#effect of e waste

[e-wastemart]

Impact of E-Waste on Human Health and the Environment

Have you ever wondered what happens to your old electronics when you don't need them anymore? It's important to know about electronic waste or e-waste and how it affects us and the planet.

What is E-Waste?

E-waste is what we call old electronic stuff like phones, computers, and gadgets that people throw away. For detailed guides on E-Waste visit our blog What is E-Waste Recycling? and Why It’s Important

Why Is E-Waste a Problem?

E-waste is a big problem all over the world. Every year, there is more and more of it. This is not good for our health and the environment.

Health Problems

E-waste has dangerous things inside, like lead and mercury. When these things get into our food and water, they can make us sick. Breathing in bad air from burning e-waste is also harmful.

Harm to the Environment

When we don't recycle e-waste, it piles up in big garbage places. This takes up a lot of space and can hurt the land and animals. Also, our electronics have special metals inside that we can use again, like gold and silver. If we don't recycle them, we waste these important things.

What Can We Do?

There are things we can do to help with e-waste:

Use E-Waste Recyclers: E-waste recyclers are people or companies who take our old electronics and make them into new things.

Learn About E-Waste Recycling: There are different ways to recycle e-waste, and it's good to know about them.

Recycling Types: E-waste can be recycled in different ways. Some parts can be used again, and some can be turned into new things.

Let's all do our part to take care of our old electronics and keep our planet clean and healthy.

For a more in-depth exploration of this critical issue, visit our blog Impact of E-Waste on Human Health and the Environment or explore our website, E-Waste Mart.

[deus-ex-mona]

ngl i want to see an entire dramatic chapter dedicated to chizuchan’s “oshi break up” with aizo, flashback sequence and all

[horreurscopes]

[cera-chem]

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[globalnewscollective]

Poison in the Water: How the EPA's Latest Move Puts Us All at Risk

Imagine turning on your tap, filling a glass with water, and unknowingly drinking sewage. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare, but thanks to a new ruling from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump administration, this nightmare could become reality.

The EPA has quietly rolled back regulations that once protected public waterways from sewage contamination. With this change, industries and local governments have more leeway to discharge wastewater—including untreated sewage—into rivers, lakes, and streams. If you think this doesn’t affect you, think again. These are the same water sources that supply drinking water to millions of Americans.

What’s Happening?

The new EPA ruling effectively weakens oversight on sewage treatment and pollution controls. Previously, strict regulations required facilities to treat wastewater to remove harmful bacteria, chemicals, and pathogens before it could re-enter the environment. Now, under the guise of ‘cutting red tape’ and ‘easing industry burdens,’ those safeguards are gone.

The result? Cities and towns will face increased risk of contaminated water supplies. Vulnerable communities, particularly those in low-income and rural areas, will be hit hardest, as they often lack the resources to combat these changes. Expect more outbreaks of waterborne illnesses, beach closures, and environmental devastation.

How Does This Affect You?

Drinking Water Contamination: If your city relies on rivers or lakes for drinking water, your tap could soon deliver a mix of sewage, bacteria, and industrial waste.

Public Health Risks: Waterborne diseases such as E. coli, giardia, and hepatitis A thrive in untreated sewage, leading to serious health crises.

Economic Consequences: Property values drop, tourism suffers, and businesses dependent on clean water—like fishing and farming—could face disaster.

Environmental Devastation: Aquatic ecosystems are highly sensitive to pollution. Fish and wildlife populations will decline, affecting biodiversity and food chains.

The Bigger Picture

This decision isn’t just about dirty water—it’s about the systematic dismantling of environmental protections for corporate gain. The Trump administration has made it clear: if regulations stand in the way of industry profits, they will be gutted, no matter the human cost.

Historically, environmental rollbacks like this have led to catastrophic consequences. The infamous Flint water crisis showed the devastation that occurs when regulatory safeguards are ignored. Are we about to see similar disasters play out across the country?

What Can You Do?

Stay informed and demand accountability from local and state officials.

Support organizations fighting for clean water protections, such as the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Pressure lawmakers to reinstate strong water protections and hold the EPA accountable.

Use your vote to elect officials who prioritize public health over corporate interests.

This is not just an environmental issue—it’s a human rights crisis. Safe, clean water is a fundamental necessity, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. We must act now before our water becomes a toxic legacy of greed and negligence.

[verinarin]

Debate turned into him fucking you until you’re speechless

Someone needs to lower his ego, that's where you come in and he doesn't like the fact that you dare challenge him one bit nsfw; rivals to lovers, hate fucking, breeding kink, belly bulge [Reposted]

Veritas absolutely despises you, outsmarting him, but he finds a way to actually turn you into an idiot once in a while…

It started off with a heated argument that leads into you sitting on his desk, legs spread open while his mouth pressed kisses against your inner thigh, biting it also to mark what eventually would be his

“What the hell are you doing Veritas !,” you whine, trying to kick him off which he easily dodge, he pushes your ankle to your chest with a huge grin

He leans forward as he presses both of your thighs to your chest, nestling closely to your neck. “I want to fuck your thoughts away, keep you nice and dumb, that’s what I’m trying to achieve here,”

“As if you could succeed at doing so, you can’t even refute my argument earlier,” you were referencing to the debate he lost, oh you’re rubbing grounded salt to his wounds, he does not take that kindly

He’s now kneeling down, his hands still gripping tightly on your plush thighs, so tight that it made you wince. His eyes glaring at your face, like a promise…

A promise to make you fall for him, to make you intoxicated by his presence, to make you his

“Watch me,” and with that he presses a kiss on your clothed clit, sucking the nerve earns him the very first noise that he actually enjoys coming out from your smart mouth, your moans

You felt embarrassed to not be able to hold in your moan like that, not when he’s so filthy. Licking stripes over your clothed cunt, making the fabric transparent

“H-haaah how nghhh disgusting, for someone who has bathing as their favourite activity to do, you’re so filthy nghhahh,” you try to regain your dignity by a nasty remark that’s proven to be in vain

He just laughs which makes things worse then they are, “If you want me to clean this leaking hole afterwards just say so, no need to act so elusive,”

“You talk to much, here if I do this…” he slid your panties to the side and push the tip of his tongue inside your glistening cunt

Tasting you directly onto his tongue is like Adam tasting the forbidden fruit, for someone whose words laced with insults you’re so fucking sweet

He never was interested in pursuing his filthy human desires, but thanks to you he now finds himself a forbidden fruit of his own

“Mnhmm” you try so hard not to succumb towards your carnal desires after all lust is one of the 7 deadly sins

Veritas however does not take your resistance kindly, you’re so adamant on denying yourself from the pleasure he could give. He scoffs as he places one of his hand to keep your thighs at place while the other pinches your clit

He effortlessly pry your moans out of your mouth, not only that he also effectively turn you into a trembling mess “Now that’s a sight!, perhaps I should sculpt this moment and display it on my personal quarters,”

“F-fucking pervert,” you spat, he just laughs at your lust ridden face. His eyes staring straight at yours before he smirks, standing up with ease to lean forward towards your neck

He starts to motion his fingers up and down against your wet hole with a sickening smile on his face “50 points, you’re halfway correct. I’m no pervert,”

“But I am someone that will fuck you,” without wasting any time he slid his index finger into your cunt, “How tight !, it seems that I have to give your cunt more stimulation…” he whispers against your neck

“Nghh just fuck me already,” you huff impatiently, you can’t afford to waste anymore of your time with trivial matters such as lust, but aeons he does make you falter

He scoffs, how dare you push him around. Isn’t pushing him around at the guild enough for you, he’s just being nice for a change knowing that if he didn’t prepare your tight hole well enough you would scream in pain

Perhaps he wants to see that pained expression of your mixed with pleasure, ahh he’s getting ahead of himself

There’s always next time after all…

“Now now I think you want me to take my time with you, you’ll understand what I mean later,” he smiles as he slid one more of his fingers, filling you up quite nicely

“Oh wow how cocky you- ahhh~” he silenced that quirky remark you’re going to make by thrusting his fingers in methodically only to help you climax as fast as possible since you are so impatient, once he meets your g-spot it was all over for you

Your moans decorates the room as he curved his fingers upwards towards your g-spot while his other hand presses down on where your womb would be

“S-shit ahhhn m’cumming Veri,” suddenly he stops, you were so close yet he fucking stops

“Ahh that’s cute, call me once more than I’ll let you have it,” he smiles as he pulls his fingers out and and brings it to your mouth

You quickly lapped down your juice while maintaining eye contact with him, your dignity be dammed you could only feel your need to cum right now “Veri please make me cum,”

“Ahhh I wish you would be this submissive everyday, not picking meaningless debates and just let me pleasure this pussy” he huffs as he tap his fingers on your clit twice before sliding it back in

“Thank you thank you thank you,” you whine as he picks the pace of his fingers up letting you cum all over his desk in a instant

“Wow I guess you can say thank you,” he sarcastically reply as he unzip his pants and free his leaking cock, the tip is red and wanting

Okay now your understand why he took his time with you because without foreplay his cock is going to hurt, hell even with foreplay you still think there’s a chance of if hurting

He sense your worry of course, he leans forward as he rest his cock against your stomach. Aeons it’s soo big that the length went pass your bellybutton…

“You might hate me but I don’t hate you so don’t you worry, I’ll take it slow and yes it’ll fit,” he smirks before kissing your forehead

Oh shit if he keeps this up, you might fall for him…

“I don’t hate you, I just think someone needs to keep in check on that huge ego of yours. Do not fret I’m always here to lower it into basic human standards,” you scoffs, which he replies with a laugh of his own

“Sounds beneficial, I am told to be quite the narcissist perhaps you could keep me in line,” he smiles as he press a kiss on the side of your lips.

“Yes I believe so,” you mumble feeling dizzy from his gentle kisses

He leans let his lips close to yours, it barely touches as he spoke “May I kiss you ?,”

You don’t even answer, you looped your arms around his neck and force his lips onto your which accepts with a smile, his tender kiss somehow made his cock twitch against your skin

Snaking your hand towards his cock, lathering his precum towards his length earns you a delicious moan against the kiss “Ahhhn what a minx”

With that he slid his cock towards your clit, tapping his tip right onto the sensitive nerve as payback, you could only whine as he tease you. He teases for the sole purpose of breaking your ego, to make you beg for him, but it proves to be rather hard because he’s faltering at the mere pleasure of friction

“Feels so good like this, ahh can’t wait till I feel how tight you’re going to be,” he whines as he grinds his full length against your slippery hole, he needs to hold his length by the base or else it might accidentally slip inside you

“Fuck !, no one’s stopping you put it in damn it,” you groan as you try to guide his tip into your hole

“So bossy,” he smirks, he wants to just slam into you just to shut you up. It’ll be painful to do so and it seems you’re to cockdrunk to make any decisions

Because of that he finally slid his length in without waiting for you to beg, he doesn’t want you to shove his length in without the controlling the length you could handle after all

“Mnghh ahhh so bigg,” see this proves his point, even though he would like to ram it into your tight hole in one swift move, he doesn’t want to break your cunt

At least not the first time he fucks you…

With a huff he slowly thrust himself inch by inch, “Fuck, this is why you need to learn patience shit so fucking tight, relax dearest or else it’s not going to fit,”

Your eyes starts to produce tears because of the sheer pain and pleasure, he leans down to kiss the tears from you face, whispering words of encouragement as he slowly thrust his full length inside you, balls deep

“Shit you feel this,” he drags your weak hand across the eminent bulge on your stomach, “This is why I was adamant about preparing your tight hole for me,”

He slides out before thrusting back in to further prove his earlier hypothesis “Do you understand ?, how easily I could break this hole,”

“Y-yeshh understood sirr, too big f’me,” oh you’re already dumb on his cock, how cute he thought

“Can you hold your thighs keep it pressed against your breast for me?,” he asks which you do without any hesitation, he could see it clearly now, his cock dragging itself in and out

For you on the other, you feel his tip kissing your cervix because of this position, all of your thoughts are currently postponed ever since that cock enters your cunt

All you can do is hold your thighs as he pounds into you, he starts to pick up the pace once your pained moans turns into you begging him to go harder

Of course he’s not going to deny you such pleasure

“So tight fuck, I ruined other cocks for you from now on,” you could only reply with a nod as he shook your whole body

Thrusting himself in a angle that’s abuses your g-spot making you cum with every single deep thrust, “Fuckk can’t stop cummingghh,”

“That’s the plan sweetheart, you won’t stop coming until I say so, am I not generous?,” he chuckles breathlessly as he toy with your clit with every thrust

“Fuck you know if I breed you, make you carry my child. I think our genetics would be unparalleled, both of us are intelligent and attractive, ahh what a fine specimen we would make don’t you think so ?,” he rambles as he come close to his release

He knew very well you just nodded without thinking much, the thought of cumming inside you, breeding your cunt very hard to not decline

“Ahh you just nodded because you’re cockdrunk, I can’t have you pregnant now, not when I love our meaningless bickering about our difference of opinions, I’ll fuck…you’re not patient but I am fuck…I’m going to make you my fucking research partner my everything I will actually put a ring on that pretty finger of yours and then put a baby in…you’re gonna let me right?,” he mutters as his cock kisses your cervix

His grip your thighs pressing folding you to reach deeper “This is a trial examination, let’s see how deep you could take,” he chuckles as he delves deep into your cunt

All you can do is lie there and moan as he pounds deep into you, making vulgar noises between the sounds of your skin slapping against each other

“Shit I’m gonna cum fuckk,” he whines before pulling out and stroking his cock right against your skin, exactly where your womb is supposed to be “Here let me mark your skin right here, hahah to manifest our future,” he whines as he shoot his seed right against the skin, marking the outside of your womb

“Veri k-kisss,” you mumble as you await for his comfort, he took two more strokes finally finish, then he leans into your lips to give you a reward

“Now I need to clean you up, stay right there and let me run you a warm bath, you must be sore,” he says as he brush his hair back, thank god you both decide to do this at his house or else he can’t properly take care of you

You can’t even think anything anymore, he really did fuck the thought out of you, when you actually start to gather your thoughts you’re already surrounded by the lukewarm water and lavender flowers “Veri where am i?,”

“Ah you finally snapped out of your haze, I carried you to my bath remember ?,” he smiles as he’s currently sitting beside the tub lathering your arm with soap

You could only nod as you slowly succumb back towards the land of dreams “Hey don’t fall asleep on me now you might accidentally drown,” he scoffs

“Your fault for using lavender, it is well known to cure insomnia and to alleviate muscle pain,” you yawn as you try to stay awake

“Yes exactly to alleviate muscle pain, which is going to be you’re future diagnosis if I don’t take care of you properly,” he sighs, you both went back into bickering like a married couple

“To prevent me from accidentally drowning myself in your huge bathtub, why not join me ?, you’re also in need of relaxation,” you mumble, feeling a little bit flustered

“Well if the lady insists,” he smirks before undressing and dipping himself behind you, he drags you into his lap and rests you head your head shoulder as his hands massage your lower back “Feels good ?,” he whispers beside your ear

“Very,” you reply with a sigh, he presses a kiss on your forehead as he holds you massages your tense spot as a silent thank you of some sort, not wanting this moment of peace to end

For you however, you knew this man is forever bound his heart to yours from now on

[littlefluu]

𓍯𓂃𓏧 E N H Y P E N F I C R E C S

OCTOBER 2nd, 2024 RECOMMENDATIONS

WELCOME TO A SMALL LITTLE COLLECTIONS OF RECENT WORKS I ENJOYED For more recommendations check out my main masterlist ⤷ GO BACK TO THE MAIN ENHYPEN MASTER LIST WITH EVEN MORE RECOMMENDATIONS ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

ALL OF THE MEMBERS / UNITS

i am bored we should kiss by @sunkittie f, sug. making out with Heeseung, Jay and Jake as their best friend! ᝰ making out , kissing , suggestive, best friends to lovers/??? .ᐟ₊ ⊹

just a bet & not a bet by @all4yoi a, f. after a few months of dating, you find out you were just a bet & upon learning that you were merely the stake in a bet, they wasted no time in mending your relationship. ᝰ angst, fluff, reader is mostly viewed as a loser and nerd, hyung line .ᐟ₊ ⊹

love paradise by @enhasparadise f. in which you suddenly ask your boyfriend if he loves you to see his reaction ᝰ enhypen member being a simp for their girl, really cute reaction from the member .ᐟ₊ ⊹

LEE HEESEUNG

prince charming's mismatch by @gyuuberryy a, f, sug. you and prince heeseung have been rivals for as long as you can remember. what began as childhood clashes has grown into a deep-seated animosity over the years. but when your sister runs away on her wedding day, you're forced to take her place and marry heeseung—the last person you ever wanted to call your husband. now bound in an unwanted marriage, you’re faced with navigating the tension between your unresolved hatred and an unexpected attraction. as palace intrigue and looming threats surround you both, you must confront the truth of your feelings. will the bitterness between you tear you apart, or will it ignite something far more powerful? ᝰ prince!heeseung x princess!reader, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, arranged marriage au , highly suggestive content, kissing, hee and reader are mean at first, insecurities, jealous!hee .ᐟ₊ ⊹

prada shoes and I love yous by @elix8r a, f, s. Life as a socialite wasn’t all champagnes and designer labels, especially not with the turn your reputation took due to a simple misunderstanding. Now, you were being painted by everyone as a big fat cheater who shattered her sweet boyfriend’s heart—a narrative that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, it was him who had betrayed your trust. Frustrated and feeling deeply wronged, you returned to society and the new school year after a summer of cutting off contact with everyone and the drama. But just when you thought you were ready to face the world again, you were blindsided by something unexpected: the lingering effect Heeseung had on you. And who could blame you? Heeseung was way too hot for you to get over in just three short months and now, seeing him with the girl he once told you not to worry about all over him? Oh, it was on. You refused to be replaced, labeled as a crazy ex, or forgotten. No, you were going to make Lee Heeseung realize that you were the best motherfucking thing to had ever happened to him.  ᝰ smut, angst, crack, (some?) fluff, college!au, exes to lovers!au, enemies to lovers!au, socialite/richkid!au .ᐟ₊ ⊹

PARK JONGSEONG

still into you by @i2sunric f, a, sug. you’ve always thought dating a doctor was hot until you started realising his job was taking your place— but don’t worry, being a doctor meant jay could always stitch your broken heart up! ᝰ doctor!jay x reader fluff, early 2000s au, childhood friends to lovers but they’re already lovers, angst (with comfort) cuddling and kissing, a little suggestive (no smut), they grow up together, mentions of stress and fainting, mentions of pregnancy, fighting .ᐟ₊ ⊹

book lovers by @yeonzzzn s. when your book loving boyfriend has you read a specific part of the current book you’re reading out loud to him. ᝰ booknerd/bf!jay x booknerd!afab!reader, book reading shenanigans, swearing, SMUT .ᐟ₊ ⊹

half return by @heesdreameryour a, f. small towns yearly fall festival was your biggest pride and joy but getting your friends to help volunteer was nearly impossible. luckily one of them was stupid enough and too secretly in love with you to help himself from offering. ᝰ akward!jay x golden retriever!y/n, small town romance, friends to lovers .ᐟ₊ ⊹

confessing to his mute crush by @jaysng f. jay and deaf reader both seem to like each other, just when he thinks that his confession was a pure failer the reader does something surprising ᝰ jay x deaf!reader, pure fluff, friends to lovers .ᐟ₊ ⊹

opposites by @ikeuverse f, s. jay was the most serious ceo anyone could meet and remember, but not when you were around. while he had a difficult smile, you captivated anyone with your cheerful and relaxed manner. one night, he decided to take you into his world, the business dinner, but you didn't know if it was a good idea. ᝰ ceo!jay x fem!reader, fluff, smut, a little angst .ᐟ₊ ⊹

birthday surprise by @ikeuverse f. jay didn't think he'd make it home in time for his birthday, so he didn't bother celebrating at all. but he didn't expect his best friends and you, his girlfriend, to prepare a lovely surprise. ᝰ jay x fem!reader, established relationship, fluff .ᐟ₊ ⊹

SIM JAEHYUN

hybe boy by @onlyjaeyun a, f, s. a sequence of events from your and jake’s senior year ᝰ Social Media Hybrid AU - 50 Chapters , single parent!au (Jake is raising his brother), neighbors/strangers to lovers, college!au .ᐟ₊ ⊹

sims anatomy by @021894s f, a, s. you, a top cardiac surgeon, find yourself increasingly frustrated by the distraction over the hospital’s new head of neurosurgery, Dr. Jake Sim. Despite your initial annoyance, you can't help but notice Jake's charm and undeniable skills. As you keep running into each other, Jake’s persistent yet respectful flirtations begin to break through your professional exterior. ᝰ neurosurgeon! jake x cardio surgeon! reader, workplace romance, situationship .ᐟ₊ ⊹

melodies of heart by @yyawnjun drunkenly making out with Jake after him just being a good listener! ᝰ jake x fem!reader, friends to lovers, fluff .ᐟ₊ ⊹

PARK SUNGHOON

fixed comfort by @paarksunghoon f. typically, sunghoon’s the one who takes care of you when you’ve had one too many. but once in a blue moon, he lets his guard down and allows you to care for him the way he does for you. or, the one where sunghoon’s drunk at a bar and misses his girlfriend a little too much. ᝰ sunghoon x fem!reader, established relationship, fluff .ᐟ₊ ⊹

REACTIONS

ENHA REACTING TO YOU SUDDENLY STUFFING YOUR FACE IN THEIR NECK by @tsukiflwr ᝰ hyung line! enha x f!reader, fluff, established relationship, skinship, kissing, pet names .ᐟ₊ ⊹

HYUNG LINE REACTING TO YOU SINGING ALONG TO JUNO by @tsukiflwr ᝰ hyung line! enha x f!reader, slightly suggestive, fluff, humor, skinship, kissing .ᐟ₊ ⊹

MY FAVORITE AUTHORS @tsukiflwr ★ @ikeuverse ★ @gyuuberryy ★ @sunkittie

[writingfics-passingtime]

Desperate Measures

Pairing: Loki x female reader

Word count: 5703

Content / warnings: swearing, a lot of sexual tension, steamy kissing, suggestive humour, tickle fic, implied sex

minors dni: this work does not contain smut, but does contain a romantic and intimate storyline between the reader and an adult-aged character. I am not comfortable with engagement from anyone under the age of 18. Thank you for your understanding and respect.

note: hello! I've come out of the woodwork to drop this random fic, thinking some of you may enjoy some wild sexual tension, teasing, and ruthless ler!loki I felt randomly compelled to write. I can't make any good-faith promises regarding future writing, so I'll just share this for now. All the love <3

The air in the gym was still and heavy, the only sound breaking the silence was the steady rhythm of your fists connecting with the punching bag. You were alone, intentionally so, using the late hour to work through a restless energy that had been gnawing at you for days.

Well, months, really.

There had been something about the Compound lately, something about him that made it hard to focus, hard to sleep.

The leather of the bag thudded under your punches, each strike sharp and measured as you practiced your form. But as effective as the session was at releasing some pent-up tension, you couldn’t ignore the nagging realisation that it wasn’t quite enough. And you didn't know what would be.

Then you heard him - felt him, really, before he spoke. Loki’s presence always announced itself in a subtle way. A shift in the air, a sense of something electric.

The low, velvety voice followed, as if materialising from the shadows. “This hardly seems like a fair fight.”

You froze for the briefest second, your fist still mid-air, before lowering your arm and turning to face him. There he stood, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed casually over his chest. He looked entirely too composed for someone who had just caught you off guard, but that was Loki’s way. His dark hair framed his sharp features, and his eyes sparkled with that familiar mischief. “Rather a waste of energy, fighting something that won’t hit back.” A pause, an assessment, a tilt of his head in challenge. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Your pulse quickens, though you’d never let it show. With Loki, you’d learned to keep your guard up. His constant presence, the lingering stares, the flirtatious banter - you still couldn't tell if it was all fun and games to him, or... if he actually...

“I’m practicing my form,” you replied, trying to keep your tone steady despite the warmth that was starting to spread up your neck.

He smirked, tilting his head as he regarded you with a dark glint in his eye. “If it’s form you’re after, perhaps a real opponent would better suit your needs. I’d be happy to assist.” The words hung in the air between you, their weight heavy with invitation.

You hesitated, your heart suddenly pounding for an entirely different reason. Sparring with Loki? Not smart. The man - the god - was unpredictable, dangerous. You weren’t an idiot; in the field, you’d leave threats like Loki to the bigger guns like Steve, or Thor. But here, in the controlled environment of the gym, with no weapons and only the hum of underlying tension between you two, it felt different.

Risky in a way that had nothing to do with physical harm.

Still, you felt a thrill shoot through you at the thought. Something about his attention always made you feel alive, a little reckless.

You wiped the sweat from your brow and tilted your head. “Not sure this is a smart idea, Loki. I usually leave the big threats to the super soldiers and gods.”

His smirk deepened, eyes gleaming with dark amusement. “You’ll do just fine.” His tone was smooth, almost coaxing, as if you’d already agreed.

You rolled your eyes, turning toward the mats, feeling his presence at your back as he followed you. You were trying your best to seem unaffected, but his proximity set your skin alight.

Every step toward the sunken sparring area in the centre of the gym felt like a countdown. When you stepped down the couple of stairs onto the mats, you turned to face him, only to find him much closer than you expected. His height, the way he loomed just slightly, was intoxicating. He was so unfairly beautiful. And he knew it.

You gave him a look, a mix of challenge and uncertainty, trying to hide how affected you were. But Loki noticed everything. His eyes flicked briefly to your lips before settling back on your gaze.

“So what now?” you asked, your voice coming out a bit more breathless than you intended.

“Now,” Loki began, circling you slowly, his movements graceful, predatory, “we see what you’re truly made of.”

You squared your shoulders, keeping your stance neutral, trying to maintain your focus. But the energy between you felt charged, almost too much to ignore. Loki was testing you, as he always did - pushing buttons, seeing how far he could go before your unaffected facade slipped. You weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of showing how much he got under your skin. But, deep down, you knew that you weren't fooling him.

After one revolution around your body, he stopped in front of you, that smirk still playing on his lips. You didn’t wait for him to make the first move. You lunged forward, aiming a strike toward his midsection, but he dodged it easily, too fast, too graceful. He didn’t retaliate. Not yet. He was baiting you, letting you come to him. Typical.

Your next punch was aimed higher, toward his chest, but he caught your wrist mid-air. His grip was firm, but not painful, his skin cool against yours. He raised an eyebrow, almost amused.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he murmured.

You twisted out of his hold, stepping back to reassess. Your heart was racing, not just from the sparring, but from the feel of him, his hand, his eyes locked on yours like a predator toying with its prey. There was something dangerous in the way he moved, something inherently sensual in the way his body seemed to flow, effortless yet lethal.

You tried again, going low this time, aiming a sweeping kick toward his legs. He sidestepped, but not fast enough. You caught him just enough to throw him slightly off balance, and his smile widened. You could've sworn a gleam of admiration flickered in his eyes.

“Not bad,” he said, before moving on you.

Suddenly, he was in your pocket, faster than you anticipated, and before you could block, he had you pinned. One arm locked around your waist, pulling you flush against him, the other catching your wrist, holding it firmly above your head. He hooked one leg around yours and controlled the descent of your bodies. Your back hit the mats with a soft thud, him directly above you, and you gasped as the air was knocked from your lungs. Not fully from the impact, more from the overwhelming sensation of his body pressing against yours.

For a moment, everything stilled. You were trapped beneath him, and he was so close, his breath warm against your neck, his body hovering over yours, just a breath away from full contact. The weight of him, the way he held you so effortlessly, sent a rush of heat through you.

Loki’s eyes bored into yours, dark and intense, and there was no mistaking the shift in the air. The playfulness was still there, but underneath it was something deeper, something charged with heat and anticipation.

“Still think this was a bad idea?” His voice was a low purr, his lips dangerously close.

Your breath hitched, and for a moment, you couldn’t find the words. His hand was still wrapped around your wrist, his thumb brushing the inside of it in lazy circles, a deliberate tease. You swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way your pulse jumped beneath his touch, trying not to wonder if he could hear it. Feel it.

He lowered his brow, “You clearly haven’t been trained by anyone outside of Midgard.”

His words pricked at your pride, and you glared up at him, breathless, as you tried to wrench your wrist free. “Of course not,” you retorted, a bit sharper than you’d intended. “Not all of us have had the privilege of an intergalactic education.”

His expression softened for just a heartbeat, a glimmer of something that might've almost be concern, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a look of pragmatism. “That won’t do,” he said simply, releasing you, pulling you to your feet with an ease of strength that made your heart stutter.

“There are… larger threats than you’ve known. You need to understand how they fight.” His voice dropped to a low rumble. "Or you won't stand a chance."

You swallowed thickly, the implication heavy between you, and found yourself unable to look away, captivated by the intensity in his eyes, the subtle promise that lingered just beneath his calm disposition.

In his own strange way, he was offering to train you.

In that moment, it felt like the tension, the unspoken attraction that had been building between you over the months, was ready to snap. The rational part of you is screaming that this was dangerous, that whatever this was, it was a risk you shouldn’t take; putting yourself in the situation to be in constant close quarters with someone who already set you on a steep edge could only end in a heart-wrenching longing.

But as you met Loki’s gaze, defiance and something far more potent flared within you, and you couldn't deny the pull.

“Show me, then,” you whispered, your voice steady, even as your heart pounded furiously in your chest.

He smirked, a dark satisfaction flickering across his face as he stepped closer still. “Very well,” he murmured, his voice barely more than a breath. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The gym was empty, as it usually was this time of night, save for the low hum of your breathing and the solid thud of your body against the mats, the result of another frustrating sparring session with Loki.

It had been weeks of this. A rhythm that’d somehow become normal, sparring sessions where you were pushed to your limits and left feeling exhausted but invigorated.

Loki’s method of training was relentless, unforgiving, and unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. The techniques he taught you - sharp, brutal movements, counters that defy human logic - had already sharpened your skills in ways you couldn’t have imagined.

He was maddening and insufferable, with his mocking commentary and easy confidence, but he had made you better.

You would flush to admit how much you looked forward to the few sessions each week. Because though you had trained with all kinds of opponents, none of them compared to the dark, infuriating figure currently pinning you to the ground.

He loomed above you, his body pressed just enough against yours to keep you in place, the thin sheen of sweat on your skin making the friction of his hold electric. You were breathless, chest rising and falling as you stared up at him, face inches from his as he flashed that knowing grin.

Unfortunately, this had become a very normal position to find yourself in. Loki never let you win, and never let you up without an admission of defeat, saying allowing such things would only breed complacence.

“Ready to surrender, darling?” His voice was dark silk, the smugness woven through every syllable. His eyes traveled over your face, taking in your flushed cheeks, your parted lips as you caught your breath. “Again? What are we, zero-and-thirty?”

The mix of arrogance and barely-contained amusement in his expression made your irritation bubble over.

"Go to hell."

"Charming," he replied, arching a brow. "By all means, keep on with your futile attempts to escape," he shrugged with indifference, further stoking your frustration. "I do so enjoy this part."

Your jaw ticked. You were tired, flustered, not any more used to his proximity even after weeks of this. You thought you'd be desensitised to his flirting, his touch... him, but, if anything, it was all pulling you closer to the edge of desperation.

And desperate times call for desperate measures.

At least, that's what you told yourself. In reality, you weren't thinking. You couldn't have been thinking, given that no one in your position would've considered such a foolish move.

In a final, desperate move, a slapdash attempt to get him off of you without having to surrender, your fingers darted to his sides, pressing into his ribs in a way that might, with any luck, give him a taste of his own teasing medicine.

But the instant your fingers touched him, and he merely flinched once, you knew you'd made a careless mistake, and a devastating one at that.

This was something you could never take back.

He stilled, a dark chuckle slipping from his lips. His gaze slowly shifted down to where your hands rested on his torso, and when he looked back up, the mischievous gleam in his eyes turned predatory.

“Oh?" His voice dropping to a dangerously low, delicious murmur, “You’ve just made an exceptionally poor choice.”

Your stomach dropped, and a tsunami of regret hitting you instantly. “Wait. Loki, I didn’t-”

“You want to play, hmm?” His smirk only widened as he leaned in, his grip tightening. “How delightful. Do carry on.”

“Please, I'm sorry,” you gasped, trying to push at his chest, already breathless. “I wasn't thinking- Loki, please!” You could feel your cheeks growing warm, laughter bubbling up as he held you firm. "I'm sorry!"

“Shh,” he crooned, his smirk deepening. “No need to waste your precious breath.”

"Oh no, please, not this," you laughed despite your wincing, pushing harder at his shoulders. It did nothing.

“Begging already?” His fingers found your sides, pinning them as his thumbs pressed firmly into the sensitive skin above your hips. “You might regret that even more, darling.”

Before you could protest, his fingers began to move, an unrelenting, devastating rhythm that sent a jolt of sensation through your body. Your attempts to fight it crumbled instantly as laughter spilled from your lips, your hands still trying, and failing, to push his away.

“Loki! N-no-” you gasped between giggles, squirming beneath him as his fingers worked with merciless precision. He watched you with keen fascination, clearly enjoying the effects of his touch on you far too much. His thumbs traced slow, calculated circles against your ribs, each movement skilled and targeted, attuning his touch at a terrifying speed. Learning how to deliver a masterful torture, designed just for you.

“Oh, I think yes,” he replied, his voice a teasing purr. “And to think, all it takes to make you crumble is a little tickling. How... adorably human.” His words were as wicked as his touch, his fingers finding every sensitive spot along your ribs, raking over your skin with a tormenting ease.

Your laughter only grew, helpless and unbidden, your body writhing beneath him as you tried to twist away from his relentless fingers. But the press of his body against yours, the heat of his breath, and the smirk on his lips were driving you to the edge in more ways than one.

“You know,” he continued, one hand slipping higher along your ribs, while the other skated down your side in search of a new vulnerable spot, “you really should have thought this through.” He watched as you struggled to speak, your protests dissolving into helpless laughter as pinched the soft spot above your hip in a steady rhythm. “But I suppose thinking things through isn’t exactly your strong suit, is it?”

Another fit of giggles burst from you, the words “Shut up- Loki, I swear-” managing to slip through the laughter before his searching hand found an especially sensitive spot just above your knee. Your leg jerked, and you could barely contain the yelp that escaped you.

“Oh, now that's a good spot, isn't it?” he mused, his smirk widening as he kept his fingers there, watching with satisfaction as you writhed in his grip. His thumb and middle finger cratered into your skin, moving in small, unrelenting circles against the muscle, each pass drawing a louder, more desperate laugh from you.

Every time your laughter began to steady, Loki would adjust, finding fresh angles to torment that same spot, leaving you gasping and breathless, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. The sound of his satisfied chuckle only made the entire ordeal more maddening, his smirk widening with every helpless laugh he drew from you.

The muscles of your core ached, already weakened from the near hour of sparring you'd endured before this ordeal, and your desperation mounted as you realised just how completely you were at his mercy.

“Poor thing,” he murmured, his voice mockingly sympathetic. “All those threats you make, all those fighting words... yet-"

The door to the gym opened suddenly, and two figures stepped inside. Loki didn’t miss a beat, glancing up to find Steve and Bucky standing there, their faces caught between surprise and amusement at the scene before them. Loki merely grinned, unperturbed, as though they were expected guests.

“Ah, gentlemen, so kind of you to join us.” His fingers didn't stop, not even for a moment. Your breath hitched between laughs. “She’s been begging for mercy. Tell me, don’t you train your people to withstand a bit of torture?”

“Steve!” you gasped, trying and failing to sit up as Loki’s fingers dug into your ribs with a terrifying precision. The hand at your knee gave a quick pulse and you shrieked, giving a violent kick of your leg that somehow dislodged his hand. “Bucky- help!”

The two men exchanged a look, an unmistakable smirk crossing their faces as they watched you squirm beneath Loki’s touch, now at both of your sides.

Steve folded his arms, tilting his head as if considering your plea. “Seems like you've bitten off more than you can chew,” he said, lips quirking up in amusement.

“You're gonna have to get yourself out of this one,” Bucky added with smirk.

"Please!" You squeaked when Loki wrapped his hands around your hips once more, squeezing and pressing as you plead through helpless giggles. "I-I'll do anything- just- j-just help me, please!"

“Anything?” Loki murmurs, his voice low and smooth as he leans down, stilling his hands just long enough for you to catch your breath. “My, my, this sounds like quite the liability. Is this all it takes to break you?” His fingers latched onto both of your knees with renewed vigour, eliciting a shriek and then a fresh burst of laughter.

You were too far gone to respond, tears gathering in your eyes as you twisted under his touch, utterly powerless to escape. His words, his steady, relentless taunts, were maddening, each one sinking in deeper as his fingers found every vulnerable place that left you laughing helplessly beneath him.

Your cheeks burned as you tried to wriggle away from his fingers, laughter turning desperate as his hands traced the sensitive muscles along your thighs. “L-Loki, please-”

Loki casted a glance at Steve and Bucky, his voice dropping to a lower, more mocking tone. “Her training is sorely lacking. She's reckless, susceptible…" he looked back down to you with a sly grin, "and seems to lack any sense of risk analysis. Taking me on, indeed.”

You were incredulous - as much as you could be in your position - and you tried to protest, tried to tell them that it was Loki’s idea to spar in the first place, but the words won’t come. Loki’s hands had you too helpless, laughter spilling from your lips as he smirked down at you with an expression of pure satisfaction.

Bucky shrugged, grinning as he watched your futile struggle. “Maybe we need to work on conditioning that out of her.”

“Oh, no,” Loki interjected smoothly, slipping his hands to the juncture of your hips and thighs, sending you arching off the mat, squeals of laughter tearing from your throat. "I rather like her this way."

Desperation drove you to try to reach for Steve or Bucky, your arm outstretched in a silent plea for mercy.

You should have learned your lesson about desperate moves.

Loki saw the opportunity in your attempt, and with a smooth, precise move, he twisted you onto your stomach, pinning your outstretched wrist to the mat as he settled over you, his other hand slipping to your lower ribs to press into a spot he'd already memorised, one that made you shriek.

“Really, darling,” he whispered darkly, his voice rich with satisfaction, “your judgment is appallingly poor, isn’t it?” His fingers glided higher, hitting a spot on your upper ribs that made your laughter turn silent, breath hitching as you struggled under him.

“You handed me this opening,” he tutted, his taunting words making you burn hotter. “What happens next is your fault.” His fingers found the sensitive spot beneath your arm, drawing out a fresh wave of laughter as your body arched, your feet scrabbling for traction as you slapped your free hand against the mat.

Hard laughter barrelled out of you, your head falling to the mat as you squeezed your eyes shut, succumbing to the sensations he was pulling from your nerves.

Surrender washed over you, cool and easy, as you felt your muscles go limp beneath him, nothing in your mind but the feeling of his body, his hands, the force of your laughter, and the pure, unadulterated fun he was having with you. And it was fun, you realised. In a way that people like you usually didn't indulge in.

Bucky tapped Steve on the arm and jerked his chin towards the door behind them. "Seem like you have this under control," he smirked at you. You looked up to glare but only caught their knowing glance, the one of friends and not of Avengers. The one that said, we know exactly what's going on here.

It made you flush almost as much as the unrelenting torture.

Almost as soon as they left you, Loki's tickling hand pulled away. You gulped greedy breaths in as he turned your sagging body with ease, settling you on your back as he hovered over you, eyes roaming the product of his work.

"I trust you've learned your lesson." His voice was a low rumble that sent heat pooling to your belly. All you could do was nod. "Next time you dare to pull a stunt like that," he started, leaning in so close you could feel his breath fanning your lips, "I won't be so gentle."

Heat bloomed over your cheeks, to the tips of your ears, the space between you charged, crackling with an intensity that sends a thrill through you.

You couldn't look away, your breath catching as his gaze lingered on your lips.

His own parted, as though he was on the verge of closing the distance...

He flinched.

Pulled back. Pulled away.

Your brow lowered in concern, but before you could ask what was wrong, he stood.

"Until next time."

He looked down at you, his eyes lingering with a promise that made your pulse pound, before he turned and strode out of the gym, leaving you sprawled on the mat, breathless, wanting, and hopelessly, maddeningly confused.

It was late that same night when you finally worked up the nerve to confront him.

You moved through the silent halls of the Compound, each step echoing in the darkened corridors as you slipped past the shadows pooling in doorways. Uncertainty crept up your spine, and you almost turned back more than once, only to grit your teeth and push forward. There were too many things left unsaid, too much tension thickening the air between you and Loki, and it gnawed at you now, refusing to let you retreat.

Before you could decide on a way to begin, his door opened. He stood there, almost as if he’d sensed you coming, his expression a mix of curiosity and that ever-present amusement.

“It's rather late for a visit,” he said, his tone low, his words quiet and full of question.

You met his gaze. “Couldn't sleep,” you replied, massaging the back of your neck with one hand.

His lips twitched with something darker, though his tone remained light. “And you thought I could help?”

Silence stretched between you, and for a moment, you wondered if this was a mistake.

"I thought you might be able to, considering it's your fault."

His face softened at the strain in your tone, and he stepped aside in a silent invitation for you to enter.

Swallowing hard, you stepped forward, pressing past him and into his room. He shut the door behind you, and the world seemed to fall away, the dimness settling around you, cocooning you both in a place of shadow and warmth.

"Go on then," Loki urged as you two stood near the lounge set in his room. A couple of armchairs and a matching couch, cast in the soft glow of several lamps and a dying fire in the hearth.

You drew a deep breath, forcing yourself to speak. “I know what you are, Loki,” you began, feeling your voice tremble with both fear and resolve. “Mischief is part of your very nature, and I don't mind fun and games like- like earlier," you flushed thinking about it, catching the smirk forming on his features as he watched you fumble.

You gathered your courage and stared him straight-on. "But not with my feelings. All this- this flirting, and touching, and closeness... it's not a game to me. So if it doesn't mean anything to you, I'd rather it stop."

Loki’s eyes narrowed slightly, the smugness vanishing, replaced by something harder, sharper. He let the words hang between you, a silence stretching before he repeated them in a voice almost too soft to hear. “If it doesn't mean anything to me,” he murmured, a subtle, dangerous edge to his tone. "You think this- that you are simply a game? Another amusement of no consequence?"

You swallowed, willing yourself to continue. “Today…” Your voice broke slightly, and you pushed the words out. “In the gym, we were so close. I thought...” Heat flooded your cheeks, but you forced yourself on, the confession slipping free. “For the dozenth time, I thought you were finally going to kiss me. But I just left wondering if I'm a fool with some silly schoolgirl crush, way in over my head." The admission left you raw and breathless, your heart pounding.

He exhaled, the smallest hint of a rueful smile ghosting over his lips. "You were trapped beneath me. Pinned, helpless,” he said, as though it explained everything. “I could never take that liberty with you while you were at my mercy.” His gaze grew darker still, something haunted flickering in his eyes. “I’d never forgive myself if I gave in to such an impulse. I'd never stop wondering if you had truly wanted it."

"But I did want-"

"And what if you hadn't?"

His words were a balm and a brand, his unwavering gaze rooting you to the spot.

"I had to know it was real. Not something forced or coerced, something... taken from you when you were too breathless to say no. I had to know for sure that it was what you desired."

For a moment, you struggled to find your voice, the weight of his reverence filling the space between you.

“It is,” you managed, each word trembling with the strength of your resolve. “I want this. I want you. I can’t stop thinking about you, no matter how hard I try. I don’t want to ignore it anymore.” You swallowed, breathless.

A beat passed, and something changed in his face - a tension releasing, his expression softening in a way you hadn’t expected.

Slowly, he extended his hand, his fingers unfurling in a silent invitation.

You slipped you palm into his, letting him pull you toward him, his touch both a promise and a tether.

He guided you closer, his hands sliding down your arms, tracing the lines of your shoulders, until they rested firmly on your waist. Then, with a gentle insistence, he drew you toward an armchair, lowering himself into it and coaxing you down to settle over his lap, your knees bracketing his thighs.

His hand rose, tilting your chin so that you were forced to look into his eyes. They held an intensity that bordered on unrelenting, darkened by desire and the hint of something raw, something that took your breath away. He watched you intently, his expression filled with something just shy of reverence. His thumb brushed along the curve of your jaw, tilting your face toward him as his fingers trailed along your neck, igniting every nerve.

You shivered as he leaned in, so close that his breath fanned across your lips. His touch was calm and certain, his gaze flicking over you as if committing every part of you to memory.

“I’ve waited for this,” he whispered, voice low and heated. “For you.”

The weight of his words pressed against the heavy silence between you, and before you could answer, he leaned in, his lips finding yours in a kiss that was slow and consuming.

He guided you with a gentle but undeniable command, his mouth pressing deeper, each kiss drawn out, languid, until it felt like he was unraveling you with every deliberate stroke of his lips against yours.

The world blurred, and you melted into him, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as he lured a soft gasp from your lips. His hand slid to the back of your neck, steadying you, keeping you close as he took his time, tasting you, his lips teasing yours until you forgot to breathe.

When you moved to meet his kiss more eagerly, he slowed you, a faint smirk in the curve of his lips as he deepened the kiss with a patience that made your stomach twist. He was savouring this, savouring you, and the way he kissed you - deliberate, knowing - made your entire body ache with need.

His thumb brushed along your cheek, lingering as his other hand settled firmly at your waist, pulling you closer as though he couldn’t bear the thought of you slipping away.

Your fingers found their way to the nape of his neck, tangling in his hair as he angled your face, holding you exactly where he wanted. When his tongue brushed lightly over your lower lip, you let out a soft, involuntary sound, and his hand tightened against your waist, holding you to him.

Loki’s mouth moved over yours with a control that made you shiver, each kiss deliberate, and the quiet dominance in his touch sent warmth pooling through you. With every gentle press of his lips, every slow, teasing stroke, he seduced you, guided you, igniting something deep and undeniable that had simmered for too long. Your heart beat heavily against your ribs, and as you gasped softly, his mouth trailed along your jaw, his lips barely brushing over your skin.

When he finally pulled back, his gaze was dark, his expression full of barely-contained intensity.

A slight smirk tugged at his lips as he ran his thumb along your lower lip, the teasing glint returning to his gaze. “Well, look at you,” he soothed, voice rich with quiet amusement. “I half-expected you to come tearing through that door, seeking vengeance for how thoroughly I put you in your place earlier.”

Heat pooled in your face, and you fought to keep your composure, though it was a losing battle. “I’d have been fine if you hadn’t-”

“-handled you so effectively?” he interrupted with an infuriating grin, each syllable soft and mocking. “Don’t worry. I rather enjoyed it myself.”

His thumb still lingered on your flushed lips, his eyes glinting with that familiar mischief but something darker, something that felt like an invitation. “Stay with me tonight,” he murmured, his voice low and heated, and the words sent a thrill down your spine.

The invitation hung between you, heavy and dark, the desire in his gaze nearly tangible. Your breath hitched, your heart racing at the thought of losing yourself completely in him, of surrendering to this quiet storm between you.

“That depends,” you managed, barely able to steady your voice. “Are you planning to repeat what happened earlier?”

He chuckled, his fingers tightening on your waist as his eyes glittered with amusement. “Only if you ask very, very nicely.”

A thrill shot through you as he leaned in, brushing his lips against yours with a dark, velvet whisper. “That certainly won't be the last time we play like that. Tonight, however... I have other ideas for what to do with you." His fingers trailed up your spine, making you shiver.

Gods help you. He was going to be your undoing.

"I thought I'd take my time, learning you. Slowly. Thoroughly. Every little detail, every sweet noise you can make." His lips skated across the pulse point in your neck. "Would you like that, darling?"

"Yes." You had barely whispered your reply before his lips were on yours again, his mouth moving over yours with a slow, consuming fervour that left no room for questions, no room for anything except the feeling of him, his warmth, his presence, the gentle yet undeniable control in every touch. His fingers threaded through your hair, his hand steadying you as he deepened the kiss, guiding you with a restraint that made you shiver.

You melted into him, your breaths mingling as his hands drifted, his touch both firm and soft, and when he finally pulled back, his gaze held yours with an intensity that left you breathless.

“This is not a game,” he whispered, a promise in his tone, his thumb tracing light patterns along your neck. His expression was sincere, edged with both longing and restraint. “You say the word, and we’ll stop.”

The words were a quiet echo, a reassurance that grounded you both. A chill of reverence passed between you, something thrilling, something impossibly tender. You met his gaze, nodding as your fingers traced the line of his jaw. “You too. No pressure, no expectations,” you whispered back, meaning it, and he smiled, a soft, endearing smile that made your heart ache.

And then he guided you back into his arms, every movement slow and deliberate as he kissed you once more, drawing you into a dance that would last until dawn.

[dduane]

I have started collecting your Star Trek novels, after having gotten to know your writing through Young Wizards. Just finished Spock's World, am a few chapters into The Wounded Sky.

I'd just like to say that I love the way you embrace diversity as a concept in your writing. Your Starfleet is full of Terrans, sure, and humanoids, but also overflowing with nonhumanoids, with species whose inclusion necessitates accommodation and work and cooperation, and it's just so very STAR TREK, in a way even the most ambitious episodes of the original series and TNG never managed, for budget reasons and probably because someone, somewhere said "nobody would deal with that on a starship."

It makes the things that aren't present in the books, the diversity that no 1980s publisher would have allowed in such a mainstream property, feel less keenly absent. This alien is a genderless crystal whose experience of time is utterly beyond my understanding, I think, so of course there's room in this Starfleet for an autistic agender bisexual like me.

It's really uplifting in ways I wouldn't have expected before I really got into your Trek novels.

I'm glad the books have worked for you.

I think one of the things that may be working in my favor here is a tendency to take a series's (or IP's) professed themes and/or philosophies at face value, and run with them—treating them as if they're worth wholeheartedly accepting.* The fairly early statement of the IDIC concept would have been one that jumped out at me when (like all the other viewers in the mid-to-late 60s) I was watching Trek for the first time.

But something else that would always have been in the background for me was a very early engagement with, and enthusiasm about, the relatively hard-SF concept of More Alien-Than-Usual Aliens. This would've come from reading authors who espoused it: Heinlein sometimes, Ted Sturgeon sometimes, but also E. E. "Doc" Smith and William Tenn and Cordwainer Smith... and also, very especially, Hal Clement, who's too little-known these days and did some of the best aliens ever. Add all of these (especially Doc Smith's Lensman series) to a longtime fondness for the Green Lantern Corps, and you wind up with the general let's-get-out-there-and-have-a-good-time-with-our-extremely-alien-cousins approach of the Young Wizards series.

So when they and the Middle Kingdoms crowd (with alien species holding positions of prominence in both series) got me in the door at the print end of Star Trek, the tendencies I'd already been exploiting on my own turf more or less inevitably came with me. As far as I was concerned, the more aliens (or non-usual Earth-based species), the more fun I was going to have. And when it came to the IDIC thing, I didn't think Gene had mumbled. The more diversity, the better.

(No one complained about the unusual aliens, either. The nice thing about Trek-novel writing is the low special effects cost... since your readers do it all in their heads. Original Trek was always running into the "We can't afford that" thing, alas. Not a problem for me, though.)

Anyway: Trek is absolutely, from the ground up, a place where all possible diversity belongs. You could make a case that the Trek series that have least featured this aspect of that universe have in turn been the least effective ones. ...But I'll leave it to other people to argue that out. Myself, I managed to work a sentient-mathematical-concept-Green Lantern into a GL script one time. It'd be fun to do that (and figure out how to make it visual!) in Trek. ...Later for that.

Meanwhile: it's my pleasure to have been of service. Thanks for letting me know. :)

*See also the old idiom about "taking the King's shilling". If you're going to accept it, don't waste everybody's time on half-measures. Go transgalactic or go home. :)

[starlightervarda]

I can't sleep so Star Trek TOS/SNW dashboard simulator

🪆 chekovsgunman Follow

to this day I can't understand why they're called the Three Musketeers if there's FOUR of them? Did Dumas just forget his own main character???

🪴 plantdad Follow

You've got to be kidding me

🪆 chekovsgunman Follow

I know right? A mistake like this would never happen in Russian literature!

5,324 notes

🩺 therealmccoy Follow

After months of taking care of everyone else on this giant tin can I really earned this shore leave. Now I get to drink, relax, flirt with some lovely ladies and sleep until noon 😎 Just what the the doctor ordered!

🩺 therealmccoy Follow

Update: A fucking purple tree ate five crewmen. Again.

955 notes

🖖 iamspock Follow

Despite being among humans for close to a decade, I still find their tendency to overcomplicate and avoid aspects of social situations to be confusing at best and infuriating at worst. So much time is wasted on tedious matters such as who gets to 'make the first move' or 'not come off too strong'.

For example, everyone aboard my vessel is keenly aware of Lt. Uhura and Engineer Scott's 'budding romance'. But their need to extend their oddly avoidant courtship ritual, rather than outright state their interest in one another, is pointless, as well as frustrating to witness.

Why do they do this? Why not 'get it over with', as they say?

I encourage answers from all cultures, human or otherwise.

💅 janicethemenace Follow

I'm sorry Scotty and Nyota are WHAT

💉 xtinechapel Follow

DELETE THIS

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

SPOCK NOOO HE DOESN'T THINK OF ME LIKE THAT 😭

🔧 scott-free Follow

But I do! I thought you knew and were just being nice about it!

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

DMing you rn 😳

🖖 iamspock Follow

You're welcome.

24,103 notes

🌟 j_tiberius_k Follow

PSA: If you visit Antares VII, stay clear of any yellow plants, their pollen can have some...inconvenient effects on the biology of humanoid peoples.

My XO and I suffered through troubling symptoms until it was almost too late. Thankfully, we figured out a cure in time.

🪴 plantdad Follow

I can only find info on the symptoms. What was the cure? 👀

🌟 j_tiberius_k Follow

Do I really have to say it?

6,322 notes

💊 mmmbenga Follow

The galaxy if Klingons didn't exist

⚔️ glorytotheempire Follow

Wow. Humans are openly advocating for our disappearance yet Klingons are the bad guys? I thought your federation stood for peace.

💊 mmmbenga Follow

Cry harder you genocidal wrinkly-faced bitch I hope your planet gets sucked into a black hole

#If you think a joke is on par with what they do then book an MRI because you might have brain damage #fuck Klingons and anyone that sympathizes with them

35,007 notes

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

So I can either skim through this asteroid belt on Warp 2 for 3 hrs or on Warp 5 for 15 mins

🚀 mitchiemitch Follow

Erica no! That's not how navigation works!

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

FLOOR IT???

🚀 mitchiemitch Follow

ERICA NO

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

HOW ABOUT WARP 7 FOR 15 SECONDS?

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

ERICA YOU'RE GOING TO CRASH THE SHIP

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

I AM GOING TO HARNESS LIGHT-SPEED TO ZIGZAG THROUGH THE VOID

🚀 mitchiemitch

ERICA P L E A S E

112,517 notes

🐴 sirsilverfox Follow

I know some species are very private, but you'd think they'd share the important stuff, esp when we should trust each other by now.

How are we supposed to enjoy my weekly dinners if you all don't tell me what to watch out for :/ This is the third time this happens to the same person and I had to get the answer why from our CMO

💫 numerouna Follow

Wait what did I miss while I was gone

🐴 sirsilverfox Follow

Spock got wasted on my chocolate fudge cake and hit his head on the counter ://///

2,904 notes

[reasonsforhope]

"As the world grows “smarter” through the adoption of smartphones, smart fridges, and entire smart houses, the carbon cost of that technology grows, too. 

In the last decade, electronic waste has become one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world. 

According to The World Counts, the globe generates about 50 million tons of e-waste every year. That’s the equivalent of 1,000 laptops being trashed every second. 

After they’re shipped off to landfills and incinerated, the trash releases toxic chemicals including lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and so much more, which can cause disastrous health effects on the populations that live near those trash sites. 

Fortunately, Franziska Kerber — a university student at ​​FH Joanneum in Graz, Austria — has dreamed up a solution that helps carve away at that behemoth problem: electronics made out of recyclable, dissolvable paper. 

On September 11, Kerber’s invention “Pape” — or Paper Electronics — earned global recognition when it was named a national winner of the 2024 James Dyson Awards. 

When she entered the scientific competition, Kerber demonstrated her invention with the creation of several small electronics made out of paper materials, including a fully-functional WiFi router and smoke detector. 

“Small electronic devices are especially prone to ending up in household waste due to unclear disposal systems and their small size, so there is significant potential to develop a more user-friendly end-of-life system,” Kerber wrote on the James Dyson Award website. 

“With this in mind, I aimed to move beyond a simple recycling solution to a circular one, ensuring long-term sustainability.” 

Kerber’s invention hinges on crafting a dissolvable and recyclable PCB board out of compressed “paper pulp.” 

A printed circuit board (PCB) is a board that can be found in nearly all modern electronic devices, like phones, tablets, and smartwatches.

But even companies that have started incorporating a “dissolution” step into the end life of their products require deconstruction to break down and recover the PCB board before it can be recycled. 

With Kerber’s PAPE products, users don’t need to take the device apart to recycle it.

“By implementing a user-friendly return option, manufacturers can efficiently dissolve all returned items, potentially reusing electronic components,” Kerber explained. 

“Rapidly advancing technology, which forms the core of many devices, becomes obsolete much faster than the structural elements, which are often made from plastics that can last thousands of years,” Kerber poses. 

PAPE, Kerber says, has a “designed end-of-life system” which anticipates obsolescence. 

“Does anyone want to use a thousand-year-old computer?” Kerber asks. “Of course not. … This ensures a sustainable and reliable system without hindering technological advancement.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, September 13, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[synchodai]

Arcane S2 wasn't as good because it wasn't about air

The common critique of Arcane season two was that "it didn't let the story breathe." I'm going to one-up that and state that season one set up an entire story about breathing and forgot that in season two.

Yes, yes, Arcane was a story about Piltover oppressing the undercity, but unlike a lot of other stories about social stratification, Arcane was very explicit about the methods Piltover uses to disenfranchise Zaun. Season one was clearly a story about eco-apartheid maintained through extractivist practices.

WHAT IS ECO-APARTHEID?

Ecological apartheid (also known as enviromental racism) is a form of disenfranchising and spatially separating a class of people through pollution, exploitation, and abuse of their local environment.

[E]nvironmental apartheid was largely instituted through rural marginalization, the use of rural space as an environmental means of marginalization... - Environmental apartheid: Eco-health and rural marginalization in South Africa

Topside and the undercity are basically one nation state with a blindingly stark fence between them. Piltover and Zaun are simultaneously connected and separated by the Bridge of Progress. Progress unites them and alienates them from one another. Progress is why Piltover is wealthy and clean, and it is why Zaun is impoverished and polluted. It is was on the Bridge of Progress that Silco incited the riot that led to Vi and Powder's orphaning and Vander's betrayal. It's where Ekko and Jinx have their standoff, and where the Hextech core is exchanged. In other words, progress is a border.

WHAT IS EXTRACTIVISM?

Prior to the proliferation of shimmer and the chembarons, industry in the undercity appears to be heavily centralized around one thing — fissure mining. Vi and Powder's parents used to be miners along with Vander and Silco. Jayce and Vi visit one of these mines and she explains the masks the workers use. Oh, and let's not forget the children don't have to yearn for the mines when they're dying in the mines!

The Zaunites' livelihood being dependant on the extraction of natural resources for the benefit of the Piltovans is what is known as extractivism — the exploitation of a resource-rich land and its people by a separate "global North."

In practice, extractivism has been a mechanism of colonial and neocolonial plunder and appropriation. This extractivism, which has appeared in different guises over time, was forged in the exploitation of the raw materials essential for the industrial development and prosperity of the global North. - Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse

The "North," in this case, clearly being Piltover. The resources being abused and exploited here aren't only the fissure mines, but also the bodies of the workers and those born around them. Viktor's illness, for example, is a product of growing up around the gaseous waste of the fissure mines. The Zaunites take the brunt of the side-effects of the pollution so that the topsiders don't have to. The "dregs" are kept below while materials, both people and things, that are deemed useful get to rise to the top. The processing of raw materials and shipping happens in Piltover, so it's the Piltovans who get a final say on the profits.

Silco and the chembarons establish their power by creating an industry that operates outside of fissure mining that doesn't rely on the patronage of the global North. Needless to say, drug dealing isn't exactly a noble trade, but extraction, processing, and distribution are mainly controlled and operated by Zaunites, which allows them a source of wealth and power that they can leverage against Piltover. To use a more recognizable phrase, they own the means of shimmer production.

I find it fascinating that shimmer is made by killing innocent underground creatures. Cannibalizing your own kind for a temporary boost of strength that eventually turns the user into a monster? It's a poignant metaphor about the infighting of not just the chembarons' gangs but of oppressed groups in general. And while shimmer offers power and brings in wealth, that's not what the undercity truly needs and only corrupts it even further.

Nah, the show has been very clear that what Zaun needs is breathable air.

SEASON 2 FORGOT ABOUT AIR

Even outside of the air pollution caused by fissure mining, the theme of breathing and air is everywhere in season one. Ekko and the Firelights' community is built around a tree — the clean air it provides is the reason they've been able to sustain themselves. It is considered an oasis in polluted Zaun. Jinx's is often heralded by brightly colored smoke, and the way she signals to Violet is through a flare that emits it. Silco's altercation with Vander involves him almost drowning — Vander literally choking the air out of him. Silco, in reponse to this traumatic event, teaches Jinx to willingly submerge herself in a place without air by baptizing her in the same filthy water he was choked in.

In other words, air is life and purpose. Zaun's aesthetics are defined by gas masks and smoke. Meanwhile, the scenes in Piltover are clean and clear. Ekko and the Firelights' tree represented hope and the possibility of clean air in Zaun. Viktor was similarly associated to flowers that grew in the underground, symbolizing how beautiful things can live even in the harshest circumstances.

Environmental degradation, more specifically air pollution, is the raison d'être of topside-undercity conflict. Silco says as much when he threatens the other chembarons and reminds them of why he's in charge.

Have you forgotten where we came from? The mines they had us in? Air so thick it clogs your throat — stuck in your eyes. I pulled you all up from the depths, offered you a taste of topside and fresh air. I gave you life. Purpose. But you've grown fat and complacent, too much time in the sun. We came from a world where there was never enough to go around. That is why we fight. Do you remember? - The Boy Savior, Arcane S01E07

But by the second and third acts of season two, pollution may not as well exist in Zaun. How does Viktor's commune plant its flowers and grow its fruits? Does the Firelights' tree ever get cured of its corruption? Did everyone forget that the undercity is literally suffocating? Seriously, why is Ekko's storyline with the tree never resolved? Why give Jinx that monologue about a wispy goddess of air the fissurefolk pray to and never go anywhere with it?

JINX SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASSOCIATED TO JANNA

The Grey presented an opportunity for Jinx to be the revolutionary hero Arcane wanted her to be. The enforcers have clearly aligned themselves with pollution and poison, and Jinx could have been the herald of their wind goddess come to answer the people's prayers for relief. But the people don't rally behind Jinx because of her association to Janna, clean air, or her repelling the invading cops using bioweapons.

I firmly believe that Jinx being a symbol of the revolution because she blew up a government building is missing a few steps. She'll get radicals who already hated Piltover behind her, sure, but the everyday Zaunite would more likely blame her for causing chaos and bringing trouble to their streets. Because the average person doesn't really care who's on the council or if a politician so far from them dies. But they do care if the cops are suddenly at their door with tear gas because an extremist junkie decided to commit arson.

The first act of season two had me very optimistic that the show was picking up where it left off with its enviromental themes. The enforcers use The Grey, polluted air, to surpress dissent and hunt down Jinx. Jinx fights back under a mural of Janna, the goddess of clean air. Her plan involves her using air to push back The Grey and send the gust up to Piltover. After being actively gassed by the enforcers, Jinx and her association to colorful wind becomes a symbol of hope and revolution to the people of the undercity.

Except that's not what happens. The Grey is only shown affecting targeted criminals with no collateral damage to civilians despite it being deployed all over the trenches. The gusts of wind Jinx pushes up to Piltover don't make topsiders experience the air pollution Zaunites suffer. Instead, it just midly inconveniences them with paint splatters. In the end, The Grey is forgotten and has nothing to do with their fight in front of Janna's mural. Caitlyn gets a promotion despite gassing the entire underground with nothing to show for it, and the undercity idolizes Jinx despite her being the reason they were gassed in the first place.

ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION IS INTERPERSONAL RESTORATION

Unlike in the game, Arcane chose topside and the undercity to be originally established as one city — and I don't think that was done without reason. The nation of Zaun and its identity is established as a reaction to the suffering of those underground. A community developed centered around helping one another cope and survive through the pollution. In short, Piltover created Zaun.

Thus, the interplay between Piltover and Zaun extended to all plotlines and the relationships they explored and developed. Jinx and Vi, Vi and Caitlynn, Viktor and Jayce, Ekko and Heimerdinger — these are all relationships that reflect the tension between Zaun and Piltover. Family torn apart by civil war, bitter ex lovers, different ideological approaches to scientific advancement, intuitive inventiveness and practiced genius. Their relationships are born from a common desire and degrade because of that looming border inflicted by the pursuit of progress.

Piltover and Zaun is a single house fractured because of how it threw all its detritus in the basement as it sought to build a tower that will reach the skies. The whole building is threatening to crumble, especially now that someone threw a bomb at it like in the finale of season one. The status quo Arcane and we as a globalized eco-apartheid have is extremely precarious as is any foundation built on abuse and exploitation. A lot of people will cheer on the Jinxes who don't care so much about fixing it than they do burning it all down to express their understandable rage and grief, but that doesn't really fix the problem of having breathable air, does it?

Unfortunately, we'll never know how the show will wrap up the Zaunite plight because it was all but forgotten in season 2. The problem of Zaun was never that they needed to evolve or be perfect — it's that their environment and the people by extension were being suffocated.

In my perfect world, the finale would have addressed the lack of light and clean air in the underground. It would have mirrored how some bodies and relationships can never truly fully recover the damage that has been done. As in real life, restoration is not a substitute for not doing harm in the first place. But it could have ended with a hopeful message that burning it down and running away isn't the answer either.

When Viktor was healing Vander and decided that, despite the unprecedented effort and time, his natural, non-weaponized humanity was worth saving because of how much he means to his local community, I thought that was what they were going for. Alas, they didn't let the show breathe.

[chrissv4mp]

nsfw alphabet , BILLIE E.

summary: nsfw alphabet w billie eilish !

pairing: billie eilish × fem!reader

warnings: dom&sub!billie, sub&dom!reader, degradation, fingering, strap ons, choking??, restraints, doggy, missionary, cowgirl, etc.

a/n: she's a munch smh🤷‍♀️

A = Aftercare (what they're like after sex)

dom!billie is amazing at giving you aftercare. she's super gentle with you, helping clean yourself and carefully walking you to the bathroom to take a shower or bath. she always whispers sweet things into your ear as she helps wash your body, kissing anywhere she can as you lay against her bare chest. after she's gotten you cleaned up, she always puts on slow and quiet music the both of you love as you guys fall asleep.

sub!billie loves the aftercare you give her. you always give her a few minutes to come down from her high, cuddling her in that short time and telling her how amazing she was. the small cuddle session soon turns to a full-night one, because how could you resist the girl when she's looking at you with those eyes of hers?

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner's)

she loves her hands. billie absolutely adores the sight of you underneath, ringed fingers wrapping perfectly around your throat while she fucks her strap into you.

billie is obsessed with your lips, they're just so soft and such a pretty shade of pink. she never wastes an opportunity to have her lips on yours, the kiss always turning sloppy due to how hungry she always is for you.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

dom!billie loves making you cum, whether it be on her strap, fingers, tongue, even her thigh. the girl is addicted to the taste of you, almost always overstimulating you in the process of licking you clean.(not that you're complaining..)

sub!billie is a mess whenever you make her cum, her hair all over the place, sticking to her forehead and parts of her neck. she can't help but get wet once again as she watches you suck her juices off your fingers.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs.)

dom!billie has always had a thing for tying you up. she loves it when she gets to restrain your wrists on the headboard or even just tied above your head, your legs spread open as your ankles are tied to the bedframe. billie especially enjoys when you've been bratty or had an attitude with her that day, impatiently waiting for the time you both get home and she gets to tie you up, edging you almost the entire night until you're crying and begging for release.

sub!billie is obsessed with being on her knees for you, never hesitating when you ask her to get down on the floor. she can't help but muse over you as she kneels in front of your standing/sitting figure, eyes roaming all around your body. the girl would drop to the floor if you asked her to, loving that you have such an effect on her.

E = Experience (how experience are they? do they know what they're doing?

billie has definitely had experience, but not much. she doesn't have a crazy body count, even though people think she does. she's had some flings and one-night-stands, but nothing other than that. billie likely payed attention in science, and she's also a girl, so she knows what feels good and what doesn't.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying.)

dom!billie loves having you in doggy. her hand going up to grab your hair and tug it away from the pillows to hear all of your noises, never missing the throaty moan that escapes your lips when she grabs your hips and pulls them back against her front, her strap settling deeper inside of your pussy & hitting your sweet spot. no doubt she likes cowgirl, her grip on your hips bruising as she guides your movements. billie adores the sight of your pussy swallowing her strap fully, moaning as you sink all the way down and the base of the toy hits her clit. she can't stop herself from grabbing at your tits, rolling your nipples between her fingers and making you whine loudly.

sub!billie has always liked missionary. she just finds it so convenient, how your lips can still meet, your mouth swallowing her moans and whines as you fuck her dumb with you strap. your hands always move hers above her head, stopping billie from toying with her own clit & instead bringing your free hand down to do it for her.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

c'mon, this is billie eilish we're talking about, she's definitely a little bit of a goof at times. a giggle can always be heard from the girl as you struggle to unfasten her belt or even unbutton her shirt.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

billie's a natural blonde, so even if she dyes her hair, i doubt that she dyes the hair down there. i don't think she's bare, but she's definitely well-shaved. she doesn't care about how you decide to keep it.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect.)

she feels bad every time she's away or on tour, so any time she's with you or has free time, she never misses a chance to have a romantic session with you, wanting to make the moment unforgettable. billie loves when those slow and loving moments with you, taking her time with you since you two don't get this much time as often.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon.)

doesn't do it very often, but every time she's on tour and can't seek out your touch, she definitely does it herself.

every night on tour, she would call you. and the moment you pick up the phone, you're met with the wet sounds of her fingers slamming into her pussy, mixed with the string of curses and moans of your name.

sometimes, billie would even video call you, the phone camera capturing her lower body. your eyes were always glued to her pussy, her own fingers or even the dildo she brought with her filling her up.

K = Kink (one or more of kinks.)

has the biggest degradation kink, loving when you call her a dumb slut as you fuck into her from behind, hand tugging harshly on her hair as she moans out loudly.

any time you've been bratty, she definitely fucks you hard, muttering harsh words into your ear that consist of, "such a fucking brat, can't go anywhere without you mouthing off to someone." "my dumb girl, so needy she can't even wait until we get home. such a slut."

L = Location (favorite places to do the do.)

she loves her privacy, so she definitely prefers her bedroom or even the shower. can't risk paparazzi spotting her knuckle deep in your pussy in some random parking lot or public bathroom.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going.)

literally anything that she associates with you. yours clothes, bedsheets, even the small plushy you gave her that rests on her nightstand.

N = No (something they wouldn't do, turn offs.)

would never be down for piss/period play or anything to do with feet. thinks it's unhygienic.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

dom!billie definitely prefers giving. she is obsessed with her head being between your thighs, her tongue working skillfully on your pussy as her lips wrap around her clit from time to time.

she is a pro at giving oral, her skilled mouth never failing to get you all worked up and on the brink of your climax in mere minutes.

sub!billie prefers receiving. she adores the sight of your head between her thighs, keeping eye contact the entire time resulting in her climax coming sooner.

P = Pace (are they fast & rough? slow & sensual? etc.)

with billie, it depends on her mood. if she's feeling angry or has just had a bad day, she's fucking you into the mattress, the headboard banging against the wall every second as she pounds into you.

if she's had a good day and feels like you've been good for her or just feels happy, she's taking her time with you.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

quickies don't bother her due to her busy schedule, but she does sometimes wish she had more time with you. they're definitely a common thing.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

billie is 100% down to take risks. she would definitely take you in a family bathroom in a store or some random bedroom at a party. she wouldn't go as far to fucking you in a parking lot in her car, though. the paparazzi are everywhere.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

billie will always push herself until she's like dropping to the floor out of exhaustion. she tries to five you and herself as much pleasure as possible during intimate moments, and usually lasts 4-5 rounds. she definitely tries to push you past your limit (with permission, ofc.) to see how many times she can make you cum.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

has a few straps and some dildos. like i mentioned before, she definitely uses them on herself while she's away on tour. she loves using her strap on you, always taking the opportunity to fill your pussy.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease.)

billie can't help but tease you whenever she gets the chance. she loves hearing your whines and begs, not giving you what you want until she finally caves.

V = Volume (how loud are they, what sounds they make, etc.)

she whimpers. billie's not super vocal, but she's surely loud enough to let you know how good she's feeling.

W = Wild card (random headcanon)

got caught by paparazzi with marks on her neck, and let's just say the internet has not gotten over that!

X = X-ray (let's see what's going on under those clothes)

has some muscle on her, could definitely beat someone if she wanted to

(what do i even do for this😖😖)

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

not insanely high, but she's definitely a bit of a freak when she sees you in revealing clothes.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards.)

dom!billie makes sure you're all taken care of before she goes to cuddle up with you, usually falling asleep a few minutes after you.

sub!billie falls asleep a few minutes after she's came, too comfortable in your arms that she just dozes off.

tags: @cindylcuwho @mxqdii @livialifesblog @msp1nkie

[divinit3a]

thing au drabble for @magspieart :o)

word count: 1513 jack-of-all trades YN, corrupted research drone Sun cw: fear, "living" circuitry/wires

PS- check out their lovely artwork&ideas >:D

The nights here are pitch black. 

Like dwelling beneath the surface of the Earth’s crust, hidden away in cave systems. The notion sounds comforting at this point. To be isolated far from mankind without a care in the world.

You blink through fatigue and sleep deprivation. Muscles strung like a bowstring, taut with stress and ready to snap apart. 

Yawning as you mix together an elixir of instant coffee and boiled water into a blackened sludge. The sludge swirls around in your thermos. You stare into it, as if a magical answer would appear from the ether within and answer your countless questions. 

The meager light of your head lamp, fastened to your snowcap, barely ignites parts of the impromptu research station. You don’t bother wasting the power reserves on your late night excursions anymore. 

You find it hard to sleep. Difficult to dispel the images from your mind. Of the injuries you saw on others. Unnatural. Unholy. 

The rest of your crew chalked it up to an unlucky streak. It was best to not let paranoia fester in close quarters like this. With a storm raging overhead, the helicopter couldn’t be called until it subsides. And after the first of your crew was picked off… well, there is only so much stress a human mind can take before–

You startle when you turn the corner.

A towering figure stands there. Your eyes travel up, and up. Blinking rapidly to accommodate the jarring dilation of your pupils, as the overhead lights burn an afterimage into your retinas.

It’s Sun. 

You relax your shoulders. It’s odd to see the research drone out this late. The night time patrols are handled by its security counterpart, Moon.

But it has been more active lately, perhaps on high alert from the emergency status of your team. The blinking of a radio in the helm that is constantly relaying out an “SOS” into an uncaring, unlistening void.

The fate of your injured coworker is still uncertain. They are resting in the infirmary. They said they were attacked by some sort of wild animal; but you cant imagine what sort of fauna around here could do such damage, yet leave them alive...

The drone stares at you for a while. Most of your crew find it unnerving. A corporate, friendly design. A model that was once considered cutting-edge and sleek is now more of a hindrance and a pack mule for the company. Almost lost to time and disrepair, until you started taking them on as a personal project to rejuvenate and remove from the chopping block of becoming obsolete.

The upgrades have landed the model a ‘new’ job: act as a wall of metal set about to do menial tasks. To monitor the station and keep the research on track. Yet you've always been endeared toward its rigid personality.

"Hi Sun," you greet it with a dip to your head.

Expecting that to be the end of the brief encounter, you try to walk past it, but the mechanical creature stands stagnant in your path. Unmoving. The hollowed-out grin seems to stretch wider in your presence. You blink, imagining two pinholes, two dots of light in its mouth, but that would be— "E-evening, researcher," the robotic hum of an automated response churns through its circuitry. You find your concern taking a backseat, enjoying its simple yet effective pleasantry procedures.

“Evening,” you return the greeting. Sun’s posture never relaxes, mechanisms stiff with weathering. Yet its face plate swivels on its neck hinge, keeping a monitor on your every movement to shuffle past the robot.

Before turning the bend of the hallway, you pause.

There's a nagging thought inside your head that just won't leave. Maybe it's the paranoia bred from lack of sleep – of feeling like someone in this station could be a murderer. A screw loose that shatters the whole facade of being somewhere safe, surrounded by well-equipped professionals. 

No, that would mean admitting that even now, your life is in danger. Leaning in to the certainty of a predictable machine, where your faith in mankind has been tested.

All that fear winds up tight until it becomes an uncomfortable knot in your chest. So, you seek to take on a task that is familiar. Reassuring. 

It will keep your mind from wandering – worse yet, spiraling, at least for the rest of the night.

"Actually, Sun—care for an early maintenance check up?" You call out to the drone.

Its face jolts on a rotation to mime a head tilt. The cracking sound it makes reminds you of a neck snapping. "Soundsounds just peachy, friend! Lead the way!" The jovial voicebank continues, a sway to its arms that is cartoonishly friendly. You admire the gusto while the world is otherwise so bleak. 

Sun marches after you. A slight drag to its left leg. The metal is torn into, panels hanging off the hinges. 

You take note of the detail for later. 

The two of you walk to a smaller offset of the lab: the mechanic’s room. You are a jack-of-all-trades, a hire put on to keep an eye on company tech. Such as the assistant drone across from you.

Sun sits down on your work bench. The mechanical being leans forward, the expanse of its back on view. You feel around the planes of curved metal, fingertips knowing where the latch is that opens up the entire panel. 

The panels open with a groan. With strong resistance. A snapping noise like vines torn apart. Far beyond what you’d mark down as a need to have hinges oiled, almost as if an opposing force was trying to hold it together. To keep them whole.

"I'm going to power you down now," You instruct. Sun's eyes flash a burning white glow. Then in a flicker, dim to their regular intensity. "Y-you got it, researcher!" The lines exalt from their circuitry. Complacent. Yet something curls into its wires, a frantic and fleeting moment of panic that suddenly expires in a supernova the moment you are reaching in and turning off their systems.

The switch is easy to access. Though it parts with difficulty.

The sounds of their internal workings still. The fans stop. The coolant ceases pumping. Electricity stuck without an outlet. Frozen.

You fall into the lull of the routine maintenance check. Dutifully testing wires, cleaning out stubborn gunk that clogs up their delicate machinery. You frown at a particularly stubborn batch of gristle. You lean closer to allow your headlamp to illuminate the situation, but find that–

"Ow," you utter. The small shock to your finger feels insignificant. A faulty wire. You hadn’t been able to check over their systems as frequently, not on this research mission. Perhaps it had put a strain on their foundation, caused a few glitches and bugs that you’d normally catch well in advance.

You move to retreat. But you freeze up. Eyes widening at the sight before you.

The wire matrix pulses. A hypnotic array of neurons sparking and activating. An expanse of circuitry interconnecting and linking. The lights flash once, twice. 

Rippling throughout the dense machinery like a wall of flesh—sentient, breathing, cascading. 

You panic. Rush to turn the assistant's system back on. To stop this horrid hallucination and ground yourself back into reality, because this can’t be real–

You find that you don't need to flip the switch.

Sun powers back on without prompting. The twisting innards interlock with the lines of electricity, completing the system. Routing electricity through like a nervous system. 

You jump back as his hull shuts close in a rapid motion.

Fast, like it had tried to snap down swift enough to decapitate you.

Sun rises to stand before you.

Moving so swift, with such fluidity, that the drone is hardly recognizable from the clunky machinery you’ve grown accustom to. 

Like it is alive, breathing, and not–

"D-don't dont do that again," ‘friend.’ Your breath catches in your throat. Its grip on your wrist is so tight that your muscles spasm and you drop the screwdriver held tight in your fists with a clatter.

“I d-don’t like being shut,” ‘off,’  Sun says. The faceplate swivels and dangles on its flimsy hinge. Within its mouth, shadows ripple and seep out. Reaching toward you. Wisps of claws and unearthly matter that caresses across your face. Cold, bitterly cold. 

Your mind stops working. 

‘so dark.’ The shadows murmur, like a chime lost on the breeze. The temperature of the room keeps plummeting until your breath is crystalizing in the air. Every panicked, hushed wheeze. As your lungs shudder, your body pumps out adrenaline, yet you are stuck in place.

"Good," 'good,' it utters. Synthetic voice blending with a whispering shush. Almost natural like breathing, an exhale that speaks alongside its record-like voice.

Alarm flashes through you. 

You need to tell the others. 

You need to check in on your coworker in the infirmary—you need to, to—

pass out — expecting a thud of your head hitting concrete, only to be caught. Enveloped in arms made of metal and unreal, wispy sinew alike.

[fridgefanatic]

Wall-E (the character) is a great demonstration of how being curious about the world echoes our level of care for it. And that caring can quite literally course-correct humanity His playful fascination with what humans left behind, his ability to find "new" on a dormant planet of waste refuse-- he continues to care and be amazed by and change things in a world that has not effectively changed for about 700 years. Wall-E commemorates artifacts of life by treasuring them on their own special shelves in his home. He lovingly makes sure The Plant is secured in a way that won't crush it as he's going home. He accidentally runs over his cockroach and worries about it. He tries to make an inactive Eve comfortable at his expense, not knowing when or if she will ever wake up again.

Wall-E has such an impact on Eve and other passengers on the Axiom because he invites them to care about small interactions they took for granted. They make meaningful connections and changes in their own directive because-- simply by being interested by them and what they're doing-- he offers a new perspective of looking at themselves. (Remember when he gives the elevator robot that little wave and it's so taken with that gesture it starts to copy it? It was seen and acknowledged when its role has always been to punch numbers.)

The spark that Wall-E shared with Eve, I think, is not only symbolic of his love for Eve (though it is clear he loves Eve more than anyone). It was that care. It has to be that same care. Because if his little acts of wonder and determination inspired every other character to break from their programming, who's to say it can't overcome a factory reset?

Oh, and "curiosity" and "care" have the same etymological root, apparently