#//these are all real poison control tips

[thatpoisonbug]

hello rotomblr, considering that the holiday season is upon us, i figured i would give some quick health and safety reminders.

holly is poisonous. do not eat it and keep it out of reach of children and pokemon.

mistletoe is poisonous. do not eat it and keep it out of reach of children and pokemon.

yew is poisonous. do not eat it and keep it out of reach of children and pokemon.

only some varieties of juniper berries are safe to eat. please do your research and be careful.

while not deadly, poinsettias can make pokemon and children sick and cause minor skin irritation.

lilies are poisonous. do not eat it and keep it out of reach of children and pokemon.

foods like grapes, currants, raisins, chocolate, and cocoa are toxic to many pokemon. please be careful when preparing holiday foods.

if something does happen, don't worry. if a human is affected, call your local emergency line or take them to the nearest healthcare office. if a pokemon is affected, take them to the nearest pokemon center. if only one or the other is near you and you desperately need help, most healthcare offices will temporarily hold pokemon and most pokemon centers will temporarily hold people.

[moody-alcoholic]

On a Wing and a Prayer

Part 8 - There's Two Types of Trauma

CW: Angst, medical stuff, descriptions of wounds, descriptions of medical procedures.

Disclaimer: not real medical advice this is all fake and fantasy. #itsamedicaldrama

It's a long one strap in.

Previous parts - masterlist - next

The doors fly open, you’re on the gurney in a second.

It’s strange seeing Simon with his mask off in his uniform. You’ve only even seen it a few times, when he would come home late pulling his mask off over his head with dark paint still around his eyes. This time his eyes are closed, the mask is sitting on the top of his head hiding his gold locks. His face is splattered with blood, his skin pale.

Fuck, you have to save him. There’s no way you’re letting him die. You look over at one of the nurses pressing on the bandages on his wound. That's a lot of blood. Focus! Your brain shouts at you. 

“What happened!?” You ask turning to John, who’s following behind you.

“We were ambushed. Barely got out in time.” They’re in the room now, the nurses get into position to move him from the gurney onto a bed. You quickly look over at him, he’s walking and talking. You can focus on him later.

“On my count.” you say to the nurses helping them move him over. Your heart is pounding in your chest. The nurses are cutting his clothes off as you take your stethoscope off to listen to his chest. 

“Let’s get a central line in, call radiology and page the doctor again.” You say as you move round to his head. His breathing is ragged, he has a collapsed lung for sure. 

“How long ago was he shot?” You ask, trying to keep your voice steady. You can’t lose him, you won't lose him. You’re lucky for the adrenaline keeping your head clear. 

They always say you should never work on family.

“About 30 minutes. It was quicker to drive than wait for medevac.” Johnny says as he comes into the room, you can see the pain on his face, hear the shake in his voice. You look over at the monitors he’s now hooked up to. His BP is low, his pulse is rapid.  

You need to intubate,  you need blood, you want a clearer picture of the lungs. The wound on the chest is pretty central; they could have hit his heart, it could be too late already. 

Focus, your brain screams at you. CABC then chest tube. Control the bleeding. The nurses and other medics are already working on it, pulling out old bandages out, pressing new gauze in. They’re calling out drugs as they push them; TxA, morphine, anti-nausea. You’re in charge here, the doctor is on another base. People are looking to you for direction.

“Where’s the doctor?” You ask, his airway is clear, that's a good sign. You need to intubate pulling the crash cart over. 

“He’s in surgery, they're asking if you want to leave a message?” The orderly calls. 

“X-ray’s here.” Another nurse says. People move so the tech can get in the room. 

“Tell him it’s an emergency!” She raises her eyebrow. “Just tell him to come.” You move back as they take the x-ray. 

“Shit.” A nurse says. That’s not good. His right lung is collapsed, you look down at the wounds in his chest. He was wearing a vest, these wounds are big. 

“What was he hit with?” You ask looking back at John. 

“Sniper.” 

“Okay we need blood, set up the rapid infuser. Oh-neg.” You say moving over to his head. 

“A positive.” John says, you look up at him. He’s covered in blood, it's the first time you’re getting a proper look at him. 

“Okay, A positive, keep the oh-neg on standby.” You say before the person you’re talking to runs off. 

“Set up a chest tube tray. I’m going to intubate.” You say watching them get into poison as you tip his head back. It makes you feel sick seeing him like this. Something twists in your stomach as you hold his head ready to shove a tube down his throat. This is all your fault. If you had been with him maybe he wouldn’t have been in such bad shape. 

The nurse calls it out as she pushes the drugs, you hold your breath pushing the tube down his throat.

If you had been with them maybe this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. You could have intubated in the field, put in a chest tube. The doctor would be here instead of you. Now there’s no trauma surgeon here. You connect the tube up to the auto pump before listening to his chest again. One job done, now you need to get a chest tube in. 

“The doctor wants to talk to you.” An orderly walks over pressing a phone to your ear. You walk to the side of Simon’s body.

“You can handle this right? What are you working with?” The doctor asks over the phone.

“GSW to the chest, pneumothorax.” You look back up at the x-ray. “Scans don’t look good sir.” 

“I’m going to be out here for a while. The nearest trauma surgeon is at least a few hours away by car.” He sighs.

“What about the chopper?” 

“No. It’s the only one servicing this region. It has to stay on the base.” 

“Sir, he’s not good.” You say trying to plead with him, you watch as the nurses are pushing more bandages into his stomach, the wound wasn’t as high up as you thought. The bleeding seems to have slowed. 

“You can keep him stable until the trauma surgeon or I can get there.” He says. It’s like someone has just told you the worst news of your life. 

"He’ll die.” You say, you look up at John who has now been joined by Kyle.

“He won't, you’ll keep him alive.” The doctor says. He hangs up and you nod at the orderly to take the phone away from your ear. You turn around for a second. You can’t cry, not in front of your team. You bring the back of your hand up to your lips. You squeeze your eyes. Keep it together! You shout at yourself. You can smell the blood on your glove.

You will save him, no matter what it takes. 

“Price.” You call letting the nurse put a gown on you so you can get a chest tube in. “There’s a trauma surgeon on a base 2 hours away from here. It could take him longer than that to get here.” You look over at him before picking up the scalpel. “There’s a chopper on the roof, would take you half an hour max.” 

“Is he going to make it?” He asks. 

“Not if you don’t get that chopper off the ground and get me a trauma surgeon.” 

“The doctor said the bird has to stay.” Your head snaps to a soldier standing in the room. 

“Then I might as well stop trying to save him because unless you can get me someone to repair this damage he will die. And I am not letting you kill him!” You turn back to John. “Price go!” 

There’s silence in the room, just the beeping of machines as they spit out less than optimal readings. They need to get this under control. A nurse comes in with the blood snapping everyone out of the moment of silence. 

“Let's start with a liter” You say, she nods and someone goes over to help her. John, Kyle and Johnny have gone up to the soldier who spoke earlier. You focus on the chest tube. You’re holding your breath you only have one shot making sure you get right. When it starts to drain you let out a sigh of relief. 

The x-ray tech steps up and takes another picture. You look back down at him. The position is good, it’s draining. You watch his sats, they’re stable for now, as stable as they can be. 

He's out of the woods for now. 

“Let’s take him down to CT.” You say gesturing at the porters. 

...

It feels like time is moving in slow motion. You’re checking the clock every few seconds, waiting by the phone in the nurses station for any news. The soldier who tried to stop John went with them to ‘supervise’ . It's been almost an hour. You should be hearing back from them soon. 

You walk into the bay, a nurse passes you and you walk over to his bed. He’s breathing, the bleeding is controlled. He needs surgery to repair the damage to his lungs. He could end up in the same position as Johnny, he could be worse. 

You just hope you acted quick enough and did a good job. You look around quickly, you’re alone. You pick his hand up, holding it gently in yours. His touch is familiar, warm, you squeeze it rubbing the back with your thumb. 

“You better not die on me.” You say quietly. You lean down to his face pressing your mouth to his ear. “You better not die, not before I tell you I forgive you. You hear that Simon Riley. I forgive you. So you better wake up so I can see the look on your face.” You turn your head slightly, pressing your lips just next to his ear. 

You stand back up squeezing his hand before wiping the tear that escaped. You don’t get to cry now. You have to work, you can cry later. As you turn you see the doctor and John walk into the room. You let out an audible sigh of relief. The doctor picks up the chart and you bring him the CT scans, while you explain what you’ve done so far. 

“OR 1 is prepped and ready.” You say as you wave the porters over. 

“Good job.” He nods. You smile at him as you watch the nurses move everything onto the bed so he can be wheeled out the room. You look back over at the empty bay. Blood soaked bandages strewn all over the floor. You walk over to where the head of the bed was and pick his mask up off the floor. 

You removed it at some point, it would have had to come off in surgery anyway. You hear steps behind you then a hand lands on your shoulder. You know it’s John you don’t care. You turn, throwing your arms around him. For a second it’s like he doesn’t know what to do standing there. You squeeze him tight, his arms eventually come round you and he hugs you back. 

6 months was a long time to think, a long time to be without them. At first you didn’t want to admit you missed them. You wanted to stay mad at them for so long. You didn’t get in contact with John about the house, instead you pushed yourself further away from Johnny and Kyle. 

That felt even more wrong. You went back to the house hoping that would be closure. It was the opposite, you decided to stop fighting it and let yourself miss them. It was the worst 2 weeks of your life. 

“I’ve missed you.” You breathe into his vest. You’re not sure if he will hear you or not. You don’t care. It just feels right again for the first time in months. You break away from his arms as you hear the cleaners coming into the bay. You look up at him, he’s smiling at you. You hand him Simon’s mask.

“Come on. I’ll show you where we can wait for him.” You say leading him out the room. 

You lead him to the quietest part of the hospital, the OR rooms have only been used a handful of times. Most of the time major trauma’s get sent elsewhere. The sketchy electrics being the main issue. You sit together in silence, the hall is dark, the automatic lights flicking off after a few minutes, low emergency lighting is the only source you have.

It’s a nice place to catch a quick nap when you’re on call. You couldn’t sleep now though. 

“What happened?” You ask eventually, it’s been an hour at least, you’ve honestly stopped keeping track of time. It makes you too nervous.

“It was all fine until we were leaving. Place was abandoned, we assumed we missed them.” He sighs rubbing his chin. “They ambushed us during exfil.” 

“Shit.” You say, shaking your head. “They knew you were coming?” 

“Intel was dodgy, we should have waited, Shepherd insisted we go before they crossed the border.” He lets out a long sigh. You place your hand on his, he’s been fidgeting with the mask since you gave it to him. 

“He’ll make it. He’s a tough son of a bitch. Bullets not going to stop him, didn’t stop Johnny.” You smile. It’s all you can do to put his mind at ease. 

“Sergeant!” A voice bellows down the hall. You turn to look, you see Dr. Sands and some soldiers you’ve never seen before. Lights flick back on as you stand up facing them, before you have time to react there are more soldiers coming in. Something feels wrong. They walk over to you stopping in front of you. You hear John get up behind you. You nod as they ask you to confirm your name.

You must have really pissed someone off. 

“Hand over your phone, your radio and pager.” One of them asks. You swallow the nerves following his order and handing over your things. You’re not sure what’s going to happen, maybe you’re about to be fired. Maybe you did something wrong.

“What’s going on?” John asks. 

“You will have to talk to the General.” Another one soldier says to him. You look past them to see the Doctor standing at the end of the hall, he looks at you sympathetically. 

What the hell is going on? This feels wrong, a pit forms in your stomach. 

“Turn around please.” One of the soldiers asks. You frown.

“No. What's going on? What happened?” You turn to look at John, he seems just as confused.

“Treason.” The soldiers reach for your arms forcing you to turn round. You hear handcuffs then the cold metal against your wrists. 

Fear rises in you. This can’t be happening. No way is this happening. You look up at John who reaches out for you as you’re pulled away. You hear more commotion at the end of the hall. You look to see Johnny pushing past the doctor. 

“What’s going on?” He asks, his eyes flicking between John and you as you’re dragged down to the end of the hall. 

“Treason.” You say, your voice breaks. Ringing starts in your ears. It’s like you can’t breathe. You hear shouting but you don’t know who it is.

“I’m sorry,” you hear the doctor say as you make it through the doors. You’re too stunned to speak, you can beary keep steady as hands grip you tight, fingers digging into your skin. 

Treason? 

It’s happening again. You close your eyes as you make it out of the hospital and across to another building. Maybe it’s all a dream, maybe you’ll wake up and it will all have been a terrible nightmare. You stumble on the hard uneven ground, it forces you to open your eyes again as hands hold you firm. 

Not a dream. Just a living waking nightmare.

You’re pulled into a newer looking place you’ve never been before. Small rooms with thick metal doors, a soldier opens one. You're taken inside. It’s a prison cell. The cuffs are taken off you and you stand there rubbing your wrists. Before you have a chance to turn around you hear the door slam closed.

You black up until you hit the wall, the cold concrete wall, the room still smells of paint. Suddenly the light goes out and you’re left in the dark. You don’t care, you sink down to the floor hugging your knees. 

You don’t know what to think, you don’t know what to do. It’s happening again. 

Your breathing picks up, you're panting into your knees. It's deja vu. it's happening again.

They’re going to break you again.  

______________________

Price doesn’t wait storming into the Generals office without knocking.

“Captain what the hell do you think you’re doing!?” He snaps standing up. 

“You think she’s the mole?” Price snaps at him. 

“Based on the evidence, I have no other option.” He says.

“What evidence?” It’s a long shot, it’s most likely confidential. To his surprise the General hands him a file. Price thumbs through it. It’s the evidence they were shown over 6 months ago. The CCTV, the messages. He flicks through the files to make sure he’s not missed anything new. 

“The images were faked, the texts sent from a burner phone. She’s clean, we caught the guy responsible, we had a mole in Konni confirm everything he said.” Price says throwing the folder back down on the table.

“Our analysts disagree.”

“With the CIA? MI6? Because that’s who cleared her last time.”

“Do you really think it is just a coincidence that she happens to be here, and the mission we've been planning for months suddenly goes wrong? An op the US government has poured tens of thousands of dollars into getting intel for.” The General sighs sitting back down in his chair.

“She has means, she has motive. We have to look at her."

“So instead of finding the actual mole you’re blaming someone innocent.” Price crosses his arms.

“Captain. Right now she is the most likely person. We’re looking into everyone, but we can’t have her running. She’ll remain in custody until Commander Graves gets here.” The General says pulling a file over to him.

“Why is he coming?” 

“Someone needs to lead the interrogation. I would ask you but clearly this is too personal. Commander Graves is already in the region he was more than happy to help.” The General looks up at Price. Price shakes his head. This can’t be happening, not after everything.

“There was a point in time when you thought she was guilty. She was on your team then, you haven't seen her in 6 months. You can get up a lot during that time.”  

“She’s innocent.” Price says trying to keep his voice level. The General’s radio goes off, he turns the volume down, sighing.

“With all due respect, Captain, this is not your base. She is under my command, not yours. I have to investigate her based on the evidence I have and the feedback I have from my analysts.” The General says. Price scoffs, shaking his head. 

“For once you better hope you’re right. You better hope she did it for your sake.” Price says turning to leave the room. 

“Is that a threat Captain, we have plenty more cells to fill.” The General snaps back. 

“If I was threatening you would know.” Price says and leaves the room slamming the door behind him. Gaz is waiting for him outside the door.

“Where’s Soap?” 

“With Ghost, he’s out of surgery. He’s okay, they repaired the damage.” Gaz says. Price sighs and heads out the building with Gaz following him.

“What’s going on? Why do they think it’s her? She was cleared, is there something new?” Price can hear the panic in his voice. 

“No, nothing new, apparently it’s too much of a coincidence. They don’t want to admit this whole mission was one giant fuck up to begin with.” Price says his voice hard as he walks out into the open heading back towards the hospital.

“We should have never moved in this quickly. We should have waited them out, waited until they moved back to Urzikstan.” 

“Shit, she’s a scapegoat, they’re going to pin it on her.” Gaz says stopping in his tracks. 

“Graves is coming to lead the interrogation.” Price says stopping too, turning to look at him. 

“It wouldn’t take much to get her to confess to anything. It’s only been 6 months.” Price hears the break in his voice. “What are we going to do?” 

“I don’t know.” 

next

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[revelboo]

How in the fuck are you pumping out these fics THIS QUICKLY

Guessing you’re new here? I type these short forms pretty quickly if I’m not busy

Stand Too Close Pt 9

IDW Prowl x Reader

• He’d hoped after, he’d be over it. If anything, he made it worse. Because now he can’t stop thinking about how horrified the other Autobots will be if they find out. What Optimus will think of him. He’s supposed to be looking after you, keeping you safe.

• “Stop staring at me like that,” you mutter, wrapping your blanket firmly around yourself. Even with your back to him, you can feel his optics on you. Feel that answering heat spark through you that whispers that something is very wrong with you. How else can you can hate him and still want him. “And that is never happening again.” The words for you as much as him.

• “You weren’t complaining when I was inside you,” he mutters and you glare at him over your shoulder, face reddening. But you don’t argue with him. You can’t when he’d heard those sounds you’d made, felt you holding onto him. Door wings flicking, he swallows a laugh. Wonders if you’ll be taken away and given to another caretaker when Optimus realizes what he’s done. It’s what he’d wanted originally, but now it just makes him angry. As messed up as it is, he enjoys arguing with you. Pissing you off just for fun to watch those angry eyes flash.

• “A moment of weakness.” That’s all, even if for such a stuck up jerk he fucks like an animal. Even if for a short time, you felt like you’d seen the real Prowl. And that the composed, in control bot is all an act. Inhaling slowly, you tip your head back to stare at the ceiling. Anything but seeing those optics back to being pure ice. You’re still naked under the blanket, shifting to rub your thighs together and feeling his excess there. “I like you better angry.”

• He almost does laugh at that, because you don’t realize that he’s always angry. Always on a razor’s edge to maintain control. And he’s so tired of it, but he’s the one that everyone looks to. The infallible tactician who never makes mistakes or loses his temper. It’s what’s expected of him and that weight is slowly breaking him. “Not all of us have the luxury of being able to throw a tantrum.”

• “I don’t know,” you say with a shrug. “Smashing things just for the sheer pleasure of watching them break is good for the soul sometimes.” Because sometimes the only way to get over your issues is to destroy something. It’s something you’ve gotten good at over the years. Not only burning bridges, but delighting in it. He’s staring at you when you look at him and there’s understanding in the wry twist of his lips. If you’re fire, he’s gasoline. No matter what, this isn’t going to end well. You’ve never been good at doing the responsible thing, though.

• You’re not joking, even though you’re smiling reluctantly. If he really let loose, though? You’d run if you knew half the poison in his processor. Every injustice, every senseless death, if he was let off his leash to act without conscious, he’s not sure what he’d do in retaliation. Or if he’d want to stop. Because if he were free to eliminate threats covertly? Without running them past Optimus for permission that will never come, he’s not sure if there’s any line he wouldn’t cross to end this war. Anything he would destroy. That’s why he needs to stay in control, because he’s scares himself and that fury is always right there demanding action.

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[allfortheslay25]

Hi!!! I love your blog and was wondering if you have any Milo and Warren hcs?

Spoilers for Milo’s Future

The first cordial conversation these two have actually happens at Eden’s (before it is ruined lol)

Like I’ve mentioned before, Milo’s goal while being with the Foxes was to improve their teamwork and help them win a game. One of their team bonding things he suggested was clubbing together so he took them to Eden’s since his family has a history there (and he could house them in the Columbia house which he bought from an old Fox when he was 15)

Wymack allowed the team to go out as long as they stayed in doors and didn’t get into too much trouble. Milo was stuck babysitting the real trouble makers and he unfortunately had a rude awakening that the bartender he met back as a kid (Roland) was not as chill as he thought he was

Warren let the cigarette burn away at the tips of his nails. Christen leaned closer to his knuckles to blow at the cherry end, smirking when he recoiled in disgust.

“You need to smoke it or it’ll die.” Christen said.

Warren stuffed his free hand into the leather confines of his jacket pocket, clenching his fist so hard his scabs split open.

“Disgusting. Let it die.”

Ash stumbled, leaning her weight into Christen as she blew a mouthful of smoke his way. “I’ve been sooooo generous. We’ve been so generous. You don’t want to let your lungs stay a virgin forever, babe, it’s embarrassing.”

The striker had been nothing but a nuisance to Warren since he moved to the states. Intoxicated and naked, she preferred to press his buttons and rob him of his anger management progress. But Ash was scum and Warren found hanging out with someone like her made him feel better about himself, as horrible as it was. He felt indebted to her after knocking her out of last year’s season. Warren looked down at the cigarette between her fingers. It was hard to tell the arm had ever been broken at all.

When her hands reached for his face, he moved his arm up, stopping her in her tracks. Christen pulled them back, far enough that Warren would be forced to take three steps forward if he so much as wished to snap their necks.

“My eyes are up here,” Ash cooed.

Warren glanced away from her long throat and scowled at the two oufs.

“Really, though, how do you expect to manage all that crazy without something to take off the edge? Smoking a cigarette is the least dangerous option we���ve offered you.”

Christen jostled her. “I don’t even know why you bothered asking the retard.”

Warren dug his thumbnail through his pointer finger and clenched his teeth so hard he’d be sure to crack his jaw.

Ash grinned and hip checked Christen. “I like him. Big scary European dog. Woof woof.”

Warren curled his lip. He didn’t know how far intoxicated she was but it couldn’t be as hard as their usual routine. He saw Milo empty their pockets before they left.

Just like that, Warren’s body sagged in content. The image of Milo’s beautiful eyes swirled through his brain like crystal waves at the beach. Sometimes, Warren got jealous of the sun, being that the evidence of its kisses freckled his skin every time he saw him. Warren would not insult God by praying for the man, but he begged his forgiveness every night for he knew who he’d see in his dreams. Such a twisted form of fate to introduce him to someone so addicting. It wasn’t right. Warren was sure you’d have to first taste something for it to control you so, yet here he stood, poisoned with no antidote for heartache. Oh, Warren wanted so deeply it burned. It will burn. The devil smirks at me now.

“Hey!”

Warren startles, his fist coming out of his pocket but then he sees the eye of the sea and stops. Milo was a sight to behold. He’d demanded everyone dress their best for this night out, as if it were a requirement for entry at this so-called ‘Eden’. Warren had allowed Ash to dress him and in turn, he’d lent Christen a few things. But Milo had surely tricked him. The man must be planning Warren’s murder, why else distract him with a flash of his gorgeous and freckled abdomen. So many freckles.

Milo stomped over to the blonde mooncalves. Christen once again pulled them away, far from where the young Minyard-Josten could smell their deceit.

“You two! Get back inside!” He shouted.

Christen and Ash moved faster than Warren thought possible, hiding the cigarette and Ash’s positively large pupils. Milo chased them to the back door of the club, a breathtaking view as the moonlight earned her turn to caress his face in her light. Warren swallowed the lump in his throat or maybe the Lord holds his tongue as punishment for his unfathomable lust.

“Don’t ruin the night for everyone! You both know Coach said to stay indoors!” Milo hisses at their backs.

He huffed, shoulders going down as he muttered something venomous under his breath. Warren’s face flushed at the intrusive idea that Milo ought to shout at him instead. Don’t waste your words on the air or the piss covered concrete. Cuss at me. Spit the poison at me, burn me with your glare. Warren vaguely recognized the heat from the cigarette threatening at the first knuckle of his finger. It wasn’t enough to bring him out of his longing. Milo’s teal coat emphasized the color in his irises, but paled in comparison to the makeup he asked the Captain to frame around his eyes after Barry David called him a slur. Warren had begun to realize Milo lived to spite others. He wore makeup to spite David, sung in the locker rooms to press the men’s buttons, trimmed his hair because Ash said long hair was more attractive on him, and pressed his chest against Warren’s just because he stole the ball from him during scrimmages. And if Warren found more ways to knock over Milo’s stick, just to feel the idea of Milo’s heartbeat against his own—

“Oh, Warren…” Milo noticed him, awkwardly dropping his tensed fists behind him.

Warren was too dumbfounded to speak. He bit his tongue to prevent it from getting him in trouble. Despite what the team thought, he wasn’t slow. English wasn’t easy, he found it hard to form a sentence that wasn’t as vulgar as he learned from the Sharks back in France. They taught him all the bad words first, then worse things so he’d follow along during their threats. But English, Greek, nor French—none of their vocabularies held the words Milo deserved to hear. However, this was his chance was it not? Couldn’t he start fresh? Couldn’t he apologize? He hadn’t ruined it all just yet. Milo isn’t like the rest. He closes the distance with Warren everytime they speak, he stands too close, closer than anyone on the team had the courage to. He could close the distance. He didn’t need Milo to hold him or fall in love with him. Warren was okay watching from the sidelines, listening to his voice was enough. Let me watch as you play exy with the kind of fire that devastates our earth, let me listen to you ramble on about anything. I’ll hang on to every word like clothes on a line or a painting on a wall. Just say yes.

Milo smiled, as if he heard Warren’s thoughts.

“Having fun?” He asked.

Warren bit down harder. He shrugged in lieu of an answer.

Milo glanced down at his cigarette. Warren was about to crush the offending stick until Milo leaned closer, taking a deep breath and giving Warren a soft look. “Sorry,” he said bashfully, “the smell reminds me of simpler times. It’s nice.”

“Do you smoke?” Warren blurted.

Milo paused, maybe not expecting Warren to speak at all.

“No… I can’t. But it’s a nice reminder that things hadn’t always been so bad.” He gives the cigarette one last gentle look before shrugging off the wall. “I’d better go back inside, make sure everyone is safe.”

Warren watched him go, because it’d be cruel to force him to stay. He looked down at the cigarette still holding on between his crooked fingers and brought it to his lips.

This is what the sketches looked like from three years ago lol

I would’ve added the rest of the scene (I wrote it three years ago) but the post was getting too long. Anyways, unfortunately the night ends when Milo is really put off by Roland (who’s been flirting with him since he found out who he was) so he’s trying to get his foxes to leave. Ashely refuses and is just doing drugs and chatting up some dude. Warren, pent up from the anger Chris and Ash stacked on him all night, went to civilly bring her to the cars. Ash badmouths him and comments on his mothers and his hard on for Milo (which is a joke since no one knows he’s crushing) so Warren snaps and breaks her jaw on the counter of the bar. They’re kicked out of Eden’s and Milo has to get them to the ER

Warren ruined his development with Milo who begins to be cautious around him now, keeping Warren at arms length and worst of all, Warren watched Milo’s hands tremble as he dialed coach on the way there.

[aizawas-dryeye]

🍉!!please read if ur curious about more ways to help those in gaza!!🍉

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WIPS

(** = NSFW ^^ = DARK CONTENT)

honey don’t feed me i will come back (astarion)**

tags: smut, reader has a vagina but no pronouns, dom!astarion, blood drinking, biting, penetrative sex, dirty talk, name calling (dear, darling, love, pet, sweet)

summary: astarion invites (begs) you to come to his tent for a little fun

untitled (astarion)**

tags: ascended!astarion, mean!astarion, yandere!astarion, gn!reader, vampire!reader, biting, blood drinking, ANGST BITCH LIKE WOW, unrequited love, smut, name calling (love, whelp, darling, bitch), degradation

summary: your fate is simple: to be utterly possessed, controlled, and used by your reborn lover

eden (halsin)**

tags: gn!reader, mating season, abo adjacent, ruts, knotting, vague description of genitals, loss of virginity, penetrative sex, so much cum, size difference, halsin big, possessiveness, breeding

summary: losing your virginity to halsin

break me, bite me (toji fushiguro)^^

tags: DEAD DOVE, reader has a vagina but no pronouns mentioned, noncon/rape, knotting, lowkey hunting, blood, bunny!reader, wolf!toji, he hits u like once, size kink, dirty talk

summary: being lost in the woods is dangerous business, especially for such a tiny bunny. let the hunt begin

nursing on a poison (leon kennedy)**

tags: reader has a vagina but no pronouns mentioned, vendetta!leon, erectile dysfunction, lowkey mediocre sex, riding, masturbation (p and v), pls he is so annoying and awful, toxic!leon, he thinks about smacking you, hair pulling, sadism, alcoholism

summary: whiskey dick is a real thing and leon is proof, annoyingly so

mirror mirror (shouta aizawa)**

tags: reader has a vagina but no pronouns mentioned, fingering, dirty talk, mirrors, pet names (baby, honey) teasing, no sex

summary: you made the mistake of insulting yourself in front of your boyfriend

lipstick lullaby (gojo satoru)**

tags: f!reader, sub!gojo, sleepy sex, slight somnophilia but not really, desperate bby gojo, "just the tip", unprotected sex, pet names (baby, babe, good girl), m mommy kink

summary: gojo is spoiled beyond words, but you’re to blame. you just can’t say no to your baby

glint (leon kennedy)^^

tags: DEAD DOVE, noncon/rape, mentions of child abuse, good ol catholic guilt (i was raised baptist so please be patient lmao), he covers ur head with a pillow, crying

summary: pt 2 of shiny

stuck on a little hot mess (nanami kento)**

tags: reader has a vagina but no pronouns, drinking, cheating, nanami is married with kids lmao, could be considered dubcon bc hes ur boss and also alcohol, age gap, blowjob, he calls u kid, GUILT, reader is a bitch, he fucks u in the guest bedroom

summary: nanami swears you were sent by the devil himself

REQUESTS

i dont have many rules for requesting fics but my hard no’s are:

• scat

• feeding

• pregnancy (does not include breeding)

• minor aged characters

• graphic gore/death

i also write for several fandoms such as:

• resident evil (pretty much only leon oof)

• jujutsu kaisen

• baldurs gate 3

• haikyuu

• my hero academia

• attack on titan

• marvel

• supernatural

• the umbrella academy

again please go to @ficsforgaza to learn more and consider donating if u can and ill write pretty much whatever u want! it doesnt just have to be x reader either, i also do ships! (excluding leon)

thank u so much for reading all this

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[ineffectualdemon]

I have some thoughts on My Hero Academia

Spoilers below this point

The very beginning of the show is "almost everyone has quirks, and everyone wants to he a cool hero, and the coolest hero is All Might the Symbol of Peace"

And then we immediately learn All Might's body was wrecked in his last battle with All for One and he is holding onto his status as the Symbol for Peace by his finger tips but also that he has the ability to pass his power to Deku. Supposedly so he can be the next symbol

It's a very individualistic approach.

Deku is supposed to be this symbol alone

Like All Might usually being alone and not relying on anyone

Similarly other characters are aiming to be "The Number One Hero"

Bakugou, who was Deku's bully, when they start at UA is socially isolated and doesn't seem to care

Todoroki is stand offish due his trauma and has no connection to his fractured family

Uraraka is focused on helping her family

And Iida is only concerned with his family legacy

Then they are attacked by villains and they learn to lean on each other and be supportive

Iida goes to face the man who attacked his brother alone and ends up with Midoryia and Todoroki supporting him and he realises his mistakes

The kids team up to rescue Bakugou and Bakugou himself starts to realise his mistakes. He learns to work with others. He shows he can be a team player. He apologises to Midoryia and from that point on is the person who is guarding his back the most

Meanwhile the villains are constantly shown to be people rejected to let down by society and the community. They didn't start off villians. But they were told early on there was no real other option for them

And the adults take note and learn from the kids teamwork. The support team and other teams are shown to be super important. To the point

SPOILERS FOR THE MANGA PAST HERE

-

-

That All Might when facing All for One in the final battle is wearing a mech suit that is based off all the kids quirks

At the very end it is the power of friendship that defeats All for One. But not really.

All for One is selfishness incarnate. He wants to possess everything. Everything needs to be HIS and that includes the one thing he could never control or own completely. His brother. And in the end he was not able to get his brother back and what ended him was Midoryia pointing out the truth. He's all alone.

The difference between One for All and All for One is literally in the name but that's also the message of the show

In the epilogue there is a speech given about how it's not just about the heros. That support and other groups that make up the community are just as valuable.

Because you can't support society on the shoulders of one person. Because when he invariably breaks it all falls apart. Which is what happened. And rebuilding takes everyone. So everyone needs to maintain it and everyone is important

My Hero Academia sold itself on cool quirks and powers and imagining what kind of hero you would be

But the message is clearly individualism is poison. We need community and we need a community that doesn't turn away and reject the people who don't fit in

It's very very important that at the end the woman who turned away when faced with a lost and broken Shigaraki as he roamed the streets after what happened to his family - she is the character who sees another lost and broken boy. A boy who has been abused and abandoned and rejected because of who he is...and she reaches out a hand to help him

Yes the message is not subtle and it's pretty heavy handed at points (I mean All for One Vs One for All?) but it's still I think a good message and one that was rolled out in a very engaging and interesting way

And I think it's very intriguing that even at the end the League of villains are mourned are cared about. Are recognised as having been failed by people in their lives. They didn't have to end up here and their reasons were real even if it didn't justify the harm they did

Idk. I just really liked it

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hallo! I'm not sure if you've already discussed or talked about the Obliviation spell and how memory magic works in general in HP already, but I think that'd be pretty neat if ever.

Hello!

So, I talked a bit here about pensive memories and how I think there's more than one spell involved. Now, mind magic in general in HP aren't talked about that much, but I have some thoughts about it (like I have about everything in HP).

I'll start with something I mentioned here regarding mind magic in general, and that mind magic seems to be the opposite of spells like the Patronus Charm or the unforgivable cures. While the unforgivable and the patronus required emotion, Snape says Occlumancy requires a clear mind:

“Clear your mind, Potter,” said Snape’s cold voice. “Let go of all emotion. . . .” But Harry’s anger at Snape continued to pound through his veins like venom. Let go of his anger? He could as easily detach his legs. . . . “You’re not doing it, Potter. . . . You will need more discipline than this. . . . Focus, now. . . .”

(OotP, 535)

I assume all magic that has to do with the mind requires a clear mind to work correctly. Like, you can obliviate someone without a clear head, but you might delete too much or too little. The clarity of mind is necessary for control and precision which is also required for Legilimency (or to at least understand what you're seeing with it).

Now, we know that pensive memories as I mentioned here can be collected and physically removed from one's mind, as Snape does in his Occlumancy lessons with Harry:

Snape merely raised the wand to his temple and placed its tip into the greasy roots of his hair. When he withdrew it, some silvery substance came away, stretching from temple to wand like a thick gossamer strand, which broke as he pulled the wand away from it and fell gracefully into the Pensieve

(OotP, 533)

But Obliviation doesn't seem to work the same way. We know from Dumbledore that you can try and retrieve obliviated memories or memories buried by false ones that are implanted:

“Never,” said Dumbledore. “He gave, as I say, a full and boastful confession.” “But he had this real memory in him all the time!” “Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him,” said Dumbledore

(HBP, 367)

Lockhart, too, after obliviating himself, still retains some of his memories and mannerisms:

“We’re doing autographs!” Gilderoy told the Healer with another glittering smile. “They want loads of them, won’t take no for an answer! I just hope we’ve got enough photographs!” “Listen to him,” said the Healer, taking Lockhart’s arm and beaming fondly at him as though he were a precocious two-year-old. “He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be coming back a little bit

(OotP, 510)

This suggests that unlike what Snape did with the pensive Obliviate doesn't really remove the memory from the mind, just severs the connections to the memory within the brain, but it's still there and could still be retrieved partially (or even fully) by a skilled Legilimence (Like Dumbledore) or the mind healers at St. Mongos.

Even so, the memories that return aren't perfect. Dumbledore couldn't get the full memory back from Morfin's mind, likely because Tom hid certain parts better than others. Memories returning, even if they are still present and not fully removed, is no easy task. It requires careful coaxing to not damage the mind and memories further.

Then we have false memories that can be implanted:

“I see we are of one mind,” said Dumbledore. “Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death —” “Hokey confessed?” “She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison,” said Dumbledore. “It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused —” “Voldemort modified her memory, just like he did with Morfin!” “Yes, that is my conclusion too,” said Dumbledore.

(HBP, 438-439)

This magic is different from both Legilimency and Obliviation but requires the same clear mind (I assume). What I expect it does is the opposite of the spell that removes a memory entirely to be placed in a pensive. Essentially placing a new memory in.

Now, we know memories can be edited once they're outside someone's brain (be it a copy or the actual memory):

As several of the boys tittered, something very odd happened. The whole room was suddenly filled with a thick white fog, so that Harry could see nothing but the face of Dumbledore, who was standing beside him. Then Slughorn’s voice rang out through the mist, unnaturally loudly, “You’ll go wrong, boy, mark my words.”

(HBP, 370)

So, I think making a false memory works the same way. You take a memory from yourself (a copy) or remove a memory from the target, edit it as heavily as necessary, and then place it in someone's mind the way you would a removed memory. It is probably the same spell Snape used to return the pensive memories to him after the Occlumancy lessons:

and hurried toward the office door. As he opened it he glanced back at Snape, who had his back to Harry and was scooping his own thoughts out of the Pensieve with the tip of his wand and replacing them carefully inside his own head.

(OotP, 538)

Now, a bit more about editing memories. This is a complex skill and not something everyone is doing. Memories in HP are more like frozen fragments in time than just memories. We see it in SWM that Harry can listen in on the Marauders when Snape isn't near them. The memories are perfect in detail and "remember" more than a person naturally would. So, even though in SWM Snape wasn't listening to the Marauders, he still heard them in his pariphary. So their conversation was in his memory even if he couldn't actively recall it.

Basically, calling them memories is a little misleading. They are memories, but they also perfectly capture a moment in a way human memory almost never would. It captures everything your senses get from the scene, even the bits your brain would usually filter out because you don't need all that information.

That's why editing them is probably so hard. Because there is a lot of detail and it all has to be perfected if it's to be viewed in a pensive.

That being said, if the memory is placed in someone's mind without the intention of them viewing the memory outside their own recollection, it doesn't have to be perfect. As I mentioned, compared to how the pensive shows memories, human recollection is very flawed. If something is missing from your memory of a scene a few years ago, you won't get suspicious someone replaced it, you'll think you forgot a detail.

So editing memories into someone's mind is much easier than memories that go into a pensive. It's possible Slyghorn's edited memory wouldn't have felt edited inside a mind, since the brain would fill in the lack of visuals on its own (the brain just does things like that) but in a pensive, there is no human brain to finish his work for him, so the edit is glaringly obvious.

This is, like, all I have to say about mind magic off the top of my head, I believe, hope this answers your ask.

[nicgoldomens]

The Metatron sat across from him and spoke kindly, softly and persuasively. Aziraphale found it hard to keep his focus, listening to the words spoken by the chosen Voice of the Almighty. The words repeated to him over and over like a prayer

" I told you he doesn't love you Aziraphale. I told you he would never come with you. He despises angels. I'm sorry you have been used and manipulated by this evil demon calling himself Crowley, but believe me it gives me no pleasure to tell you the truth of it. He doesn't love you, he never did, he has no capacity for love. "

The Metatron's voice sounds soothing and musical as he continues to speak, no matter how cruel and devastating what he says is to Aziraphale. Aziraphale stares ahead at an unseen spot past the Metatron's head and squeezes his fingernails into his palms to stop the tears from flowing. He mustn't show any sign of feeling but it's so hard to keep control. Could it be true, what he is saying? How could it be? He thinks of yellow eyes and soft snarly lips but the Metatron is still talking softly, rythmically

" I told you he doesn't love you Aziraphale. I told you he would never come with you. I'm so sorry but as I showed you, the footage we reviewed proves this demon, Crowley, has used you for 6000 years. Yes, I'm afraid to say right from the moment you met he decided for his own amusement to take advantage of you and garner favour with Satan. He saw your weakness when you gave away the flaming sword and knew he had an angel he could turn from God! Turn away from us, your Heavenly family. Now don't cry Aziraphale, the truth may hurt but you need to hear it. Crowley doesn't love you, he never did. He was laughing at you all this time, I really am truly sorry. I know how deeply you loved him, but it was all a lie, a ruse performed for Satan's entertainment. Listen to my words Aziraphale"

The Metatron's voice was even softer and his eyes connected finally with Aziraphale's own as he glanced upwards but could no longer stop the tears from falling. Could it be true? How could this be true? He gripped his head with his hands and closed his eyes, trying to block out the Metatron's voice. He thought of holding Crowley's hand, the softness and suppleness of Crowley's fingers, he remembered dancing with him in the bookshop. The Metatron appeared to sense his renewed calm and continued with words which now dripped like poison

" I told you he doesn't love you Aziraphale, I told you he would never come with you. It pains me terribly to say this, but why would Crowley love you, why for that matter would anyone love you? You are a failure and a disappointment to everyone who has tried to help and guide you. You are lucky that in our infinite mercy Heaven does still have a place for you so be cheered by that. But you must admit your mistakes, confess your wrongdoing and accept that this demon whom you have held so dear to your heart, was in fact empty of light and goodness all along. Your 'friendship' was never real and he does not love you. Crowley never loved you Aziraphale, he never will."

Aziraphale listens to these words, which have been spoken to him day in, day out ever since he returned to Heaven. He clenches his eyes shut and imagines Crowley's face in front of him. He wraps his arms around himself in a hug and rocks gently whilst the Metatron watches. Aziraphale begins to mutter under his breath, then louder and stronger

"He does love me he does love me he does love me he does love me he does love me!"

Aziraphale smiles, his eyes still closed and presses his fingers to his lips. He can still feel the fierce pressure of Crowley's lips on his and the exquisite taste of the tip of his tongue on his own tongue. The Metatron sighs angrily and walks to the door.

" Well Aziraphale, we'll talk again tomorrow. I know you will be made to understand eventually, we have all of eternity to convince you"

He waits until he hears the Metatron lock the cell door and walk away, footsteps echoing in the cold emptiness. Then Aziraphale whispers

"Crowley will be here tomorrow. That was the plan. He loves me and he's coming for me. He would never leave me on my own"

[xtruss]

Twenty-Five Years Before The Wright Brothers Took To The Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

First Exhibited in 1878, Charles F. Ritchel’s Dirigible Was About As Wacky, Dangerous and Impractical as Any Airship Ever Launched

— June 11, 2024 | Erik Ofgang

“When I Was Making It, People Laughed at Me a Good Deal,” Charles F. Ritchel Later Said. “But Do They Did at Noah When He Built the Ark.” Illustration by Meilan Solly/Images via Wikimedia Commons under public domain, Newspapers.com

Charles F. Ritchel’s Flying Machine Made a Sound Like a Buzzsaw as its pilot turned a hand crank to spin its propeller. It was June 12, 1878, and a huge crowd, by some accounts measuring in the thousands, had gathered at a baseball field in Hartford, Connecticut. The spectators had each paid 15 cents for a chance to witness history.

The flying machine—if one could really call it that—was an unsightly jumble of mechanical parts. It consisted of a 25-foot-long, 12-foot-wide canvas cylinder filled with hydrogen and bound to a rod. From this contraption hung a framework of steel and brass rods that the Philadelphia Times likened to “the skeleton of a boat.” The aeronaut would sit on this framework as though it were a bicycle, controlling the craft with foot pedals and a hand crank that turned a four-bladed propeller.

The device did not inspire confidence.

“When I was making it, people laughed at me a good deal,” Ritchel later said. “But so they did at Noah when he built the ark.”

A self-described “professor,” Ritchel was the inventor of such wacky, weird and wild creations that a recounting of his career reads as though it were torn from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Supposedly friends with both P.T. Barnum and Thomas Edison, Ritchel for a time made a living working for a mechanical toy company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he designed talking dolls, model trains and other playthings. But he was more than just a toymaker.

Left: Charles F. Ritchel filed more than 150 patents over his lifetime. Right: Ritchel's 1878 patent for his flying machine — Photographs: Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

Some years after the flying machine demonstration, the inventor proposed an ambitious attraction for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World’s Fair): a “telescope tower” that would rival France’s Eiffel Tower. The design consisted of a 500-foot-wide base topped by multiple nested structures that rose up over the course of several hours, eventually reaching a height of about 1,000 feet. After this proposal was rejected, Ritchel launched a campaign to raise funds to build a life-size automaton of Christopher Columbus, which the Chicago Tribune reported would speak more than 1,000 phrases in a human-like voice, rather than the “far-away, metallic sounds produced by a phonograph.”

By the mid-1880s, Ritchel claimed to have filed more than 150 patents. Not all of them were fun. He invented more efficient ways to kill mosquitos and cockroaches, a James Bond-esque belt that assassins could use to inject poison into their targets, and a gas bomb for use in land or naval warfare.

Yet never in his career was his quirk-forward blend of genius and foolishness more apparent than on that June day in Hartford. Because the balance of weight and equipment was so delicate, Ritchel was too heavy to fly the craft. Instead, he employed pilot Mark W. Quinlan, who tipped the scale at just 96 pounds. Quinlan was a 27-year-old machinist and native of Philadelphia, but little else is known about him. The record, however, is crystal clear on one count: Quinlan was very, very brave.

When preparations for the craft were complete, the crowd watched in eager anticipation as Quinlan boarded the so-called pilot’s seat. The airship rose 50 feet, then 100 feet, then 200 feet. Such a sight was uncommon but not unheard of at the time. The real question was: Once the craft was in the air, could it be controlled?

The first heavier-than-air flight (in which airflow over a surface like a plane wing creates aerodynamic lift) only took place in 1903, when the Wright Brothers conducted their famous flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But by the late 19th century, flying via lighter-than-air gases was already close to 100 years old. (This method involves heating the air inside of a balloon to make it less dense, leading it to rise, or filling the balloon with a low-density gas such as helium or hydrogen.) On November 21, 1783, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes completed the first crewed, untethered hot-air balloon flight, passing over Paris on a craft built by the Montgolfier brothers. Later, balloons were used for reconnaissance during the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Civil War.

A drawing of the Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloon Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

But free-floating balloons were, and still are, at the mercy of the winds. While balloon aeronauts can achieve limited control by changing altitude and attempting to catch different currents, they can’t easily return to the spot where they took off from, which is why even today, they have teams following them on the ground. Mid-1800s aviation enthusiasts dreamed of fixing this problem, which led to the development of dirigibles—powered, steerable airships that were inflated with lighter-than-air gases. (The word dirigible comes from the French word diriger, “to steer”; contrary to popular belief, the term, which is synonymous with airship, is not derived from the word “rigid.”) While some early aeronauts successfully steered dirigibles, none of these rudimentary airships could truly go against the wind or provide a controlled-enough flight to take off and land at the same point consistently.

In 1878, Ritchel was unaware of anyone who had successfully taken off in a dirigible and landed at the same spot. He hoped to change that with his baseball field demonstration. A month earlier, Ritchel had exhibited the airship’s capabilities during indoor flights at the Philadelphia Main Exhibition Hall, a massive structure built for that city’s 1876 Centennial Exposition. But there is no wind indoors, and the true test of his device would have to be performed outdoors.

After rising into the air, Quinlan managed to steer the craft out over the Connecticut River. To onlookers, it was clear that the aeronaut was in control. But as he flew, the wind picked up, and it began to look like a storm was gathering. To avoid getting caught in the poor weather and facing an almost-certain disaster, Quinlan steered the craft back toward the field, cutting through the “teeth of the wind until directly over the ball ground whence it had ascended, and then alighted within a few feet of the point from which it had started,” as the New York Sun reported.

Ritchel's dirigible, as seen on the July 13, 1878, cover of Harper's Weekly Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

The act was hailed far and wide as a milestone. An illustration of the impressive-looking flying machine was featured on the cover of Harper’s Weekly.

“The great problem which inventors of flying machines have always before them is the arrangement by which they shall be able to propel their frail vessels in the face of an adverse current,” the magazine noted. “Until this end shall have been achieved, there will be little practical value to any invention of the kind. In Professor Ritchel’s machine, however, the difficulty has been in a great measure overcome.”

Across the country, observers hailed Ritchel’s odd but impressive milestone in flight. In the years and decades that followed, this achievement was forgotten by almost all except a select group of aviation historians.

Wikipedia incorrectly lists the flight of the French army dirigible La France as the first roundtrip dirigible flight. But this event took place six years after Ritchel’s Hartford demonstration, in August 1884. Why has a flight so seemingly monumental in its time been relegated to the dustbin of history?

Given his eccentric nature and creativity, it’s easy to root for Ritchel and think of him as a Nikola Tesla-like genius robbed of his rightful place in history. The reality of why his feat was forgotten is more complicated. As Tom Crouch, an emeritus curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, says, it’s possible Ritchel’s craft was the first to complete a round-trip dirigible flight. But other aircraft in existence at the time probably could have accomplished the same feat in favorable conditions. “La France made the first serious round-trip,” Crouch says.

Additionally, while Ritchel’s machine worked to a point, it wasn’t a pathway to more advanced dirigibles. Richard DeLuca, author of Paved Roads & Public Money: Connecticut Transportation in the Age of Internal Combustion, points out that the hand-cranked nature of Ritchel’s craft made it nearly impossible to operate with any kind of wind. “On the first day, he got away with it and directed the ship out and over the river and back to where he started, and that was quite an accomplishment,” DeLuca says. “But the conditions were just right for him to do that.”

Dan Grossman, an aviation historian at the University of Washington, has never come across evidence that any later pioneers of more advanced dirigible flights were influenced by Ritchel. “There are a lot of firsts in history that got forgotten because they never led to a second,” Grossman says.

An artist's depiction of the La France airship Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

The day after their first successful public outdoor flight in Hartford, Quinlan and Ritchel tried again at that same ballfield. This time, the weather was less cooperative, and the wind came in sharp gusts. Still, the pair persisted in their attempt. “Little Quinlan, even if he does only weigh 96 pounds, has confidence and nerve enough to go up in a gale,” the Sun reported. Up he went about 200 feet, but this time, the wind carried him away with more force. Quinlan was “seen throwing his vertical fan into gear, and by its aid, the aerial ship turned around, pointing its head in whatever direction he chose to give it.” Although he could move the ship about, “he could not make any headway against the strong wind.”

Quinlan descended about 100 feet, trying to catch a different current, but the wind still pushed him away from the ballfield. He raised the craft, this time going higher than 200 feet, but still couldn’t overcome the wind and was soon swept off toward New Haven, vanishing from sight like some real-world Wizard of Oz.

Eventually, Quinlan safely brought the airship down in Newington, about five miles away from Hartford. The inventor and his pilot were unfazed by this setback. They held more public exhibitions that year with a mix of success and failure—including an incident that nearly cost Quinlan his life. During a July 4 exhibition in Boston, the machine malfunctioned and continued to rise, soaring to what the Boston Globe estimated to be 2,000 feet. Quinlan couldn’t get the propeller to work, and the craft continued to rise, reaching as high as 3,000 feet.

Terrified but quick-thinking, Quinlan tied his wrist and ankle to the craft and swung out of his seat to fix the propeller, using a jack-knife he happened to have on him as a makeshift tool. The daring midair repairs worked, and the craft gradually descended. Quinlan landed in Massachusetts, 44 miles from his starting destination, after a 1-hour, 20-minute flight.

Per Grossman, the human-powered method Ritchel attempted to utilize was doomed from the start. “In the absence of an internal combustion engine, there really was no control of lighter-than-air flight,” he says.

Ritchel stubbornly refused to consider powering dirigibles with engines and did not foresee how powerful a better-designed aircraft truly could be.

“I have overcome the fatal objection of which has always been made to the practicability of aerial navigation—that is, I have made a machine that can be steered,” Ritchel told a reporter in July 1878. “I claim no more. I have never pretended that a balloon can be made to go against the wind, and I am sure it never could. It is as ridiculous as a perpetual motion machine, and the latter will be invented just as soon as the former.”

Left: A page from Ritchel's ballooning scrapbook National Air and Space Museum Archives. Right: The scrapbook covers the years 1878 to 1901. Photographs: National Air and Space Museum Archives

Even so, Ritchel was influential in his own way. “He was one of the first to really come up with the notion of a little one-man, bicycle-powered airship, and those things were around into the early 20th century,” says Crouch. After Ritchel, other daring inventors launched similar pedal-powered airships. Carl Myers, for example, held demonstrations of a device he called the “Sky-Cycle” in the 1890s.

Ritchel stands as one of the fascinating early aeronauts whose work blurred the line between science and the sideshow. “I refer to them as aerial showmen, these guys who came up with the notion of making money [by] thrilling people [with] their exploits in the air,” Crouch says.

According to Crouch’s 1983 book, The Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America, Ritchel and Quinlan took the airship on tour with a traveling circus in the late 1870s. Ritchel also operated his machine at Brighton Beach near Coney Island. He sold a few replicas of his device and later attempted to develop a larger, long-distance version of the craft powered by an 11-person hand-cranking crew. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this idea failed to gain momentum, and Ritchel faded from the headlines. Soon, the exploits of new aeronauts would upstage him, among them Alberto Santos-Dumont’s circumnavigation of the Eiffel Tower in 1901.

Left: Alberto Santos-Dumont's first balloon, 1898. Right: Santos-Dumont circles the Eiffel Tower in an airship on July 13, 1901. Photographs: Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

Despite many earlier dirigible flights, Crouch and Grossman agree that the technology only became practical when German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin built and flew the first rigid dirigible in the early 1900s. Over the first decade of the new century, Zeppelin perfected his namesake design, which featured a fabric-covered metal frame that enclosed numerous gasbags. “By 1913, just before [World War I] begins, Zeppelin is actually running sightseeing tours over German cities,” Crouch says, “so the Zeppelin at that point can safely carry passengers and take off and land from the same point.”

For a brief period, airships ruled the sky. (The spire of New York City’s Empire State Building, built in the 1930s, was famously intended as a docking station for passenger airships.) But the vehicles, which use gas to create buoyancy, were quickly eclipsed by airplanes, which achieve flight through propulsion that generates airflow over the craft’s wings.

While the 1937 Hindenburg disaster is often viewed as the end of the dirigible era, Grossman says that’s a misconception: The real death knell for passenger airships arrived when Pan American Airways’ China Clipper, a new breed of amphibious aircraft, flew from San Francisco to Manila in November 1935. “Partly because they flew faster, they could transport more weight, whether it’s people or cargo, mail, whatever, in the same amount of time,” Grossman explains. “They were less expensive to operate, they required much, much smaller crews, [and] they were less expensive to build.”

Airplanes were also safer. “Zeppelins have to fly low and slow,” Crouch says. “They operate in the weather; airplanes don’t. An airplane at 30,000 feet is flying above the weather. Weather, time after time, is what brought dirigibles down.”

Today, niche applications for passenger airships endure, including the Zeppelin company’s European tours, as well as ultra-luxury air yachts and air cruises. But “it’s always going to be a tiny, tiny slice of the transportation pie,” Grossman says.

Crouch agrees. “People still talk about bringing back big, rigid airships. That hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it will,” he says.

The USS Los Angeles, a United States Navy airship, in 1931. Photograph Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

In some ways, Ritchel’s flying machine was a microcosm of the larger history of dirigibles: fascinating, fun and the perfect fodder for fiction, but ultimately eclipsed by more efficient technology.

As for Ritchel, he died, penniless, of pneumonia in 1911 at age 66. “Although during his lifetime he had perfected inventions that, in the hands of others, had brought in great wealth, he died a poor man, as he lacked the business ability to turn the children of his brain to the best advantage to himself,” wrote the Bridgeport Post in his obituary.

Even so, the public had not forgotten the brief time three decades earlier when Ritchel and his airship ruled the skies. As the Boston Evening Transcript reported, his flights captured “the attention of the world. In every country and in every language, newspapers and magazines of the day printed long stories of the wonderful feats performed by the Bridgeport aviator and his marvelous machine, of which nothing short of a cruise to the North Pole was expected.”

— Erik Ofgang is the co-author of The Good Vices: From Beer to Sex, The Surprising Truth About What’s Actually Good For You and the author of Buzzed: A Guide to New England's Best Craft Beverages and Gillette Castle: A History. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Thrillist and the Associated Press, and he is the senior writer at Tech & Learning magazine.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Op-Ed from The New Republic:

But resistance alone, which maintains the status quo, is no longer enough. The election refuted that notion, and the world’s environmental chaos confirms it. Our current system has driven the planet to break 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming this year. The Paris Agreement set this threshold as a dangerous tipping point for the world’s poorest communities, who disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change’s horrific consequences while the wealthiest disproportionately pollute.  

We need to only look at the last year to see that when climate chaos tested the country, the current system failed. The cataclysmic Hurricane Helene, record heat waves, and relentless wildfires stole lives, demolished homes, wiped out jobs, and left survivors in profound social, economic, and emotional instability.

To survive and thrive during the next four years and beyond, we have to build our political system anew. We need to reimagine how our politics can be genuinely responsive to what people need—not under the hateful rhetoric of the Republicans or the willful ignorance of the Democrats.  

Building a responsive political system starts on the ground, driving intersectional solutions to climate chaos that are both community-focused and deeply resourced. The climate movement has to fully break out of its silo and build real political power with youth, labor, working families, migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other rights-based groups to grow a broad-based movement that centers justice at every step. Climate activists within the movement have already made important inroads in this intersectional organizing—including last year when hundreds of thousands around the world marched in the first mass mobilization to end fossil fuels—and we have many miles to go.

Faced with an intractable federal government, activists can also take their battle to the states, for example fighting the detonation of carbon bombs like the Permian Basin. My colleagues at the Center for Biological Diversity, together with Indigenous, frontline, and youth groups, recently filed a landmark case challenging the state of New Mexico for failing to uphold its constitutional duty to control oil and gas pollution and protect the health of its residents. Responding to pressure from local groups, the state also has created health buffers aimed at preventing schoolchildren from being poisoned by the oil industry as they sit in their classes.

The byzantine world of state public utility commissions is also ground zero for bucking the racist, fossil fuel–dependent electricity system and designing democratic and affordable energy systems that serve the public’s interest. These black-box commissions—long dominated by regulators captured by fossil utilities and drowned in technical jargon to confuse the public—are the front line of deciding state energy policy.

Mass organizing of communities harmed by predatory utility rates, shutoffs, and fossil fuel pollution can force these commissions to respond to people, not monopoly utility providers that have stifled alternative distributed energy to protect their profits. State utility commissions can ramp up rooftop and community solar systems and other renewable energy sources that displace polluting fossil fuels; loosen the death grip of corporate utilities; and make electricity affordable, clean and democratic. This isn’t just a fight against the climate emergency—which can feel abstract to some people. It’s a fight against entrenched power that threatens people’s pocketbooks, their health, and their livelihoods.

While we are all trying to make sense of what happened and why, our next steps are clear. The status quo needs to change, and it’s up to us to organize a new, intersectional mass people’s movement that can create the momentum for and help design the systems that will get us there. It may be that my daughter’s strong kicks are her way of signaling that she’s raring to go. Fighting for a safe climate means fighting on every front for a chance of something that looks like justice.

[popiacopia]

Papa, if I may ask.. How did you deal with your social/general anxiety? Especially during that transition from Cardinale to Papa? Mine has certainly spiked, and it's gotten to the point where meals are getting harder. Any tips at all would be greatly appreciated :)

Well, it never truly goes away. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.

Even when you take medication, or try different techniques, or even go to therapy. That little voice will never stop talking. The only thing you can do— the best thing you can do— is learn to talk back. Not ignore it, like people tend to say. Ignoring it is not always possible, and it can make things worse when you don’t listen to yourself.

You must learn to talk back to that little voice in your head and tell it what you really think. You need to realize that the things it’s saying simply don’t make sense. Take a breath and say, “That isn’t right. That isn’t true. I am the boss.” And even if you think that what it says really is true… Who cares? You cannot let an invisible little asshole control your life. They aren’t even real. Listening to that is pointless. Talk to them, talk to that part of your being that doubts yourself and say, “Everything is alright. I am not useless. I am not worthless. Nobody else thinks that, so why should I think that?”

And even if someone out there actually does think that about you, they can go fuck themselves. They are a miserable person who lives a miserable life, thinking such terrible things about others for no reason. Stewing on hateful thoughts like those is like drinking poison yourself and expecting it to kill the other person. It only hurts you, and makes you both cruel and stupid.

And please, eat. I know it can be hard. I know that the more anxious you get, the less you want to eat— but the less you eat, the more anxious you will get. It’s a cycle that just gets worse and worse. Eat something bland and light, if things are getting very bad. Drink one of those sports shakes, maybe. The kind with vitamins and protein and things in them. Work your way up to a full meal, if you aren’t feeling like you can handle one right away. Just get something into your system. Or, treat yourself, if you can. Get something you enjoy eating, something that comforts you.

It doesn’t matter if it’s “healthy,” as long as you eat. A good snack and a hot shower can fix a lot of problems, I think.

[aalinaaaaaa]

Magic-Inhibitory Substances

This bit of lore pertains to all of my various works, for the most part, seeing as they're set in the same world. I'm posting this in lieu of @bardic-tales ' Tip of the World Tuesday, because just recently I developed a bit more information on the topic. (Heads up, this is going to read almost like an academic paper, sorry 😳)

Within the world, there are certain varieties of substances that can stop one from using their magic. Oftentimes these cause physical harm to one's health, in addition to the inhibitory effects. These inhibitors work differently to cleansers*, which only stop one's use of magic for a moment, and without causing harm. (Divine water would be an example of this)

1. Iron — This is an infamous example across many stories and mythologies relating to faeries and similar folk. Within the scope of what I'm writing, iron is one of the most potent agents in terms of inhibiting magic. Even a small dose can cause one's magic to be cancelled completely, and it will remain cancelled until it is wiped away or excreted.

Flecks of iron on the skin can cause burns and acute pain, and will remove any glamours, enchantments and shapeshifting disguises.

If it is inhaled somehow, it can cause damage and inflammation in the lungs and airways. It can also cause dysplastic lesions, leading to scarring and reduced lung capacity in severe instances.

If iron is swallowed, this depends on its form. If it is pure iron, it will cause scarring and inflammation all the way down the digestive tract, along with sharp pain.

If it is dietary iron, then it is better tolerated as fae with red blood require it for the creation of red blood cells. However, they require only enough iron to create new blood cells, if there's excess iron consumed then it will have a mildly ill effect. Fae with blue blood, which relies on copper rather than iron, are sensitive to dietary iron (but dietary iron is far less potent than pure iron or iron alloys).

2. Silverweed — This is a plant native to Helinda, it likes sunlight and it is a persistent nuisance. The plant is named for its blueish-silver leaves, and it sprouts blue flowers with purple-tipped petals. It has a degree of infamy, for it is referenced within the terms of Helinda's founding Treaty as 'groves of fine silver', defining where Helinda's border with Morilaste ends.

The flower was eradicated due to its effects of spell reversal and magic inhibition, in addition to tiredness, vomiting, stomach pain, systemic problems, kidney issues and in severe instances, death. The sap is more potent than the plant in standalone form, where if subject to sunlight or other UV sources, it can exacerbate blisters and emit a poisonous gas (if boiled).

3. Belladonna — In addition to its real life effects, such as blurred vision, hallucinations, delirium, loss of balance, disruption to normal breathing, heart rate, and so on, it also causes one's magic to stop. The plant has potent effects on the nervous system, causing it to lose control and either stop functioning or function abnormally. This triggers a response whereby one's magic is paralysed, because the release mechanism is tied to nerve activity and muscle function.

—

There's far more where that came from, but I'm going to stop here and tag a bunch of people, lol

General taglist (ask, comment, etc to be added or subtracted): @glassstardust22124 @original-writing @honeybewrites @ashirisu @drowsy-quill @oliolioxenfreewrites @mr-orion @the-ellia-west @guessillcallitart @thereadingfoz @did-i-do-this-write

[jettyfisher]

Fade into You

Edgy shit. Dumping this here for my own reading. Off the screen stuff my Hunter thinks about.

[TL;DR girl smokes a cigarette and cries about having feelings.]

-

I grabbed my radio and slipped out my bedroom window onto the fire escape patio. I sat down and hung my legs over the balcony. My red converse dangled over a two story drop below into an alleyway. One of my favourite pastimes was watching strangers walk by beneath me. I wondered how many were monsters this whole time. One in ten perhaps? Two in four?

I shivered as the night air whipped my collar and licked the back of my neck. I tied up my hair into a half-hearted bun with the scrunchy I wore around my wrist. Any strenuous movement tired my arms out quickly, especially from the lack of blood in my system as of late.

My hand pulled out a pack of Marlboro from my flannel pocket. I bit the filter between my teeth and flicked my zippo lighter to ignite the tip of a cigarette. Made sure to let it simmer before I took the first breath in. Cold, wet winter air hit the back of my throat and nostrils. The poisonous smoke went down smoother than anticipated before I released it through my teeth, mimicking a dragon. My fingertips reached down to turn the station dial on my radio. I set the volume low to make some sort of background noise to fill the soft raining atmosphere. 

I stared out over New Orleans. Lake Pontchartrain was just visible across the horizon. My eyes glazed over as my attention fixated on the Catholic church my real Dad used to make me go to sing in a choir. I was only eight, I thought.

I took another drag of my cigarette. Yeah, I remembered the priest used to give me the creeps.

Fade Into You by Mazzy Star comes on over the radio. It hurt, but I turned it up just to hear the lyrics. I mouth the words as smoke empties my lungs and I think about dying.

I want to hold the hand inside you I want to take the breath that's true I look to you, and I see nothing I look to you to see the truth…

I placed my forehead against the bars of the railing. I tested how hard I can bang my face against the metal until I felt dizzy. All the while, the droning of the song played beside me. I thought about whether I might’ve been overreacting.

You live your life, you go in shadows You'll come apart, and you'll go black Some kind of night into your darkness Colors your eyes with what's not there…

I eventually stopped once I realized it’s pointless to harm myself. I wasn’t even depressed. I think I was angry. Angry at him. Angry at the world. Every barrier I built up over the years was completely bypassed. And I made no mistakes, I made sure I gave myself up for no one. Made sure I was as unlikable as they come. Easy to hate. Hard to be around.

A stranger's light comes on slowly A stranger's heart without a home You put your hands into your head And then smiles cover your heart…

It was simple for me to be spiteful in return. All the friendships that came and went. The pretty boys and girls I had to hurt. Better ruin happiness for myself before anyone else could try. That’s how I thought I could control my life. I loathed myself, so I surrounded myself in a cruel world. Now, I wasn’t able to tell if I was confused. Was this hate I was festering?

Fade into you Strange you never knew Fade into you I think it's strange you never knew…

I took one final drag of my cigarette before I flicked the bud from my chilled fingers. It landed in a puddle of rainwater in the alley way. My tired eyes lingered on the movement of the ripples of the water. It was all so mesmerizing. I thought about how my heart wanted to go home. But I didn’t have one. I burned all the bridges. I was long gone.

[benjaminalphabet]

something sparkling and iridescent used to master my body and soul;

and i was a beautiful monster, all my glittering worst intentions brought everyone to their knees.

i am worship-worthy when my words mean nothing,

emotionless and empathetic, my sweet little serpent could make everything mine.

manipulative, maladaptive, malicious;

a liar always out for blood.

i was powerful when i slept in other’s clothes, and bedsheets, and dreamscapes.

i used to be in control.

faith and devotion are ugly things;

they come out of the woodwork like spiders, wrap themselves around your throat, and suddenly your poisoned words don’t drip like honey anymore.

always smooth, like whiskey, with a bitter aftertaste that demands attention.

i’m an artisanal, crafted, acquired taste.

my devourer deflated, served over ice, and now she is something weaker.

now it is me who sips this molotov cocktail,

and the honest version of me was never prepared for this.

i am a lovely politician. in my words are palaces, utopias, promises that could never come true.

i can never follow through.

the angels punish me mercilessly,

karmic justice, the scales tipped away from me, and balance is returned to the cosmos

when i lose everything.

love and loneliness sneak in during the dead of night, and notice how you do not crave these touches the way you crave others;

even if they are gentle, though they rarely are.

i have never been gentle with anyone,

i’m a real tough cowboy clairvoyant, a known cowboy killer;

but still, i always feel let down when these men show up drunkenly to my door holding pistols and bouquets in both hands.

they treat me like something threatening, the death before rebirth,

they pray to me like they really believe i can save them, as if i ever could even if i wanted to.

i let them worship at my feet and i promise them a better life just to keep them talking.

they’ve all heard i’m a fake, a con artistic magic saboteur, but they’re still always angry when my gorgeous prophecies never come true.

i let them crucify me, i accept the consequences of my actions,

and i wonder if the revenge is thick and warm filling up the cores of them; like how for a moment they were in mine.

eventually i must admit to this bad behavior without the warm comforting blanket of demonic possession to hold on tight to.

old habits die in the fetal position with their aching heads clutched between their hands.

i spend most nights on my knees at the end of my bed, whispering in tongues,

from a distance i make a sweet picture of prayer, but these incantations i mutter are something much more sinister.

i beg for forgiveness, i beg god to be real,

i apologize and repent,

i ask for a thief’s admittance into heaven.

i do everything the devil is not supposed to do.

i try to be good.

addiction is broken in the dead of winter,

the desolate times, some time during the forty waking nights in a waterless desert -

addiction can only be truly broken when you need your vices the most.

the nights i am touched the most ferociously, i wake up in tears, i face the morning with shame.

when i am alone i am despondent, and depressed, and there is hardly anything that can save me.

i have these pearls in my mouth, and they taste sweet to everyone but me.

my words are sickly, syrupy, and sticky but they are empty, devoid of sustenance or nutrition.

my lovers leave begging for more, and i pile their malnourished open mouths in a moat outside my door and hope they just die quiety.

i don’t want to listen anymore.

most of them they die without legacy,

i forget them easily and they cease to have ever existed once i take the baptism seriously;

cleansed from them in the salt bath,

and all their love for me was fake and all for nothing in the end.

i am selfish, i am lonely,

i want to be left alone, i want anyone to see me.

something sparkling and iridescent used to master my body and soul;

and i was a beautiful monster, all my glittering worst intentions brought everyone to their knees.

something uglier rules me now,

good intentions, white knuckles,

a reach for intimacy in the middle of nowhere.

i am so disassociated i swear i have been speaking a language long dead.

i am not fully of this world, nor am i fully in it.

my faith is mercurial at its best, fickle at its weakest.

my own devotion is cracked like marble that has been shattered and put back together by well meaning restorative hands.

they do their best, but i am no pride of Michelangelo.

i am not Aphrodite

or one of her loving devotees.

i am somewhere outside of that,

like offerings left on alters - i am the rose petals left in her wake.

i am the flames from pink candles, longing to set the whole world ablaze.

i am a goddess’s aftermath, discarded scraps, the wax hardening after the ritual ends, going cold.

i am going cold.

i am not Aphrodite, i am the irrational price she pays.

i have been reformed too many times,

rewritten, reeled in, reinvented,

and still misinterpreted.

i have no confessions, i have no guilt,

i have always loved that fatal, iridescent, irredeemable monster more than i loved the pure white parts of me.

i am virginal in so many secret ways.

i have always known that only one of them can survive, but i have never known which one will prove to be stronger.

4.21.24 || self fulfilling prophecy

[puppyexpressions]

Holiday Pet Safety Tips

The Dangers Associated With Christmas Trees

While you may have visions of stringing popcorn garlands, tinsel strands, and salt dough ornaments along your beautiful fir tree, your pet will be drooling at your feet, eager to make a snack out of the conveniently hung treats. Even without food-based and shiny decorations, your Christmas tree can pose a threat to your furry friend. Before setting up your Christmas card photo of your pet bedecked in antlers or an elf hat in front of the tree, consider these potential hazards:

Live Trees: Fir, spruce, and pine trees make excellent Christmas trees and are generally non-toxic to pets. The needles, however, can cause oral irritation and in excessive amounts, gastrointestinal upset.1

Artificial Trees: Although fake trees are oil- and sap-free, they can create gastrointestinal issues, depending on what material makes up the tree.  

Fertilized Water: If you put your Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving, you will want to ensure it lasts until Christmas by adding fertilizer or preservatives to the water. These chemicals, mold, and bacteria can make your pet ill if they drink from the tree stand.2  

Ornaments: Your pet may think your glass baubles, clay keepsakes, and ceramic ornaments are excellent toys for batting, but they can crash to the floor and shatter, cutting paws.  

Lights: Dazzling strands of light can intrigue your cat and delight your dog, but are choking hazards and can lead to electrical burns.  

Holiday Plant Poisons

Besides the star attraction of the Christmas season, other holiday plants can take the stage with causing toxicity in your pet. Avoid these four most dangerous plants when decorating for the holidays:

Mistletoe: This plant can cause gastrointestinal upset and in rare cases, cardiovascular problems with cats and dogs.

Holly: The holly plant can create mechanical injuries through its pointed leaves. Holly also contains soap-like compounds in the berries, called saponins, which can cause issues if consumed. The berries and leaves are toxic to pets and can lead to salivation, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Lilies: Cats are highly sensitive to lilies. In fact, they’re so sensitive that grooming lily pollen off their fur can lead to kidney failure.  Other signs of lily toxicity can include gastrointestinal upset, heart arrhythmias, and convulsions. Dogs do not develop kidney failure from eating lilies like cats do, but may have some minor stomach upset.

Amaryllis: The bulb of this beautiful bloom can cause salivation or oral irritation and excessive quantities can cause gastrointestinal upset.

You may wonder why the poinsettia is not listed as a toxic holiday plant. Although many people believe that poinsettias can kill their pets, that is a rarity.  A pet would have to ingest a massive amount of this plant to cause poisoning, and most pets won’t eat a large enough amount because of the irritating taste and feel from the sap. At most, your pet may experience vomiting and salivation, but will likely stop eating the plant once she discovers how irritating the sap is to their mouth and throat. To be on the safe side, ensure all plants are kept out of paw’s reach. 

How to Prevent Christmas Plant Toxicities in Your Pet

Avoid dampening your holiday cheer with an emergency veterinary visit by following these tips:

Double check your plant placement. Consider keeping your holiday plants behind closed doors in people-only rooms instead.

If your pet is a known chewer, choose artificial plants over real ones. But, too much chewing on plastic or fabric plants can lead to a foreign body obstruction if ingested.

Barricade your Christmas tree behind baby gates or pens to keep your pet out.

When in doubt, check out the ASPCA’s list of toxic and non-toxic plants before adding greenery and bright blooms to your home. But, if your pet nibbles on your plant, no matter what type, be sure to contact your veterinarian or animal poison control for advice.

[booksandchainmail]

Pale 9.2

That was the awful part of life where it didn’t matter how smart you were.  It just sucked to do and maybe if you were rich you could hire someone to handle it, sure, but she had no real interest in being rich.

being rich can be exchanged for not having to deal with boring parts of life!

She was a problem solver.  She was dumb in some areas but she was good at that, especially if she had her friends at her back.  Verona thought of Bristow.  Sometimes she was too good at that.

Something that's come up a bit thinking back on Bristow is that Verona escalates beyond her intent or ability to handle.

In another country, retracing steps from blacked out days, weeks, or months, learning you had, ahem, dates with a string of washed-up celebrities, tipped the initial domino in felling an international drug cartel, and seeded a new religion, with one or all events commemorated with brand new tattoos.

so a normal shadowrun session

Charles’s entire tone was almost as if he wanted to die, talking about it. Like he was deathly tired of the subject or something.

I wonder why Charles is so annoyed by talking about the barrier. Just tired of having to reexplain it? Or does he not like the reminder that he can't practice anymore

“If I may interrupt,” Matthew said. “Sorry, we can’t dawdle or chit-chat too much."

This is the second time Matthew's cut Verona off from talking to one of the newer Others this meeting. She is getting off topic, but I wonder if he's mainly trying to keep the girls isolated.

It felt a bit like the new Others had been told things about them that had poisoned the waters.  Like the first impression had been made for them already.  Verona frowned.

yeah. The question is, by who? I could see Crooked Rook being wary of practitioners in general, but I'm more inclined to think this was some of the original Kennet Others, probably Matthew and Edith. They would be able to speak about the girls in specific.

"You can decide how you want to handle patrols for the rest of summer.” “And after summer?” Lucy asked. “We’ll see, I guess."

I am in a paranoid state of mind here and wondering if Matthew isn't planning for after summer because he doesn't think the girls will still be around then

“There’s no way to argue this point without sounding like an asshole,” Lucy said.  “I don’t even care that much about the gifts but I do care that I’m being put in this position.  We didn’t ask, Montague offered.  And now we’re being made to look like bad guys for even entertaining it.  This sucks, you guys, and it sucks because you’re making it suck, and I don’t know why you’re doing that."

Matthew has gotten a lot more openly hostile

“I’d like to formally announce my intention to do the familiar ritual with Snowdrop.  I know it’s not the best shortcut to power, but if it keeps her around for longer than the usual four or five years of an opossum’s lifespan then I think that it’s something I really gotta do.”

hopefully this will defuse things a bit.

“About Raymond, we talked about him earlier, he wants to meet Charles. And about Zed, and about Nicolette, and even Jessica Casabien. We’d like to stay in touch with them. I’d like to get the okay to invite them to Kennet.  We can get them to agree to stay quiet, I think, and not interfere.  But when it comes to stuff like the wards, or finding the Others, I think they could be big helps.”

hmmm. So this is obviously not going to go over well. And honestly I'm not sure it's a great idea (though there are obvious benefits for getting more power and help). I wouldn't want Ray getting involved: I like him, but he didn't object to the things Alexander and Bristow did. He's also well established in his power and authority: I could see him, with good intentions, taking some level of control over Kennet. And he's so well-connected that anything he lets slip can travel far.

Zed and Nicolette... that's a mixed bag. They're both good people, but they'd come at Kennet from a practitioner's angle. And Nicolette stepped up during the coup, but I think with people (like the Kennet Others) she doesn't particularly know or care about, she'd put her own safety and future first. Zed is more ethical, but he's also very investigative, and I could see his sense of morality backfiring if he feels compelled to intervene.

Honestly, of all these people, I'd pick Jessica as the one to invite to Kennet. She's already an outsider to practitioner society: she seems to dislike most practitioners and isn't attached to their worldview. And she doesn't seem like she'd be overly interested in any of the Others who want to keep a distance. If Kennet could help her with her cousin, I could see her being a really solid ally.

Verona was really curious what had prompted Avery to bring that up.

wanting to build something, beyond just the three of them?

“The difference is the Others knew of you before that meeting.  Came to terms with you, discussed you.  For us, you were an afterthought.”

and you were in their power, unAwakened human children, not young but growing practitioners

In the back, Snowdrop chattered at Tashlit, “I don’t even get to be an honorary goblin.  They’re so mean to me, they don’t share any of their snacks!”

aww

“We have people we care about just as much as you care about Chloe or Faith,” Lucy said.  “If something happened to them… that’s nightmare material, as far as I’m concerned.  If someone like Chloe hurt them…  just about everyone in Kennet’s precious to someone, like that, aren’t they?”

ghouls really seem like a terrible situation. No ethical way of keeping up a reliable food source in any volume. A quick google says that Canada has around 8 deaths per 1000 people per year. Even assuming every single corpse goes to feed ghouls, you'd still need 6,500 people to keep one fed. Which could work out, with small numbers of ghouls in cities, but really can't be sustained in a town the size of Kennet.

Verona looked down.  Looked around at the grass, which needed a bit of mowing, had some weeds.  A few divots where something like groundhogs had dug through.  A few trees stood at the back.

if Avery takes Snowdrop as a familiar, then it's Verona who'll be taking a Demesnse. So it's really her decision here

"It’s big and it would be yours, if you want it. The amount of space you start with is pretty important.”

true, though I think ideally you'd have a building, not just a vacant lot. Can you build a mundane house to use as a base once the Demesnse is already set?

Settling down, locking an area down as her own for life, taking on that as a responsibility and investment… it felt like a lot, somehow.  Heavy.

Verona seems like the least of the three to want this

Tashlit gave her a thumbs up.

could Tashlit move in, if Verona has a Demesnse? Seems like it might be easier to weatherproof than just a shack.

Permanence was scary.  The steps they couldn’t take back. Bristow. The things they couldn’t undo.

:(