star power he may have had a the time. It was simply his mental health. Eclipse and Solar are a perfect example of how mental health can completely change a character. Nexus’ entire life was made up of disaster after disaster, which he felt completely responsible for. When Solar died in his arms, it was his snapping point. He was standing on the edge, teetering between sanity and insanity. He felt as if his family abandoned him, on top of his already present self blame and hatred, and he fell. (It does not help that his family failed pretty spectacularly in helping him, but that is the reality of most situations like this. We as an audience were of sound mind when coming up with ways to help Nexus, but the Celestial family was not. They all had their own things to focus on, and couldn’t give Nexus the help he truly needed, despite them thinking they had. Hindsight is a bitch when it comes to scenarios such as this.)

I don’t like Nexus. The story they seem to be telling with his current character arc is the same as Bloodmoon’s, that some people just aren’t worth saving. I do not believe in this sentiment at all, and also believe Nexus could have been handled much better than he currently is. But I cannot deny that how he is acting is actually incredibly plausible. It is not out of character for him to have become what he currently is, even without outside influences. Him harvesting dark star power just happens to make his fall into insanity even more likely.

(I would like to add that none of what I just wrote was against the writers and/or actors in any way. This is a “forever” roleplay show made using VRChat on YouTube. I am in no way expecting greatness. I enjoy having Nexus and characters like EAPS Monty specifically because they play into my more out of pocket sense of humor. I would also like to reiterate that all of this is simply a theory, and how I view the characters of the show. You are completely allowed to have your own opinion! Also, if you read this whole post, thank you! Even if we don’t agree, I am grateful you put time into reading this extensive post.)

[stuckinthesun]

Gossip

Part 2

Part 3

So logically I know Leon wouldn’t be able to confide in the reader about his work life, confidentiality and safety and all that, but could you imagine if he did???

Headcanon layout of Leon X Reader being that gossipy couple that has no secrets

Spoilers for RE4R

You’re just chilling on the couch when he gets home from Spain

He walks in, sets his duffel bag down, and just collapses on top of you, his head pillowed on your chest

“That bad huh?”

“I hate my job.”

You play with his hair with one hand while tracing patterns on his back with the other

“Did you find her?”

“Yeah she was taken by a fucking cult in Spain.”

“A cult?”

“Yeah and they had one of the many viruses.”

“Why does everyone have a type of the virus?”

“Fuck if I know. Both Ashley and I got infected though.”

“WHAT?!”

“I’m fine thanks to Ashley, but it sucked.”

“I’d assume so.”

“Oh and guess who’s alive!”

“Who???”

He leans up and folds his arms under his chin so he can look at you

“Ada!”

“What?! I thought you said she fell from an unsurvivable height back in Raccoon City?!?”

“She did! I don’t know how the fuck she lived!”

“Okay okay hold on Leon, start from the beginning.”

“Right. Okay so…”

[badolmen]

“I’m scared to pirate stuff - ” do it scared!*

*with Firefox and Adblock and a VPN and -

If you want a nonspecific, nonexhaustive “where do I even start” guide…

Sail the cyber seas at your own risk!

Streaming - “I want to watch xyz”

This is normally what most people want when they talk about pirating.

Use Firefox with uBlock Origin and additional privacy add-ons such as PrivacyBadger, TrackMeNot, etc.

Free VPNs are out there. Get one - but vet it’s efficacy. My go-tos are Proton VPN, or Windscribe if you plan to do a bit of torrenting.

What is torrenting? How does it work? Here’s a guide!

Back to streaming -

Make sure that a) you’ve got your Mozilla browser with all its adblocking private glory, and b) you’ve got a VPN turned on to hide what you’re doing in that browser from your ISP (internet service provider).

Now you need to actually find a site to stream from. This is the tricky part, because openly sharing these sites will get them taken down if they’re talked about widely enough. (Remember how tiktok idiots got zlibrary taken down?)

You’re going to have to talk to people on forums. You’re going to have to experiment with sites you find yourself. Search for ‘x online free’ and look at the links that come up - is the preview text mangled or clickbaitey? Are there Reddit threads about that website confirming or denying its content? A good rule of thumb is to ignore the top result or two - copycats of good streaming sites will often buy out the top result spot. Eventually, you’ll develop a good gut feeling and understanding of what a good site ‘looks like’ from the results page alone.

However, there are some places that compile good sites that haven’t been nuked by lawyers (yet) - check out r/FMHY! The masterposts are actively curated and updated when a site goes down or is found to have malicious downloads.

Remember - loose lips sink ships. No tweeting (xeeting?) or Facebook statuses about your new favorite piracy website and where you found it. Even posting to tumblr (kind of like this…) isn’t a great idea if you want those websites to stay under the radar and stay accessible. Nobody talks, everybody walks (away with their share of pirate booty)

If you aren’t downloading media, pick pretty much any site and watch away! Adblock and Firefox will keep away pop-ups and other annoying ads, and your VPN means your ISP can’t tell that you’re visiting an unofficial streaming service.

Note: In my experience, I’ve never heard of visiting a site and watching stuff on it infecting or otherwise compromising your computer. That tends to come from misclicks on invisible or overwhelming pop-up ads that redirect you to an automatic download or similarly malicious bullshit. If you’re using Firefox and uBlock, you shouldn’t be in any danger of an accidental redirect.

Downloads - “I want to keep xyz”

This is the realm of pirate archiving - you’re keeping files physically on your hard drive, an external hard drive, or burning a disk.

Adblock + Firefox browser? Check. VPN on? Check.

Go to your streaming site of choice - most if not all have download options. You can download those files or, manually, right click and save the video file from the webpage as an mp4. I honestly don’t know if there’s a difference in quality or more danger in clicking the download buttons, but regardless -

Run that puppy through VirusTotal.com! It’s a reliable browser based virus checker - if the file is too large, use a local virus checking program (your native Windows Defender on Windows computers or, I prefer, Malwarebytes)

Generally mp4 and mp3 files are clean - choose where to save them for the long term, and bam! Free forever media.

Optionally, I also upload mp4 files to a named Google document - this way I can easily share them or make them findable through a ‘xyz Google doc’ search for others :]

Torrents - “I want to keep and share xyz”

I’m not going to go into this subject in depth because, honestly, it’s not something I do regularly.

See the previously linked Torrenting guide for information on how the process works, and check out r/FMHY for recommendations and warnings about different torrenting clients (I’ve personally only used qBittorrent - I’ve heard to stay away from the Pirate Bay and Bittorrent.)

As with streaming, turn on that VPN baby! You’re going to need one that supports peer-to-peer (p2p) connections, so Proton’s free version is a no-go. Windscribe is what I’ve used for torrenting (and it’s a good free VPN on its own - I’m just partial to Proton). You get 10GB every month on Windscribe’s free version, which is more than enough for a few movies/a season or two of your favorite show.

(Bigger torrents like video games are easily 30+ GB, so be prepared to either pay for a no-limit premium account or spend a few months downloading your files in chunks.)

VPN on? Double check.

Boot up your torrenting client - I use a slightly out of date version of qBittorent, but there are other options. The Reddit thread and previously linked torrenting guide have a few dos and donts of selecting a client, so be thorough before you download your client of choice.

This is getting into the logistics of torrenting a bit, so forgive me if this is vague or incorrect, but now you need a torrent seed. These will be .tor files found through pirating websites or archives - these are rarely malicious, but it’s good to run any piracy related download through something like VirusTotal.com or scan it with a local program like Malwarebytes.

You open your seed file in your client and wait. A ‘healthy’ seed tends to have lots of seeders and few leeches, but sometimes you’re stuck with an obscure seed you just have to wait for.

Your torrented files have fully downloaded! Now what? a) keep your client open and seed those files for others as long as you want to - sharing is caring! and b) run those files through a security program like Malwarebytes (not sponsored it’s just the only program I’m familiar with).

Be wary of what gets flagged - sometimes the files seem important, but are just trojans, and likewise sometimes they seem malicious, but are just cracked software getting flagged by your system. It’s good to check and see if others have had a problem with this particular torrent before - Reddit threads from 2008 are your long dead friends.

And that’s about it. Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve recommended is malicious or outright wrong. I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t had an active problem to my knowledge, so if there is something fishy with how I do things, I am a statistical outlier and should not be counted.

I wish you smooth sailing and strong winds in your ventures me hearties!

Obligatory ‘don’t pirate small author’s or artist’s works what the fuck dude’ statement.

[laughterfixs]

Special

TW: This gets a bit heavy in the first half! Lots of angst! @afloofwithmultipleinterests helped me with a tease uwu

Summary: 

Moon’s having thoughts about himself. Does he really matter? Is he special? Why do people prefer Sun over him? As he sits alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts, Ana comes to find him and talk to him. To help her pup’s mind out of the dark. 

Silence. Darkness. 

Not a single noise disrupted this night. 

One would almost consider it peaceful. But Moondrop considered it…lonely. Silence could be deafening. Moon’s mind was pounding. 

He sat on the back of a bunny cart, the carousel absolutely still for the night. Not broken, it was just fixed. 

Moon had come out to the daycare playground. The carousel was the main attraction, which made everyone want to visit. 

Moon wanted to sit and stare at the stars. It was the only time and only way he would be able to. But it was a cloudy night, the stars and the actual moon were hidden behind them. 

Moon sighed and raised his arms behind his head, trying to ignore the inner voice berating him in his head. But it just seemed to get louder and louder the longer the silence went on. 

Sitting out here when you have patrols. 

It’s the only thing you can do right and here you are! Staff is right, you are useless. 

Can’t even do naptime right. Look at yourself! What kind of caretaker looks like THIS?! Moon flinched, his hand going up to his faceplate to feel it. The wide smile on his face, sharp shark like teeth, he could see the light from his red eyes glowing against his arm. Moon growled a bit and pulled his nightcap over his face. 

Oh yes! Growling like that is perfect…for scaring the kids, for making them hate you. For making them run straight to Sun. 

What good are you?! You can’t protect anyone, you can’t keep anyone safe, look how easily you were infected by that DAMN virus! Everyone either thinks you’re creepy or dangerous. You. Are. Nothing. 

Moon curled up on the bunny cart, bringing his knees up to his chest and hiding his face in his arms. 

“Moonberry?” Moon flinched at the voice calling his nickname. He peeked over his arms, seeing the familiar sea green eyes of his mother glowing slightly in the dark. She couldn’t fit inside to get to him, but her long neck snaked past a few bars and characters to get as close as possible. “Whatcha doin out here by yerself?” Ana asked, gently tilting her head. Moon was quiet for a moment. He swallowed down the imaginary lump in his imaginary throat. 

“I just…needed to be alone for a bit…” 

“...Do you still want to be alone..?” Ana asked carefully. Moon looked off to the side. After a moment, he shook his head, face still buried in his arms. “Think you can come a lil closer then..?” 

Moon nodded and then slowly slid off where he was seated and moved to a chicken cart closer to his mom. Ana watched him as he went into his previous position. Her ears lowered in worry. “Alright…what’s wrong Moonberry?” “....” Moon sighed again. “I’m useless…” 

Ana blinked, taken back by that. “What? Where did that thought come from?” 

Moon gave a shrug. “Moon…” the dragon hound gently warned. “Come on, you can tell me anything…”

The starry daycare attendant quickly wiped the tears he felt threatening to spill. Unlike Sunny who would cry when he was alone, Moon didn’t cry at all. He tried not to. Monsters didn’t cry…right? “Everyone just sees me as a monster. The kids are scared of me, the staff thinks I’m dangerous. I’m just…I’m so tired of it…” 

Ana lowered her ears. That had seemed to hit her pretty hard as well. Moon continued on. 

“On top of that I just…I don’t think I can really do anything around here. I was supposed to be a protector and a caretaker, but once I got infected I…I couldn’t even do that…so many kids lost and it was all MY fault! I let Carlyle down!” 

“...Moon-” 

“Maybe Sun would be better off without me…” “Now you stop that right there, mister!”  

Moon jolted a bit at the sudden firmness to Ana’s voice. “I ain’t gonna have that. You know just as well as I do, Sun would be devastated without you. And so would I.”

“...But I’m just a monster…” Ana shook her head, using her paw to lift Moon’s head toward her gently. “No, yer my Moonberry. Yer Sunny’s brother and best friend. You may act like a mischievous lil gremlin but ya ain’t a monster hun.” 

Moon averted his gaze. He knew she was trying to help but…it was hard to believe her words. Ana sighed, seeing her affirmations weren’t working too well…

“Moon, sugarstar, I know it hurts…but I also know you. You are a protector. You do yer absolute best to make sure Sun feels safe and happy. Just as you do with everyone.” “But…but all those kids…” “It wasn’t yer fault. It never was. You had no control, remember? You weren’t yerself and I know it didn’t leave you yerself…you had no control of that glitch honey…” “But… the staff…” “Know literally nothing. Not the Moon I know. Not the Moon who I’ve seen do anything for those he cares about.” Moon stared at his mother. He held her paw against his faceplate. She waited for him to say something but he was quiet. So she went on, all while gently stroking his cheek with a finger. “Moon…Do you remember the day we met?” Moon froze a moment and looked up at her in question. He wasn’t sure where she was going with that but…his curiosity peaked. “Y-yes…It was after I chased Marie when I thought she stole some kids…I found you two under the pizzaplex, hiding and just…trying to eat and survive.” Ana nodded. “And do you remember what you did? Every day during yerr patrols?” “...I brought you leftovers from the concession stands and snacks that Sun made for you…just so you had something, anything to eat.” “Exactly. Would a monster do that?” Moon’s eyes widened. He looked down…and shook his head. “You not only did that, but you kept us a secret. As best as you could at least, until Sunny found out later.” She chuckled lightly. “You didn’t have to do any of that. You were mine and Marie’s savior for a while…You boys are definitely my savior.” “Huh…?” The night time animatronic questioned, looking back up at her. “What…What do you mean?” Ana smiled at him, lowering her head to lightly bonk foreheads with him. “Before I met you boys, I was a very bitter person. I wasn’t happy when I was human. I lost my life to those men and…that angel turned me into this all because I said I hated my kind. Once Najada found me and I became friends with Marie…I was appreciative, sure. But you saw how I was when you came down that vent…” “Hehehe…” Moon chuckled, looking down. “Yeah…you took months to open up…” “And I wish I had a lot sooner.” Ana chuffed, booping noses with him. “But when I finally got to know you boys, and I adopted you, every moment I’ve spent with you has been the best moments of my life, between both of them, I wouldn’t give up what I have now for the world. And that’s after being treated like a monster, being labeled a beast of wrath and vengeance.” “You’re not any of that though! You’re sweet and kind and strong, you keep us safe and happy and-” “Yer the same way.” 

Moon stopped at the interruption, he looked up at his smirking mother and squinted at her. “...You told me that so you could turn compliments on me huh?” “See? Yer so clever you figured that out right quick!” Moon snorted, chuckling as Ana licked his faceplate. He gently pushed her muzzle away. 

“I’m serious though, I’m better because of you and Sun. You boys pulled my heart out of the cold and dark. I think that’s pretty special.” Moon smiled at that, hugging his mother’s face as they touched foreheads again. He still felt something eating at him. “But Sun…” 

“Hm?” 

“Everyone likes Sun so much better and I…” Moon felt horrible for saying it. “...Are you jealous…?” Ana asked gently. 

Moon’s breath hitched as the tears finally fell. He hiccuped and sobbed softly, not looking at Ana. The dragon lowered her ears, she sat up on her haunches and gently scooped Moon into her arms and held him close to her chest. Moon buried his face into her fur, sobbing against her. “I-I’m sorry…! I don’t mean to feel this way but I can’t help it…! Everyone praises Sun! Staff doesn’t like either of us but-but they still prefer him over me! They’re all so scared of me! What makes him so special?! What makes ME special?!” Ana’s eyes softened on her pup and his angry hurt words. She hummed. “What makes you special? I could make a list millions of miles long…and it still wouldn’t be enough to describe everything I love about you, Moonberry…” Moon sniffed, pulling away to wipe his eyes. “You-you’re just saying that cause you can’t actually think of anything…” Ana raised a brow at him and smirked. “Actually I was trying to spare you but if you really want me to start listing things off…” she moved him in her arms and cradled him, starting to kiss and lick his face as she spoke. “Yer sweet.” A kiss. “Yer clever.” A lick. “Yer able to stay calm in intense situations.” A nuzzle to the nose. “Quick on yer feet, more flexible than a rubber hose, and don’t think I haven’t seen you dancing on yer wire. Yer damn good at that.” She attacked his cheek with a barrage of kisses, hamming up a few “Mwah!”s 

Moon couldn’t stop the giggles that bubbled up out of his voice box. 

“Maaaahahahaaam!”

“Ohhh that’s right! The lil rasp to your voice and giggles just makes you sound extra cute and bringin em out just makes you so much more adorable~!” Ana cooed, nuzzling his cheek now. Moon giggled more, feeling her whiskers teasing his crescent. 

“Okahahay! Mahahahaaaam! I gehehet ihihit!”

Ana chuckled as he placed his hands on her muzzle but didn’t even try to really push her away. 

“What? But I haven’t even scratched the surface!” 

Moon snickered, hugging her muzzle. The love from his mother started to warm him up…At least a little. As he rubbed under his mother’s chin, he sighed. 

“I still feel bad for being jealous of Sun…”

Ana hummed with a nod. “Well sugarstar, maybe that’s something you both need to sit down and talk about.” Moon nodded sadly. “I know…I’m just…scared…” 

Ana flicked her ears back, tilting her head lightly. “Has he heard any of this?” Moon shook his head. “No…I’ve blocked him from hearing or seeing anything for now. Pretty sure he’s still sound asleep…I didn’t want to hurt him or scare him…I wish it was easier to tell him but…” 

“Scared of his reaction?” Ana asked gently, earning a nod from Moon. “Well, I know it’s a real fear, hun, but…Sun loves you. Yer best friends, twins, a team. Ain’t a thing that can truly come between you two. You just need to talk. Both of ya…yer yin and yang. One can’t be without the other.” “...Will you be there?” 

Ana lowered her ears a bit. “I can be nearby…but don’t think I can do much else while y’all are talkin to each other in yer head.” Moon sighed and nodded. He knew she was right. He just wished this was easier.  “Okay…Thanks mom.” 

“Anytime honey. Do you wanna head back?” Moon looked up at her then lowered his gaze, he cuddled into her fur and nodded. “I guess so…” Ana firmed her lips as she moved Moon to sit on her back. “Tell you what, let’s get back to the loft and then, we’ll put a smile back on that handsome face of yers.” 

Moon snorted lightly at the comment. His mother being a mother…it still got to him. “Sure mom…” he agreed, not quite catching onto her plan. 

Ana hadn’t wasted a moment. She carried Moon back to the daycare. As she moved closer to the ballpit, she turned her head to look over her shoulder. “Hang on tight, sugastar.” Moon nodded, gripping onto her mane as she crouched down like a cat preparing a pounce. Then she leaped up into the air and onto the balcony, tail dangling off of it as she ducked her head and strolled the rest of the way in. The dragon proceeded to fix up the little nest she had of blankets and pillows and an old small air mattress Marie had dragged in so the boys would have somewhat of a bed. Sun patched it up, and they were surprised yet glad to see the pump still worked.

 Ana hummed at the nest in approval, she looked to the arcade machine in the corner and rubbed her head against it as if to greet it before moving her neck to pick Moon up in her jaws by his middle. She went to place him on the nest but held him over it for a moment. Moon blinked and turned his head to look up at his mother. “Mom-?ACK!” She gently dropped him safely into the nest, the extra padding keeping the bot from making much of a thud or harming him. He couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Hehehey!” Ana chuckled, plopping herself down beside him. “There’s a bit of a laugh. Let’s see if we can keep it going.” Moon stiffened at those words. Keep it going…? Uh oh. “Wh-wh-what do you mean?” Moon asked nervously, watching his mother’s arms move to either side of him. 

“Oh as if you don’t know~” Ana cooed. “How do I always cheer up my boys?” The nap attendant gulped, more nervous giggles bubbling out of him. “M-mahaham, come ahahan!” “What is it, Moonberry? Yer gonna tell me you don’t want it?” Moon shifted his eyes back and forth, he whined and pulled his cap down over his face. “That’s not faaaair!” Ana chuckled, lowering her head to nuzzle the pointy nose still poking out. “Does my Moonpie want tickles or not~” She got another whine. “Mmmm…please…” 

Ana hummed a chuckle as she made sure he was comfortable. Moon giggled from anticipation alone. 

“So giggly already, my sweet lil Moonberry loves this game huh?” 

“Shhuhuhuhut uhup! Dohohon’t tehehease!” 

“I’m not doing anything gigglebot~!” 

But she was and she knew it. Sun loved when she got silly, playful, whenever tickles were made into a game. Moon? Moon loved when someone got him going with a stream of sweet teases, kind words and affirmations. Paired with actual tickles, it was the perfect way to melt the seemingly stoic night time animatronic. 

Moon snickered, kicking his feet and hiding his face so she couldn’t see the purple glow that dusted his cheeks. Though that didn’t mean she didn’t know it was there. 

Ana then proceeded to gently wiggle her fingers against Moon’s sides. The nap attendant immediately squawked and squirmed. 

“Kkhkhkhkhkh! Mahahahahaaam! No! Nonohohohoho! Nohoho fahahair!”

“Yer the one leaving yerself open, sugastar!” 

She trailed her paws upward toward his arms. 

“W-wahahait! What are-ahare you DOHOHOHOING?! GYEEEHEHEHEEE! N-nahahat thehehehere!!” 

Ana chuckled as she teased the ball joints and wires that poked out from under his arms. Moon tried to lock his arms down on reflex but Ana’s paws weren’t budging.

“Tiiiickle tickle tickle~” Ana purred. “My sweet giggly lil bat~” 

“Pfft! I-ihihi’m nyaahahaat a bahahaat!” 

“Really? Are you sure? Yer as squeaky as a bat. I’ve seen ya hanging upside down like one. You love the night, and I know I’ve watched you eat a bug like it was a piece of chocolate.” 

Moon shook his head. “N-nyooohohoho…”

He finally peeked out from under his hat. Only to see his momma lift his left arm and nuzzle the paneling under his upper arm. Moon screeched and cackled. He twisted his body a bit and kicked his legs. 

“That sounds like a bat screeching to me, sugar.” Ana teased, releasing his arm and letting him lock them down and hug himself around his chest. 

“Srnkhkhkhkh…you…you buhuhuhully.” Moon giggled, his smile only growing goofier as Ana cupped his cheeks. She kissed his nose and trailed one finger along his chin, the bottom of the crescent and booping a couple craters. Moon let out a barrage of squeaks and giggles with a few loud squawks here and there when her claw wiggled in a crater. 

“Listen to you~! My big bad night guardian squeaking like the cutest lil bat in the starry sky~!” Moon giggle-whined, trying his best not to curl up. His family knew how to make him feel small, precious, special…they were able to melt away any bad thoughts and let him know just how good he was. “M-mahahamahahaaa!” “Yes Moonberry?” “Khkhkhkheehehehee! S-Sohohohomewhere ehehehelse!” 

Ana smiled down at him as she pulled her paws away. She easily recognized that as a plea for more tickles. She knew her boys after all. 

“Alright hun, where next?” Moon whined. “Dohohon’t make me sahahay!” Ana laughed a bit. “Alright alright, I won’t. How about…” She rested her paw over his belly. “This a good spot?” 

Moon flinched, squeaky raspy giggles flooding out of him. He nodded quickly, twitching underneath his mother’s paw. “Ready?” “Nyooohohohoo…?” “No? So I absolutely shouldn’t do this, yea?” She wriggled her claws lightly. Moon let out a yip and broke into laughter, wiggling under the claws which only seemed to help the tickles. Ana laughed with him, more than happy to see her quieter pup having so much fun. “Geez Moonie, I don’t have to do anything do I? I can just keep my claws curled like this and yer squirming will tickle you enough huh?” 

“I-I cahahahan’t hehelp ihihit! Gyah! Mahahaham! Tstststststsss!” Moon hissed through his teeth, the sprinkler laugh only getting Ana to join him again in the joyful laughter. “Well how about I try this?” She asked, taking both her paws and gently scritching at his lower belly on either side. Moon sputtered, throwing his head back to release a loud squeal followed by cackling. He kicked his legs, hands on his mother’s paws though making no effort to push them away. 

“AAAHAHAHAHAAA MAAAHAHAHAHAAAAM OHOHOHO NYAAAHAHAHAHAAOOO!! THAHAHATS SOHOHO BAHAHAAAAD!” “Is it? Funny, yer not really trying to stop me, Moonberry.” She smirked at him. She let out a playful gasp. “Oooh! Are you having fun~?” “SHUHUHUHUUUSHSHSHSHSHSHH!!” Moon reached right back up to pull his hat back up over his head. Ana hummed a chuckle. She kept one paw crawling and skittering like a spider around his belly, leaving Moon a giggling mess. “Tickle tickle little star~” Moon flinched when he recognized that tune. “W-Wahahait! Mom! Mahaham dohohohon’t!” Ana grinned at him. One thing neither of her boys could stand were the nursery rhymes. Ironic for some daycare attendants eh? “Moooon~ It’s rude to interrupt,baby. Let me try that again. Ahem..

Tickle tickle little star~ 

How I wonder where yer giggles are

Up yer sides, across yer ribs,

Up yer belly, and top yer shins

Tickle tickle little star,

I know where yer giggles are~” Moon squealed and cackled, pulling himself in a sitting position and flopping back down. He curled onto his side hugging himself as Ana pulled her paws away to let him take a moment to calm down. “You okay Moonberry?” Moon nodded, still giggling. “You-Yohohou are sohohoho mehehehean…” Ana chuckled, leaning her head down to nuzzle his cheek. “Sorry honey, do you want me to stop? Didn’t know that would get you so bad.” Moon peaked up at her and shook his head. “N-No…” Ana smiled in amusement, brow raised at her baby. “No? You boys are such gluttons ya know that?” Moon huffed. “Am not…” “Whatever you say, sugarstar~” Ana chuffed, nuzzling his belly, right over the dent. Moon squeaked, melting into more giggles as he sat up again and hugged his mother’s face.

“This lil dent gets you boys so bad huh?” “Snrkhkhkhkh! M-Mahahahaybehehe…” the night animatronic tittered. Ana smirked and flicked her tongue out just as a snake would. Moon let out a squeal, kicking his legs and pushing at her nose. “Pffftheheheheheee! Khkhkheheh, thahahat’s cheheheatihihihing!”

 Ana chuckled lovingly, letting him release her as he laid back down. “Want me to try the same thing I did with Sunny?” She asked. Moon looked off to the side in thought and nodded shyly. He kicked off his slippers, watching her fluffy tail snake around and coil around his ankles. Moon squeaked and scrunched his toes. The anticipation was bubbling in his belly. “Nervous Moonberry?” “A-A little…” Moon admitted, never taking his eyes off that fluffy tip. He knew how Sun reacted. Moon’s feet were just as bad if not worse. “You know what to do if it gets too much.” Ana assured, kissing above his nose and between his eyes. Moon nodded and took a breath. “I’m ready…” Ana nodded, dusting her tail over the bottoms. Moon yipped and immediately tried to yank his feet back. “WAIT WAIT WAHAHAHAHAIT!! GYAHAHAHAHAHAHKHKHKHKHKHHHH MAHAHAHAAAAM!!” He tried to kick his legs out but Ana had him in a good hold while the fluff danced over his blue starry sparkle paw pads. He turned his torso to hug a pillow and laugh into it. Ana chuckled with him. “Alright honey…get ready!” She flossed the fur through his toes, catching Moon entirely off guard despite the warning. “NYAHAHAHAHAAAAA!! OHOHOHO MY GAHAHAHAHAAASH! NONONOOOHOHOHOOO THAHAHATS AHAHAHAHAHAWFUHUHUHUHUUUL!! GYAHAHAHAHAHEEHEHEHEHEEE!” Ana shook her head with a smile at her pup cackling his head off. She kept it up though, despite how much he squirmed and screamed. He still hadn’t given the sign to stop. Just as she had done to Sun, she released his ankles and skittered her claws gently across the pads and little toe beans. Moon squawked loud enough to put a screaming seagull to shame. He let go of the pillow he hugged onto and wrapped his arms around himself. “MAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAM!! PFFTKHKHKHKHKHEEEHEHEHEHE! YOUR-YOUR CLAHAHAHAHAHAHAAWS! EEEEEHEHEHEHEEE!! NYAHAHAHAHAHAOOOO!” She started scratching between his toes and finally, Moon fully broke. “BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!! NONONONONO!! NYAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAOOOO!! OKOKOKOKAHAHAHAHAY!! RED! REHEHED MAHAHAM REHEHEHEHEHEEEED!” And just like that, it ended. Moon gulped down breath after breath, even if he technically didn’t need it. His giggles slowly died back down until he was simply making happy tired murps. His fans turned on high making it sound like he was purring, especially as Ana gathered her sprawled out pup and held him to her. “Better Moonpie?” “B-behehetter…hehehe…l-lohohove you mahahamahaha..” “I love you too, sugarstar.” She smiled, licking his nose. She gathered a few blankets, wrapping them around him like a cocoon. Moon nuzzled into the coziness. “Moondrop.” “Yea mom..?” Moon yawned. “You know yer my special lil moonberry yea?” Moon blinked and looked up at her. “And you know nothing would ever change that?” Moon felt himself tremble from her words. He giggled a little, he wasn’t sure if it was phantom tickles or if he was just…really happy and comfy. “I do…but, I think I need to be reminded sometimes…” Ana hummed and nodded. “I would be more than happy to do that…and I’m sure Sun would be happy to remind you how much you mean to him.” Moon snickered. He laid his head back down, he and Sun would certainly have to talk later…a lot happened tonight. But for now, Moon was tired. Soon the lights would come on and Sun would be out. He yawned again. “Mom..?” “Yes hun?” “Stay with me?” Ana softened her eyes on him. She curled her body around the both of them. “I wouldn’t leave you for anything in the world…either of you.” 

Moon smiled at her promise and finally, he felt safe enough to doze off and rest. He had everything he ever needed…

Fin

[bonnibuckets]

— lilith's embrace | ada wong

synopsis: you find out romance doesn’t belong in the work place the hard way

content: ada x afab reader, pure angst (no comfort), violence, mentions of dying (& actual death), homophobic themes (just a little)

words: 1.3k+

note: i thought i ate this up with the title lmao. anyways so excited to post this i really hope you guys like it! taglist 🏷️: @ghostkennedy @adaelines @konigbabe @meowsiee @alewesker @d34ng3l @taeliwalter

You were a scientist— graduated from college in the top 10% with many awards and recognition. You worked your ass off to get where you are now and you did it all on your own.

After graduating you started working for a company named “Umbrella” it was everything you hoped and dreamed for. Your fellow scientists never doubted you or belittled you and all was great. Eventually, you got transferred to another laboratory just outside of raccoon city.

They told you that you’d be taking over Dr. William Birkin’s role as chief of research. To say you were beyond ecstatic was an understatement.

But that died quickly when you started to see the cracks in the company. It started with other sketchy scientists not telling you certain things, or how people didn’t talk as much, but to top it off is when you came face to face with the illegal weapons research.

You didn’t have the stomach to see your dreams shattered like that and soon your colleagues viewed you as weak. It hurt to know that your fellow scientists were talking about you behind your back especially since technically you were their boss. You questioned quitting after everything but you knew you needed this job and it made you sick to know you stayed.

But that changed when a new recruiter joined the team— her name was Ada Wong. You were excited to have another woman on the team, and you welcomed her with open arms.

Slowly she started making working in that hell hole worth it. Her smile made your stomach flip. Her eyes made you drown. Her warmth set you ablaze. You started waking up excited to see her at work, excited to talk to her, walk beside her, and share your work. You even set your password to her name— without her knowing of course.

You were terrified that she wouldn’t feel the same but those thoughts stopped when she started showing you the same attention. It made you melt and explode whenever she placed her hand on yours or when she’d kiss your cheek. Or simply if she brushed her fingers across any part of your body.

You use to feel like you were forced to hide yourself from others, but with Ada it was different. You felt like you could scream to the world about your feelings for her, but…all good things must come to an end.

Soon a virus called the “t-virus” broke out and many people got infected. People’s true colors started to show— including Ada’s.

—

“Ada?” you called out shakily, you didn’t want it to be true. You hoped it wasn’t true.

“Yes?” she looked at you with her signature red-lipped smile. “Is it true?” you whispered.

Silence filled the room. Don’t let it be true, please. She’s not like that. She cares. She cares about you.

“What are you on about?” she chuckled but didn’t make eye contact. You immediately knew. “You…you were sent here” you swallowed.

“Of course, I was, weren't you?” she giggled— it stabbed you in the heart. Your gut was churning and twisting. She knew and she was lying to your face.

“No,” you said, eyes filling with tears. “You were sent here to infiltrate, and bring them information back” The room’s air seemed thick— suffocating.

It was choking you and so was Ada’s followed silence.

Her sudden sigh broke the tension, “you couldn't have just stayed silent huh?” she said flatly. A tear broke the surface of your eyes, words were stuck in your throat like cactus.

“You should’ve been quiet,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t plan on you finding out”

No, no, no. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t true.

Your feet shuffled back— screaming at you to run. Adrenaline flowed through your veins as Ada turned toward you fully.

Something glinted in her hand— a syringe. Time slowed down as your body screamed at you to run to fight, but you couldn’t form that connection.

Suddenly Ada was in front of you in a flash, swinging the syringe for you. You immediately ran to look for something to block yourself with. Tears flowed down as you pumped your legs— you never thought she would be like the rest she was supposed to be different.

You met the cold floor as her warm body was on top. You grasped her wrists as she used her body weight to slowly push down. “Why?!” you cried to her “Shut up!” she said angrily. Then a wet drop fell on your face— she was crying. She lifted her head and tears were falling down her beautiful face.

“Don’t talk!” she whimpered as you both fought against each other. “I have to,” she said to herself “I have to or it’ll be me!”

You knew it was horrible timing to admire her beautiful eyes even if they were filled with hate and guilt. They were her eyes and that’s what you loved. Your arms were growing weak and your mind was slowly accepting its fate.

—

Flashes of your life flooded your mind. Growing up you never found boys interesting, there wasn’t anything you liked about them. You didn’t think it was weird when you started to take an interest in the girls around you until your parents and friends told you differently.

Your parents would tell you that you would marry a man— and you’d live a happy life with him, but you didn’t want a “him”. They’d drill that into your head as you tried to achieve your dreams and try to express yourself.

It hurt that your parents, and friends viewed you differently because your heart skipped a beat over a pretty girl's smile.

You walked the halls confused, confused about who you were and what to do with yourself as you buried yourself down deep.

Flashes of when you started college. How you studied yourself to death pulling all-nighters. when you graduated college with flying colors and every all-nighter feeling worth it.

When you started the job of your dreams, of when you made it to raccoon city. When you met her. Your whole world came crashing down. To look at her felt like a sin. Your breath would get stuck in your throat whenever she was around. Your knees would get weak whenever she smiled.

You felt like a fool whenever she spoke. You wanted to kiss her, hug her, and count the stars together.

—

You smiled and slowly gave in to your exhaustion as the needle inched closer to your heart.

Ada’s smile flooded your mind as your heart swelled and then deflated as the needle pierced your chest.

Her scream was blood-curdling as she felt her hands sink— tears drowned her eyes. “I’m so sorry” her words flooded out as she sobbed into you.

A wet heat emerged as your vision went blurry but you could feel her distinct warmth and how she picked her head up. Your hand snaked to her cheek— “It’s okay” you smiled weakly as it became harder to keep your eyes open.

Your brain flooded with Ada’s and your planned future. Her fingers brushed your hair out of your face. Her lips pressed into yours. Both of your ring fingers were coated with gold bands as you swayed to the beat of your hearts.

“I…love you…Ada” you whispered as your head met the floor and your eyes shut as Ada embraced you for the first and last time ever.

© 2023 bonnibuckets. ─ do not copy, repost or translate any of my works on any platform without my permission.

[giggly-squiggily]

Bus Stop Antics (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Guess who's obsessed with JJK again? Mee! Heyo everyone, I hope you're doing well! I'm watching season 2 of JJK and I'm just- these three make me so happy and so sad at the same time, you know? I love them and their friendship but if you've watch the show/read the manga it just...hurts.

But anyway! I wanted to write Lee!Gojo and I did :P I have this headcanon that when he was a teen he was stupidly ticklish and couldn't hide it as well as he can in his adult years and this is the result. I hope you like it!

CW: swearing, JJK season 2 spoilers!

Summary: While waiting for their bus, Gojo and Geto get into a "fight". Shoko unintentionally makes things worse.

Light burned against his skin, making Geto scrunch his face up as he stared into the sky. Not even the roof of the bus stop shelter completely protected him from the sun’s invasive rays.

“Aww, what’s wrong? Too bright for you?” Gojo grinned cheekily over at him, eyes hidden behind his usual shades. He was lounged all the way back, arms across the top of the bench they sat against and legs crossed. “Should have followed my lead and bought some sunglasses.”

“No way- you already fill the role of dork for both of us. Right Shoko?” Geto peered down at the mentioned girl, tucked away between them and doubled over in her seat.

“Mmm.” She made a noise in response, too focused on her phone. Across the screen, her self-named virus spread from one spot to another, infecting the virtual nation. Once she was invested in her game, there was no way of pulling her back out. “See, she agrees.”

A poke to the cheek made him look up. “You’re just bitter because I’m a trendsetter. Everyone’s gonna remember me with my cool shades and blue eyes and remember you as…well, the guy with dumb bangs.” Gojo chuckled, snickering harder at Geto’s death stare.

“My bangs aren’t dumb- you just have no sense of style.” Geto poked his face back, pushing in enough to make Gojo’s cheek move.

“Says Mr. No Eyebrows.” A finger poke back.

“Gray hair at sixteen.”

“At least my breath doesn’t smell like spirit boogies.”

“No it smells like di-”

“I won.” Shoko blinked back at the face shoving war going down above her. “I’m gonna go smoke. Save my seat.” She said as she stood, pulling out her cigarettes and leaving them to their war.

“You son of a- get over here!” Geto lunged, sending them both tumbling against the bench seat. Limbs flew and fists missed as they tussled, shoving at one another while continuing their childish name calling. At some point Gojo managed to grab the back of Geto’s hair, pulling him upright. In response, Geto reached out to grab his neck, aiming for his collar.

“HA! Gotcha no-AH!” Gojo spasmed when fingers brushed his collarbone, the hand in Geto’s hair pulling hard enough to set his hair free. Eyes widened behind falling green strands as Geto stared at him, hand frozen at his neck. “Watch the hands!”

“Dude, I barely touched….you.” Geto blinked, the puzzle pieces all falling into place. “Get out of here.” Without warning, he wormed his fingers into Gojo’s collarbone, wiggling gently.

“Ah! Nohoohoho!” The white haired teen squawked, scrunching up his shoulders at the feeling. He grabbed Geto’s wrist, pushing with all his strength. “Dohohohn’t!”

“Oh my god, you’re ticklish!” Geto was grinning now, all teeth and pure joy in his expression.

“No, I’m not!”

“Yes, he is.” Shoko puffed around her cigarette. “Ridiculously so. It was a nightmare trying to practice my curse technique on him.”

“Shoko!” Gojo gaped, betrayed. Then he was squirming, trying to get out of Geto’s grip. “No, no no- don’t you dare! I’m not ticklish! I’m not!” If Geto believed him, he didn’t show it- taking his sweet time in redoing his bun. “That was just a fluke!”

“Sure it was.” Geto finished his hair before rolling his neck, getting all the creeks out. “Now, let’s start telling the truth, huh?”

“I am, you son of a- Gehahahahahahhahaha!” Gojo almost immediately busted out laughing when the fingers returned to his neck, both sides prodding and tasing, making him scrunch and giggle. “Noohohohooho, stahahhahap thahahahhahaht!”

“Aww, you did lie to me! Your best friend, too!” Geto gaped in mock hurt, one hand squeezing under Gojo’s chin when he tried pressing it to his chest, making him snort and kick. “I was gonna go easy on you, but now you’re officially on my shit list. Get ready- I’m gonna make you scream.”

“Nohohohohohoohw whohohohoho’s lhihihihiihihhihiying? Aheahhahahhaha Suhuhuhuuhguhuhuhuhuuruh-OHOOHOHOHOHOHO!” The infinity sorcerer arched with a cackle as Geto attacked his ribs, racing his fingers up and down like a pianist. “Nohohohohoh, nohohohohot the rihihihihihihibs! Nohoohohot the rihihihihihihibs!”

“Too ticklish here? Poor baby.” Geto cooed, tapping along each bone and giving them a scratch. “Should have kept your hands to yourself. Didn’t kindergarten ever teach you that? Oh wait- you haven’t covered it yet.” When his fingers found his third lowest rib, Gojo let out an honest to god shriek, hands clasping his wrists. “Oo, found a bad spot.”

“NOHOHOHOOHOHOHO SUHUHUHUUHUHGUUHUUHUHURUUHUHUHU!” He howled, face flushing an impressive red and glasses falling off his face. Without them, Geto could see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “STAHAHHAHAHAHHAP!”

“Hmmm…do you really want me to stop?” Geto dropped his hands to his waist, poking along the skin there and making Gojo twitch and squirm. “You and I both know you could easily break away. Why the hesitation? Don’t tell me…” He leaned forward, nearly nose to nose with his friend as his fingers trailed over his belly, earning a hiccupy squeal. “You love this, don’t you Satoru?”

Gojo made a whimpering sound, turning his head away as he giggled and squeaked. Shoko, watching them momentarily, had a rare moment of sympathy for the idiot and decided to throw him a bone.

“Satoru. Suguru’s hips are awful. Just pinch him there.”

Everything that followed was like a blur. Geto turned to her with a look of shock just as Gojo lunged, grabbing his hips and squeezing with all his might. Geto let out a high pitched shriek and toppled over, bringing him and Gojo down and off the bench. Within seconds, they were against the pavement, groaning through giggles and brushing off bruises.

“Heh. Dorks.” Shoko smiled as she put out the remains of her smoke, crushing it with her foot before taking the now empty seat. She kicked her heels up and against Gojo’s back, pulling her phone out and resuming her game. “I think I’m gonna name this virus the Sato-Sugu strain. Whatcha think?”

She got tired groans in response.

“Sold.”

Thanks for reading!

[covid-safer-hotties]

What would an adequate COVID response look like? - Sept 05, 2024

By: Julia Doubleday

Ok, COVID is a problem. What can we do about it anyway?

The problem is stark: we have unmitigated transmission of a deadly and disabling virus, in all public spaces, with zero plan to bring it under control.

We’re seeing millions of infections in each wave, and multiple waves a year; an unsustainable health burden on an already strained healthcare system.

We’ve got a student absence crisis, record worker sick days, rapidly rising disability, and the expulsion of high-risk people from public spaces.

And unfortunately, we have a public that is largely uneducated about and unaware of the problem, thanks to the tireless efforts of our political leaders and corporate media outlets who pushed for a “new normal” of forever COVID reinfections.

The first hurdle is making people aware of the problem. But beyond that, a second hurdle; often, once the risks of recurrent COVID infections are conveyed, the next objection is: but what can we do about it anyway? Surely you don’t want a permanent forever lockdown?

Well, I don’t. So what, in my wildest dreams, would competent public health bodies be doing to mitigate transmission of COVID, even years into a botched response with millions of people negatively polarized against collective measures?

Start from the top: acknowledge that COVID is airborne. Loudly.

Educate the public about airborne mitigation measures and model them.

On April 30, 2021, the WHO officially acknowledged that SARS-COV-2 is a fully airborne virus. They did so quietly, without fanfare, on their website, without a well-publicized apology for the year they spent loudly claiming otherwise.

The embarrassment of this early mistake- costly and deadly as it was- has doubtless played a role in the subsequent inadequacy of communications around SARS-COV-2’s actual mode of transmission.

Droplet measures like surgical masks and social distancing were inadequate to prevent the transmission of COVID; both can reduce, but not eliminate, risk. Has the public been made aware of this? Have medical practitioners?

Official communications from representatives of the WHO and CDC tend to avoid mention of high-quality respirator masks entirely, if masks are mentioned at all. The importance of ventilation and filtration have never been properly explained to the public, certainly not by our politicians who continue to do nothing but repeat their treasured talking point, “COVID no longer controls our lives” while a thousand Americans lose those very lives to the virus each week.

In public, operatives from public health bodies do not mask, nor speak about airborne disease mitigation. Politicians certainly do not mask, even elected officials who quite clearly fall into high-risk categories, belying their claim that people are simply adopting the libertarian “personal risk assessment” approach to COVID. This refusal to mask, no matter the case numbers, no matter the risk factors, is a political choice designed to encourage the public to accept a lack of airborne disease mitigation. It pushes people to believe the virus is harmless, even as scientific research fails to support this claim, and while the CDC puts out conflicting guidance that large swathes of the public are high-risk.

Refusal to directly communicate 1) how COVID spreads 2) that it can be avoided 3) how it can be avoided while modeling mitigation, makes pandemic communications much more difficult for vulnerable people, activists and marginalized groups attempting to reduce disease burden in their communities. We should not be swimming against the current of public health officials’ poor pandemic hygiene.

Mandate airborne infection control in all healthcare settings

Of course, COVID is an international problem, and it’s critical that measures like indoor clean air and airborne infection control in healthcare are implemented globally. WHO has no legal authority to issue such a mandate; it can do little more than make recommendations. However, those recommendations have power, and as of now, it has failed to make them. Recommendations from WHO often form the basis of directives from regulatory bodies like the CDC.

The decision to claim that SARS-COV-2 was not airborne was politically motivated. There was no data to support this claim, only decades of bad physics in medicine and very strong financial and legal incentives to assume that COVID was not spreading through the air. It all comes down to the cost of rethinking medical care entirely, with an eye to airborne infection control.

I already wrote about the WHO’s recent attempt to both acknowledge COVID’s airborne nature while walking back their early-pandemic claims that, were COVID airborne, of course they would recommend proper airborne infection control measures.

Specifically, WHO Health Operations, Infection Prevention and Control Technical Team wrote in an April 2020 email to a group advocating for airborne precautions:

"Would there be evidence of significant spread of SARS-CoV-2 as an airborne pathogen outside of the context of AGPs [aerosol generating procedures], WHO would immediately revise its guidance and extend the recommendation of airborne precautions accordingly"

Well, COVID is airborne, and they have not immediately revised their guidance.

This continues to cost the lives of hospitalized vulnerable people every day.

It also contributes to public confusion about how COVID transmits, including among healthcare workers. Doctors and nurses are well aware that there is no airborne infection control in medical settings; their personal justifications tend to be either “because COVID must be mild” or “because COVID can’t spread that way.”

This is an understandable psychological response to watching their employers- hospitals and medical facilities- fail to implement measures to control the spread of airborne disease in a hospital. Either COVID must not be spreading that way, or COVID must be no big deal.

Education and mitigation practices coming from the top will speed the process of normalizing disease control and bringing down cases at an institutional level.

Like seeing public health officials masked, seeing doctors and nurses masked in hospitals with well-fitting respirators will also help educate the public about how SARS-COV-2 spreads, and confirm that indeed, COVID is still with us.

While there is no previous legal framework for patients to rely on, what medical institutions are doing is highly immoral if not explicitly illegal. They are failing to even attempt to provide proper infection control in hospitals.

Public health bodies should properly educate medical professionals about airborne infection control and mandate upgrades to hospital infrastructure that accommodate the existence of SARS-COV-2. Set the expectation that healthcare settings will be held responsible for healthcare acquired infections.

Legal and financial consequences for healthcare acquired infections

Currently in the US, many HAIs have to be reported to the CDC; that COVID does not, is a choice based on the reality that they are allowing it to spread freely.

From the CDC website on Healthcare Acquired Infections and the 2022 HAI Progress Report:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to protecting patients and healthcare personnel from adverse healthcare events and promoting safety, quality, and value in healthcare delivery. Preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is a top priority for CDC and its partners in public health and healthcare….The 2022 National and State HAI Progress Report provides data on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), ventilator-associated events (VAEs), surgical site infections (SSIs), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream events, and Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) events."

The CDC itself states that preventing HAIs is a top priority, and it collects reems of data around other, more easily controlled infections. HICPAC, the CDC advisory body that recommends infection control measures has repeatedly come under fire from activists over the past several years as they attempt to shove through a new set of recommendations that incorrectly equates N-95 respirator protection with surgical masks and otherwise ignores airborne transmission of viruses.

HICPAC’s strategy for dealing with the entirely new paradigm uncovered by engineers and aerosol experts in 2021- because, bear in mind, the work of scientists like Linsey Marr showed that no viruses are spreading via “droplet” alone, the way scientists formerly conceptualized their transmission- is utter denial.

It would be too disruptive to decades of infection control norms to acknowledge that SARS-COV-2 came in like a wrecking ball to previous guidance; thus, HICPAC members are pretending they’ve never even heard of COVID. Watching their public facing meetings is bizarre; hours of academic debates where the pandemic isn’t mentioned, followed by 45 minutes of activists explaining that they are unable to access medical care, or that their loved ones caught COVID in the hospital and died. HICPAC members remain utterly stone-faced throughout these sessions and fail to acknowledge the comments at their next session.

Currently, Medicare has a program that reduces funding to hospitals with higher rates of acquired infections; COVID is not one of those targeted. Change this and watch how quickly hospital management goes from not understanding, to indeed understanding, airborne infection control. This is all a matter of financial incentives to hospital management, and those incentives must change.

Since 2020, incentives have stubbornly pushed healthcare institutions to ignore COVID to save the money it would cost to dramatically reimagine healthcare with top-to-bottom airborne infection control. How do you properly segregate COVID+ patients? When do you test them? How often do you test staff? Do you send COVID+ staff home? (Yes, you should, but currently the hospital saves money by not doing this).

We need to pivot from the early pandemic model of mandating individual behaviors (masks, distancing) to mandating outcomes (lack of viral spread in public spaces). That doesn’t mean a public space can never mandate masks, it means that masks must be part of a coherent strategy to prevent infections; this should also eliminate irrational mask rules (mask only before you sit down) and incentivize mask hygiene, education, and distribution. If a hospital loses money because of hospital acquired COVID, it is not merely incentivized to mandate masks. It is incentivized to mandate proper respirator masks, educate staff as to proper mask wearing, fit test masks, properly ventilate and filtrate, ensure that masks aren’t being worn on chins, test staff and patients, send sick staff home, ensure that meals can be eaten in a COVID-free, low-CO2 area, etc.

Legal and financial consequences for infections acquired in congregate settings, prisons, workplaces and schools

Continuing this theme; there is nothing particularly radical about the idea of legal repercussions for infectious disease via negligence in a workplace, school or congregate setting.

You can sue your workplace for infecting you with a foodborne illness if it was not following proper public health regulations. You can sue a school that doesn’t get your kid his epi pen in a timely manner. You could sue a retirement home with cholera in the water.

Therefore, world governments need to set indoor clear air standards, as well as assign culpability for the containment of outbreaks to employers, schools, prisons, etc., with government money available for infrastructure upgrades and a timeline for their achievement. If disease transmission occurs because indoor CO2 is high, because air filters weren’t turned on, because sick people were forced to work, that should be legally actionable the way dirty water and poorly handled food is.

All institutions- schools, workplaces, retirement homes, prisons- must have not only baseline protections like clean air, but outbreak plans. What happens in the event of a positive case? How is that handled, how is spread prevented? Government money, guidance and resources must be available to ease the development of this process.

Before Biden was elected, he promised to implement a new OSHA standard to protect workers from COVID infections. On January 21, 2021, the day after his Inauguration, he issued an Executive Order asking OSHA for revised guidance to protect workers from COVID-19. What resulted was both grossly inadequate and temporary. In June of 2021, OSHA issued an ETS - Emergency Temporary Standard- for healthcare workers only. It included guidance about social distancing, AGPs, solid barriers, and surface disinfection, though it was issued over a month after the WHO updated its website to affirm that COVID was not droplet spread.

It did, however, contain good guidance including screening for healthcare workers, sending positive workers home, reference to respirator masks, reference to HVAC and MERV-13 filters, but it has since expired. In the years since, OSHA has dragged its feet as workers’ groups like the National Nurses Union (NNU) lobbies for protections and industry groups like the American Hospital Association (AHA) lobby against them. If “COVID is here to stay” and “we have to learn to live with COVID”, why would worker protections from infection be temporary?

On the whole, workers were forced back into COVID-riddled workplaces with no new protections. A new OSHA standard should acknowledge the threat of airborne disease, make use of the many technological solutions for mitigating airborne disease, and outline the responsibilities of employers to both utilize available technologies, promote mitigation, and send sick workers home.

Comprehensive indoor clean air laws with specifications for upgraded ventilation, filtration, and other tools like Far UVC

I’ve already written about this in detail. The CDC has decent guidance, updated in May of 2023, about ventilation and filtration, here. However, none of this is enforceable without new legislation, nor does our current infrastructure meet these standards.

Ventilation norms and requirements must be overhauled. Currently, hotels and schools often have windows sealed shut; this is inappropriate for disease control and leads to dangerous levels of CO2 accumulation. All public buildings must be able to guarantee air changes per hour (ACH) deemed appropriate by aerosol experts, keeping CO2 as low as possible. Only MERV-13 or higher (HEPA filtration) effectively filters airborne virus from the air, so these must be standard.

I have only the basic knowledge of a layman; to learn more, you can check out this roadmap for national IAQ standards written by dozens of experts and published in Science.

Far UVC is another promising tool, and engineers should be consulted as to the appropriateness of implementing it in public spaces, particularly in schools, airports, hospitals, and crowded venues.

Work from home should be encouraged, conferences should be virtual where possible, flights should be tested.

Unwinding WFH in the midst of wave after wave of COVID was anti-science and self-defeating. Increasing the severity of waves and worsening spread in the community creates less productivity and more worker absence. Additionally, lessening the environmental impact of commuting and converting commercial real estate to residential should be priorities.

Governments, instead of pushing people back into the office, should be pushing in the opposite direction, for a sustainable approach to long-term remote work. This lessens community spread, environmental pollution, and local traffic, while creating more accessible jobs. Conferences should always have virtual options if they can’t be fully virtual. The carbon footprint of professional conferences is something I do think about a lot, but I digress.

Relatedly, yes, I believe people should have a negative PCR to fly. You do not have the right to get in a tube with a bunch of other people while positive for COVID, period. People need paperwork to fly. They need an ID to fly. They need a passport to fly internationally. It is expensive to fly. There should be on site, cheap, fast PCR or PCR-accurate testing at the airport, and you should need the negative to fly, like you need your ID and ticket. PlusLife tests are 5 Euros.

I had to PCR test to board flights to Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina in 2022 and nobody died. As a disabled person, it was the last time I was able to fly internationally, because I wasn’t forced to risk exposure. Testing has the added benefit of encouraging pro-social mitigation behaviors when people know they will have to test before flying.

Free masks, free tests, free vaccines, free Paxlovid, universal paid sick leave, and negative tests to exit quarantine

Expense should never be a barrier to practicing disease control. As usual, our governments continue to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, depriving people of the tools to keep themselves safe and incurring much, much higher expenses to the economy in terms of long-term health loss of workers.

As of now, volunteer-led radical mask blocs are attempting to fill in the gaps by offering free masks and tests to locals in need, but there is only so much that small groups of (often disabled and multiply marginalized) citizens can do.

We need free distribution of proper KN95 and N95 respirator masks, as well as tests; ideally tests that work well. Currently, the government sends out the odd packet of 2-4 rapid tests; RAT tests are 28% accurate on day 1 of symptoms. We need to get more tests and more accurate tests into the hands of the public, for free. Then we need to allow people to stay home until they test negative.

The CDC has unscientifically reduced the COVID quarantine several times until it has become functionally non-existent; this was done not to effectively control disease, but to appease employers. People with COVID-19 should leave quarantine when they have tested negative on two tests, 24 hours apart. Period. Not before. A positive test = viral load = contagion.

OSHA standards that penalize employers for spread between employees would incentivize the provision of proper sick leave. I do understand that the government, after failing to control COVID for so long, cannot shift the burden of disease control overnight to individual business owners. There needs to be a long period of infrastructure upgrade, education, resource distribution, perhaps even tax incentives for proper pandemic management and airborne infection control. But overall, incentives must align to push individual institutions toward infection control and away from infection maximization. The government must continue to provide support, resources, and education, while building a framework for regulation and financial disincentive as well.

Vaccines must be free. Paxlovid must be free. And in an ideal world, in a world that truly wants to end this pandemic, and all pandemics, healthcare must be free.

Education

Education can take many forms; even the implementation of proper airborne infection control in hospitals is a form of education. It educates the public “here is how you halt the spread of COVID” and “yes COVID is still here” and “yes we take it seriously because it can kill”. Currently, hospitals and medical professionals, at the behest of the WHO and CDC, are communicating the opposite.

But in addition to the education provided by modeling airborne infection control, wearing masks, instituting infection control, implementing legal consequences for infections, setting a new OSHA standard for workers, etc., the public needs direct, honest communication about the health risks of COVID.

This means talking about the risk of Long COVID that accompanies each infection without purposely undercutting that messaging by then loudly reassuring people “but it probably won’t happen to you.” It means explaining COVID is a multi-systemic disease, not just a respiratory virus. It means explaining that COVID carries long-term health risks that outlast the acute infection. It means explaining that COVID variants are excellent at evading immunity, meaning they learn to outsmart our body’s protection via vaccine or previous infection; that’s why you must get boosted and layer your precautions.

Of course, the above is only an overview of prevention. We need another coordinated, funded, communications and research campaign to handle the Long COVID crisis.

In the fantasy world where tomorrow, we can build an ideal pandemic response from the ground up, I see several major switches that would need to flip.

The first is that the culture of silence and denial among leadership would have to change to one of education and communication. Right now, state representatives are deliberately avoiding mention of COVID, while propagandizing the safety of infection and/or the end of the pandemic by refusing to mask. It is hard to imagine how successful a pandemic response might be if public officials were actually trying to end the pandemic. We quite literally have public health and political and media figures working to hide three pieces of critical information: public knowledge of the virus, public knowledge of mitigation measures that would reduce viral spread, and public knowledge of the severity of the virus (which would motivate desire to reduce viral spread).

On the one hand, that is a terrible and depressing place to be. On the other hand, it tells us that we might better control COVID through public behavior alone, if the public were given information and tools instead of purposely obstructed from accessing either. We have a lot of room to grow.

The second would be the construction of physical infrastructure to deal with the existence of very contagious, very common, highly disabling airborne virus that is currently circulating in all public spaces. If we have to “learn to live with” COVID, let’s learn to live with an airborne virus by cleaning the air.

The third would be building the legal infrastructure to enforce and hold accountable a failure to implement said physical infrastructure, along with other disease control measures. Patients should not be infected in hospitals. Workers should not be forcibly infected at work. Prisoners should not be forcibly infected in prisons. Kids should not be forcibly infected in schools. Let’s drill down and prevent transmission in congregate settings, with accountability.

COVID control essentially came to an utter halt because our system was not designed to control airborne disease. Our governments did not want to pay to do it. Our governments did not want to explain that they did not want to pay to do it. But this is 2024. We have technology we haven’t even begun to deploy in the fight against COVID, all because we’re too proud to admit we’re still fighting. We have not even scratched the surface of what would a pandemic response that acknowledges the airborne nature of COVID could achieve.

The introduction of the vaccines in early 2021 appeared to our governments like a “get out of jail free” card. They thought they could grab onto it, induce broad herd immunity, and get back to normal without ever acknowledging or paying for clean air. But that isn’t what happened, and now, our lack of mitigations continues to rapidly produce new variants that harm the efficacy of our vaccines.

It would’ve been nice if the vaccines were all that were needed to end the SARS-COV-2 crisis. Since it isn’t, we need our leaders to stop doubling down on their failed strategy, accept reality, and start building a long-term approach to ending this airborne pandemic, as well as avoiding future ones.

The problem underlying all the current failures is that, quite simply, our government is not trying to end this pandemic. It is trying to hide this pandemic. And you’re not going to solve a problem you won’t acknowledge.

[kimbapisnotsushi]

hey all welcome to me rating hq schools based on how homophobic they are on completely arbitrary-not-arbitrary rules LET’S GET IT

(i feel like i need to clarify that high score = not at all homophobic and that low score = disgustingly homophobic hope that helps!!)

karasuno: 1000000/100000 i’m including BOTH teams in this to represent the whole school boys’ vbc i don’t even think i have to cite reasons BUT girls’ vbc i just know that poor little underclassman had a heart attack when michimiya grabbed her face like that

seijoh: i’m going to take off a point right off the bat bc i wanted to deck oikawa so bad the first time i saw him. 9/10 the day is saved because kyoutani and yahaba put so much yearning into that one panel and also because kindaichi has multiple breakdowns over what kageyama means to him every few days or so. kunimi would commit gay-on-gay crime but i’ll allow that he has the right to

date tech: i know for a fact we’ve all been kogane at some point in our lives and also i’m pretty sure all the first and second years were in love with moniwa at some point. onagawa’s nickname is pantalones. aone hyper focuses on the aces of rival teams. having nametsu as a manager is mlmwlw solidarity. 4/10 i took points away because futakuchi is a little bitch and isn’t afraid to show it and would accidentally come across as homophobic in the process when he isn’t

shiratorizawa: see this is tough bc tendou reads all that shounen and semi is SO gender and probably holes himself up in the dorm writing song lyrics about having the biggest crush on tendou and also goshiki and shirabu are obviously pining for their upperclassmen but ushijima has some SERIOUS repression going on and washijou looks like he’d say that being gay is a disease BUT i do think he’s open to learning so like. 6.5/10?

johzenji: they have cute nicknames for each other AND i think they’d kiss the homies good night. also terushima fell in love with daichi within the span of fifteen seconds. 7/10 i took away points because they think saying “no homo” while holding hands stops it from being homo

kakugawa: komaki, asamushi, and minamida all rotate the brain cell between them. they all look like middle schoolers next to hyakuzawa to the point where i keep forgetting they’re not. komaki does the glasses push so i’m giving extra for that. 7.5/10 because when hyakuzawa comes out to them they freak out (out of concern and trying to figure out how to best handle it!) and then freak hyakuzawa out so everyone is just freaking out for a full five minutes

wakunan: nakashima and tabi deserved SO MUCH MORE also i love tabi’s hair so 11/10 the extra 1 is for their break down

nekoma: 1000000.5/10 mostly because i’m biased but hello???? we have DIVERSITY here we can go rivals to lovers AND childhood friends to lovers AND friends to lovers all in one team. nekomata is self-explanatory. the .5 is because i already mentioned before that lev would be such a top tier ally if he wasn’t already swooning over kenma and yaku

fukurodani: akaashi will go on tangents about how historians will say they were just best friends. whenever yukie and kaori cuddle in front of everyone konoha makes gagging noises bc of how sickeningly sweet they are. it’s funny but i’ll be taking points off for that and also because bokuto once got the school computers infected with a virus trying to google “two guys making out”. 2/10

shinzen & ubugawa: i’m putting them together bc daiki and masaki are in love and eri and mako are in love. they go on double dates all the time and also chigaya is a bro he gets trusted with all the secret “dude i think i’m _____” talks and never tells a single soul about them 100/100

itachiyama: iizuna is the mlm awakening at itachiyama. iizuna was SAKUSA’S awakening. komori and sakusa fight because they say can’t both be the gay cousin. whenever iizuna interrupts their bickering they call him homophobic. 9/10 i subtracted a point because their uniforms make me want to claw my eyes out

nohebi: we all know daishou had a thing for kuroo way back when so like. also have you seen hiroo’s hair? those bangs are emo as hell what even is that. 8/10 because they’ll be homophobic against other teams in the middle of the goddamn game to bait them and the only reason they haven’t lost MORE points for that is bc i love kuguri

inarizaki: -117478492/10 i’ll fight miya atsumu myself. i don’t think he’s homophobic he just pisses me off sometimes

kamomedai: they get 475828929392/??? just because i love them so much

mujinazaka: usuri instills fear and admiration in me. also unann and mami are basically an old divorced couple who want to get back together but don’t know how to. honda probably gets shit on a lot for having his whole entire name sounding like car dealerships. ezo is the only one with a brain cell and for that i’ll give 8.5/10

niiyama: maiko doesn’t even know there are labels for it she just thinks girls are pretty and she’d kill for them 500/10

tsubakihara: the headbands are really cute and i like their motto 100/100

[sunny-day-dream]

No one asked for this, but I’m having CRAVINGS RN SO-

Fandom: Left 4 Dead

Pairing: Hunter x Reader

Warnings: Stalkerish behaviour, possessiveness

Notes: Just some rambles that I might one day expand since this dumbass has me in a chokehold right now (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

--

This rabid stinky boy has FEELINGS and he doesn’t know what to do with them okay????? He was built for attacking, not thinking thankyouverymuch. It was a miracle in itself that he could even manage a thought, so please don’t judge him too harshly

He’d stumbled upon and stalked you from a city, to a small town, then to another large city before he even realized that he was supposed to be attacking you, not just sniffing around everywhere you’d walked or rolling around in areas that you’d slept. Whoops.

He really didn’t care tbh, but the dull sense of embarrassment that welled up in his chest had his grey face trying to flush despite the virus riddling his body

He was off, different compared to the others, but only after he'd 'met' you. Everything before that moment was one big blur of burning pain and screams and feeling like he was missing something, like he was empty and needed to f i x it

Then you came along, and so did his slight clarity.

He could think when you were around, though it was disjointed in the beginning and he just knew that for some reason, he should be doing something else. Something important. Something like getting h e l p, because he could think- feel- but he didn't know why and it just made him angry.

So he ignored it.

You were important, familiar in a way that confused him- because it was an odd feeling he couldn't name yet, like he should be so very close to you instead of trailing behind. Walking beside you instead of leaping from rooftop to alleyway as he scouted the path he assumed you'd take.

And as time passed, he couldn't find it in himself to stay away- his body always managing to inch closer and closer to you before his mind caught up and stopped him.

He was confused about a lot of things to be honest, but the way he wanted to act around you confused him more than anything else, because he just knew- from some feeling that came from a faint lifetime ago- that it was unnatural and wrong but he just couldn't STOP

Why did he want to fight everything and anything in his path? Why was he so wound up all of the time? So angry at anything that wasn't you?

Why did he keep sniffing around you, hiding little scraps of your blankets and clothing you'd worn underneath his jacket- like he was hording you in your entirety as your scent drifted around him for days?

Why was he herding you away from bigger cities, using other infected to drive you somewhere he somehow k n e w would be quieter? Safer?

Why? Why? Why?

Now that he could think, it was all he could do

When you finally seemed to settle into an old home just far enough from the city to be ‘semi’ safe enough for him, he’d been following you for months. MONTHS. And you hadn’t noticed at all?? Even when he was keeping the other infected away from you and NOT being all that quiet about it????????

Just the other day he'd tackled a crying infected woman down 7 flights of stairs while you were rummaging around the top. And then- THEN you'd just walked by the body like it wasn't a perfectly good meal you could have taken back with you like he'd hoped???? Because if you had, you wouldn't have to go out again for a while and he could be content to just listen to you go about your day in that little house from his spot in the tree near your sleeping area.

He just, finally realises:

'haha look, they're an idiot...'

...

'oh NO, they're an IDIOT'

Congratulations, you now have an overprotective, instinct driven dumbass assuming that his two braincells (and that's being generous) are working harder than your own!

(even though you have 100% noticed him by now, but by this point your daily/nightly routine to keep an eye on him is very lax since he's made no move towards you other than to just...watch. Very intently.)

And okay, he'd absolutely been wanting to go see you up close now that he could focus more- to finally, actually see what you looked like- instead of just relying on the blurred figure he could make out most days with his bad eyesight. But you were oblivious to your surroundings as always, so getting just a little closer couldn't hurt right???

That's how he found himself with his face pressed up against the glass door to your hideout, watching you walk around slowly, intently looking anywhere but in his direction, and he was so content to just smile to himself and admire you as you did so.

Because WOW, seeing you properly had him breathless.

His chest was warm under his oversized jacket, like always when you were around- but it was different now that he could see you properly. Now that he could take in everything that made you...you, and brand it into his fuzzy memory.

He was making happy little noises to himself for awhile before he even realized what he was doing, tampering the sounds into a faint growl as you started making a muffled noise he'd never heard from you before- watching as you bit your lip, his fuzzy sight making out your smile before it was covered by your hand.

He really wanted to touch your face one day, just to see if you were as soft as you looked. Because you did look very soft, like he should have you wrapped up in blankets and hidden away in his tree so no one else could even think about touching you like he wanted to- because they wouldn't know that you had no sense of self preservation, that they'd have to be gentle and careful and- He would know to be careful with his claws, to keep his teeth away from you and bring you all the canned food he could carry because you seemed so happy when you found some-

There he went, making noises again, his chest rumbling away as you walked out of the room and out of his sight.

He was so happy he'd finally gotten to see you clearly, this was the happiest he'd ever felt before...this was all he ever wanted to do from now on.

It was perfect.

-

(The morning you walked out of your bedroom to find all the boards pried off the backdoor you'd meticulously barricaded, you'd just about had a heart attack and pulled your gun out. Because there he was, a very familiar Hunter pressing his face to the door and attempting to give you...maybe a very...unique smile while having his face smooshed against the glass.)

(You didn't shoot him though. Choosing to ignore him just as you had previously, hoping against everything that you'd made the right choice in assuming he was...not harmless exactly, but not a threat to you.)

(especially when he was whimpering and purring away, leaning this way and that to try and keep you in sight at all times)

(Your guard was up though, despite the laughter he'd managed to pry from you with his disgruntled look when he seemed to realise the sounds he was making)

...

(Because how he'd gotten inside the house, pried all the boards off the door, then gotten back outside to watch you like this was a mystery- this guy wasn't quiet or subtle at all from what you'd seen, so how the fuck did he manage that without waking you up??)

(... better yet, had he done it before?)