#so my hypothesis is scientifically sound

[purplesaline]

If you're prone to nightmares try having some dark chocolate before bed! Any chocolate (except white chocolate) may help in a pinch but the darker the better cause we're looking for the chemical Theobromine here.

Theobromine helps block the production of norepinephrine, which is a neurochemical that triggers the fight/flight response and may be responsible for some of your nightmares.

People with PTSD who have a lot of nightmares are often prescribed Prazosin, a high blood pressure medication that also helps block production of norepinephrine (and likely far more effective than eating some chocolate before bed so if your nightmares/night terrors are bad enough and regular enough to disrupt your life tall to your doctor about this option).

Green tea is also another good option, while it has slightly less theobromine it also contains L-Theanine which an amino acid that helps you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Though the addition of caffeine may offset that despite the l-theanine countering some of the negative effects. There are some low caffeine green tea options which may work better for you.

Even if you don't pre-empt the nightmares, keeping some dark chocolate (or any chocolate as above) on your bedside table may help prevent you from slipping back into a nightmare if you wake up from one in the middle of the night, or at least help your brain steer away from it sooner if you do still slip back into it.

The amount of theobromine in chocolate or tea is pretty minimal compared to the active ingredient in Prazosin so it may or may not be very effective depending on how much norepinephrine your body is producing.

A theobromine supplement may provide better results but check with your doctor first if you want to go the supplement route. Theobromine can cause increased heart rate, low blood pressure and may interact with some prescription medications.

Important note!!

It's always a good idea to check with your doctor before starting any supplements, especially if you take regular medications.

[max1461]

Would you say that the distinction between high-context and low-context languages is real? I was skeptical at first, but japanese seems to leave a lot more information implicit in a typical utterance than english.

No such distinction is used (or at least commonplace enough that I have heard of it) in linguistics. If one were to introduce such a distinction, they would have to put forth some way to measure or operationalize "low/high-contextuality"; in the absence of that there's very little I can say about it scientifically.

What I can say is that laymen's subjective impressions about "what different languages are like" are very often more grounded in bias than in fact. There was a good post that went around here a few months ago to the effect of

People everywhere: "[Language I learned in childhood] is so subtle and emotive, whereas [language I learned in adulthood] is so cold and logical".

Often, these subjective impressions then get filtered through the cultural-theorizing-industry and elaborated more and more, becoming more entrenched as "established wisdom" about X or Y language among non-linguists, and in the process getting farther and farther from any real or verifiable truth.

Well anyway, I think the claim that "Japanese is more contextual than English" is probably one of those. Until someone comes up with a real metric for "contexuality", at least, I will probably continue to judge that to be the most reasonable hypothesis. Here are two ways such an impression could have come about:

For English speakers who learn Japanese as adults, things which are left to context in English but not in Japanese will not appear to be "absent" and they won't notice any gaps, whereas things that are left to context in Japanese but not English will strike them as "absent" and they will be more aware of them.

English speakers who speak some Japanese but are not proficient will not in fact be fully familiar with the rules governing the interpretation of utterances, and so things which are actually grammatically determined may appear to rely on nebulous "context".

Here is a salient difference between English and Japanese: in Japanese, any noun phrase may be dropped "when its meaning can be contextually determined". For example, you might say

(1) kinou inu ga nikki tabe-chat-ta! yesterday dog SUBJ diary eat-COMP-PST "yesterday my dog ate my diary!"

(2) wanpaku da yo naa naughty COP ASS TAG "he's sure naughty"

In (1), we see that where English has possessive pronouns ("my"), Japanese doesn't use them. In (2), the noun phrase referring to the dog is dropped entirely. In fact, in both of these sentences, not dropping these things would be considered unnatural and stilted. Overuse of pronouns and NPs is a common marker of non-fluent Japanese as spoken by Westerners. Saying

(3) kinou watashi no inu ga / yesterday me GEN dog SUBJ / watashi no nikki tabe-chat-ta! me GEN diary eat-COMP-PST "yesterday my dog ate my diary!"

instead of (1) would technically not be ungrammatical, but would be markedly foreign sounding and corrected immediately in any intro Japanese class.

However, this already tells you something: the fact that (3) is unambiguously unfelicitous tells you that there are some underlying rules here, it isn't just "drop when you feel it". These rules are called information structure rules, and every language has them. In fact, Japanese explicitly marks information structure in a number of ways that English does not.

Some of the basic rules in Japanese of relevance here (this is a fairly crude analysis and does not account for various things, but it's probably good enough for our purposes) are:

Every discourse has a topic

If no topic is specified, the speaker is by default assumed to be the topic

A non-topic subject may be introduced into the discourse with ga

A noun already in the discourse may be made into the topic with wa

A salient subject already introduced, but not explicitly topicalized with wa, may be implicitly topicalized

Empty NP positions and unmarked possessors should be taken to refer to the topic

Items that are (semantically speaking) likely to be possessed should be interpreted as possessed before they are interpreted as indefinites

These rules are not inviolable, and in particular (5) requires some contextual definition of "salience" and (6) is certainly not this simple in reality (there are often multiple empty NP positions and the full ruleset for interpreting them seems complex; for instance subject positions are favored for topics over object positions and so on), so there is still some amount of combinatorics with referents and syntactic positions that presumably is going on somewhere in speakers' brains or whatever. But the point is that these rules narrow down pretty starkly what interpretations are "reasonable", and the actual role of context in disambiguating between reasonable interpretations is not so vast.

Anyway, using the above rules, it is not so hard to go through (1) and (2) again, and see that only a single reasonable interpretation actually presents itself.

As mentioned, Japanese very often makes information structure explicit using the particles wa, ga, and wo (not mentioned above, but the object equivalent of ga), which is somewhat uncommon among the languages of the world. English, on the other hand, does not do this. English speakers do not drop noun phrases, but they still replace noun phrases with pronouns very readily, and disambiguating pronoun referents uses pragmatic and information structure rules of exactly the same type! Consider, for instance

(4) My boyfriend went on a "boys trip" with Will and Tod last weekend... I told him not to let them pressure him into skinny dipping again. What was up with that anyway?

Think about what you're doing when you assign referents to these pronouns. It's automatic so you don't notice it, but is it unambiguous? Not at all! You know, for instance, that "him" refers to the boyfriend and "them" to Will and Tod, and you know in the second sentence that "that" refers to peer pressure skinny dipping. Some of this (in particular the referent of "that") I think has to be chalked up to pure context; it's the semantics from which we derive the correct assignment. But some of it is mediated by syntactic or information structure rules as well; for instance consider

(5) Jacob went on a "boys trip" with Will and Tod last weekend... I told him not to let them pressure him into skinny dipping again.

We are still able to produce the correct pronoun assignments in this sentence, even though the semantic context which informs us about which one of these people the speaker is most likely the closest to has been removed. This is, again, a product of information structure rules: Jacob is the topic here, and so (by whatever rules operate in English; not identical but not dissimilar to those in Japanese) we infer that "him" refers to Jacob.

Anyway, the point is that all languages make reference to context very freely in matters of interpretation (which is a big part of why language models had to develop implicit world knowledge before they could speak convincingly), and also languages make reference to context in a structured way which can often be described fairly precisely, and which leaves less open to chance and misinterpretation than might initially be assumed. The gulf between English and Japanese is not so large here. It might be the cases that the [pronouns + unmarked topicalization]-English system is more explicit than the [empty NP positions + marked topicalization]-Japanese system, but I don't know. And of course it might be the case that in some other domain of grammar Japanese is more explicit than English. So one must be careful with any broad assertions.

[bsxcrxts]

I hate to sound like a broken record but I would love to hear a Drabble about tech w the pollen, like if you were both crushing really hard on each other and you wanted to spend time with him while he works on his studies and oops what's this jar of mysterious flower blossoms doing here in this little jar (be it tech or reader makes that mistake) and things happen

I am deeply sorry this comes like three months late 😭 but as my beloved TBB mutual and fellow sex pollen freak (affectionate) I owe this one to you and hope you enjoy <3

The Experiment - Tech x F!Reader

Content: 18+ MINORS DNI. basically the prompt! afab reader with gendered language (ie good girl), sex pollen (obvi lol), getting together, Tech being sweet in his own way, unprotected PiV, coming inside, praise kink (both ways tbh), workroom table sex (ooh fun) A/N: So much made up science in this fic. And a complete lack of safety protocols. For the plot. lol. Word Count: 2.9k :)

You poke your head into the room where Tech is deeply engrossed in whatever he's typing away on his datapad. He doesn't look up as you move across the space, but he greets you with a little nod of his head as you lean on the tabletop across from him a bit. You wouldn't interrupt him while he was this focused if you were any more of a stranger to him; in fact, you feel a little bit odd doing it even now, but you and Tech spend a lot of time together. He seems to generally welcome you hanging around his workstation, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say he was sometimes even a bit giddy to see you, happy to have someone around to listen to his long-winded scientific explanations.

"Am I bothering you?" you ask, watching him set his datapad down to start to tinker with a type of device you've never seen before. It seems likely that it's something chemistry related; another device attached to it appears to be malfunctioning.

"It's not possible for you to bother me by merely observing as I work," Tech says. "You are not disturbing me. I actually prefer your presence over others."

You feel a bit of heat rise to your cheeks but stay quiet, other than uttering a small thank you. Your feelings for Tech have only started to grow after you've begun keeping him company as he works, but you've always had a bit of a crush on him. It's hard to focus, sometimes, when he compliments you like that, though you tend to assure yourself it's often platonic or even accidental. Tech often blatantly states what's on his mind, so if he really liked you... wouldn't he have told you by now?

You watch his hands as he works, allowing yourself to be distracted. After a few moments, your curiosity about whatever he's studying gets the best of you.

"So what's that?" you ask, gesturing to a small jar sitting nearest you, across the table from Tech. There are flowers in the jar, incredibly red, and an abundance of blooms settled on the bottom of the jar. "Something you picked up while you've been out on missions?"

Tech looks up from his work finally, eyes settling on you. "Yes, that is a native plant species on an outer rim planet we briefly visited. It was implied to me there by the locals that the flowers could be used as a type of weapon, but I cannot identify the reasoning behind that assumption."

"The flowers aren't poisonous or toxic or... something?"

"The local fauna are not avoidant towards the blooms, nor can I find any documentation of such qualities. In fact, I can hardly find documentation on this species at all. So, I am aiming do my own experiment on the flowers myself, but first I had to calibrate some of this equipment."

You nod. "And you're... sure this is safe for you?" You venture. You know him well enough to understand that both he and the rest of his squad are well-known risk takers.

"The blooms should be, at a minimum, safe to handle. Myself as well as the locals touched them when I first acquired them with no ill effects. My hypothesis is that the bloom must be heavily concentrated or ingested to be considered dangerous," he answers, tone even and betraying no concern.

"Alright," you say, shrugging, trusting him. Tech is incredibly smart, he is very rarely wrong, and you're no toxicologist either; you know even less than he does about this mystery plant.

Tech looks up at you again, the final piece on the equipment clicking into place in his hands. "Would you like to assist me on some of the easier steps of this experiment?"

"Just the 'easier' steps, huh?" you laugh. You push back a little at the perceived dig at your own intelligence.

"I assume there is still a level of risk once the plant is processed, and before I identify any toxicity levels that may possibly arise, which you may find unacceptable to be involved in. And one which the thought of exposing you to unnecessarily, does not sit well with me." Tech corrects you in a straightforward but not unkind manner, then states plainly, "However, I didn't want to exclude you entirely."

The heat comes rushing back to your face. In his voice, in his cadence, knowing him how you do, it sounds like a compliment again. Tech looks up at you from where he sits so genuinely, waiting for your answer, seemingly oblivious to your flustered state.

"Yeah," you nod. "Yeah, you're probably right. I'll help you."

"In that case, please hand me a few of the blossoms," he asks. You reach for the jar, unscrewing the lid, almost reverently retrieving a few flowers. Nothing happens as you handle them, and subconsciously, you relax.

The blooms are pretty, really. Vibrant and delicate. You look at them in your palm, almost transfixed as you reach your hand out to Tech. Your hand brushes against his, only barely, as the blooms leave your grasp, but that's when it happens.

It's almost comical, how fast you yank your hand away, a small cloud of pollen suddenly erupting from the center of the flower in Tech's hand, a little poof of yellow dust settling in the air. He rushes to the door, sealing any contamination to this room.

"What was that?" you ask, nervously.

"I am... unsure," Tech admits. "I have never seen it happen. The blossoms appear to have a volatile method of dispersing their pollen."

"Is it dangerous?"

Tech is uncharacteristically quiet, typing rapidly on his datapad.

"Tech," you demand a bit, feeling wary, a warmth spreading through your body. It isn't necessarily unpleasant, not yet, but your uneasiness has set you on edge.

"The locals claimed it could 'make anyone do anything'..." he trails off. "It is possible," he hesitates, "that I have misinterpreted this flower's use as a weapon, and instead, it is a libidinous agent."

"What does that mean," you ask, feeling a bit helpless.

"It could be an aphrodisiac," he explains neutrally, but his brow is furrowed. "Either way, we will find out shortly."

You bite your lip. The relief you feel of the blossoms not likely being poisonous is quickly replaced by a bit of a panic at being doused by a sex pollen and essentially quarantined with the man you've been crushing on for months. The feeling of warmth from earlier has morphed into a burn, a need, sitting low in the pit of your stomach.

Tech is still typing away on his datapad, but he has turned his body away from you. His posture, usually terrible, is worse than ever, as he is practically hunched over the screen, rapidly typing something.

"So, uh," you say, feeling a discomfort between your thighs form, "what do we do?" you ask, fidgeting with the hem of your shirt, sitting on the edge of the table to prevent your knees from giving out. You cross and uncross your legs mindlessly, trying to appear normal, as if unaffected by the pollen.

It isn't easy. You've been attracted to Tech for a long time. Resisting the pull to him is hard even when you're not drugged.

"There is no known cure for the effects we are experiencing, as there is no record of the effects themselves, so we have little choice but to let the pollen take its course. I am documenting my symptoms. I suggest we also document yours."

"Tech, I don't think–" you start, then sigh. "Okay, um, I have a headache, and tenseness in my muscles, and a burning sensation everywhere, I mean, it feels really, really hot in here, and... I honestly don't think I should talk about the rest." You fidget again, squirming against the table. The arousal building in your body is nearly unbearable, but you resist rocking your hips against the table in the way you want to.

Tech turns to look at you, his brown eyes narrowing behind the amber of his goggles. His eyes actually trail down your body to where your legs meet your hips, and you have to physically turn away from him before you say something rash.

You know it's impossible to hide the other symptoms from him, because you've both inhaled the pollen. He knows exactly how you're feeling. You know exactly how he is feeling. You know if you looked at him, you'd see a bulge in his black under-armor, and your patience would snap.

Tech continues to stare at you. To almost study you, as you shift in discomfort and need. You can feel it; his watchful gaze on you, in any other situation welcomed, though flustering, now is nearly unbearable. As if you are now the experiment. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see he is equally restless, though his typing on his datapad must be distracting him to some degree. That too, is falling apart, if the way he has sat down and begun bouncing his leg rapidly is any indication.

Do not look at him, your mind screams at you.

Look. LOOK, touch, tell him, tell him everything, your body begs.

You manage to focus on the wall to your left for nearly five minutes straight, which is hardly an impressive number under any other circumstances.

"How long is this feeling going to last?" you choke out.

"It is unlikely I could predict that number with any certainty. It may be that the symptoms never go away, or may drive us to madness without... manual stimulation. That may be the most effective antidote, as it were."

The look on your face must not be embarrassed enough, because he keeps talking.

"These are less than ideal circumstances," Tech starts, "to confess to you the feelings I have for you."

What?

"I have weighed the pros and cons of telling you sooner. I'm somewhat upset with myself that I haven't, as this might not be so awkward now if I had. I've noticed your increased breathing rate around me, as well as your tendency to seem eager to watch my work even when it cannot possibly entertain you. I've repeatedly attempted to compliment you, to subtly show my emotions, though I'm fairly certain it has not landed well. Regardless, I have come to hope that you do return my affection."

You're pretty sure your eyes are as wide as dinner plates as you turn to look at him.

"Unless I am wrong?" Tech offers. He has a vulnerable look on his face; he'd never mess with you like this anyway, you know that, but when you look at him, he appears so genuine and desperate that the dam threatens to break.

"You're not wrong," you say.

"I rarely am."

You can't contain yourself anymore, really. You're across the room and in his lap before you can think; there's not much left of your brain that isn't clouded by either the pollen or Tech's confession to you. And then his mouth is on yours, kissing you and claiming you, heated and direct, and so very different compared to that soft confession he just gave you mere seconds ago.

You grind in his lap, the feeling of his bulge against your already wet and needy cunt almost instantly soothing the burning sensation coursing through your veins. As soon as the feeling fades it returns though, with a vengeance that makes you shudder and moan against him, folding in on yourself. It's not enough, not yet. Under different circumstances, you'd gawk at the bulge in his under-armor, kiss down his body, slow down and really appreciate this.

But you can't. You burn.

"I need you," you whine, and you almost hate how desperate you sound, if not for the fact that it makes Tech's hips buck against your own and his eyes widen.

"Say it again," he requests, but he's already complying, standing to lay you onto the table, tilting you back and pulling your hips to the edge. The pollen is having a great effect on him, too, and he seems unusually impatient; you wonder if things were different if he may have made you wait or beg for his attention.

"I fucking need you," you grit out, still trying to rut against him even positioned like this, back arching whenever his clothed cock manages to bump up against your clit. The layers of your pants and underwear are suddenly the most offensive thing you've ever felt, and you rush to undress, kicking off your lower layers until they're barely on, hanging around one leg. Tech has pulled his cock from his pants, sliding into your waiting cunt with one thrust. It shouldn't be achievable, not with his size, but the pollen has made you so wet and open that you take him effortlessly.

"You f-feel, ah, e-exquisite," Tech sighs. "Take me so well."

You've never heard him stutter before. You can't blame him; everywhere your skin meets his is a feeling of thrill, an almost soothing warmth instead of the awful burning sensation from before.

"Is t-this working for you, love?" Tech continues. "Is this what you needed?"

"Fuck yes," you whine at the new pet name, unsure of how Tech is even thinking clearly enough to be asking you such things as his hips slam into you. Meanwhile you say the first thing that comes to your mind, "Needed you, needed your cock inside me. Always want you s' bad."

Tech almost loses it then, but shudders and slams his hips into you again instead, caught up on the 'always' portion of your statement.

"Good, you're so good," he praises you softly, in direct contrast to the heady and animalistic way he's rutting his cock into you, his hands pinning your thighs open.

You gasp, never thinking you'd see Tech like this. He's typically methodical, precise, but the way he's fucking you right now is anything but. Through the pollen, you don't have the presence of mind to analyze what you thought your first time with Tech would be like; all that matters is how amazing he's making you feel now, the sound of his cock in your wet cunt as his thrusts grow sloppy practically makes your eyes roll back and you whine.

"M'close already," you rush out, the feeling of the effects of the flowers intensifying tenfold. "You feel so, oh–"

The table is digging into your back, the pollen is rushing through both of your veins, you feel crazed, but you've also never felt this good.

"I-I am not going to last either," Tech states, clearly also a mess. His goggles have slipped down his nose and been pushed back haphazardly, and are now slightly askew; his face is flushed, his eyes dilated so wide they're nearly black. He slips a hand to your clit, and, impressed with his clear thinking of your pleasure in spite of the pollen, and the rush of sensation that shoots through you at his touch, it's all you need.

Mere moments later, you clench around him, and the strength of your orgasm is something you've never, ever felt before, by your hand or anyone else's. You moan his name, bearing down hard around his cock, and he nearly doubles over.

"Good girl, good, good girl," he praises you, "Did s-so well for me," he continues, leaning down and murmuring into your ear as you finish, and it sends aftershocks wracking through your body. He's helpless but to follow behind you soon. Now that you've cum, he seems to have surrendered entirely to the brain fog created by the pollen, thrusting into you like nothing else matters, chasing his high.

"W-where?" he stutters again, ever as considerate, though he knows it would take every ounce of his willpower to fight the flower's effects and pull out from your cunt now.

Luckily for him, you don't want him to.

"Inside," you breathe, "Need it inside of me," and it's not an exaggeration, as you can still feel the effects of the pollen trying to return even after you've finished; you're pretty sure you literally need him to cum inside you to be free of the symptoms.

His orgasm is just as strong as yours had been, and he nearly collapses on top of you, shoving his cock into your cunt as you feel him twitch and spill inside of you. Tech's eyes never leave yours; his brow furrows and his mouth falls slightly agape as he maintains eye contact with you while he cums. His beautiful gaze once again feels welcome on your frame. It sends you into another weak orgasm, finishing around him, milking his cock, until he can take it no longer and pulls away from you, collapsing into the chair, leaving you lying on the table. The two of you are silent suddenly, but for both of you panting with exertion.

A few moments pass before you sit up, perched on the edge of the table, and find yourself feeling very vulnerable. You eye Tech, slouched in the chair just a few inches from you, and wordlessly, you slide back down into his lap, where he wraps a tentative arm around your waist.

Another few moments pass before he clears his throat.

"Please forgive me for my miscalculation," he says into your shoulder, pressing a light kiss there.

"What do you mean?"

"I should not have exposed you to danger by underestimating the flower blooms. Something worse may have happened."

"But I really like what did happen."

"As did I," Tech says. "I take it this is not the only time you would entertain such... attention from me?"

"Far from it," you laugh lightheartedly, pulling back from where you've tucked your head over his shoulder to look at him. "But we can skip the flowers next time, since we know how the pollen affects people now." you joke.

"You are not open to more experimentation?" Tech asks.

"Tech," you gasp, mock-offended.

"Kidding, love."

"Well," you hum back, "maybe some pre-negotiated experimentation isn't out of the question."

Tech's eyebrows raise and a little smile tugs on the corners of his mouth. The two of you are going to have so much fun together.

[flowery-laser-blasts]

It's the year 2023 and so much has changed...

Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable-Possible, now in their mid-thirties, work alongside Global Justice with their own specialized team (including Wade, Felix, and Jim & Tim). As for Dr. Drakken and Shego... After helping prevent the invasion of the Warlordians, Dr. Drakken and Shego were pardoned from almost all of their prior crimes against the safety of the world and eventually became, in their own words, 'neutral'. At times, they even aid Team Possible with intel, after all; who knows more about how villains do than ex-villains?

Dr. Drakken started working on his own world-improving inventions because he realized that 'positive' recognition from the world feels better than being despised by everyone, and this way he can rub it even more into James Possible's face... Shego became an elite mercenary/hitwoman after tutoring the best of the best agents of Global Justice for 5 years -it was part of her 'community service'- She now works separately from everyone, but always comes back home before Drakken finishes making dinner.

One day, Dr. Drakken thought of a hypothesis: if television programs are just a glimpse into an alternative reality and aliens exist with their ultra-advanced technology, then who says that alternative timelines aren't real? "Maybe we could learn from that to improve ours!"

He worked tirelessly on trying to find out if alternative universes or timelines exist, maybe ones where he and Shego were always good and Possible and Stoppable were the baddies, imagine!

But then he found something...

Dr. Drakken found out that there was a timeline that lined up exactly with the one they were in, except something was drastically different. It was stuck in some kind of purgatory; stuck in place but also as if looping over and over again. Separate from everything surrounding it but at the same time trying to free itself from its slumbering state.

Drakken looked into it, fascinated that this timeline could co-exist with theirs but at the same time not. What changed? Then it hit him.

"Tempus Simia... that Monkey plan-- It actually happened!?" Dr. Drakken sometimes ruminated on the weird feelings he had on the day the trio, and Shego, decided to abruptly give up on that time-traveling plan. None of them ever said or mentioned anything about it to one another, especially Monkey Fist... he became different. Drakken wished he could ask him about what happened that day, but alas the man became a supernaturally petrified lawn ornament.

"Did Monkey Fist know something about that statue that we didn't? Did the plan work? Is that what that timeline is?" Drakken became ansty, he needed to know what happened. Not that he was going to return to being evil, no-no, this was purely scientific, and well- curiosity took the upper hand. Perhaps he was a fair ruler in this 'time capsule'.

After months and months of calculations and testing, he managed to do it; Drakken succeeded in making a portal device that could connect and stabilize the broken timeline to ours. Shego wasn't entirely sure about this plan but decided to stick around to ensure the man wouldn't end up killing himself and everyone on the planet in some freak accident.

After flipping the switches and turning on the safety protocols, the machine started producing a whirling sound. No sooner did a small portal form, giving them a glimpse of the dystopian world of the Supreme One. "Wow, that-- is that me?" Shego pointed at a fallen statue. "Sheesh, who would've thought the sidekick could ever take over the world, right Drew?" Shego teasingly jabbed his arm, making Drakken roll his eyes in response. "Shego, dumpling, darling love of my life, I've apologized thousands of times already, can you finally let it go?!" He received a snicker in response, "I guess not, nevertheless, let me concentra--!" A loud bang snapped the two out of their banter, "Dr. D? What was that?!" Shego instinctively lit her hands as the room turned dark for a moment, the whirling sounds of the portal device intensified, and no sooner bright red warning signs started flashing while a deafening alarm went off around them. Shego looked at Drakken, who was frantically trying to close the portal. "Something's trying to push its way into here! I-- I haven't been able to properly secure that part yet-- Shego!" Drakken's face paled as he looked back in the direction of the portal.

"The Supreme One, actually." An icy chill went through Shego's spine as she heard her own voice coming from directly behind her. "I already thought, what took you so long Doc? It's not fun being stuck in time; ain' I right, Dr. D?" Both Shego and Drakken watched in disbelieve at the arrival of the Supreme One's sidekick, who within seconds hurled himself at the machinery, destroying most of it and breaking off the connection to the fractured timeline.

Drakken tried to jump in and save what was left by making his flowers restrain the brute, but the man ripped the foliage away from him as if it were nothing. The sidekick threw Drakken aside and blocked Shego from trying to get to him, holding her in a lock.

The supreme one stepped closer and looked at her restrained self.

"Now that botany-boy is taken care of... tell us, Shego: Where is Kimmie?"

---

I hope you guys like my little sequel idea for 'A Sitch in Time'. I absolutely love this TV movie!! I'm not much of a writer but it was so much fun imagining this story while drawing!! As for the future designs of everyone: - Kim's outfit is based on Stephen Silver's older Kim design. - Ron now has a utility belt that actually works and gloves that can help him control his Mystical Monkey Powers. - Shego's outfit stayed relatively the same with some adjustments, why change what works right? - Dr. Drakken (now Professor Lipsky) traded his blue lab coat for a white one... dress codes apply at his shared workplace, but he still wears a blue dress shirt underneath it. Aside from that his eyes aren't as good as they used to be and his contact lenses were out of the question since they tampered with the eye-scanning-security-device (he ended up being left outside of the lab for 3 hours because of it), so now he just wears glasses.

I also wanted to include Rufus in the story; Now a senior rodent, Rufus spends his retirement days around the lab assisting Drakken with various experiments and small talk while Kim and Ron are on missions. Hope you enjoyed both the drawing and the mini fanfic!!

[sarielsnowings]

please tell me about your ocs

Fkdjdjsls THANK YOU, ANON.

Well it might be too much information to fit in a 2am post so I'll pick one for now:

Dr. Nathaniel C. Thorne (a.k.a. The Botanist):

It all started with this idea I had while walking though the IKEA plant isle:

Charming fellow and mad scientist obsessed with implementing plant characteristics into the human body.

His main field is botany but he's also a doctor in medicine and chemistry. Victorian era gifted child with free time and money to invest in an education.

Most of his interest focuses on carnivorous and poisonous plants, but he also has a soft spot for all kind of flowers, particularly roses, narcissus and pansies.

He's a passionate scientist with a brilliant mind and no regards for moral judgment, easygoing, sarcastic yet charming and driven by curiosity and a mentality of “fuck around and find out” when it comes to questionable experiments (i.e. he might break the laws of nature just to find out if he can). And well, hear me out, what if trying to grow chlorophyll in our bodies as a new source of energy? And if that works, why not grow something else? This might not actually be the most scientifically sound hypothesis, but as a friend pointed out "it’s nothing a little radical experimentation won’t fix". I guess he just didn't expect one of the side effects to be "the plants can talk to you in return".

His experiments with his flowers and the co-dependent relationship he subsequently develops with them lead him to his downfall and inevitable descent into madness, practically condemning him to a reclusive confinement in his laboratory (greenhouse), only to have his mind twisted by the demands and desires of the now dangerously aware plants growing on him.

He's also been featured a couple times on my NSFW twitter account but... We'll see if those get posted here. 👁️

Till then... Hope this satisfied some curiosity! 🌹

[whoistartaglia]

hello!! I'm sorry if this is awkward, this is my first time doing this so I'm not sure really how to ask!😭 could you do albedo, tighnari, and ayato with an s/o who has like a medical condition that they kinda like faint easily? I'm sorry if that sounds weird I have pots😭 I apologize if I wrote anything wrong, please lmk!<3

fainter, fainter. 

this request has been sitting in my inbox forever, thanks for sending it in! i based some of this on my own experiences fainting, and i hope i didn’t get anything too wrong about it from an actual medical standpoint.

includes: albedo, tighnari, ayato.

warnings: fainting, gender neutral reader.

albedo. 

you were used to the dizziness; the way your vision filled with black spots until it was completely gone. it was an entirely unpleasant feeling, but one you had unwillingly grown accustomed to. 

what you weren’t accustomed to was the concerned face looking down at you when you came to. your eyes widened with surprise, until you realized it was just your boyfriend. 

“albedo?” you asked.

“yeah, it’s me,” albedo responded. 

you nodded and slowly sat up.

“are you— okay?” albedo asked once a couple seconds had ticked by. 

you again nodded. “it’s… yeah. i’m okay.” 

from the look on his face, it was evident your boyfriend didn’t believe you, but didn’t press the issue. “do you know why it happens?”

“not really,” you replied. “but i’m okay, really.”

several more beats of silence passed, in which albedo’s brow grew increasingly more creased. no doubt he was analyzing what just happened— and now maybe to help you in the future. you were afraid he might go all scientific on you, explaining his hypothesis of why this happened and all that, but he only wordlessly stood up and stuck out his hand to help you up. 

“the next time, i’ll catch you,” he said. a promise, an oath, a vow: from him, to you. 

tighnari. 

when you fainted in the avidya forest without a traveling companion in sight, you thanked all your gods that it was tighnari who found you. 

at least, you did after that fact. when you first awoke to an unfamiliar man in an unfamiliar location, you almost… well. tighnari still teased you about how you threatened to burn him and his abode to the ground. but how were you supposed to know this “tighnari” as he introduced himself wasn’t some malevolent creature? (when you asked him that, he only responded, “because i saved you,” which still didn’t put your nerves at ease).

but after a time, you grew closer. especially after you fainted (again) and he brought you back to his place (again). it was an uneasy alliance at first, with him promising to help prevent your fainting spells and you promising to help him as he watched over the forest. 

and while tighnari still hasn’t found the cure to your fainting spells, he did help you recover from them quicker. his knowledge of flora and fauna certainly helped in that regard. you couldn’t lie and say you didn’t like your new life here. and if you maybe fainted because of how good tighnari looked… 

well, no one could really blame you.

ayato. 

most people met ayato, the current head of the kamisato clan, with a formal introduction. you met ayato by, quite literally, falling for him. in his arms, to be exact. 

it was shortly after that when you actually started dating ayato. it was certainly strange at first, especially because you fainted again on your second date, but you were both used it now. or, at least, as used to it as you could be. you were still searching for a potential solution to your fainting spells, and ayato was more than willing to help you. 

whenever you did find yourself growing colder, that ringing in your ears growing louder, ayato could be right next to you, preparing to catch you again. and although he was never bothered by the whole ordeal, you couldn’t help but feel bad. 

“don’t you get tired of it?” you asked one evening. it’d been some time since you last fainted. 

“tired of what, dear?”

“of… me,” you responded. at his confused look, you clarified, “i mean, me fainting.”

“no.” he responded automatically. “i don’t mind.”

“promise?” you asked, unconvinced. 

ayato gave you a look, as if to say really? he wantd you to get better, of course he did. ayato would do anything to help you. anything. so an almost boyish smile broke out on his face.

“yes. i promise.” 

[roseapprentice]

Look At It, It's Got Depression

Content Warnings: depression, ed, suicidal reasoning, ideas that could prod you toward fascism or the murder-y kind of socialism if you aren't thinking critically

I feel steadily more sure that depression evolved as a strategy to cope with times of famine & plague.

Source: I have depression and I've thought about this too much

Hear me out: What caused most premature deaths for most of history? Infectious disease. When did infections kill the most people? While we were starvation-weak.

We think of evolution as a process that refines survival skills, and that's mostly right. But the drive of natural selection is more precisely, "Make sure something with similar genes exists in the future." And our standard for similarity can get wonky.

Humans' top priority is usually offspring, and next up is a messy mashup of ourselves and whichever other humans we know and like best.

So imagine we're a group of early humans, trying to keep our loved ones alive in hungry plague times. What strategies will help? Eat rarely to keep food available. Scarf down calorie-dense food before it spoils, especially if there's a lot or there's no one around to share with. Be lethargic & pessimistic about adventures to conserve calories.

If we feel extra bad, shun the people we love for their protection. Distrust the outgroup because they're here to either spread disease or take our food. Reconcile ourselves to thoughts of death in case wandering off to die with our contagion/empty stomach becomes the best shot at survival for our friends.

What cues could our bodies rely on to trigger this response? Lack of plant life in our surroundings. Worrying mainly about how to manage limited resources. Lack of exercise because there's no food to hunt & gather. Shortage of contact with other humans because the ones that rely on us most are already dead or deathly ill.

If you're a human living in the 21st century, these cues are probably sounding awfully familiar.

Of course the strategies are useless now. Advances like motor equipment & modern fertilizer turned starvation into a purely political phenomenon; quietly fading away doesn't help your people survive politicial oppression. Cross-cultural cooperation gets more feasible and necessary with just about every new technology. Physical isolation can still block disease sometimes, but a lack of social support does the opposite. It's now possible to isolate with tools & careful timing instead of instinctive exile; and anyway medicine & sanitation have made that need a lot rarer.

If I'm right about the cause, modern human life contains a wild excess of depression triggers and a stark lack of uses for depression. It's an outmoded strategy with a stuck "on" button.

I've never seen scientific literature bring up this hypothesis (though it has to be out there somewhere). But here's why I want to tell people about my weird pet theory despite my having no research behind it:

In the worst part of my depression, I came across a post that helped me hugely. It said, "Depression is when your body wants to die but your heart wants to live."

I didn't feel at all like my heart wanted to live, but the words hit so hard that I started to wonder if it was true somewhere deep down under all the numb misery.

Any moments when I did want to live just fed directly into my desire to die; the wanting hurt so much that making it stop felt like the ultimate priority. The force of my survival instinct was twisting back on itself as if my brain was caught in some weird paper finger trap of death.

This illness was vast and insidious and frustrating and pointless.

But if depression is an adaptive trait, then my experience makes sense. My body is intermittently trying to incapacitate, starve, or kill me in order to protect the people I love. (In some cases that includes incapacitating/starving me short-term to provide for my long-term survival.)

That's a depression I can accept and outmaneuver.

I can say, "Yes, I want to protect us/them too! These people are my heart, and I want my heart to live. Thank you for also wanting that. But your methods stink."

Then I can use all possible cunning to remind my body that my presence is a blessing to my loved ones, that adventures can yeild satisfying rewards, and that there is more than enough food around for all of us to thrive if only some jerks weren't holding it hostage.

When I've laid out this idea in the past to other people with depression, they tend to eventually find it intuitive and empowering in a similar way. (Or else they start humoring me 😛)

So here's me offering it up to the internet in general to see what y'all make of it.

Final note: for the gazillionth time I'm linking to the interactive self-care website, You Feel Like Shit. I find it's an effective tool for precisely resisting this intricate self-sabatage contingency that's been stupidly built into my stupidly overcomplicated brain by stupid evolution.

(At least I think that's what happened)

[jinlizz-dragondrama]

Sunshine Happy Times

Chapter 12

Shredder has been revived, and we're doomed. After Draxum is expelled from the dark armor, it is revealed to us by my dads that they only used him because of his strong mystic power. Geez harsh... serves him right, though. I try to sit up from my lying position on a wooden bench, but my body screams at me to stay still. I want to get my hands on the Yokai that almost broke my body and spirit. But the cowardly snake slithered his way through a portal that Cass opened.

"YOU RESSURECTED SHREDDER WITHOUT ME!" Cass shouts, annoyed that she was left out again.

"I wanna say I'm prepared, but my chattering teeth won't let me," Donnie says while shaking like a leaf.

Cass, Papa Brutus, and Papa Lui chant "Shred" over and over. But this did not please the Shredder, and it began chasing them. In a blind rage, it threw them onto the ground like a drumstick on drums.

The gang goes in for the attack but is swatted away like flies. Wanting to help protect my family, I attempted again to get up, but the pain was too much, and I passed out. When I open my eyes, I see Shredder make his way toward Splinter, Leo, and April I take off running to them but by the time I reach them purple lightning surrounds it as it almost makes contact with Leo and disappears.

Wiping the sweat off my brow, I finally realize why I'm not in pain anymore. My body is highlighted by a bright white light...

"Am I dead?" I say slightly freaking out and hyperventilating.

Looking over at my body, I rush over and see that my body is still breathing. Donnie and the gang make their way over to me. While Donnie picks me up, princess-style, they discuss what just happened, and I just follow.

"This is so weird being outside of my body like this. Maybe there is a scientific explanation for this.....I'll ask Donnie about his hypothesis when I get back...if I get back into my body." As I'm talking to myself, I walk through Leo, which causes him to shiver and look around for the cause of it.

From the corner of my eye, I see something move through the darkness. I quickly rush over to it, but all I see is a figure wearing a dark cloak and hood making its way to the exit, a smaller cloaked figure follows after. Moving myself forward to follow, I ended up getting pulled back to where my body was but not sucked back into it.

"Guess I can't wander too far away from my body." I sigh and begrudgingly follow the gang.

Donnie wrist tech goes off signaling trouble, rushing to the city down to April's old job Alberto's. Shredder is going to town destroying everything it could get its claws on. Donnie places me a safe distance away from the fight before attacking. Wanting to protect them, I try summoning my powers, which causes my flesh body to wince and whine quietly, but nothing happens. Again, the Shredder goes in for the attack but disappears. Something catches my eye once more, but outside the restaurant's door, I rush outside to see what it is, again nothing there but the sound of a cape flapping in the wind.

Returning inside, Mikey predicts that 15 minutes from now, it will return, but somewhere else. Donnie, being the one for science and data collecting, scoffs at the very idea of getting to that conclusion from two data hypotheses. But it is quickly retracted when the prediction comes true. We're now inside a museum, and once again, I try to use my powers or move my flesh body.

"This could be the end, fellas," Mikey says as he hides in his shell

"I wish I spent more time with my TV....and maybe paid more attention to my grandpa's stories on how to defeat the shredder." Splints say regretfully

I roll my eyes at that but quickly run to hold onto Donnie while he's holding onto me protectively. Closing my eyes to not see our fate and praying, that nothing happens.

"If I live, I'll confess that I-" I open my eyes when nothing happens.

Again, the Shredder disappears, and once more, I see a cloaked figure. It's standing on a dinosaur bone exhibit. Smiling down at me, I can't see their faces, but the smile from the second figure seems familiar. I'm pulled back from my daze by everyone collectively releasing the breaths they were holding. Donnie loosens his tight grip on me and looks down at me while moving a piece of hair out of my face.

"OK, what do we have?" Raph asks. Mikey raises his hand with an idea

"Good ideas first," Raph corrects, and Mikey slowly lowers his hand.

It's decided unanimously....*cough cough* that Leo and Splinter will convince Big Mama to help us in stopping Shredder.

This allows Donnie to bring me to the Lair to check on my injuries. While the machine is scanning me, his mind starts to wander.

Donnie POV

"Ugh...." sighing heavily and pulling the palms of his hands down his face.

Flashbacks of my scream echo in his head. Not even his tinkering on an invention helps distract his racing mind. So he resorts to scanning all of New York for the possible location Splinter will appear in.

The scan is complete, showing a few broken bones, deep bruising, and a few muscle tears. He enhances the scanning to see how severe the damage is. Soon, he can see that something strange is happening. The muscle tears are slowly being sewn back together, an excess amount of calcium is produced, patching up the broken bits of bone, and the bruising is slowly disappearing.

"This is impossible. The human body isn't able to simply fix itself," He says in disbelief

He starts to write on a whiteboard the possible causes of this. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N hovers in and hits the scanner magnifier.

"Come take a look at this."

Donnie starts to spiral a bit when he starts scribbling on the whiteboard but snaps out of it when S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N gets his attention. He looks at the magnifier and sees purple pulsing sticky goo that's slowly pulling the tears together.

"Ah, but of course..." He says while evil laughing, embarrassed, and throwing a small grenade that blows up the whiteboard, getting rid of his data.

"This is an amazing scientific discovery...I must do research"

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N gives him a look and a single sweat droplet slide from Donnie's brow as he chuckles awkwardly.

"Of course, I'll require Aqua's permission before proceeding." He sits back in his computer chair in front of the computer and starts to tap away on the keyboard on the newfound research.

Aqua POV

While this is all unfolding, I watch my body being scanned and look as the microscope records my body healing itself.

"This is so trippy but cool. I'll let Donnie do his evil science stuff to figure out exactly what is causing this. But for now, what were those two figures?

Before I could think of possible suspects, I jumped a bit when an alarm sounded on Donnie's wrist.

"Mikey, Raph, April, let's move, I've located Shredder at the docks," Donnie shouts into his wrist communicator while grabbing his tech bo.

While he rushes out of his lab, looking back at me and S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N

"Keep an eye on her, please...son," He says tenderly, and the gang rushes out of the lair.

S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N nods and turns his attention to me. Not having anything to do, I sit on the ground and start meditating.

"Concentrate, calm your mind, feel your powers as an extension of yourself..."

"Who, who said that?" I open my eyes startled, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N doesn't seem to have heard anything, I look around the room just in case, and sitting back down I start to meditate again.

A flash of the gang running past me like a hologram or illusion. Opening my eyes not seeing anything. As I close my eyes and start to relax a bit another projection appears, crackling static surrounds me, and I can barely make out what they are saying.

"Concentrate...." the voice whispers again, taking a deep breath in and slowly releasing it. My shoulders relax and the tension I had I'm my body slowly ebbs away.

"Relax your mind" turning off my brain to think of nothing

"Feel your powers as an extension of yourself" I open my eyes and I start watching a scene unfold as the boys have got Shredder subdued by... tickling him...oh boy. But some party-goers on a huge boat light some fireworks and it draws the attention of Shredder like a bug to a bug zapper.

The tickling was no longer distracting and it took off like a deranged bat from hell. Donnie and Raph take off after it, while Mikey tosses a whole boat at him. My jaw drops open and the brothers are in awe of their little bro that Donnie flies face first into a metal bar.

Donnie jumps in front of the shredder blocking his path.

"All my tech is standing by, and I mean all of my tech."

Back at the lair, all his tech gets the command to come to him and soon they surround the mad scientist.

I start to concentrate again and my eyes glow purple, the ground starts to shake under Donnie like a mini earthquake.  Creating water-bending tentacles and green vines they sharply protrude from the ground at the ready of my movements.

A shocked look plastures on Donnie's face but it turns into a shit-eating grin. He points his tech bo at Shredder and says smugly while all his tech attacks.

"Eat science!"

I bend tentacles and vines to attack as well, I get in a few food hits but it doesn't seem to phase him. All of Donnie's tech either bounces off or gets smashed upon contact with the armor.

"Sad face emoji" Donnie tears a bit and tries to escape with his battle shell but it's torn to pieces by the Shredder. In a last-ditch effort, he throws a hankie to stun the armor but it works for a few seconds as he shreds it to pieces. But while he was distracted I saw April get the crane ready to attack. So I pin Shredder down and April comes in clutch hitting the armor and sending him flying into metal storage crates. Poor Donnie gets K.O.'d by his tech bo. It only made it angry and chased after the fireworks and soon disappeared again.

"What is taking Leo and Dad so long?" Mikey says exasperated while his kusari-fundo is on fire on top of his head.

"Who knows, Leo probably talked his way into Big Mama's dungeon" Raph retorts.

"Uh guys anybody notice that whole situation," April says while pointing to my vines

"It can't be, Y/N's vines...could it?" Mikey questions

Donnie limps over to them, I wrap a vine around his finger. Taking a couple of calming breaths I imagine what my body looked like from my body shape, my height, hair length, facial structure, and clothes. I transform my water tentacles into a water copy of my form.

"Wow this is so cool," I say excitedly and look over at everyone

"Holy truffle Mac n cheese, Y/N!" Donnie shouts

"I come to you from the grave," I say in a ghost voice

"You're dead, say it ain't so!" Mikey says Sadly as he throws his arms onto me

No, no Mikey I'm not dead. It's kind of hard to explain.....but" I look up and see Donnie hastily taking notes

"Well I guess you can say a part of my soul is outside of my body while it heals, but I can't be too far away from my body so I used my "soul body" to concentrate and use my powers and to create this form you see before you," I say while shrugging NY shoulders

"How can you say that so casually, you've never been able to do this prior. What gives?" Donnie questions

"OK you're gonna think I'm crazy"

"Already do", April says in a joking manner

"You know you love me!" I made a heart sign with my hands and she reciprocated

"Well it's like someone else was talking in my head, like how you hear your voice when you think but someone else was speaking to me instead of telling me what to do"

"What did the voice sound like?" Mikey asks

"I don't know I've never heard it before so I can't place who it may be but strange things have been happening. While I was knocked out my spirit form was able to follow you guys around but at each location, the Shredder appeared I saw two figures in the darkness. They don't seem to be hostile, then again they didn't do much but run away before I could get a good view of them."

Everyone starts to think of their conclusions on who the mysterious figure could be but we decided to pursue the Shredder before he destroys something. Donnie grabs my hand and I hold onto him tightly, even though I'm using a water form it feels like touching jello but solid enough to hold onto stuff but liquid enough to have things go through me if need be.

We find ourselves in an alleyway in the pouring rain. Donnie inputted the coordinates of each location where the Shredder appeared.

"After inputting the coordinates of the XYZ D for Donnie's axis, I've calculated that this is the site of our final resting spot...I mean go, team." Donnie says casually.

A portal opens, and we start to freak out a bit thinking the shredder has decided to pop up here, but out falls Splinter and Leo steps out confidently. He is holding some sort of thorny circular artifact.

"It's about time you got here, we've been getting our buttons kicked since you left us high and dry," Raph says exasperated

"High and dry, come one dudes. When I said you got this I meant that. Look I bet the only reason why you're here is because Donnie inputted coordinates blah blah blah blah. Mikey razed his taze, April finally used her crane license and Raoh is gonna put it all together in a plan to defeat that lead head with this mystic collar. Oh, and Aqua.....wait what Aqua!!

Giving a small wave and smile I walk over to him and giggle.

"Couldn't predict this now huh, I found a new ability of mine. Water formation is pretty cool" I say while dabbing

Leo blushes a bit and stutters out, "Nah, w-what no...I predicted...some of...possibly...maybe... ugh fine you got me. Quickly recovering himself he goes back to his cocky attitude "Nice moves kid, gotta show how you did it sometimes"

Donnie grits his teeth and clenches his tech bo til his hands turn white.

"Sorry a magician never reveals their secrets," I say smugly while winking

Out of nowhere, Shredder appears as feral as ever, and the plan goes into effect, Mikey activates his kusari-fundo to flame up which distracts him, Donnie tosses his handkerchief, Raph tickles Shredder while I hold it down with my tree vines, Leo comes in hot with the collar and attaches it to the armor. A big explosion of neon pinkish purple goes off and the spirit of the armor is sealed in the collar.

Big Mama comes out of the darkness imprisoning the armor.

"Woah, what an epic three days of nonstop fighting" April shouts victorious

Everyone passes out except Master Splinter and me.

I wish I could say it was a pleasure seeing you again, my sassy sugar badger" He whispers the last bit in her ear. Big Mama blushes and I look on in shock, folding my arms and smiling fondly. Splinter pushes the passed-out gang through a manhole and we make our way to the lair. When we arrive I help bandage everyone up and place them in their respective rooms.

"A new ability I see," Splinter says, I shrug a bit but smile nonetheless.

"You've come a long way, I'm so proud" He walks to his room

When I reach the medbay, I sit next to my still-healing body, concentrating my water form splashed to the ground and my spirit goes back into my body. Opening my eyes I groan as I slowly sit up. Walking into my room, I slowly sit on my bed, lying my head on my pillow I hear a crunch of paper. Lifting my head, I reach under the pillow to find a small note.

It read, Want answers? Meet me at Central Park alone tomorrow...

[multifandomthoughts]

TRIGGER WARNINGS: DUB CON, swearing and medical play

AFAB READER

NSFW MINORS DNI

“Law….I don’t feel so well…you say, stumbling into his office. You had been feeling fine up until about ten minutes ago. You had unintentionally seen Law come out of his office earlier to debrief you about the upcoming island you were visiting. It was all fine and good except for one tiny detail.

He didn’t have a shirt on.

You could feel yourself getting warmer, dizzy and your heart feels like it could explode out of your chest. Unbeknownst to you, you’re feeling love. This feeling had occurred before, however it was not nearly as strong as it was now. You didn’t feel like you could pass out in his presence the other times, nor did you feel hot. You had been stationed on the polar tang for a while, so why now?

You had first encountered Law on your home island. A siege had been executed on your town, and he had been there. Your island was safe until a buster call had been executed. There was nowhere to run or hide until you heard a distant man’s deep voice. Suddenly you were by his side and your confusion was palpable. It was soon alleviated by him saying it was the work of his Devil Fruit, and he quickly ushered you in the direction of the coast where his submarine had been waiting.

Having been separated from your parents on the way to evacuation ships, you remained optimistic that they had gotten to safety, and Law promised he’d help you find them and go back to them. All the good those promises and optimistic thoughts had been, since you’ve been a guest and eventually honorary crew member of the Heart Pirates for a long period of time.

You hop up onto his examination table and let out a heavy sigh. “I heard you said you weren’t feeling well, what seems to be the problem?” He says, his voice clinical. “My chest hurts, and I’m dizzy and I feel really really hot. You state. “Let’s check your vitals.” His cold hands cup your wrist as he checks for a pulse. Picking up a clipboard, he notes down his observations. He then shines a light in both your eyes. No problems there. Reflexes are normal as well.

Finally, he pulls out his stethoscope, and he presses it to your chest. Upon contact, you let out a noise that was a half gasp, half moan. The cogs in Law’s brain turn; he thinks he knows exactly what’s going on. Scientific method says that it’s time for him to test his hypothesis. “All of your vital signs are normal. However, because you mentioned your chest hurting, I’d like to do a chest exam. Is that alright with you? There will be a female doctor in the room to supervise.”

Face burning, you nod. Whatever it is that’s wrong with you, you want to know. It doesn’t quite feel like the anxiety you felt trapped in the middle of the Buster Call, closer to the adrenaline of battle mixed with the rush of relief you had when you were transported to safety and first saw his face. The face that’s so close to you know and looking at you with so much attention.

You can fill your lungs with as much air as you need, but to inhale and exhale tickles all the way up to your brain and down your spine to your legs. Your mouth feels like it needs to do something, anything, so you just lick and bite your lips and move your tongue without purpose or sound.

Door slamming shut, you begin to undress. The ruffle of your clothes hitting the floor is the only thing you can hear besides the echo of steps outside. Fidgeting, you kick your legs against the seat. After what seems like ages, a female nurse enters and questions you similarly to Law. After the monotonous chatter, she opens the door to reveal Law. In a doctor’s coat that shows his chest.

Burning hot, sweating, all you can think about is the chiseled six pack on the man standing in front of you The “illness” you’re feeling is only getting stronger, and you need help, now. Swift steps approach you as he once again asks for your consent in order to perform the exam. Gentle hands cup your breasts as he searches for lumps or bumps. His hand glides slightly over the nipple. You bite your lip, moaning loudly. You resist the urge to stare him straight into the eyes and tell him to do it again.

Law shuffles his feet in place a bit, as if needing to adjust where his legs are positioned, and tries to hide a pleased sigh behind clearing his throat. “Nurse, that will be all thank you.” He says flatly, staring neither at you or her but a corner of the room in between you two.

When she nods and closes the door on the way out, he closes his eyes with a sigh. “Well, I’ve got the diagnosis, and it’s very hot.” Your initial relief that he knows what’s the matter with you is stopped dead by his final choice of words. “Don’t you mean ‘it’s not so hot’? And doesn’t that usually mean there’s something really wrong with me?” Law shakes his head with a smile. “No, I meant exactly what I said. You have something pretty going on. You’re head over heels with a crush, little lady.”

A crush? Shit, it all makes sense now. The warmth, the desperation, the chest pain. All things that were just simply dragging you towards the one you loved. Hitting the examination chair with a thump, a relieved sigh escapes your lips. It wasn’t nearly as serious as you’d thought.

Clearing his throat, Law tries to get your attention for what else he has to say. “If you’d like my opinion on this, as a medical professional… the feeling’s been mutual for a while. How about we say my fee for this exam will be… a date tomorrow night?”

You nod wildly, excited for what may come. However, you’re still feeling pretty hot from earlier and you don’t know what to do. “Law, I know our date is tomorrow, but I want to feel better now!” A smirk creeping upon his face, Law retorts.

“I think you may need to visit me later, so we can get all that noise out of your system.”

[doodle-pops]

House of Fingolfin | Having A Smart (Scientist) S/O

Request: Greetings my favourite storyteller! May I please request a headcannon with the Sons of Feanor? They’re s/o is a certified genius in like science or mathematics and how they’d react? Or the Nolofinweans? Or the Lords of Gondolin? I love all the elves so much, lol. Hope your feeling happy and healthy! - anon

A/N: Decided to go with the House of Fingolfin for a change. Had a lot of fun writing this since I'm also doing a science major at Uni and got to talk a lot about science in general.

Fingolfin

An extremely intelligent person who prides themselves in the vast collection of knowledge he was able to acquire growing up, Fingolfin would be in awe at your remarkable level of academia.

We know he chose to focus more on politics and law, so the world of science and philosophy, to some extent on the latter, would be new to him, thus Fingolfin would spare no excuse to not sit with you and listen to your ramblings.

You fill his knowledge on chemistry, biology, physics and maths. Do expect millions of cocked heads and questions flying your way whenever you mention some modernized words when describing some scientific phenomenon.

He becomes marvelled at the vast collection of information you have stored in your tiny brain and is quick to inquire where you obtain them and who taught you.

I can see him making some comments about how you’re much smarter than his older brother in the ways of science. He knew that if Feanor learned about his lover being much smarter than him, the endless comments about them would be rolling off his tongue.

This prevents him from showing you off as much as he’d like to avoid Feanor making any insults are jabs at you.

You would have a lab/inventory set up somewhere in the palace or at your house and Fingolfin has hooked on every little instrument his eyes fall on. He doesn’t touch but he’ll just stare and attempt to figure out its purpose without asking questions, trying to remember if you’ve ever spoken about it.

He doesn’t take part in your experiments, instead, he’ll stand at the side and observe you mix chemicals together and gape as the colours change and effervescences are formed.

Because of this, Fingolfin would invest in obtaining the best scholars to work with you and advise you to teach your knowledge to the younger upcoming generation.

Fingon

He’s trailing behind you everywhere you go because you’re always dropping some random fact about the environment and linking it to other science subjects which leaves him amazed.

He’s learned a lot growing up from some of the best scholars his father provided but never had anyone ever taught him knowledge like this.

Fingon loves to spend time around you or stay locked up with you in your room because you’re always building some little gadget to go along with a hypothesis you came up with. He loves to take part in assisting you.

He’ll go around telling everyone who knows about your intelligence that he’s your little helper, thus he knows almost as much as you do. It’s a cute sight to see him boasting about your knowledge.

Sometimes whenever he's out on his own and he comes across little phenomena, if there's people around, he'll recall that you taught him and explain it with a bright smile on his face. He does his best to use all the scientific terms you used when explaining.

No time spent with you is boring because you’re always taking him on some adventure into the woods to investigate some new animal or plant species. He’s happy to accompany you and give you any extra information that you may have missed.

If you’re a scholar and have debates, know that Fingon is front and centre listening intensively to every word that slips past your lips. He even nods along to what you’re saying even though he doesn’t understand.

He enjoys listening to you talk about every science subject because “You never make them sound boring like my scholars did.” The little twinkle in your eyes as you explain to him about the stars and how they’re made makes his brain combust.

That’s perhaps his favourite aspect about your knowledge, you knowing about the stars and explaining to him their life cycle. Spending hours under the night sky and talking him through what space looks like, congratulations, Fingon thinks you’re a Maiar in disguise.

Turgon

Taking after his father in terms of education, Turgon delves into law and politics and has found it more exciting than science. This doesn’t meet that he has no clue about science, he just prefers not to indulge in the area of academia.

When he meets you, Turgon is surprised by your level of enthusiasm in the area of study. He’s never met someone so excited and by understanding the nature and mechanics behind the way the world worked. He understood that the Valar existed, and they made things go a certain way and that was enough.

Of course, you would change his mind and teach him that it wasn’t exactly like that. He’d be amazed by your theories and hypothesis, but it wouldn’t be enough to draw him in until you conduct experiments.

Show him the light spectrum using the glass prism and how rainbows are truly formed, conduct colour-changing experiments through chemistry or dive into advanced medicine and blow his mind.

It would be then, that you would have earned Turgon’s respect and captured his attention. Academic conversation and tons of questions in hopes that you would provide an answer for everything, and you always do.

Similar to his older brother, he’d have suspicions that you’re a Maiar in disguise which would explain your vast knowledge on numerous topics.

Late nights conversation about the stars and the ocean or the forest. Some might drift into becoming philosophical and he doesn’t mind, he considers you of high academia and as such, you are wise in his eyes.

He always seeks you out for answers even if he may have learned about them as a child, you always provide extra that discombobulates his brain. There’s this growing smile that spreads across his face as you’re explaining to him about some natural phenomena, and it warms your heart.

Your heart always grows teary whenever you notice how invested he is in your area of interest.

Aredhel

A bit disinterested when you begin to explain your interest in science to her since she’s more of the physical aspect of nature by hunting. She doesn’t really have time to sit and listen to you explain to her the differences in the mechanics of life.

The only way to grab her attention is if you specialize in biology and also take interest in the medical field. Talk to her about the animals in the forest and how they work or their nature and may she’ll sit and listen.

Because she���s a hunter, they are many things that she’ll cut you across the re-explain that she believes you may have gotten wrong, particularly about the animals. She’ll boast about having a greater knowledge in that area which prompts your relationship to be filled with proving the other wrong.

You give her advice about how certain animals work and then her going “Nope, incorrect, they don’t”, she’ll follow it up by sitting you down to give you a full-on explanation of where you went wrong. At times, it feels as if she’s the scientific one and not you.

It’s not done out of spite, it's just her nature of correcting people when she knows they’re wrong in her area of expertise. There are other areas you can grab her attention where she won’t challenge you, but she’d be overly inquisitive.

Do some crazy experiments and made chemicals change their colours or dive into alchemy and create some new element and watch as he chooses to stick around more. Careful, she has curious hands that touch everything she’s marvelled by.

It is very easy to bore her since her personality gravitates towards being free-spirited and extrovert-like. Thus, most of your conversations need to really be accompanied by experiments or they just need to be mind-blogging to keep her seated.

Build her an inverted camera or a telescope and watch as she steals it from you for her hunts. (it’s always the stars that attract them to science *sighs*)

She’ll sit for hours under the sky in an open field after kidnapping you during her hunts and begs you to talk about the heavens. Tell her everything you know about the stars and the moon. Tell her you know what heaven looks like and you’re never leaving her side.

But have no fear, at the end of the day Aredhel brags and boasts about you like her life depends on it. You’re the smartest person ever, and even if she knows more than you in other areas, she still comes to you for information.

Maeglin

Ah yes, one of the perfect people to show your interest to. As a blacksmith, Maeglin would be into science to some extent – Material Sciences for metals and rocks. If you’re in that area of that you’ve just captured his attention.

He’s eager to learn all the information you have in that area and build on his own to better his craft. Even if you don’t specialize in that area, Maeglin would listen to you for hours as you talk about the mechanics of nature.

Do experiments with him by testing the metals and rocks and have him as your helper. Teach him all that he wants to learn and extra tidbits, fill his mind with wonder and awe.

Maeglin would inquire where you obtained all this knowledge because he’s never read any books that contained such vast information.

A great topic to talk to him about would be living in the ocean. As someone who’s grown up in the forest and city, having never seen the sea by only hearing about it, this is one way to catch his interest.

Tell him about what the ocean is like and all the creatures. This is the moment for all you biology and environmental science students to show off your vast knowledge (don’t fail me here and tell me you don’t know anything).

Maeglin would ask you millions of questions about the sea with mirth and wonder in those beautiful eyes. Draw what sea creatures look like and their variants. Show him the whales and fishes and spike his excitement for wanting to see the ocean.

If you’re a scholar then expect to see Maeglin attending some of your sessions as you teach. He has to proud lover’s smile stretching from ear to ear as he looks on. Maeglin could not have been any prouder of your accomplishments.

Argon

He's similar to his eldest brother when it comes to trailing behind you anywhere you go because everything you do is accompanied by the greatest explanation that blows his mind.

You could repeat a piece of information he would have learnt as a child and he’d still be gaping at you because “Whoa, that was just amazing. How did you know that?”

Take him everywhere you go and even if you don’t, he’s tagging along like an overly excited puppy. It’s a cute sight to behold – an overly tall ellon trailing behind with stars in his eyes.

You could talk to Argon about anything, and he would never find the topics boring. There’s excitement in your voice thus it excites him. There are times when you explained some natural phenomena and it happened before his eyes, and he’d jump up and shout in awe because he understands how it’s happening.

Talk to him about nature and chemistry (conduct some experiments and make him believe that you’re a wizard) and he’d use your wisdom for when he goes hunting.

You’re the smartest person alive to him, so he comes to you for the smallest convenience even if it’s not your area of study. Argon may not seem it, but he loves to stay up late hours into the morning talking about every topic your conversation shifts to. He might not be able to contribute, but he’s open to learning.

There’s this child-like wonder he gets when the opportunity to re-explain some phenomenon you’ve told him occurs. He’ll stand proud and tall with confidence to repeat all the fascinating ideologies you’ve told him.

Like the rest of his siblings, behold the mighty power of the stars, drag him outside to sit under the stars and blow his mind with vast knowledge. He’s going to beg you to be an apprentice for Varda so you could learn more and share with him.

Masterlist

Taglist: @spidergirla5 @eunoiaastralwings @someoneinthestars @aconstructofamind @mysticmoomin @lilmelily @hoshinokurasa

[lacenvs3000w24]

finding footing in art & nature🦋🌿

This week’s post is about the interpretation of nature through art – I’ll be focusing less on how I interpret nature through art, and more about how I have come to find my footing in doing so.

A quotation from chapter 3 of the textbook (Beck, Cable, & Knudson, 2018) really struck a chord with me for this topic. Talking about studying nature in schools, Burroughs (1916) said that it was:

“Too cold, too special, too mechanical; it is likely to rub the bloom off Nature. It lacks soul and emotion. It misses the accessories of the open air and its exhilarations, the sky, the clouds, the landscape, and the currents of life that pulse everywhere.”

I feel that many of us can relate to this excerpt, as did I. Rub the bloom off Nature.

It sounds silly, and I still sometimes feels pretty embarrassed by it, but I really feel like the driving force behind my choice of major (Zoology) was nature documentaries, photography, and Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall’s stories. The images on a TV screen of people out in the wild, so intimately and genuinely immersed in the beauties and intricacies of nature – that is what drove it home for me.

I can’t honestly say that I was thinking - primarily - about learning the ins and outs of statistical methods. Nor was I considering the how-to’s of data acquisition and manipulation, or even hypothesis formulating.

Realistically, I was thinking about how cool it would be to study a major that was defined by natural historians and explorers like Charles Darwin, or the people I saw on Nat Geo programs.

So… who am I to interpret nature through art? I’m someone in a (to some, surprisingly) technical, scientific major. Someone who didn’t necessarily know what they were signing up for, who was (naively) hoping for an experience akin to these creative interpretations. But I’m someone who has come to love these studies because they’ve immensely deepened the connection I’ve always felt to the beauty of nature. When I see a scenic landscape shot or a charming illustration of anything wild, I have so much more in my interpretive toolset than I ever did before. I can parse through the dramatic editing and enhanced colours to find a deeper meaning, one that is simultaneously more informed and more abstract.

The bloom may have been rubbed off a little, but now I can take steps to paint it back on.

Of course, this need not apply to members of the audience. As the hopeful interpreter, I’m fortunate to have this science + art lens, and it is indeed my responsibility to translate that dual perspective into a single, coherent, and cohesive one.

And how do I interpret the gift of beauty? Through that dual perspective.

One of Tilden’s (1957) Principles of Interpretation is that

“the chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation”

Philosophers have made attempts through millennia to articulate the importance of beauty. One particularly ephemeral type of beauty has been described as “the sublime”. Crudely, it has to do with the almost agonizing appreciation we feel when we see a mountainscape, the ocean, a sprawling forest – something naturally beautiful, perhaps chaotic, immense (notice that most philosophers can’t help but define it in terms of NATURAL beauty).

[ Among the Sierra Nevada, California (1868), Albert Bierstadt. ]

Part of the gift of beauty is in its interpretation; the self-reflection that compels us to ask

why is this sight making me feel this way??? and HOW?

Combining that stand-alone beauty with technical knowledge is a simple step we take after being inexplicably provoked by nature. A step towards appreciating, defining, putting our finger on the gorgeous gift that Mother Nature is, and then making our own creations to try to capture that beauty – kind of like how a painter might study a renowned artist by recreating their work. In this way, we gain some insight into how Mother Nature put all these elements together to make a creation so breathtaking.

---

References

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage for a Better World. Sagamore Publishing.

Burroughs, J. (1916). Under the apple trees. New York, NY: William H. Wise & Co.

Tilden, F. (1957). Interpreting our heritage. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

[communist-ojou-sama]

Too late, we’re doing it live. You’ve got to understand. Please understand.

What little analysis I’ve seen of Magic Theorem focuses narrowly on Dorothy’s twisted ethics and about the events of Dorothy’s Vision, that the light fluffy lo-fi atmosphere is supposed to contrast with the darkness of the things she’s doing. I get that this is open to interpretation but I don’t think that this is what’s going on with this song at all.

When the sun fades out of sight, Constellations come to life. The serotonin keeps us floating. We contemplate our lives.

The first verse sets the scene, when the lights are low, beneath this false sky from which the catastrophes rain down, Dorothy, driven by her sense of purpose, is contemplating her life.

Though the numbers safe and sound, My hypothesis abound. I've got a theory, you're there with me, Transcending data found.

I can see how this gets assocated with the liquids if you just take the first two lines of this stanza: There’s a set theory of originium reaction, that precludes what she knows to be possible, but she’s got an idea on how to break through, sure, but I don’t think you can quite fit the last two lines to fit into that mold, no. The meaning here is that while she knows that what she’s hypothesizing about isn’t possible, a theory of “you” being with her.

I’ll skip the chorus for now because that’s what ties it all together, and is the part that is currently causing my brain to unravel

Falling for a simple dream. A theorem of a fantasy, I- Live fully.

Now, keep in mind, Dorothy is a brilliant scientist and a science minded person here. I want to argue that “fantasy” here refers to “something that is prima-facie impossible.”, her simple dream.

Life is a gift to me, I'm here for it. Like a smile at a party, I swoon. Measure time by the moon. Is it over too soon?

Now we’re getting into it: Life is a gift to her, so she must before it. Remembering this, she’s overcome: Will she have enough time to to make good on this gift that’s been given to her in such a cruel fashion?

Take a picture, don't forget her. Let it linger in your view. The formula for finding magic. One plus one, just me and you.

Full disclosure: tears are dripping onto my keyboard as I try to put this into words. Why is life a gift for Dorothy Franks? Because when she was just a child she went off to nurture her scientific gifts, her pioneer mother and everyone else in the camp was dead. The subject matter here is deeply personal. Take a picture of her, her mother, never let her stray from her heart. Like, literally her mother is always “lingering in her view”. The thought of being with her again, that simple 1+1 animates the “magic” that pushes her research forward. Never forget the pain, the cruelty that tore her from you, end despite all your scientific knowledge, never give up the dream of being here again. These lyrics express the sheer impossibility of Dorothy’s simple desire to see her mother again, the perceived enormity of the gift that’s been placed on her shoulders, and how the pain really does never go away.

[corbinite]

Disclaimer: not a physicist, I just like to listen to physicist

ok so everybody who has any interest in physics with 52 minutes to spare go watch acollierastro's video "string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard" because it has some excellent insight into (one facet of) why science communication is so difficult now and why so many people distrust science and equate it with magical thinking, but also I have my own little tidbit to add to the equation and it's about the observer effect, which is where observing a phenomenon changes its outcome

Unlike acollierastro's video, this isn't about a hypothesis that doesn't follow the scientific method, because the observer effect is a real thing that we can test and demonstrate unlike string theory. Rather my problem is with how the observer effect is taught to lay people. And when I say how it is taught to lay people I mean on *every* level. If you are not a practicing physicist and you don't actively search out information on this subject, you definitely have completely the wrong idea of what the observer effect is. Hell, even if you do search out information you probably have that same wrong idea

See the way we're all taught about the observer effect in highschool and on, frankly, social media, is that if you are studying the behavior of matter on the subatomic level, it will act completely differently depending on whether you are "watching" it happen or not

and that sounds like magical thinking

So you ask your professor what that means because the bit about the observer effect in your AP Chem textbook really only has that one line, and maybe a blurb about how it was discovered which doesn't offer much insight to a highschooler. But the teacher doesn't really have anything else for you, they just say "yes it's true, watching subatomic particles changes how they behave!" and you just kind of have to accept that that's the answer

So a lot of people go through highschool and their adult life hearing this and they go one of two ways. Either they think "that's ridiculous, that sounds like Toy Story, physics is just a bunch of humans coming up with ideas and seeing what sticks and apparently what sticks is just whatever is the most attention grabbing" (physics is not about ideas it's about math all the way down), OR, they think "wow, the human mind really is incredible, our brains can literally change reality, can you imagine what we could achieve if we used 100% of our brains instead of 10%? We're in a simulation, reality is divine geometry, the particles know we're watching" it goes on. And it just doesn't get corrected

And you end up with two camps of people who either reject or think that they embrace science, but either way they think that physics is a bunch of people coming up with ideas to explain the world when it's not, that's how mythology works, physics is math. Einstein didn't predict relativity by thinking hard about it and having the right ideas, he predicted it through math, the math came first. Physicists aren't just a bunch of people making things up to stay relevant, nor are they a bunch of gnostics recieving divine inspiration from above. They're goddamn mathemeticians and experimentalists. They do math, see what the math predicts, then set up a plan for how to test that math (see acolierastro's video for a more thorough explanation of what makes a theory of physics a theory of physics)

And this ties into a lot of other cases of poorly explained concepts in science that have people asking "but how do they know that? Scientists are just making things up/the universe is magic" but the observer effect is probably the most likely to push people into magical thinking (others are the fact that we know about earth's internal structure because we can use sonar to measure it, we know about the big bang and the accelerating expansion of the universe because we can use the speed of light and the doppler effect to measure not only how celestial bodies are moving right now but how they were moving in the past and track that through time, and we can observe that distant galaxies are moving in ways that would indicate that they contain more matter than we can observe and that yet unknown phenomenon has been dubbed dark matter which is an admittedly overly mysterious name)

Anyway I should probably circle back to the observer effect, so let's ask what it means to observe something. Well, on our macro scale, observing something usually means seeing it. But in order to see something, light has to hit it, cause a momentary disturbance in the energy of the thing's electrons, eject back out from the object, and go into our eyes. Observing could also mean to hear something, but in order to hear it it has to bump into air molecules or other matter and send rippling physical vibrations out. We could smell it! But to smell something, volatile particles have to leave that thing (slightly reducing its mass), enter your nose, and slot into your olfactory receptors. You could touch it! That one's self explanatory. What do all of these things have in common? That object you are observing has to interact with the world around it in order for you to observe it. Whether it is interacting with light, the air, or your actual fingers, the object you are observing has to effect and be effected by the outside world around it. If something is completely inert, and not currently interacting at all with light or other matter or gravity or electromagnetism or etc, you cannot observe it. So how do we observe particles at the scale necessary to demonstrate the observer effect? With lasers

With lasers

We shoot lasers at it

That certainly does something to the thing we're observing

And that doesn't have to be the only way to observe matter at subatomic scales. But there is not any way to observe matter without interacting with it, either directly or indirectly. It isn't that our consciousness effects the outcome, it isn't about us. When physicists say that observing something changes its behavior, we are not always the observer, the observer could also be a nearby atom which "observes" the particle in question by creating interactions between them. Nothing to do with conscousness

The observer effect, very roughly, means that while a particle or system is not interacting with anything, it behaves probabilistically, but when interacting with its environment, that probability solidifies into an outcome. If And to be clear: that's still wild! It doesn't mean that there's a magical universal consciousness, and it doesn't mean that "particles break the laws of physics when we aren't looking at them", especially because we do already have extremely robust and experimentally testable models for how unobserved systems behave, so it's not breaking the laws of physics, it's confirming them!

So yeah, all this to say, modern science is not a competition for who can come up with the best ideas or who can be blessed with the most enlightened perspective. If something cannot be observed measured or tested then it is not a scientific theory or even a hypothesis it is just a thought. And thoughts are great! But thoughts are not physics. And we need better science education that does a better job at simplifying complex topics nondestructively

[certified-scoundrel]

Plant Abuse: yay or nay?

an ongoing ‘scientific’ ‘study’ inspired by the hit book and tv series, Good Omens

WARNING: i may sound like an absolute wanker in this, as all of my knowledge of plant care, the scientific method, and other such things are based entirely on 3 things: my 9.5th grade level biology skills (.5 bc did some self studying for funsies), my 9th grade level chemistry skills (i took chem in 10th grade, im just not very good at it), and a fuck ton of googling.

yeah this post is gonna be a beast, so feel free to scroll to the end for a tldr (you will miss out on all of my absolutely hilarious jokes)

ever since i watched Good Omens, i was really curious as to whether or not yellingtalking to plants would actually help them grow. when i took to researching this, the articles were all over the place. one article would say ‘no, talking to your plants has no affect on them’; another article would say ‘yes, but womens voices are more affective than mens’; the article after that would say ‘yes, but you’d have to talk to your plant for hours for the vibrations to have any affect on them’. so, i decided to throw all common sense reminding me good omens is a fantasy story out the window and try this for myself.

now, im probably one of the literal worst people to try this out for many many reasons. one key issue is that i am extremely unintimidating. crowley scaring his plants into growing would definitely be a lot less affective if he was a 5’7 lanky teenager with joint problems. another, albeit more realistic reason, is my innate ability to fuck things up in the most random way possible. im not concerned about forgetting to water the plants or something like that, im concerned about somehow getting the plants so upset with me that they start a plant revolution and subsequent overthrow of my bedroom. obviously im being a bit hyperbolic, but its honestly just a bit. im like the main characters in a nickelodeon sitcom whos plans always go to shit even after they explain them aloud to each other.

however, despite all signs pointing me to put down my plant mister and finish my summer reading, i know what i was put on this earth to do: to be the reason there are ‘do not attempt this at home’ warnings on tv show’ and ‘for external use only’ labels on shampoo bottles. it is in my blood to beat the odds, to do things im extremely unqualified for, and to mirror the (sometimes questionable) things my favorite fictional characters do. It is time to metaphorically drink the apple-scented shampoo, and to finally settle this question.

now it is time to plan my experiment.

(most experiments have some sort of hypothesis, but im not like most scientists (im not one) so im skipping that. ill be leaving the hypothesizing up to you guys.)

once i get paid, im going to go to the nearest garden center to me and buy 3 matching houseplants and label them Plant A, Plant B, and Plant C. not sure what plants ill get, probably whichever ones are cheapest and the fastest growers, however once i have them i will do as much research as i can into how to care for them properly to avoid as many outside factors as possible. each individual plant will be placed in a separate room in my house, and treated nearly identically. I will do my best to keep things like water levels, sunlight levels, and things of that nature as constant variables. obviously, the independent variable will be how i treat the plants

~emotionally~

ill be completely silent when watering Plant A (Control). when i water the other the other two plants, ill spend a few minutes chatting with each plant. with Plant B, ill be kind to it, praise it, and other things of that nature; with Plant C, ill ridicule it, insult it, and so on. if the plants dont require daily watering (which i hope they wont), ill still pop in to talk to plants B and C every day. ill repeat this for however long i feel like, but at the end of every week ill take a picture of the plants to mark their growth and current state of wellness.

at this point, i can hear all of you saying ‘what the hell is wrong with this kid’. to that, i say: ‘that is a real loaded question, and im not sure you actually want an answer.’ i get it, just know. is this a stupid idea? yeah. is it the stupidest idea ive had? not by a long shot (see: drinking shampoo ‘joke’ referenced earlier)

TLDR: im going to buy 3 houseplants, keep one as a control, yell at one, and be nice to the other. every week ill take a picture of the plants to track their growth, and at the end ill compare all the photos to see how talking/yelling at your plants can affect their growth.

[tgon]

The Nightmare Room #10, Full Moon Halloween | Review

Title: The Nightmare Room #10 – Full Moon Halloween

Author: R.L. Stine

Cover Artist: Tristan Elwell

INTRODUCTION

Around this time each year, Illinoisans dye the Chicago River green. I'm no ecologist, but I know drinking a Shamrock Shake reeks havoc on my organs. I can't imagine living in one.

For those of us above water, it's St. Patty's! You might assume Full Moon Halloween is a Halloween book. You might assume I failed to write my review in time for Halloween. You'd be wrong. This is a Saint Patrick's Day themed book. If you own a copy, DO NOT DOUBLE CHECK THAT CLAIM.

STORY REVIEW

The book starts by introducing four or five kids, a basketball-team-worth of generic children. You could imagine the Boston Celtics and it wouldn't make any difference. These lifelong friends are getting ready to celebrate the upcoming holiday. Hunting clovers, pinching strangers, getting punched because you pinched the wrong stranger, and you know the rest. Our lads and lasses are horrified when their science teacher invites them to a St. Patrick's Day party at his house. This would be considered weird behavior for anybody else, but "Mr. Moon" gets a pass because he set the bar high:

Ray said [...] "I'll bet you he's still in the lab, injecting weird things into bird eggs."

Tristan said [...] "I mean, I like the idea of putting strange things in eggs and then seeing what you get."

Stine knows kids.

Our heroes will be trapped by societal convention. Although, they might be able to sneak out early. With any luck, they'll still have ample time for step dancing and bobbing for corned beef. When the night comes, the kids try to forget about the day that brought them here. It doesn't help that the only people in attendance (aside from the protags) are Mr. Moon, his wife, and his son.

Things take a turn for the "genuinely creepy" when metal bars slam down over all the windows. It's a werewolf trap, and they've been caught. If you need me to spell it out, a grown man has just kidnapped multiple children and is hellbent on proving one of them is a secret monster. A man of pure reason, Mr. Moon employs the scientific method. Since he's already got his hypothesis (i.e. ONE OF THESE KIDS IS A WEREWOLF), it's time for some experiments.

PHASE 1. Have the kids dress up as werewolves to see if any of them look particularly werewolfish. Genius.

PHASE 2. Unleash a swarm of plogs. I think it's way funnier if I don't explain what "plogs" are.

PHASE 3. Feed the kids raw meat to gauge their reactions. This step might sound stupid, but in his defense it'd be pretty definitive proof should one of the kids shout "WOW THIS IS SO DELICIOUS!"

PHASE 4. Wolfsbane, which will poison a werewolf. I suppose it'll poison a child, too. Probably why it's #4.

Somehow, the results for his first three experiments are inconclusive. Wolfsbane seems to be the only option left, so the kids are forced to drink some. Epic prank! The wolfsbane is fake because ????, and the real PHASE 4 is simply waiting until midnight to see who turns into a werewolf. In a shocking twist, it's none other than Mr. and Mrs. Moon who transform into snarling beasts.

Epic prank! The Moons orchestrated a night of terror to delight the kids, which makes perfect sense because ????. The whole werewolf hunt was nothing more than a joke, and they threw on monster costumes for one final scare. No really. Cops eventually arrive to arrest the Moons. So far, it's the only part of this conclusion that makes sense. Turns out, Mr. Moon's son reported the kidnapping, and apparently kidnapping is a crime. That must be a new law.

An additional fold to this prank (and I swear I'm not making this up) was setting the clocks ahead a couple minutes. The kids' curfew was 11PM, so this doesn't benefit them at all. No, it only serves to tee up another twist. Two of the kids turn into werewolves. By complete accident, Mr. Moon nearly caught two monsters. The Moons have already been carted away, leaving the normal kids alone with two bloodthirsty beasts.

Only R.L. Stine, ladies and gentlemen.

THE VERDICT

This book was really good.

...If you love plot contrivances. Epic prank!

BEST QUOTE

"My cousin Benny is an animal," she said. "He's four years old, and he still bites."

Tristan reached into a cabinet for a bag of chocolate chip cookies. "Really? What do you do when he bites you?"

"I bite him back!" Rosa replied.

When I was a child, I knew a guy who (in dead seriousness) claimed he once bit his dog to assert dominence. This man owned a corgi.

[lampmanliveblogs]

”Special crystals” you say? With calming properties?

…what would you call a magic world’s equivalent of pseudo-scientific alternative medicine? Because that’s what this is all sounding like to me.

Calling Eda’s potions ”nasty concoctions” and saying ”you don’t know what they put in those” brings to mind anti-vaxxers and similar groups of people who distrust modern medicine.

Gwen ignoring the advice of the healer at the start of the episode, demanding they do the impossible and remove the curse. When the experts fail to do so, she seeks an alternative, turning to a wise old man who has all the answers; she just has to go get him some things, and that’s reasonable, right? What are a few valuable items retrieved from dangerous places, if it saves her daughter?

Knife season!?

After Gwen unleashes a Boreas summon on her daughter, we cut to Lilith and King living their best lives. There are a few more puns hidden here. My favorite is probably ”Eye Scream.” It has been done before, but it is a classic for a reason. I can also see now that the blue tub says ”Abomi-berry.” I was confused before because the O looked like a D to me.

Seeing Hooty being the voice of reason is WILD y’all.

King is talking about his father coming back and it’s kinda awkward because my current hypothesis is that he’s dead. I am bracing myself for the potential future episode where Kings finds that out.

I mean… that IS one way to get your mom’s attention Lulu.

It seems like what I was thinking before was correct; Gwendolyn has been so obsessed with curing Eda’s curse that she’s completely ignored Lilith. As a result, she now has a bad relationship with both of her daughters.

What happened to the potions? Did Gwen steal them or something? Maybe sent her eagle palisman in there to do it? I feel like Lilith, King or Hooty should’ve noticed that though.