#Advanced Immune System

[appri-dot]

May we know more about your spine parasite oc I think they're very interesting :00

Oh oh oh!! Experiment Yell0! :]

I gave a brief description of em in my original posts, but basically they were a deep water parasite that lived in caves. after a mining expedition one tinie guy had attached to a human, the observed effects were interesting and terrifying enough for the population of around 13 of them to be collected and shipped off to "The Facility"

They were experimented on, analyzed, dissected etc. And they eventually created Yell0, a lil guy that attaches to mammals as a symbiotic parasite, with hyper intelligence akin to a 3rd-4th grader! he was kept in a facility alongside other creatures but! After a accident that blew up half the place and set in the lockdown procedure he was stuck in his lil tube for good :(

Scientists often would talk around him and he knew that one of the last automated procedures in lockdown is complete annihilation of life within to prevent the hostile creatures from escaping, the unfortunate fact being many researchers and non-hostile specimens couldn't evacuate and are stuck in a waiting deathtrap...

And that's the just of his story, w out Dr. Luna input, as she's a whole nother character

[lanteanserver]

I think technically speaking, I'm not an Irish Catholic or an English Catholic, but I'm a Ro[a]m[i/a]n{g} Cat{-}holic until and unless they excom{m/eow}nicate me, and really, if they're going to do that,

[justposting1]

What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Sugar For 30 Days?

Sugar is a common part of many diets, but it’s also linked to a host of health issues when consumed in excess. For many, cutting out sugar can seem like a daunting task, but doing so can lead to remarkable changes in your body. Here’s what you can expect if you stop consuming sugar for 30 days. Week 1: Withdrawal Symptoms and Cravings The first week of quitting sugar can be challenging as your…

[spiritualityloves247]

[jcmarchi]

New treatment could reverse hair loss caused by an autoimmune skin disease

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/new-treatment-could-reverse-hair-loss-caused-by-an-autoimmune-skin-disease/

New treatment could reverse hair loss caused by an autoimmune skin disease

Researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School have developed a potential new treatment for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss and affects people of all ages, including children.

For most patients with this type of hair loss, there is no effective treatment. The team developed a microneedle patch that can be painlessly applied to the scalp and releases drugs that help to rebalance the immune response at the site, halting the autoimmune attack.

In a study of mice, the researchers found that this treatment allowed hair to regrow and dramatically reduced inflammation at the treatment site, while avoiding systemic immune effects elsewhere in the body. This strategy could also be adapted to treat other autoimmune skin diseases such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis, the researchers say.

“This innovative approach marks a paradigm shift. Rather than suppressing the immune system, we’re now focusing on regulating it precisely at the site of antigen encounter to generate immune tolerance,” says Natalie Artzi, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute of Harvard University.

Artzi and Jamil R. Azzi, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are the senior authors of the new study, which appears in the journal Advanced Materials. Nour Younis, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc, and Nuria Puigmal, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc and former MIT research affiliate, are the lead authors of the paper.

The researchers are now working on launching a company to further develop the technology, led by Puigmal, who was recently awarded a Harvard Business School Blavatnik Fellowship.

Direct delivery

Alopecia areata, which affects more than 6 million Americans, occurs when the body’s own T cells attack hair follicles, leading the hair to fall out. The only treatment available to most patients — injections of immunosuppressant steroids into the scalp — is painful and patients often can’t tolerate it.

Some patients with alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases can also be treated with immunosuppressant drugs that are given orally, but these drugs lead to widespread suppression of the immune system, which can have adverse side effects.

“This approach silences the entire immune system, offering relief from inflammation symptoms but leading to frequent recurrences. Moreover, it increases susceptibility to infections, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer,” Artzi says.

A few years ago, at a working group meeting in Washington, Artzi happened to be seated next to Azzi (the seating was alphabetical), an immunologist and transplant physican who was seeking new ways to deliver drugs directly to the skin to treat skin-related diseases.

Their conversation led to a new collaboration, and the two labs joined forces to work on a microneedle patch to deliver drugs to the skin. In 2021, they reported that such a patch can be used to prevent rejection following skin transplant. In the new study, they began applying this approach to autoimmune skin disorders.

“The skin is the only organ in our body that we can see and touch, and yet when it comes to drug delivery to the skin, we revert to systemic administration. We saw great potential in utilizing the microneedle patch to reprogram the immune system locally,” Azzi says.

The microneedle patches used in this study are made from hyaluronic acid crosslinked with polyethylene glycol (PEG), both of which are biocompatible and commonly used in medical applications. With this delivery method, drugs can pass through the tough outer layer of the epidermis, which can’t be penetrated by creams applied to the skin.

“This polymer formulation allows us to create highly durable needles capable of effectively penetrating the skin. Additionally, it gives us the flexibility to incorporate any desired drug,” Artzi says. For this study, the researchers loaded the patches with a combination of the cytokines IL-2 and CCL-22. Together, these immune molecules help to recruit regulatory T cells, which proliferate and help to tamp down inflammation. These cells also help the immune system learn to recognize that hair follicles are not foreign antigens, so that it will stop attacking them.

Hair regrowth

The researchers found that mice treated with this patch every other day for three weeks had many more regulatory T cells present at the site, along with a reduction in inflammation. Hair was able to regrow at those sites, and this growth was maintained for several weeks after the treatment ended. In these mice, there were no changes in the levels of regulatory T cells in the spleen or lymph nodes, suggesting that the treatment affected only the site where the patch was applied.

In another set of experiments, the researchers grafted human skin onto mice with a humanized immune system. In these mice, the microneedle treatment also induced proliferation of regulatory T cells and a reduction in inflammation.

The researchers designed the microneedle patches so that after releasing their drug payload, they can also collect samples that could be used to monitor the progress of the treatment. Hyaluronic acid causes the needles to swell about tenfold after entering the skin, which allows them to absorb interstitial fluid containing biomolecules and immune cells from the skin.

Following patch removal, researchers can analyze samples to measure levels of regulatory T cells and inflammation markers. This could prove valuable for monitoring future patients who may undergo this treatment.

The researchers now plan to further develop this approach for treating alopecia, and to expand into other autoimmune skin diseases.

The research was funded by the Ignite Fund and Shark Tank Fund awards from the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

[reasonsforhope]

"Doctors have begun trialling the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine in patients, as experts hailed its “groundbreaking” potential to save thousands of lives.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

Now experts are testing a new jab that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells – then prevents them ever coming back. Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.

The phase 1 clinical trial, the first human study of BNT116, has launched across 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

The UK has six sites, located in England and Wales, with the first UK patient to receive the vaccine having their initial dose on Tuesday [August 20, 2024].

Overall, about 130 patients – from early-stage before surgery or radiotherapy, to late-stage disease or recurrent cancer – will be enrolled to have the jab alongside immunotherapy. About 20 will be from the UK.

The jab uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers.

The aim is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.

“We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer,” said Prof Siow Ming Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust (UCLH), which is leading the trial in the UK.

“It’s simple to deliver, and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell, and then you target them. This technology is the next big phase of cancer treatment.”

Janusz Racz, 67, from London, was the first person to have the vaccine in the UK. He was diagnosed in May and soon after started chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The scientist, who specialises in AI, said his profession inspired him to take part in the trial. “I am a scientist too, and I understand that the progress of science – especially in medicine – lies in people agreeing to be involved in such investigations,” he said...

“And also, I can be a part of the team that can provide proof of concept for this new methodology, and the faster it would be implemented across the world, more people will be saved.”

Racz received six consecutive injections five minutes apart over 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday.

Each jab contained different RNA strands. He will get the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.

Lee said: “We hope adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back because a lot of time for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it does come back.” ...

“We hope to go on to phase 2, phase 3, and then hope it becomes standard of care worldwide and saves lots of lung cancer patients.”

The Guardian revealed in May that thousands of patients in England were to be fast-tracked into groundbreaking trials of cancer vaccines in a revolutionary world-first NHS “matchmaking” scheme to save lives.

Under the scheme, patients who meet the eligibility criteria will gain access to clinical trials for the vaccines that experts say represent a new dawn in cancer treatment."

-via The Guardian, May 30, 2024

[yuulettte]

"𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫?!"

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐮𝐣𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐮 𝐊𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐥𝐥 ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

✰ Tags: gn!reader x various JJK men, fluff, reader has a cold oh NOOOO!!, sfw, just sugary sweet

✰Characters: Gojo, Yuta, Yuji, Geto, Megumi, Nanami

✰ A/N: I tested positive for covid so I decided to be self indulgent.. First time writing hcs for most of these boys ( ´ ▽ ` ) I apologize in advance

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐮 𝐆𝐨𝐣𝐨 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

You tell him not to come near you out of habit, but he reminds you about his limitless technique! Can germs touch him? Who knows~

Long movie watching sessions, he'll buy you whatever you want to eat. Shoko told him to make sure you're hydrated, so he might force you to drink. Good luck!

Still manages to make you laugh with his antics. He'll wave his hands over you, using that eccentric tone, "Get better~ get better~!" as if it'll magically heal you

One time you catch him reading articles online on how to take care of a sick partner. The expression on his face is that of pure focus

He eventually gets fed up and says something about how 'the strongest never gets sick!' And thus turns off his technique to cuddle with you. He catches your cold the next day LOL

Guess even the strongest isn't immune to flu season

𝐘𝐮𝐭𝐚 𝐎𝐤𝐤𝐨𝐭𝐬𝐮 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Attentive in every way. Is absolutely unafraid of getting sick. He always ends up catching whatever bug you have because he takes care of you no matter what

Runs you warm baths. He'll help you wash, dry your hair, and get dressed.

Rubs your back if you're feeling unwell, even when you're not sick ( ´ ▽ ` )

"What do you need? I'll go get it for you. Is there a dish you'd like for me to cook?"

He's an insanely good care taker (no surprise)

Has a habit of buying you plushies whenever you get sick, so your bed is over taken by them after a few years of dating. It's an army.. Or so you call it!

Will give you that sad puppy look if you refuse to let him hold you, even if it's out of love. He just wants to make you feel better

Doesn't let anyone else enter the house unless it's your family, he's your boyfriend and so it's his responsibility to take care of you! (he's protective)

𝐘𝐮𝐣𝐢 𝐈𝐭𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Will show up at your place with a bag full of medicine and goodies

Also doesn't care about catching whatever you have.

"I've got a super good immune system, so it's no problem!"

It's true too, what takes you a week to get over he'll tank in two days. It's actually kinda scary

He'll do whatever he can to make you laugh. And if you can't, then he'll comfort you

You'll have video game tournaments in your bed, and by the end he's always curled around you like a guard dog. The both of you fall asleep like that often

He'll wipe the sweat from your forehead and give you a cooling pad when you wake up as an apology :'D

𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐮 𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐨 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

He's not very good with germs, so he might keep his distance if you have a nasty virus

He still really cares! Just may approach you with a mask and some anti bacterial

Lots of praise. Reminds you that it'll be okay, you'll feel better soon and he'll make sure of it

"You'll feel better soon my love, don't worry. Just drink this,"

He'll sooth you with his voice to help you fall asleep.

Like Satoru, he'll ask Shoko for advice on how to care for you. He takes to it more naturally, though. It's the dad vibes! Care taking is in his DNA

You find yourself getting sick way less often when spending tons of time with him. He just has that sort of aura?

𝐌𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐦𝐢 𝐅𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐨 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Not the most emotionally attentive, but he'll come over and bring magazines/books for you to read and some medicine

Will sit with you in silence. He doesn't want you to hurt your throat from forcing yourself to talk

If you'd like, he'll summon his shadow dogs for you to cuddle with. He'd do it himself but he doesn't want you to feel sweaty

He's surprisingly strict about what you eat. It has to be homemade and full of nutrients

He cooks recipes that Tsumiki taught him for you ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ ) they're delicious!

Even if he doesn't show it outwardly, he's honestly extremely worried. He wants you to get better as soon as possible!

𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢 °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

He takes time off work, you're his number one priority. He WILL be the one nursing you back to health

Husband material. He knows all of your favorite sick foods and most effective medications

Firm about you getting rest. "Please, allow me honey," and it's you literally reaching for a cup of water

He cooks meals that are easy on your stomach. Took the time to educate himself on what vitamins to give you

Will likely also catch your sicky, but he honestly doesn't mind because that means more time off with you.

The two of you will be wrapped around each other in bed while he reads to you, both with wet towels on your foreheads <3

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

[honourablejester]

I’m realising as I browse around that I really love lore when it comes to ttrpgs, games and game worlds. And by that I don’t mean I like to obsessively learn lists of dates and wars, and the names of leaders of factions, I mean …

I like learning weird, juicy details about the worlds of games. I like finding little nuggets that say things about the set-up and culture and assumptions of the world. I like finding fragments of ideas to hang whole story and character concepts off.

I love that in D&D 5e’s Spelljammer, the Astral Sea is full of the corpses of dead gods that you can fully sail up to in your ship. Just. Floating out there. Waiting for you to rock up to them.

I love that in Sunless Sea, the king of the drowned is the way he is because he fell in love with an eldritch sea urchin from space, and successfully married it. His niece is an angry sentient floating mountain whose mother is a goddess-mountain and whose father is a face-stealing humanoid abomination. This is fine and normal.

I love that in Starfinder, there are mysterious bubble cities in the surface of the sun that the church of the sun goddess discovered and cheerfully occupied despite having no idea who the hell built them or for what purpose.

I love that in Dishonored, the entire industrial revolution that has built the empire we’re in the midst of saving or destroying was built on the properties of whale oil harvested from eldritch tentacled whales that live half in the oceans and half in an eldritch void personified in the form of a weird-ass black-eyed shit-stirrer of a deity who was formed from a murdered and sacrificed child. And this is largely a background detail.

I love in the Elder Scrolls that the dwarves up and fucking vanished, as a race, at some point in history and absolutely nobody has any clue what happened to them or where they went, but their technology is so insane that ideas like ‘they time-travelled’ or ‘they erased themselves from existence’ are absolutely on the table.

I love that in Numenera, so many incredibly advanced civilisations have risen and fallen on this world that it’s absolutely littered with bonkers science fiction artefacts that have caused the current medieval-esque society built over top of them to develop in bizarre ways, and also you can find a mysterious artefact that absolutely baffles and delights your character, but that you the player will fully recognise as a slightly-more-advanced thermos flask.

I love that in Fallout, an irradiated post-nuclear apolocalypic hellscape, there’s a cult that worships the god of radiation as they have come to understand it, and they are mysteriously immune to radiation with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. They’re not ghouls, the usual result of fatally irradiated humans with some resistance, they’re perfectly normal humans who can somehow just tank rads all damn day. It could be a mutation, but Lovecraftian gods apparently do also fully exist in this setting, so it’s also possible that maybe they were on to something with this Atom thing.

I love that in Heart The City Beneath, there’s a mass transit train system that they tried to hook up to the eldritch beating god-thing buried under the city so that they could metaphysically chain the stations together more easily, which went horrifically and metaphysically wrong in entirely predictable fashion, and now there’s a whole order of train-knights who have to keep people safe from the extradimensional weirdness magnet the network has become.

That, and all the fantastic little details you can stumble across. There’s a biotech augmentation in Starfinder called an angler’s light that gives you a little angler-fish bioluminescent antenna on your forehead, and it was developed by asteroid miners who needed light but also both hands free for work. In Dishonored there’s a festival that everyone pretends is outside of time so nothing you do during it can be held against you. There’s a god of snuffed candles mentioned in a single line from Heart The City Beneath who has pacifist cannibal priests, and that is literally all the information you get on him.

While things like the history and geography and timeline of a world do also fascinate me, I’m not really here to memorise stuff like that. I’m here to find weird little nuggets of information and worldbuilding and delight in them. Give me funerary customs and weird myths and oddly specific circumstances and baffling little objects and absolutely bonkers cosmological implications. Give me the corpses of dead gods, and aesthetic movements with highly specific backstories, and bureaucratic fuck-ups of titanic scale, and mysterious things that seem to break all other rules of your setting with absolutely no explanation because people in-universe have no fucking clue how they work either. Why are the Children of Atom immune to radiation without ghoulifying? Not a clue, but Confessor Cromwell has been cheerfully standing in that irradiated pond that kills the player character with about 10 minutes of exposure for the last year and he’s still absolutely fine.

I just. I really love lore. I like my settings to have some meat in them, some juicy details to dig into, some inexplicable elements to have fun trying to explain. Particularly that last bit. I feel like a lot of people when building worlds feel like the rules have to be absolute and everything has to have an explanation, but nah. Putting some weird shit in makes everything immediately feel bigger, more real, because we don’t have even half an idea of how our world truly works, there’s always something we just don’t fully understand yet, and you can put that in a fictional world too. Some mysteries, some contradictions, some randomness, some weirdness. There’s a line, obviously, this depends on execution, but a little bit of mystery really does help.

Lore is awesome. And weird lore is even more so. Heh.

[redfoxwritesstuff]

CW: Smut, blood, knots, ruts Rating: Adult Summary: Alastor and his Doe have weathered the passing of the seasons, though he has failed to define their relationship and she's been too afraid to ask. Now, Alastor's Rut is upon him and it's time for her to return the favor. Follow up to Antler Play

“Alastor?” you called out as you stepped into your shared bedroom, fluffy doe tail flicking in worry.

Alastor had failed to join you for pastries over coffee. It was terribly unlike him and you feared you had done something to upset him. The relationship between you two was something strange. You shared a room, slept in his presence and yet you still were not totally sure what you were to the buck. 

He had been acting strange the last few weeks, scenting you when none were around. The musk of him clung to you, as if you needed any additional way for him to show his claim over you. 

Yet, you didn’t know what that claim was or what it meant for your heart. 

The door slammed shut behind you. Fear jumped through your system, forcing a squeak from your throat as you turned, looking at the door shrouded in shadows. They were too dark, too deep for the amount of dim light that was in the room. 

He was in here, somewhere. You knew that. You could smell him. The crackle of his power danced over your skin. 

“Cher,” his voice came from the radio sitting on the fireplace mantle, the speakers lighting up the way his smile did when he was more radio demon than deer as he spoke. “Remember how I helped you?”

“Alastor?” You turned, heart pounding in your chest as you looked for him. 

“I’m here,” his voice came directly over your shoulder as his arm wound around your waist, lifting you from your feet. 

His presence was overbearing as he carried you toward the bed, only to set your feet down on the carpet. Facing him, you couldn’t stifle the gasp. 

The antlers atop his head were heavy, wide and branched. Dark shadows clung to them, dripping from the tines. Bitter musk was thick in the air, making your mouth water even outside of your season. 

You were a sexual being, in life and in death. While you learned your seasons made you made with desire, you were not immune to it outside of that time like Alastor seemed to be. 

Trembling legs took you a few steps back from the advancing buck, eyes black as coal swallowed bright red radio dials that looked back at you. 

It all made sense. The last few months, Alastor had been more affectionate. He scented you more. He hovered more. He watched over you more. You thought something had changed between you. Perhaps he loved you, but.. he had entered his season.

His libido was awakening as his body prepared itself for his rut. He was a buck, but the way he looked at you made it feel very much like he was a wolf, ready to devour you. 

“Do you remember how I helped you last year?” Static was loud in your ears, but at least this time the words came from the man you had fallen in love with.

“Yes,” you whispered, heart pounding so heard in your chest that you were sure he could hear it. 

“Will you return the favor?” Alastor’s bright red eyes ran slowly down your body, taking in each curve as he did so in a way he never had before.

“y-yes,” excitement ran through you, shooting down your spine as the large buck reached out for you. 

“My doe,” his voice rumbled through the static, coming from all around you as he wrapped his arms around you.

Your feet dangled for a moment before you threw them around his waist. As he walked as if nothing out of the ordinary at all, shadows and tentacles ripped at your clothes. Stitching on the seams gave way. The fabric ripped- clothes fell from you in tatters.

Your body reacted instantly to the feel of him, to the feel of the static running over bare skin. The rich smell of forest and buck was all you could smell. Fire ignited in you, growing hotter with each deep lungful of him you pulled in. 

Everything was happening so fast. As Alastor laid you on the bed, you realized he was naked. Never had you seen him bare and yet his clothes melted into the shadows without you even noticing. The bulbus head of his cock pressed into your waiting opening as he climbed over you, pushing your legs up and apart. 

“You’re already ready for me,” Alastor said, though his voice came from all around as he thrust forward, length parting your walls in one smoothe stroke. 

He throbbed inside you as his hips met yours. Or perhaps it was your wet cunt that was throbbing? You were not sure anymore as you arched into him. Gruff groans reverberated through his chest as he pulled from you, only to slam back into your wet cunt. 

“Fuck,” you moan as his cock nudges your cervix, hot thick length spreading your core easily. 

Each thrust came hot on the heels of another. Alastor set a brutal, violent pace as he reached down, grabbing your legs in his large hands. He pulled your thighs up, higher and higher, as he thrust into you. As your knees sank, so close to framing your breasts, Alastor groaned again. 

Red radio dial eyes never left you as he thrust, hard and powerful, into your tight cunt, spread so open for him. Tentacles grabbed your legs, freeing his hands to hold your waist, pulling your core down to meet his hips in each painful blow. 

It hurt to be taken by the Radio Demon but the pain felt so good, you couldn’t help the moans, prayers made up only of his name dropping from your lips. He shifted back, pulling your body down the bed a few inches just as the top of your head grazed the headboard. 

He had fucked you up the bed. Reaching up, you braced yourself against the headboard. Alastor’s long arms made it easy for him to reach up, doing the same. The wood cracked as he used it for leverage, allowing him to thrust into you harder still. 

“Fuck,” you moaned, fingers tangling in the bedsheets as he fucked into you again and again. 

His grip on you was painful as he shifted, angling your hips and forcing your back into an arch. The blunt head of his cock pressed against your stomach, pushing out slightly with each thrust. 

Desperate for anything, you dug your nails into his arms. You clung to where his skin shifted from the black stains of blood spilled that he could never wash away to the soft tan of his skin and the light covering of fur over it. 

Sharp claws dug into your thighs. His hips slammed into yours, harder and harder, making you burn inside. You could feel every delicious impact, pulling breathless moans from your lips.

The pebbled buds of your nipples ran against the soft fur of his chest as he fucked into you, trying to reach as deeply as possible with each and very thrust. 

“I’m going to fuck you so good you’ll feel my cock in your pretty little cunt forever Dear” Alastor growled out, voice coming from the radio speakers as well as the man over you, “and after we’re done, I’m going to fuck you again, and again, until you can’t take anymore, just to make sure you’re so full of my cum, nothing else will fit”

“Alastor,” you whined, voice airy as you struggled against the force of his cock pounding through your insides, driving you closer and closer to your orgasm. Heat built inside you, being pulled forth by the pheromones wafting off of him. 

“You’re going to feel my cum inside you as you sit for breakfast around all of those pathetic sinners. You’re going to smell of me. Everyone’s going to know you are mine.” Alastor snarled through his promises, claws sinking so deep into your thighs that you could feel the trickle of blood running up your legs. 

“When I’m done with you,” his voice flipped, coming from him and the speaker, changing nearly every other syllable. “you’re going to suck me clean before I fuck you again”

His hands tangled in your hair, pulling your head back as he continued to fuck into you. He couldn’t decide if he wanted our neck under his teeth or if he wanted your eyes on him as he forced you to cum on his cock. Did he want to taste you or see you as he marked you his?

“What?” You gasped out, losing track of where you ended and Alastor began. 

“All you’ll be able to do is think of the way my cock fills you,” he promised, dark words pushing you closer to the edge. “The taste of my seed on your tongue. The sound of my voice in your ears. The feeling of my teeth in your neck. My hands on your skin. My claws gripping your hips.” 

“Please, Alastor,” you begged for him, not knowing how to ask for what you needed. Never had you imagined him saying such things to you. 

“Thoughts of me will devour your mind,�� he swore and you were so sure he was right, “until you return to me, begging me to take you again.” 

“Oh, fuck!” you cried out as his tongue ran over your neck. 

“You will dream of me. When you touch your pretty little cunt, you’ll wish it was my hands. You’ll wish it was my cock. I will ruin you.” 

You drug his face to yours, needing his kiss. It was the first kiss shared between you. What sweetness there was in it quickly dissolved into the fiery passion of mating. Sucking on his tongue desperately, you moaned and whined, needing him in all your holes. 

You wanted nothing more than his full possession as you submit, your body pliant just for him as he continued his lust filled rambles, “You’re going to cum so much for me aren’t you pet, gonna drag my cum deep inside you while your little cunt begs for my seed”

Leaning forward, his lips found your neck. Folding over you, each thrust had more power yet. You wrapped your arms around him. The strong muscles of his lean back flexed and bunched under your touch. Your orgasm washed over you with sudden, drowning waves of pleasure. Accompanying your sudden orgasm was the grunting bleats coming from your lover. 

His cock swelled inside you, pushing deeper and deeper with each thrust. The tip nestled against your cervix. Tears ran down your face as your opening was pushed wider with each thrust into you. 

Teeth sank into your neck, grounding him in the coppery taste of your blood and you in the searing pain ripping through your body. It distracted you from the pain in your opening as his cock swelled; the base growing larger and larger as he rutted it inside you. 

“Mine,” he growled as his body stilled, cock locked inside you as he shot rope after rope of hot cum into your fluttering cunt, painting your cervix with it. “Mine,” he rutted against you, hips rocking as he tried to push his cock deeper.

He stilled, lips placing soft kisses on bloodstained skin. Tall ears were pulled back, displaying the heavy antlers that clattered against the wall on occasion. Soft bleats filled your ears as your cunt continued to strain around his cock. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into your skin, “I seem to be stuck.” 

“W-what?” you gasped as he tried to pull his cock from you and failed, his base far too swollen to slip out of your hole. 

Soft caresses smoothed your naked skin as he waited, peppering kisses along the bloodstained skin. He wrapped you up in his arms, dragging you to his chest as he rolled onto his side. 

“Mine,” he rumbled, rubbing the side of his head against the top of your head, ensuring he pushed more of the musky scent of him onto you.

“What does that mean?” you whispered, unsure if Alastor was in any condition to answer you truthfully. 

“My doe,” he said, running his hand down your back as his still hard cock, trapped inside of you with the large bulbous knot twitched inside you. “No other bucks will touch you.” 

“While we’re in season?” you braved asking, hoping that his rut was enough like your season to allow for a moment of clarity post orgasm. 

“Forever,” Alastor said, again scenting you. He ran his hooves up and down your shin, spreading the toes and smearing more of his scent onto you. 

“Mine,” Alastor said as he held you close.

“Mine.” 

Join us at VoxTek for a Vox themed Hazbin Discord where we talk Vox, Hazbin, writing, reading, art and who knows what else. You may even catch some exclusive sneak peeks at upcoming fics from some of your favorite writers including the first page of the next chapter of MisD a day early!!

[mikeluciraphgabe]

Batfam sick days

Dick had gotten the Spanish flu at like 12 and almost died. It was definitely an experience that no one involved wants to think about ever again. 0/10, no stars, would not recommend

Jason had the bubonic plague at 13ish - gave it to Dick - and both had genuinely almost died. Like the doctors had to pull Bruce aside and was like ‘maybe we should…” and everything before Bruce growled and willed them to be better

Tim once got sick and with a sickness that never existed before he got it - no one knows HOW he got it (not even himself) and spread it out to the rest of the kids on purpose by accident

(Like irl, if one kid is sick, ALL kids are sick. “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me, you hippo fucker.”)

Cass doesn’t get sick for other than a rare runny nose/cough if you count allergies - though, she did have chickenpox once. She had to have the sitcom ‘oven mitt’ jail

Steph gets sick once a year, same month, same week, same day, all the way done to the second, like clock work. She WILL be dramatic as fuck about it even though it’s just a common cold

Damian gets sick every now and then because he wasn’t around the amount of people with the league than he is now with elementary/middle so he has new germs etc

Duke gets sick rarely and when he does, it’s BAD. Like hospitals and shit bad. Only because his temp gets to the 100s, not because he’s dramatic enough to have one of the PLAGUES (side eyes Dick and Jason)

Bruce gets sick on purpose. He needs to make sure his immune system is constantly up to date. He even has it marked on a calendar a month in advance “sorry - will be sick”

Alfred doesn’t get sick. He’s not human. His a weird ancient god that soul bonded with Martha and Thomas and now watches over the bats because they are an extension of his bonds

+

Martha doesn’t get sick - but only because she says no to the virus and walks away

Thomas will basically kneel over randomly and become sick because Martha said no

[ddarker-dreams]

Recent chrollo thoughts?

you make his world more vibrant, whereas he desaturates yours.

the realization hits him one morning with the impact of a collapsing star. chrollo's humming to himself — the tune coming from a song you've replayed to death — reflecting on the day's itinerary. a trip to the pier, an aquarium, then a waterfront restaurant. he can already guess the outfit you'll pick from the wardrobe he provided you with. it'll be something comfortable. sneakers and a cardigan, since all the walking will warm you up too much for a coat.

you'll find the coastline's wind irritating, he muses. your preferred hair ties are ready and waiting in his jacket's pocket for the inevitable complaints. maybe you'll gawk over a pigeon, or some equally unimpressive urban wildlife. unlike him, your footsteps aren't silent enough to go undetected. that won't stop you from trying. he can envision the disappointment on your face when whatever catches your interest scurries off.

as you sulk at the loss, you're likely to blame him for the development.

"look what you did. your vibes are so awful it scared the poor fella off," or, potentially: "it couldn't stand to be near you a second longer. can't say i blame it."

at some point, he'll try holding your hand. your nose will scrunch up and you'll look at him with thinly veiled revulsion. he'll smile, as he always does, asking what's wrong like you could respond honestly with others in earshot. you'll deflate and capitulate eventually, digging your nails into his skin for some semblance of vengeance.

at the aquarium, you'll point to the ugliest aquatic animal, proudly declaring its resemblance to him. he'll fight back a laugh. if you're feeling particularly daring, you might ask him to stick his hand in a tank with venomous inhabitants. his immune system is advanced to the point that it wouldn't harm him, but you don't need to know that.

when evening brings its cooler temperatures, you'll act like you aren't cold, despite visibly shivering. he'll offer you his coat and you'll tell him you'd sooner experience hypothermia than accept it. he'll take a longer route to the restaurant to see how true this claim is. once you're inside, you'll walk to your chair swiftly, preventing him from pulling it out for you. he'll already know what you want to order before you glance at the menu. when the waiter comes, you'll send a nervous glance his way, uncertain if speaking to the stranger is a good idea or not. this subconscious acknowledgment of his power over you will give him a thrill.

chrollo lives through a day that hasn't happened yet. you sit at the epicenter, connected by infinite possibilities he can't wait to experience firsthand.

creaking floorboards interrupt his daydreaming.

you're awake, he notes, as incapable of sneaking up on him as ever.

only you could make the mundane extraordinary to a man like him.

[mindblowingscience]

The newly developed lymph node—a sac filled with immune system components—is implanted under the skin. It is designed to act like a learning hub and stimulator to teach immune system T cells to recognize and kill cancer cells. Lymph nodes—tiny glands throughout the body, mainly in the neck, armpits, and groin—are part of the immune systems of mammals, including mice and people. They number in the hundreds so that immune cells in one area of the body don’t have to travel far to alert the immune system to impending danger. “They are a landing spot where T cells, the immune system’s fighting cells, lay dormant, waiting to be activated to fight infections or other abnormal cells,” says Natalie Livingston, currently a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and first author of the study published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Continue Reading.

[astroscientia]

🌊Neptune in the Houses🌊

1st house:

You choose how to act and project yourself to others based on the subconscious cues that you acquire from them. Your identity is often based on how others see you and talk about it. There is a degree of loss when it comes to self-expression- the unheard child learns to perform to express identity.

2nd house:

Poor with managing, organizing, and structuring finances and possessions. Overly generous with resources. Might make money in nefarious ways if Neptune is poorly aspected. More positively, these natives might profit from pharmacology, marine biology, medicine, or NGO work.

3rd house:

The local environment has a Piscean element. Early school years also were characterized by daydreaming and escaping from learning. The loss of a sibling to unknown or sudden causes is likely in some cases (depending on the aspects). It could suggest that your siblings/cousins/classmates that are close to you are artists, singers, or dreamers. In a negative sense, this might attract escapist friends with a heavy victim mentality.

4th house:

Issues with water, pipes, and flooding in the home. Home near bodies of water. Your mother or a potent female figure in your life might be sick and require care from you or your family members. In this case, the gist is that the family might cause you to feel neglected and forgotten, making you want to escape the domestic setting through art or physical separation. These natives are quite nocturnal- they sleep all day and stay up all night to avoid their families in some cases.

5th house:

Death of children. Loss of lovers to illness, substance abuse, prison, crime, or mental disorders. Lovers might be absent while present either because of their own commitments to helping someone old/vulnerable or through escapism (drugs, sex, alcohol, etc) or poor health.

6th house:

Watch out for the immune system. Habits and routines might not express a desire for a person to live well. Poor habits. Disorganized. No discipline and routine when it comes to eating, working, exercising and taking care of oneself at the bodily level. Neglected as a child and did not learn to properly care for themselves.

7th house:

Attracted to partners that aren't really "there." This sense of absence in presence can be because of the following things: frequent travels, substance abuse, prison, mental illness, philanthropic work that takes the person's time, religious fidelity, etc. You might "lose" a partner to their vices and blame yourself for it.

8th house:

Potential for misunderstandings in transactions (financial) with others. Deception when it comes to money that you get from others. There is vagueness and gullibility when perceiving people's sexual or financial advances toward us. Be careful of who you let into your life sexually or romantically.

9th house:

Confusion regarding beliefs, higher education, and vision for the future. If in university, the campus might be located near water, or you might study subjects related to the pharmaceutical industry, oil, gas, pharmacology, parasitology, virology, marine studies, psychology, or you might enter esoteric fields (astrology, tarot, etc.) or you might study theology.

10th house:

Confusion about future and career. Fear tied to career prospects and the father. The father might have been absent or neglectful which manifests in an inability to be stable in a job.

11th house:

Friends slip through your fingers. We may need clarification about our hopes and life goals because Neptune here makes our ideals changeable. So, our vision for life is usually mutable and influenced by external forces that people rarely have the self-awareness to explore. This is also a highly intuitive placement.

12th house:

This is a good placement because Neptune is comfortable in the 12th house. Intuition is good. Sleep is very essential for you. Heightened motivation to get to know yourself through self-reflection, meditation, and spirituality, and project these learnings to heighten your empathy.

Thank you for reading!

[brucewaynehater101]

Darkseid considers adopting space emperor Tim as one of his children and potential heirs, it wouldn't be the first time he's adopted a human after all and this little one is doing such a good job taking over the galaxy...

Tim is not particularly happy at this idea because he is emancipated for a reason! For many reasons! He tried the parent thing (Jack and Janet) it sucked, he's not interested in another round. He's also not interested in B getting his tights in a bunch because B has the idea that he's Tim's father (ha!) and gets grumpy that someone else is trying to take the position of Tim's father (Tim has no father, Tim likes to pretend he just sprung from Gotham like Athena sprung from Zeus) challenge Darkseid, and then B will end up taking another swim in the time stream that Tim will have to fish him out of again

Also at least one or more of the planets that Space Emperor Tim controls is advanced enough in biology and medicine and may have even had enough previous interactions with humans that upon the discovery that their beloved baby emperor is missing a rather important organ (some imperial physician is getting very fired for breaking hippa or they would except Tim discovers that the planet that sourced his imperial physician doesn't have hippa), they develop a way to get Tim a new one. Tim looks over the research and allows this, he does not tell the bats at home that he has a new spleen.

There's so many fun and great ideas for this!

I absolutely love a feral anti-parenting Tim. He should be running or fist-fighting at the first sign of someone trying to parent him (he's been somewhat independent and making up his own rules/parenting for so long [yes, I know the Drakes were better than how fanon portrays them. That doesn't change that his parenting was long distanced and enforced by boarding schools. That doesn't change the whack ass shit he did pre-Robin and during his Robin years despite having parents]. He should be anti-authority. He makes his rules and only takes suggestions). The idea of people trying to parent Tim as he backs away from them is hilarious to me. That should be his attitude to parenting: seeing it as an unwanted restriction and needless micromanaging.

Also, the spleen part is great! If the Bats knew about his spleen being missing (and not being replaced), Tim would try to refuse antibiotics from them. They would probably get very very angry and lecture him on his lack of ability to take care of himself.

On the other hand, here's a situation I think would be more hilarious:

Tim, who had just gotten injured in a really filthy place, and him shrugging at the circumstances. He's also silently thanking his planets for their medical technology.

Someone who knows about Tim's missing spleen (so Pru or Tam) starts freaking out about Tim. They think he's going to die because his poor immune system probably won't be able to handle the definite infection to come.

The Bats, who don't know Tim's spleen was missing at one point, get hella confused why this person is freaking out. Maybe Tim is concussed or drugged or something so his ability to communicate is diminished as well.

This leads to the Bats finding out that Tim's spleen was missing and then replaced at the same time.

I hope Pru or Tam (whoever is chosen) punches Tim for not keeping them updated on the replaced spleen. Tim honestly just forgot about it and didn't mean to keep it a secret

[st7arlight]

ugh. something something Stanford's dehumanization, feeling the world is against him, but ultimately being the cause of his own inhumanity. "something is wrong with me" to "this thing makes me great" to "i am something new and revolutionary" to before he knows it, all of his other-ness is man-made. Tattoos in an alien language announcing his affiliation with an ancient god, a metal plate on his skull immunizing him to mental attacks. who's to say there aren't more changes? side effects from using himself as a test subject, an eye lost to bill now replaced with technology more advanced than our world knows. modifications to better communicate in alternative dimensions who use growls and purrs, fortification to his teeth and digestive system to be able eat most foods in times of scarcity. of course he changed, he thinks, it's been thirty years. He's matured and learned to survive. of course he's different, he's always been different. he doesn't realize that nobody is bothered by his extra fingers anymore, nor his intellect. they are unnerved by the way he knows who is in a room and where without having looked at them. the way his breathing and heart rate slows in the face of adrenaline, like a predatory animal preparing to strike. the way he rarely smiles with his teeth, and when he does, it feels like a warning.

[wheelie-sick]

What is immunocompromisation?

Being immunocompromised means you have a weaker immune system than most people. There are two main ways people become immunocompromised

1. Medical Conditions

Certain medical conditions cause your immune system to be weaker. Some examples include:

Immunodeficiencies- A category of conditions causing a lower number of or lower efficacy of immune cells. This category is divided into two subcategories: primary immunodeficiency and secondary immunodeficiency. Primary immunodeficiency is a subcategory consisting of hundreds of different conditions all causing a lower number of immune cells. Secondary immunodeficiency is a smaller category consisting of conditions where a person lacks immune cells due to other causes such as malnutrition.

HIV/AIDS

Some cancers

2. Medications

There are two main types of medications that result in being immunocompromised: Immunosuppressants and chemotherapy

Immunosuppressive medications- Immunosuppressive medications are medications designed to suppress your immune response. These can work in many different ways with some targeting a broad range of immune cells and others being highly specific. These medications are often used for organ transplant recipients and people with moderate-severe autoimmune diseases. Some medications in this category include: organ transplant medications, biologics, and high dose corticosteroids

Chemotherapy- Chemotherapy often comes with the effect of preventing new fast-dividing cells from being produced. This is why hair loss is such a common side effect of chemotherapy. Immune cells are fast dividing and therefore frequently are unable to be produced while on chemotherapy

The effects of immunocompromisation

Immunocompromisation has a large range of effects depending on the reason someone is immunocompromised. The most common effects are an increased susceptibility to illness and cancers. Increased susceptibility to illness can look like:

Frequent illnesses

Illnesses that are more severe than they would be for other people

Recurrent infections

Infections that don't respond to medication

Delayed response to infection

Infections that last longer than usual

Some people are more susceptible to certain types of infections. For example anifrolumab, a biologic used for lupus, makes people more susceptible to herpes zoster and respiratory tract infections while prednisone, a corticosteroid, increases risk of infection across the board. This occurs due to different causes of immunocompromisation affecting different immune cells with different roles in preventing and responding to infection.

Grades of severity

Recently the term "moderately and severely immunocompromised" has been used in covid-19 resources. Certain factors are considered to make someone moderately or severely immunocompromised, these include:

Advanced or untreated HIV infection

Moderate or severe primary immunodeficiencies

Hematologic malignancies

Active treatment for solid tumors or hematologic malignancies

Immunosuppressant medications used for solid organ or islet transplants

CAR-T cell therapy or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Treatment with alkylating agents, antimetabolites, high-dose corticosteroids, chemotherapeutic agents, TNF blockers, and other biologic agents that are immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory

What immunocompromisation is not

It's worth noting that getting sick frequently or getting seriously sick from illnesses that are usually mild is a warning sign for being immunocompromised but does not inherently make you immunocompromised. Some people are just more susceptible to illness without being immunocompromised.

Having minimal response to an infection that is usually more serious is a sign of a strong immune system, not a weak one.

Being immunocompromised is also not the same as being high risk for serious infection. All immunocompromised people are high risk but not all high risk people are immunocompromised. Immunocompromisation is specifically when someone is high risk because their immune system is weak. Particularly in regards to covid, there are many conditions that make you higher risk that do not involve a weak immune system.

Autoimmune diseases do not automatically make you immunocompromised. Something being a disorder of the immune system does not mean that you are immunocompromised because immunocompromised means a weaker immune system not a malfunctioning immune system.