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hopelesslygaysstuff · 11 months ago

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The Art of Healing: Chapter 6

Photo Cred: Me

pairing: wanda maximoff x fem! OC

summary: wanda discovers her dominant side

content warnings: smut, restraints, overstimulation, fingering, dildo, subspace

word count: 5k+

Series Masterlist

comments and reblogs are always appreciated! happy reading ♡

A New Discovery

“Alright hon, remember what we practiced.”

Wanda smiled slightly, used to Agatha’s nagging. She would be annoyed if she didn’t know that the older woman was simply looking out for her. One might even say that she was worried, but Wanda knew better than to bring that up.

“Of course,” Wanda turned towards the woman beside her, noting the way her blue eyes scanned the room they were in. “I’ll let you know if it becomes too much, I promise.”

At those words, Agatha finally turned her gaze towards Wanda. It was their third time out of her cabin, and an important night as well. The first time had been to a small market in a nearby town, and as Agatha suspected, Wanda had telepathy powers in addition to her chaos magic.

That first time was overwhelming, to say the least. Agatha had never performed so many memory replacement spells as that day. But what can you do? It’s not like she could let those poor townspeople remember Wanda falling to her knees and covering her ears while scarlet waves of magic pulsated from her as she processed everyone’s thoughts for the first time.

The second time was much easier, since Wanda had known what to expect. They’d gone into the city, simply walking down the street rather than the overwhelming environment of an enclosed space. It was easier that way, Wanda didn’t get stuck in anyone’s thoughts, as they walked past too quickly.

A man bumped into Agatha, jostling her from her thoughts. She sent a glare his way, before Wanda’s gentle hand on her arm redirected her focus. Glancing down, she took a breath, her eyes locked on the pendant swinging from the redhead’s neck.

“You know how to power that on, right? I spent a lot of time on it.” Agatha knew her attempts at nonchalance were lacking, but Wanda chose not to comment, instead sending a soft smile her way and bringing her fingers to the pendant. Rubbing it between her forefinger and thumb gently, she nodded, taking a solidifying breath of her own.

Agatha eyed Wanda’s pendant briefly, scanning the runes she’d etched onto the surface. As soon as Wanda’s magic made contact with the runes, it would send a protective shield over her mind, preventing her from reading anyones thoughts. It was their failsafe, just in case the amount of horny thoughts flying around the nightclub became overwhelming,

“Yes,” Wanda dropped her hand, her eyes finding the bar through the smoky haze of the nightclub. “I’ll be alright, but first I want a drink.”

Agatha rolled her eyes, knowing that Wanda would order a shirley temple like she always did. Making their way to the bar, blue eyes scanned the many faces, searching for a target.

“Let me find someone,” Wanda’s voice was low, her breath already smelling like cherries as she murmured the words into Agatha’s ear. “Trust me.”

Sighing, Agatha nodded, feeling slightly out of her element as she gave up what felt like the last of her control for the evening. They’d decided to find a submissive to play with for the night, as part of Wanda’s education. Essentially, Agatha wanted her to finetune her control over her own emotions, and what better way to do that than to exert control over an eager submissive?

Wanda leaned against the counter, sipping her drink as she lazily scanned the crowd around her. Bodies swarmed on the dance floor, laughter and singing rising as the crowd moved slightly out of sync. Music thrummed through the floor, the vibrations of it practically tangible as it wrapped around her body, urging her to move.

Random thoughts filtered through her mind, and Wanda breathed through it, focusing on Agatha’s past lessons. Just keep breathing, and it will pass. It would apparently get easier over time, and eventually her magic would filter everyones thoughts on autopilot. Wanda couldn’t wait, and distracted herself by trying to hear only a single person's thoughts at once.

‘Damn, I like the way he’s moving against me. I wonder what his di-’

Wanda visibly shook her head, moving onto the next person quickly. She found it easier this time, her few weeks of practice paying off as the background hum of multiple thoughts layering atop each other faded.

‘I hope she collars me soon, I just want to be her good boy forever. Oh look, here she comes!’

Her curiosity piqued, Wanda found the man who’s thoughts she’d just left. He was near the edge of the dance floor, a wide smile on his face as a tall woman walked up to him. She leaned down, saying something in his ear as he bowed his head, her hands roaming his body.

Agatha sidled up next to her, hands tight around her waist as she started dancing. “You look suspicious, hon. Dance with me, I know you can multitask.”

Wanda smirked, grinding her hips backwards and feeling pleased at the gasp that escaped Agatha’s plump lips. The hands around her waist tightened, and Wanda felt herself grow wet when she felt the bulge of the brunette’s strap against her. She let herself get lost in the feeling, gently grinding against Agatha as she focused on the woman across the floor.

‘I can’t wait to make him mine, I hope he likes the design I chose. I want this to be perfect.’

The image of an intrinsically designed collar flashed briefly through Wanda’s mind, and she smiled, pleased that the man was getting his wish. A wave of possessiveness shot through her, and she quickly pulled her mind from the tall woman’s, not wanting to get her emotions confused with hers.

“Good job, Wanda.” Agatha’s voice was raspy, one of her hands snaking around to gently rest against her throat. Wanda swallowed, her breath shortening slightly as arousal pooled in her gut. She shook her head, refocusing on her mission.

Find a submissive. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

“We could always postpone this and head back to the cabin,” Agatha’s voice was raspy, her hips moving suggestively against Wanda’s ass. The redhead faltered, almost folding before she locked eyes with a girl at the bar. The girl was sipping a drink slowly, her eyes wide as she watched them dance against each other.

Wanda smirked, bringing a hand up to Agatha’s head and enjoying the feeling of her lips against her neck. Then, she gently yanked her head up. “Stop, you’re distracting me. Besides, I just found someone. So keep it in your pants, witchy.”

Delighting in the frustrated groan she heard, Wanda ground her hips backwards one final time before making her way towards the girl. Agatha followed behind, her attention successfully redirected, for the time being.

‘Holy shit, they’re coming my way. Act cool, don’t be fucking weird.’

Agatha snorted, and Wanda realized that she was also reading the girl’s mind. Nudging her slightly, she sent a mental reminder to release her control over the situation, wanting to take the girl’s submission for herself. Afterall, it was Wanda’s control that was on the line.

‘Good job hon, you’re getting better at communicating telepathically.’

Wanda shuddered as Agatha’s words filtered through her brain, the girl’s thoughts still swimming about as she tried to act natural. It was cute really, mentally she was panicking, but she maintained a straight face as the pair approached her.

Her only tell was the slight tremble of her fingers and her wide eyes as Wanda sat down next to her, Agatha claiming the seat on the other side of the young girl. At first, Wanda didn’t say anything, choosing instead to let her eyes roam the girl’s face as she took her in.

She had pretty eyes, her eyeliner subtle as mascara coated her long lashes. A few specks of the dark pigment had landed on her cheeks, and Wanda longed to reach up and wipe it away, but refrained. She didn’t want to scare her away too soon.

“I’m Wanda,” She made sure to keep her voice low, suppressing a smirk as she watched the girl physically react to her words. A light blush appeared on her cheeks, her lips parting as she stumbled over her words briefly.

“Hi, I’m um- my name is Sarah.” Her words were breathy, her lips clamping shut the moment her introduction was finished. Agatha chuckled, reaching up a hand to play with a strand of Sarah’s short hair.

“I like this one, let’s play with her.” Blue eyes flashed as Sarah whipped around, her fingers trembling against the glass. Wanda took a peek inside her mind, pleased to see the girl’s thoughts swirling with thoughts of both of them on top of her.

“Behave yourself for once, please.” Green eyes met blue, and flashed in warning. Agatha conceded, releasing her hold on the young girl’s hair. She moved her hands to a much safer location, resting lightly on her glass while Wanda reached a hand towards Sarah’s rapidly reddening face.

Cool fingers met her jaw, and the girl turned towards Wanda with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted as her gaze roamed the redhead’s face. Smiling softly, Wanda let her fingers lightly trace the girl’s lips, her eyes locked on them as she felt Sarah’s breath hitch.

“Do you want to go somewhere quieter?” Wanda made sure to let her lips press briefly against Sarah’s ear, enjoying the way the girl shuddered beneath her. Agatha watched with a small smirk, nodding her approval when the young girl nodded eagerly.

Making their way towards the back, Wanda made sure to keep her hands on the young girl. They lingered around her waist, her hips, drifting downwards as Sarah stumbled slightly. Agatha followed half a step behind, reading the girl’s mind as she ensured that Wanda wasn’t getting too overwhelmed.

Wanda was feeling fantastic. Everytime she moved her fingers, even slightly, Sarah’s breath changed and she would trip over her own feet. Wanda found it adorable, and made sure to keep as much of her body touching Sarah’s as she could.

Eventually, they made their way to one of the playrooms provided at the back of the club, Agatha murmuring something to the security just outside the area as Wanda ushered the girl inside. Making her way after them, Agatha shut the door firmly as Wanda pushed Sarah against the wall, trapping her with her hips.

Sarah didn’t seem to mind, her hands shaking slightly as she hesitantly put them on Wanda’s waist, her eyes locked on the redhead’s lips. She arched her back slightly, pressing herself against Wanda's as much as she could, enjoying the way green eyes darkened at the action.

Feeling the hands around her waist tighten, Wanda maneuvered herself slightly until her thigh slipped between Sarah’s legs. Pressing her firmer against the wall, she smirked when the girl gasped, her hips rutting against her thigh slightly.

Sensing movement behind her, Wanda glanced over her shoulder, watching as Agatha slowly made her way over to a chair and sitting down. She crossed her legs, getting comfortable as she gave Wanda a single nod.

‘Go ahead, hon. Let’s see you in action.’

Wanda took a breath, calming herself slightly as Sarah’s hands squeezed her waist once more. The girl grew bolder, her hips moving faster as her hands drifted lower. Wanda turned back towards her, noticing the way her pupils were blown and her breath was coming out in short, desperate pants.

Moving quickly, Wanda gripped Sarah’s wrists and pinned them to the wall. Pressing her full body against hers, she captured her lips between her own, letting her teeth graze them in warning. Using one hand to hold the girl’s wrists above her head, the other drifted towards her chest, fingers quickly finding her nipple and rolling it.

The girl moaned, leaning into her touch, and Wanda throbbed.

“Please.”

Smirking, Wanda pulled back. Sarah’s eyes were slightly glazed, unfocused as she tried to move her hips. It was exhilarating, knowing that she’d made the poor girl this desperate. All from a few simple touches and a single kiss. Wanda wondered what would happen if she did more.

“Please what? Use your words, darling.” Wanda rolled her fingers again, trapping the girl’s nipple between them. Sarah arched against her, a small whine escaping her as she struggled briefly against the redhead’s hold on her wrists. Pulling slightly, a surge of arousal shot through her when the girl let out a moan, the noise strained as she attempted to surge forwards.

“I- please… fuck.” She couldn’t get any words out, and Agatha chuckled slowly from her chair. Wanda felt something shift inside her at the girl’s desperation. Something calmed, her mind sharpening past her own arousal as she focused solely on Sarah.

Humming, Wanda moved closer. She let her lips slightly graze the trembling ones before her. Sarah’s hips moved again, and Wanda sighed. “You can do better than that, sweetheart. Try again for me.”

A frustrated groan sounded out, muffled by Wanda’s lips. Biting down slightly, she slowly backed up, pulling Sarah with her. Catching a glimpse of the bed, Wanda pushes the trembling girl towards it, reveling in the gasp Sarah releases when the backs of her knees hit the mattress.

Breaking the kiss, Wanda pushes her firmly down until she’s seated on the end of the bed. Nudging Sarah’s knees open, she moves to stand between them, her hands tangling with her hair. Moving slowly, the girl moves her hands up Wanda’s thighs before wrapping them around her waist.

The movement seems hesitant, and Wanda knows what it means. Sarah’s nervous, yet filled with anticipation at the same time. It’s exactly what Wanda had felt like for her first time with Agatha, and for a moment, she feels like she’s weirdly looking through a mirror.

“I just…” Sarah struggles with her words for a moment, and Wanda just strokes her cheeks gently, calming her down slightly. Taking a peek inside her head, she’s surprised to find that it's working, and Wanda feels a rush of something at the knowledge that she is directly influencing the emotions and arousal of another person.

“I want you to touch me, and-” Sarah pauses, biting her lip. Wand nods reassuringly, making sure to keep her eyes soft. “I want you to make me feel good, and I’m already feeling fuzzy.”

Moving closer, Wanda places her lips next to the girl’s ear. Making sure that her voice is low, Wanda tangles her hand in Sarah’s hair before yanking her head back gently, a strangled moan escaping her.

“Elaborate.”

Sarah whimpers, closing her eyes briefly as she gathers her thoughts. When she opens them again, Wanda sees that her pupils are blown, black taking over her irises. “Everytime you say something, or tell me what to do, or touch me and move me around where you want me to go, I just sink into this sort of fog?”

Wanda glances over at Agatha, knowing what Sarah means. It’s slightly intimidating, to know that she’s guiding Sarah into subspace. It’s a lot of trust from the young girl, but at Agatha’s reassuring smile, Wanda calms slightly. Breathing deeply, she calms her racing heartbeat, pausing for a moment before returning her focus to the girl seated before her.

“That’s a good thing, darling. I promise.” Wanda lets her thumb rest on the girl’s jaw. Sarah closes her eyes, parting her lips as Wanda’s fingers inch closer to them. “Just relax, and let me make you feel good.”

Agatha leaned back in her seat, clenching her thighs together slightly as she watched Wanda gently guide the younger girl into a deeper state of submission. She was quite proud, having worked hard to teach Wanda everything she knew about the kinkier aspects of sex.

Sure, sex was physical. Agatha, however, liked the mental component involved with the kinkier side of intimacy. She liked the power dynamic, and the shifting of power with a single touch or look. Most importantly, she liked being in control.

However, in the past few weeks, Wanda had been testing that control that Agatha so desperately craved. She could sense a budding dominatrix in the young redhead, and taught her as best she could without letting go of the reins. Tonight however, was the first step for Wanda in learning to be in control of her own emotions and powers and also exert that same control over a submissive.

But alas, Agatha was reminiscing. She refocused, her ears picking up on the faint sound of lips dancing against each other as the younger girl moaned openly into Wanda’s mouth. Taking in the scene, Agatha was proud to see that Wanda had pushed Sarah fully onto the bed, hovering over her with her thighs on either side of the girl’s hips. Her hands held down her wrists, and the younger girl was desperately arching her back, seeking any source of friction she could find.

Diving into Wanda’s surface thoughts, Agatha smiled at the organized mind she found. Wanda was completely aware of her own powers and emotions, keeping everything in check as she focused on her control with Sarah. As predicted, exerting control over someone else helped Wanda immensely with control over herself. Surprisingly, more than submission did.

Agatha made a mental note to bring this up later to the redhead, before settling fully back in her seat and enjoying the show. After all, who said she couldn’t have fun? Besides, Wanda’s ass looked great from this angle.

“Pick a safe word.” Wanda pulled back slightly, repeating her words when Sarah tried to chase her lips. Her blonde hair was strewn around her head, her eyes rapidly blinking as she processed.

“Um,” She tried to get some words out, but couldn’t think of anything. Wanda was still in her mind, and upon realizing how spaced out Sarah was, used her free hand to gently stroke the girl’s face. It seemed as though her touch helped ground the girl, as her thoughts became more coherent, a word popping into existence.

“Vanilla.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow, and Agatha chuckled behind her. A blush spread rapidly on the young girl's face, her eyes glancing between the Wanda on to pof her and the brunette in the chair.

“Behave.” The words were sharp, and Sarah’s heart stopped momentarily before she realized that it wasn’t directed at her. Agatha’s eyebrows rose, and she narrowed her eyes as her and Wanda stayed locked in a staring contest, the moment passing quickly.

Turning back to the girl currently trapped beneath her, Wanda smiled slowly. “That’s a good word, remember it.”

Nodding quickly, Sarah glanced back down towards the redhead’s lips. They parted, a warm breath that tasted faintly of cherries hitting her cheeks, and she moaned as they met hers. It was impossible to describe just how soft the redhead’s lips were, and before she could start to think of any adjectives, her mind went blank as Wanda’s tongue brushed her lower lip.

Gently exploring the younger girl’s mouth, Wanda slowly maneuvered her body as she swallowed all the moans Sarah so freely offered up. Her leg moved between the girl’s parted thighs, and using a firm amount of pressure, Wanda connected her knee to Sarah’s core.

Gasping, the young girl briefly disconnected her lips from Wanda’s. She arched into the touch, and Wanda took the opportunity to attach her lips to her neck, sucking softly as moans and gasps flooded her ears.

“Fuck.” That’s the only word Sarah can seem to get out, her eyes rolling back as Wanda bites down. The sting of her teeth digging into the soft skin of the girl’s neck causes pleasure to race towards her already over heating core. Moving slightly more frantically, Sarah rolls her hips against the knee pressing so deliciously against her.

Wanda smirked.

Giving the young girl absolutely no time to think or process what was happening, Wanda pulled away. Pulling the cuffs that were pre-attached to the headboard towards her, she swiftly attached them to Sarah’s wrists.

Struggling uselessly against the restraints, Sarah wanted to whine in protest when the redhead dismounted her. The knee against her leaking pussy disappeared, and she let out a shaky breath at the loss. Looking over towards the brunette, Sarah closed her legs at the feeling of those all-knowing blue eyes roaming her skin.

“Don’t do that.”

At the sound of Wanda’s commanding voice, Sarah whipped her head around, her eyes landing on the vibrating dildo the woman held. She whimpered, confused as Wanda began walking towards her, setting the toy on the bed before gripping the girl’s ankles tightly. Sarah’s eyes widened in understanding, and she moaned as Wanda forced her legs apart.

“Do not hide yourself from us. Good submissives let their dominants see every inch of them, and you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Green eyes bore into hers as Wanda spoke, her head tilting slightly. Something about the gesture made Sarah’s blood run cold, and arousal rush towards her already drenched pussy.

“Yes ma’am.” She squeaked, her breaths speeding up slightly as Wanda raised a single eyebrow.

This time, it was Agatha who spoke up. “Yes, what? Elaborate for us, sweet cheeks.”

Blood rushed towards Sarah’s already pink face, and she suddenly had to urge to hide. However, there was nowhere to go, Wanda had made sure of that. She took a steadying breath, then managed, “Yes, I’m a good girl.”

The wide smile of Wanda’s face made the embarrassment worth it, and Sarah sighed in relief when she released her tight hold on her ankles, an unspoken command to keep her legs spread as she reached for the dildo.

The short skirt that Sarah was wearing was ripped off, both Wanda and Agatha making pleased sounds at the lack of underwear on her.

“I’m going to make you feel very good, is that alright with you?” Wanda’s gaze was hot, her fingers slowly collecting the wetness from Sarah’s pussy and spreading it onto the dildo. The girl was drenched, juices flowing freely as she attempted to buck against her hand.

Nodding quickly, Sarah bit her lip. This was what she’d been hoping for, to be fucked by a dominant woman, and now her wish was coming true. It was better than anything she could have imagined.

“Just remember, if it gets to be too much, use your safe word.” Agatha reminded the girl, her own hand slipping beneath her waistband. She had her legs spread, fingers gently stroking her own protruding clit as a damp spot formed in her underwear.

Wanda glanced back, taking in the sight before smirking briefly and wiggling her backside slightly as if to say, ‘enjoy the show.’ Then, she turned on the toy to a medium setting. Making sure the dildo was fully lubricated, Wanda teased the entrance of Sarah’s pussy. She wanted to hear her beg, and looked at her expectantly.

“I- please. I really want you to…” Sarah trailed off, Wanda nudging her clit with the toy and sending bolts of electricity through her. She refocused, eyes widening when the redhead tilted her head again. “Please fuck me, ma’am. I really want you to. Really, really badly.”

Taking in the girl’s pleading expression and sweet words, Wanda uttered a quick ‘good girl’ before thrusting the toy all the way inside Sarah in one, quick movement. Agatha moaned at the same time that Sarah did, although the girl writhing on the bed was much louder.

Setting a relentless pace, Wanda watched in fascination as the young girl beneath her quickly started coming undone. It was like all shame and embarrassment had left her, the only thing on her mind was how good she felt and how badly she wanted to cum. Pulling her own consciousness from Sarah’s, Wanda focused all her attention on bringing the girl’s orgasm to the surface.

Agatha slipped two fingers inside of herself, surprised by the wetness she found. She hadn’t expected to be this turned on, but something about Wanda’s dominant nature was just so… arousing. Watching closely, she fucked herself at the same pace that Wanda fucked the young girl. Her own orgasm rising, she held it off as Sarah’s moans became slightly louder, her wrists pulling desperately at the restraints.

“Ask for permission.” Wanda commanded, and the words came tumbling out of Sarah’s mouth. She begged like she had been starving for days, and her appetite could only be sated by food fed to her from Wanda’s nimble fingers. Her words flowed freely, syllables overlapping as her voice became breathy from the effort it took to hold back her orgasm.

Eventually, the words ran out, still flowing inside her head but unable to be spoken as Wanda worked her closer to the edge. Thrusting steadily, the redhead enjoyed the unspoken pleas as the girl’s hips twitched as her muscles contracted in anticipation.

With a few final strokes, Wanda brought the young girl to the edge, and allowed her to fall over it. Overwhelming pleasure coursed through her, and Sarah forced deep breaths of air into her lungs as she shook. Wanda’s fingers danced over her clit, prolonging the pleasure as victorious moans sounded out.

Distracted by a quiet gasping sound, Wanda turned her head slightly with the intention of asking Agatha how she liked the show. Her surprise must have shown on her face, because Agatha simply smiled widely at her as she trembled from the aftershocks of her own orgasm. Pulling her soaked fingers out from her pants, Agatha let Wanda enjoy the glistening juices that dripped down her knuckles for a brief moment, before sucking her own fingers into her mouth and moaning quietly.

Working her jaw slightly at the sight, Wanda refocused her attention on the girl now squirming beneath her. Setting the vibration slightly higher, she let a slow smile spread across her face as the realization set in on Sarah’s face.

Overstimulating the girl, Wanda forced orgasm after orgasm out of her aching pussy. By the end, Sarah was practically limp as the last bits of pleasure were drained from her overused body. Her clit sent painful jolts through her nervous system every time Wanda so much as grazed it, and she was positive that she would be sore for days.

With a kind smile, Wanda cleaned her up using a warm washcloth and soothing words. Agatha helped strip the bed as Sarah felt those same hands that had brought her insurmountable pleasure running over her back, now clothed in a thin robe. Closing her eyes, she leaned into the touch, feeling herself return to reality.

Sarah had never felt better.

—-

“So…”

Wanda sighed, sinking further into her chair. She stared into her glass, swirling her wine around as she tried to collect her thoughts. Agatha had taken over once she’d realized that Wanda had gotten stuck in her own head. Ensuring that Sarah had a ride home and paying their tab at the bar, she’d whisked the overwhelmed redhead home before popping open a bottle of their favorite red wine.

It smelled faintly of cherries. Wanda sighed and took a sip.

“I suppose I’m just confused.” That was all she could manage for the moment, and even Agatha couldn’t make any sense of the thoughts swirling around in the redhead’s mind. She nodded slowly, taking a sip of her own wine as she threw her thoughts back on the events of the evening.

“I mean,” Wanda paused, her eyebrows scrunching together slightly. Agatha wanted to run her thumb over the wrinkles. She blinked, where had that thought come from?

Running her fingers around the rim of her glass, Wanda continued. “I really enjoy being your submissive, but I was able to control my powers and emotions better when I’m the one in control.”

Agatha could practically feel the young woman’s mind trying not to split itself in two, waging a war between its dominant and submissive mindset. Moving forwards and setting her wine glass down, Agatha moved to kneel between Wanda’s thighs. She reached up, her hand gently resting on the redhead’s jaw as she waited for green eyes to meet her own.

“You can be both. People aren’t just one thing, hon.”

Realization dawned, Wanda’s skin smoothing over as her eyes widened fractionally. “Oh.” She felt a bit foolish, but Agatha must have still been in her head, because she chuckled and shook her head.

“It’s alright if you like being dominant more, sweet cheeks. Whatever makes you the most comfortable will make your partner the most comfortable.” Agatha returned to her seat, sipping her wine as she studied Wanda’s face.

She was nodding, her red hair falling slightly over her shoulder as she did so. Her fingers still absentmindedly played with the rim of her glass, her eyes focused on the carpet in front of her. Taking a quick peek into her mind, Agatha was pleased to see that Wanda was sorting through her thoughts, placing different emotions into boxes.

Confusion, in a box. Relief, in a box. Curiosity, in a box. Clarity, in a box. Understanding, in a box.

The storms in those green eyes cleared, and Wanda looked up with a small smile on her face. “Well,” she drawled, taking a sip of her drink as she met dark blue eyes. “In that case, I quite enjoyed that experience.”

She finished her wine, her mind already swirling with ideas. She could feel Agatha’s smug look from across the room, the woman looking far too pleased with herself. Flexing her fingers, Wanda recalled the way she’d left bruises on the young girl’s hip as she gasped into her ear.

Looking up, she mirrored the smirk Agatha wore. “I’d quite like to do it again.”

A wild cackle sounded throughout the room, sounding every last bit like a gleeful witch as wine flowed as freely as Wanda’s newfound love of dominance. That night, a new string of fate was formed, connecting a powerful redhead on the verge of revelation, and a young girl, still trembling from the feel of a gun in her hands.

---

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purpleyoonn · 2 years ago

Text

Dance of Time 3

D A N C E O F T I M E

“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.” -Bukowski

Summary: You were finally back in the hometown you left right after graduation, researching the mysterious manor that laid outside of the town limits. Your family was acting weird, and the owner of the manor seemed to know more about you than he should. Everything changed when you entered the manor, and you weren’t sure your dance with time was going to last very long.

Pairing: Vampire BTS x Human Reincarnated Reader

Status: Coming Soon

Genre: soulmate au, reincarnation, yandere themes, possessive boys, angst, fluff,

Warnings: smut, violence, tempers, mentions of death, murder, some explicit descriptions of violence, blood,

Chapter Warnings: more flashback scenes, yandere boys, major discoveries, not much

Taglist: @psychosupernatural @carolinexkpop @strxwbloody @strawberry-moonpies @dustyinkpages @iamkookiesforyou @anaspectoflife @btsw1fe @yoongisgirl69 @toughbook @yoongibabs @mageprincess7 @dahliasbouqet @wittyreader @peachandmomo @sinceritythatcouldntbedelivered @m1sss1mp @yourleftsock @skyys-universe @cryingpages @drissteele @dustyinkpages @crushedblackroses @fluffy-canada-pancakes @blaaiissee @iiitsmaria @azazel-nyx @g-h-o-s-t-b-a-b-i @knjkitten @kleirielk @foreverweareyoung7 @lachimolala22019 @namuficxs @94z-93 @kimgmzmc @thenaverse

Masterlist // Chapter 2 // Chapter 4

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Previously on Dance of Time:

You were a little confused, why would he choose to pick you up when he lives at the manor? Isn’t that out of his way to come and get you? It didn’t make sense. Plus, how did he know where you lived? Yeah, you lived in a small town, but even you didn’t know where most people lived in the town. You tried to question Mr. Kim about it, but you never received another email before you fell asleep to the sound of the wind blowing outside your window.

It was the next morning, and you were waiting to hear a car pull up the road. It was getting close to nine o’clock, and you were waiting on the front porch. You were excited about getting to tour the manor and had been ready since seven this morning.

You sat against the old porch swing, your camera bag and backpack sat next to you as you wrapped your jacket tighter around yourself. Your grandmother and uncle had yet to wake up, leaving you to relax into the silence of the morning.

You were nervous.

You had a weird feeling about today, probably stemming from the weird dream you had. It was almost incoherent, a series of flashing images you couldn’t make sense of. When you did try to make sense of them, your head started hurting, a pounding headache taking over until you had to try and take some Tylenol, hoping to have some relief before the day.

But that didn’t happen, as your headache became pounding and then your vision blurred.

The market was beautiful today as you walked slowly throughout the grass. You had tripped one too many times on it already and you knew your mother would surely punish you greatly if you were to rip the fabric of the gown she made you.

You couldn’t help but to move closer to the necklaces, a simple locket catching your eye as you stood in front of the vendor, a couple who seemed to be with child.

“That would look lovely on your neck, Miss.” You smile over to the woman, Mary, as she stood closer to you. She held it up to your neck and while her husband, Nicholas, held a mirror up for you to see.

“Indeed, it would, darling. If only our dear nurse had someone to capture her heart so, making the locket well within her heart.” Nicholas gestured back, noticing the ever-growing smile come across your lips.

“if only.” You turn around to see a man, his features blurred as he held his hand out for you to grasp as he bows a little in your presence. Your hurry to curtsey back, Lord… was surely not bowing to you.

“Please, Lord… do not worry yourself over a simple nurse.” You gesture softly for him to stand up, but he only continued to hold his hand out for you. His dimples bright against his cheeks as you finally placed your hand within his grasp.

“You are anything but a simple nurse, milady.”

“Y/n, are you alright?”

Your vision returned to see Namjoon; his hand held out to you in the same way the man in your vision was holding his. It shocked you a bit, your body frozen as it tries to determine if you were still hallucinating.

“Y/n?” Only when he asked again did you snap out of it. You quickly took his hand as he helped you off your front doorstep.

“I am so sorry about that. I haven’t been sleeping very well, you know? Sleeping in your childhood bed after so long can do wonders on you.” You chuckle, hoping he took your words as the joke you intended, letting out a breath when he laughs.

“I bet. Well,” He looks at his watch, a simple silver band that seemed to be engraved. “We should be going. I told my brother we would be there by nine.” You lean over to glance at his watch to see it was only a couple of minutes from nine o’clock, meaning you were running behind.

“I am so sorry.” You apologize as you lean down to pick up your camera bag and backpack, which Namjoon proceeded to take from you and move over to his car, placing them in the trunk.

“Please, Miss Jacquess, do not worry about it. I bet that once my brother sees you, all will be well.” You tilt your head a little at his words, not quite understanding why the sight of you would appease his brother but decided not to think about it.

Namjoon comes back around when you get close to the car and opens the passenger door for you, his hand resting on the small of your back, sending tingles and other feelings down your spine as he helps you into the car.

When you are buckled, you look up to see him looking towards your home, a small smirk barely visible on his lips. You turn to see what he was looking at only to see your grandmothers small frame peeking through the curtain behind the window facing the garden. Her eyes were hard, but you could see the worry shining through, the fear tugging at her lips as the car was pulling out of your driveway.

“Now, Y/n, my brother can be a bit…boisterous. So, I do apologize in advance.” Namjoon looks away from the road for a quicks second to see a thoughtful look cross your eyes, your fingers tapping against your jean covered thighs.

His own fingers squeeze the material of the steering wheel, the smell of you so intoxicating that he had a hard time controlling himself. It had been years since he had been in such close quarters with you, and he could help but be relieved that this would be the first of many that he would spend in close proximity with you again.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry, Mr. Kim. My uncle can be the same way.” Was your only response. You couldn’t seem to get yourself to focus on anything, like the wind was blowing its song through your ears.

You were having major déjà vu, and it was making your heart race and flutter as you listened to the man driving speak about his property.

When you did finally arrive at the manor, you were quick to notice the tall man leaning against one of the pillars in front of the manor, holding up the beautifully crafted balcony. Your mouth almost dropped in shock as you looked at the man.

He was almost as beautiful as the house itself, the pout on his lips speaking for itself as he begins to walk down the stairs and to the car. As you move to open your door a hand stops you, fingers on top of yours, sparks shooting up your spine as you look into the dark eyes of the man from before.

“A woman should never open her own door.” His voice was soft, as if talking about the breeze blowing through the large pine trees in the front of the property. His gaze was even softer, and reminded you of something with which your brain couldn’t grasp.

“Y/n, this is my brother, Seokjin.” Your mind counted the way he called the man his brother, your soul not buying the relationship said by the man. It didn’t make sense to you. Your hand that was still in his grasp was now held, his hand bringing your hand up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your hand as he looked at you through his lashes.

“Please, dear, call me Jin.”

There it is. Another name that sends shivers down your spine causing you to pull you hand back into your chest, a nervous smile on your lips as the two men glance at each other.

“Alright, Jin. Thank you both so much for allowing me to join you on a tour of your family’s manor.” You push yourself out of the car, not wanting to be enclosed in the space longer than you had to. The day was starting to feel darker than you had hoped, and your mind kept telling you that something deeper was at play here; telling you that you needed to leave while you still could.

Jin could see the difference in you once you heard his voice. He wanted to smirk, the shivers down your spine the only indication he needed that you were back with them. He knew that you were ready, and that you were remembering them slowly.

Only when you stood a couple feet away from them, your camera bag in hand and your backpack on your back, taking photos of the manor did Jin turn to Namjoon.

“You are late.” His tone was clipped as he stared at you, your focus on the manor you didn’t even know was yours.

“I know. I showed up to her having a vision. Her eyes were white and I didn’t want anyone to see it.” Jin’s eyes flashed red for a second before turning to their normal black. He hummed in response, knowing that if the visions were returning this fast and this numerous that the gods truly meant this was their time.

“Eden realized too late that I was there. She peered through the window to see our darling already buckled into my car. I couldn’t help but smirk at her dejection.” They both let out a low laugh at the woman’s own fate being dealt to her.

“She should have known that we would intervene at some point. After pushing you to pursue school elsewhere, finding that stupid witch to place a cloaking spell. Well, it was time.” Jin growled out before shifting his demeaner and moving towards you, Namjoon following suit of his elder mate.

“Alright darling. Are you ready for the tour?”

-*-*-

The manor was beautiful, you couldn’t believe the amount of history you were standing in, contending with the likes of Stonehenge and Athens. There were hundreds of paintings lining the walls, gorgeous landscapes and portraits of probably past family members looking back at you as you walk with Namjoon and Jin, their voices echoing off the same walls.

“Now, Miss Jaquess, the history within these walls is as important to us as the blood within our veins.” Jin spoke softly as he stopped in front of the entryway. You could see a grand piano peeking past one of the walls and grew intrigued. You also noticed a couple of different things.

“This is our legacy.” Jin continued his probably prepared speech as you walked around, feeling Namjoon behind you as you saw the small, full garbage bin that remained next to the couches, their cushions rumpled as if someone was rolling on them. But what caught your eye the most was the fingerprints littering the keys of the piano as you neared closer.

For a vacant historical manor is sure did look lived in. You thought, writing your thoughts down in your notebook as you walked, following Jin as he spoke about the original floorboards that had yet to be restored.

You were at the foot of the grand staircase when you noticed a dark coloring on the floorboards. You stood to take a closer look when your vision blurred again, a quick image of blood spilling and soft moans filling your head before you were standing back up. Namjoon and Jin acted as if they didn’t notice anything, walking up the staircase as you followed suit.

Red eyes peered at you from behind the staircase, longing filling their body as the noticed your vision turn white at the spot where he first tasted your blood, where he first brought you to woes, your fingers curling into his hair. He couldn’t wait until you remembered him, remembered the way you felt about him.

You were welcomed by an opening that held several fainting couches and a nice Victorian rug as the centerpiece.

“This is where our ancestors would rest after their long days, their wife even having these ‘fainting couches’ made so she could loosen her corset.” Namjoon pointed to the layout of the opening before moving down one of the hallways.

The home was large, three separate floors not including the basement or the attic. It was one of the biggest buildings north of Sacramento when built, and it’s legacy continues today. You couldn’t help but be amazed by the history of the manor, hoping that your recorder was capturing each and every detail that both Namjoon and Jin were telling you.

Through the windows on the north corridor you could see the large garden, reds, blues, and purples shining brightly within the sunlight falling onto the property.

“Okay, so I do have some questions that I would like to ask, if that’s okay?” You speak for the first time since the tour began. The boys share another quick glance before Namjoon nods.

“Of course. What tour would this be if there were no questions to be asked.” His words had you calming down a bit.

“Okay. First question. Can you tell me why this manor was nicknamed the ‘Weeping Manor’?” You were still walking as you had your pen pressed to your paper, ready to write down whatever their answer was.

“I think you will actually find the answer within the last room.” Namjoon gestured to Jin who opened the door at the end of the north corridor.

The door opened into a large room, shelves filling the space as you looked towards the right, books with pages spilling out just calling your name as your mouth opened in awe. Right in front of you was a large oak desk, the top of it covered in your books and articles, you could even see some pieces highlighted or underlined as you slowly walked closer.

You felt nervous, the entire atmosphere shifting from joyful and playful to dark and eerie. You turned behind you to question Namjoon or Jin but they were gone. The door now closed and the room’s only light coming from the slightly open shades on the window behind the desk.

Your eyes flittered across the space, looking for the two men who seemingly disappeared into thin air, wanting to leave and be done with the tour. You didn’t like the feelings you were having, the cold air brushing across your skin coming from nowhere.

“Mr. Kim?” You called out, turning back around to the door only to have your eyes catch sight of a large family portrait.

It was a painting of the property, dating back to 1838 when the manor was originally built, even before the town had an official name and place on the map. Seven men resided in the front of the portrait, sitting and standing in a line just in front of the large pine tree that resided to the right of the men.

You moved forward to get a closer look at the portrait when the tiny description just below caught your eye.

“The Kim Coven. Ca. 1838.”

Coven? What did that even mean? Your confusion didn’t end there but grew into shock and something like horror when you finally looked up to the faces within the portrait.

The man standing within the middle of the painting was a spitting image of the man who gave you the tour. The same man who met you at the local diner and exchanged emails back and forth with you.

To his right, and to your even deeper horror, stood Seokjin, eyes almost staring at your shaking from beneath the paint.

You took a step back, your hand covering your mouth in fear as you tried to back away from the painting when you bumped into someone. A whimper leaving your lips as you tried to quiet your sobs.

“Please…please.” You began to beg, knowing you were done for.

“Oh, darling. Please don’t cry.” The man behind you coos, a hand moving up to move your hair away from your neck as a small kiss is pressed to your skin.

“You’re finally home.”

“Taehyung, love, I know you’re excited but you’re scaring our baby.” A voice from your left sounds out, the echo of his voice ringing in your ear as the man’s embrace on your abdomen slowly tightens.

“She seems more scared of Namjoon and Jin right now.” The man holding you hums, his nose pressed to the skin of your neck as you try to stop shaking. You couldn’t stop your tears now, even as you tried to force yourself to breath evenly.

“Please, I promise. I won’t say anything. I’ll never come back. I-I won’t write this article. Please.” You plead with the men, seven in all as they begin to move from behind the same shelves you were in awe of earlier.

You felt lied to, like a lion hoping for a meal only to be met with an audience wanting you to jump. Your brain began to connect the dots, pieces coming together that led to this moment.

“The sudden agreement to a meeting.” You begin to voice your thoughts aloud, receiving a humming in approval from Namjoon, who knew what you were doing.

“The table in the corner of the diner, where you didn’t eat anything.” Another hum, this time from the man who spoke to the man behind you.

“Moving the meeting to today instead of after the weekend. Almost like an urgency.” Jin couldn’t help but to roll his eyes at this one, knowing it was your grandmother’s fault for this point, not theirs.

“You knew my name before I even introduced myself. Recognized me despite not knowing what I looked like.” You looked up from the floor to see Namjoon standing in front of you, his portrait figure looking at you from over his shoulder.

“I—I don’t understand.” You let out, your brain missing some pieces still, unable to fully connect the dots. Your brain couldn’t comprehend the outcome without knowing who they were.

“You always were so smart, Y/n. Even then.” Before you could attempt anything else, your vision blurred again, for the third time that day.

“My love, I don’t understand how you can understand all of this.” His hair flew past his shoulders as he playfully threw your anatomy book from your lap. He instead took its place, his head flopping onto the material of your underdress, a smirk aimed at your affronted gaze.

“My love, why don’t you study my body instead?” A pillow hit his face before he could continue. Laughter bubbling from your lips at his scrunched up features. His hair now all over the place as he turned his gaze back to you.

“Oh, Yoongi. If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask.” You leaned down to place your lips on the man’s lips, moving to pull away only for his arms to trap you against him, smiling into your lips.

“Ellie, you are too smart for your own good.”

Your vision returned, this time the men were all stood in front of you, watching your vision return to normal. Your quickly caught sight of the man in your vision, Yoongi, you assumed. You touched your lips as if you could feel his lips, plush against yours.

“Who is Ellie?” Were the only words to leave your lips as sobs started to sound out instead. Their eyes seemed indifferent to your words, despite the sparkle of happiness glittering within.

“You.”

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tradetobest · 4 months ago

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bennguin fic rec list (pt 1?)

in honour of the steers and queers anniversary im making a bennguin fic rec list!! it has 14 fics cuz jamie number :))

i wrangled the fuck out of my bookmarks for this, so enjoy :))

Kelowna: Become Human by LadyJanelly

rating: T words: 8.9k summary: What better way is there for a professional hockey team to make sure their prospects can focus on getting NHL ready, than buying them their very own android?

if you know me, you know i am a GIANTTT fan of detroit become human, so this fic is a dream come true for me. it is literally great too like i love it. tyler prioritizing jamie's orders over his programming... oughh....

Custom, Discreet by inlovewithnight

rating: E words: 12k summary: Tyler accidentally discovers Jamie's kink. He is so very on-board.

LINGERIE FIC!! we love.... we love that its JAMIE in the lingerie.... oughhhh

Must Love Dogs by SpiritsFlame

rating: G words: 12k summary: It doesn't occur to Jamie until he's standing on Tyler's front porch at 3am, barefoot, that maybe he should have called first In which Jamie Benn steals a dog, gets his best friend back, and combats toxic masculinity. In more or less that order.

i love this fic so much. cute ass fucking dog. PHENOMENAL use of the premise.

Featuring Marshall by wutheringjane

rating: G words: 4.1k summary: Tyler's latest video was called "GUESS WHO'S GOING TO DALLAS"

YOUTUBER AUUUUUU!!!!!! oh my god i am OBSESSED w youtube aus. and this ones so fucking cute too. theyre fans of each other your honour

the old brag of my heart (I am, I am, I am) by Mayhem10

rating: G words: 9.9k summary: Sometimes people forget that Jamie Benn exists.

this is part of the condition of existence series, and it's the second one in the series, but the whole series is phenomenal. i replay tyler's discovery moment in my brain over and over (OH YEAH, READ THE FIRST ONE DIRECTLY FROM THIS LINK)

Pitches Love Velocity by bohnem990

rating: T words: 12k summary: There’s no use in talking about money to Tyler, Brownie knows. It’s the reason that Brownie was the one to major in business in college, while Tyler majored in drinking with a minor in marketing. “If you want to drop a grand on one night at a sports event can’t you at least spend it on a real sport?” Several people, Tyler included, gape at him. “Like hockey,” Brownie barrels on, “We could totally go to a hockey game. We’re Canadian, Segs! We’re supposed to eat, sleep, and breathe hockey!” -- Alternately : “Dude,” Brownie laughs, “I think Jamie Benn’s agent just asked you to fuck him.”

THIS FIC. tyler at the restaurant lives rent free. FRAT BOY ASS. i love them so much.

Something Wild by Linsky

pairing: tyler seguin/jamie benn

rating: E words: 3k summary: The girl on Tinder is typing again. why don’t you show me how good you are with a cock Tyler coughs and drops his phone. That’s—wow. He did not expect her to go there.

oh my god. oh my god. tyler is such a dumbass here and i love it. im OBSESSED. 10/10 misunderstanding fic.

something over nothing any day by clawsandsympathy

rating: G words: 1.5k summary: “About this time on Hawkeye in the Morning, we run a little segment called Second Date Update. When someone has a great first date but never make it to the second date, they call us and we try to help them out. Tyler, can you tell us how you met Jamie?”

i think this fic is adorable. the concept is so fuckin cute and i think its executed well w some tropes i really like :))

I Know a Little Chapel by Linsky

rating: M words: 4.5k summary: Tyler Seguin is a very good wedding planner. Which is why he’s not freaking out that Jamie Benn of the Dallas fucking Stars is sitting in his office.

wedding plannerrrrrr auuu!!!!!!!!! tyler planning jordies wedding isnt something i knew i needed but by god did i

sneeze by Anonymous

rating: T words: 5.3k summary: Tyler had never actually heard Jamie purr. It was the strangest goddamn thing.

THIS FIC IS ADORABLE i love the story around why jamie's purrs are Like That. and tyler misunderstanding. ough ITS PERF

let's give them something to talk about by Anonymous

rating: T words: 2.6k summary: ashlee @/messysegsy - Sep 15 why does it feel like everyone got #OneTImerTour tickets except for me??????? @/tylerseguin please explain (5 replies 3 retweets 20 likes)

first part of the rheotaxis series!! i am a big sucker for social media aus, and aus in general, and musician/hockey is a trope i LOVE (shout out to that mceichel fic) so this is the perfect fic for me. unironically perfect.

scar tissue by eternalvariegation

rating: T words: 12k summary: Jamie still remembers when they were practically living out of each other’s pockets, the memory twinging like a muscle he hasn’t used in a long time but that his body hasn’t forgotten. It was probably inevitable that they’d see less of each other once Jamie formally requested that they no longer go into the field together but it still hits him sometimes. The tangible feeling of loss despite it having been his own decision in the end. Tyler didn’t speak to him for a month after he found out.

SPY AU oh my gosh. "partner doing what he thinks is best for other partner. it is not best" is such an insane trope and i love it so much in this fic. done incredibly well. please read this.

Arms of the Sea by LadyJanelly

rating: T words: 3.7k summary: Jamie gives her back to the sea when she dies, three years into their marriage, their baby still inside her. He sews her up in sailcloth with the porridge pot she brought from her mother’s house, a stone from their shared hearth, scaling knife, thimble and needle. He sails out to the deep water and lowers her into the water, weeps as she sinks into the ocean’s embrace. He sails back to land and gives his boat to his brother. He will not return to the ocean. It is a graveyard to him now. He finds a job in a logging camp, and for a year his feet are dry, his lips do not taste of salt.

incredibly emotional and beautiful fic. op wonders whether their execution of the concept is dull and pretentious in the opening notes and i think that is the worst part of this fic, only because it does such a disservice to it. RAHH i love it

wandering bee seeks the rose by clachnaben

rating: E words: 8.7k summary: Jamie Benn coaches a youth hockey team and Tyler is a determined Hockey Mom. Meet cutes and queer women and youth hockey

yk i had to shout out the lesbians to round it out. sexy hockey mom tyler lives in my head rent free and i dont even like women.

#fic recs #bennguin #tyler seguin #jamie benn #a bit late but ignore that #hope you like this list cuz i have a potential second one

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sitp-recs · 1 year ago

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do you know of any dom/sub fics but that are not really pron centered. like they can be explicit but still be mostly about that dom/sub undertone dynamic.. I’ve read all omegaverse drarry fics in the market (ao3) and honestly i’m in love with that dynamic

Hi anon! Ahh yes I don’t usually go for hardcore BDSM but am very much here for Dom/sub undertones in fics that explore those dynamics in a more organic, subdued way. I really love it when the sex is just a way to get a deeper look into the characters’ psyche. I think these fics do a great job, I’ve also heard great things about Freedom to Be by Quicksilvermaid it might be a good fit - ty @vmcgmidlifecrisis for the rec!

Student Digs by Lokifan (E, 4k)

Harry’s living in *student accommodation*. Just the phrase makes Draco shudder.

Lucid by @dracoladon (E, 4.4k)

Harry's not sure what makes him harder; listening to Draco talk about astronomy, or shagging Draco so thoroughly that he can't talk at all. Both, probably.

Shining, Like A Present by @bixgirl1 (E, 13k)

The discovery of a small silver box at the site of a case opens up new possibilities.

Moneymaker by @dictacontrion (E, 16k)

As a top trader, Draco has power and money, suits and cars, houses and good champagne - everything a person could want. So when Auror Potter comes looking for help, Draco can't think of anything that might persuade him to lend a hand. Well...maybe one thing.

just tell me when it’s alright by @bonesliketambourines (E, 23k)

Harry’s been fighting tooth and nail for any bit of normalcy he can get his hands on. He’s sick of feeling like something’s wrong with him, tired of feeling different. He thinks he’s finally gotten to the root of it, and has settled into a routine that makes him happy. Naturally, that’s when Draco Malfoy walks back into his life and upends it once again. Has Harry bitten off more than he can chew with his former rival?

A Year in Training by Omi_Ohmy (M, 25k)

Harry is finally living his dream and training as an Auror, but nothing seems to be going right: he’s just so angry all the time. And Draco Malfoy’s presence on the programme really isn’t helping with that, either.

Inside Your Mind by @lazywonderlvnd (E, 36k)

Goyle's taken it upon himself to act as Malfoy's personal, one-man guard and Harry can't help but feel like it's only making the bullying worse.

The Destiny You Sold by tryslora (E, 59k)

In which Draco knits, Harry makes wands, and things get very tangled up between them.

Far From The Tree by aideomai (E, 112k)

The arrival of Harry Potter’s children—snapped back in time, the children themselves guessed, twenty or so years—was the most interesting thing to happen at Hogwarts for years.

A Sword Laid Aside by @korlaena (E, 128k)

When Draco’s cover is blown during a deep undercover operation and the Ministry is compromised, Ron takes Draco to the only safe place he can think of—Potter. Hiding out with a taciturn Harry Potter, who has been missing from the Wizarding World for almost two decades after a shocking fall from grace, is nothing like Draco thought it would be.

#asks #anon #Drarry reclist #d/s dynamic

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mousysims · 2 years ago

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mousy save; hold onto your hats

i started with my go-to simlicy save, so most of the residential lots and many of the community lots are by simlicy. i agonized over lot placement and number of each type of lot; i only ever play one family so it makes sense for me to have fewer residential lots and tons of community lots. i'm missing a lot of packs so this is pretty carefully curated to fit with what i do have (i'm used to replacing wallpaper and some furniture for most gallery builds but if it's missing much more than that I try a different lot). i love community lots that a) have things for sims to do and b) look pretty. all of these fit and i highly recommend every single one!!

willow creek

strip mall by simlicy

blue velvet by simlicy

rosado lounge by bottsbotts (it's turned the wrong way in the screenshot lmfao i've since turned it the right way)

summer lane vinyl by pixelddump (cc required)

umbrage manor by simlicy

sushi bar by therealpraline

acadia springs park by silrosse

honeydew coffee shop by ratboysims

oasis springs

thriftea mirage by ratboysims

rock n roller diner by amy_alston93

calico community pool by silrosse

house of mango by silrosse

desert bloom by wafl

llama lanes by simlicy

magnolia promenade

l'heure de the by e-aplouf

magnolia complex by simlicy

simazon bookstore by irrelephant7

ice cream shop by anadius

newcrest

newcrest mall by plasma-janes (cc required)

greasy goods by littledica (cc required)

monsun noodles by ratboysims

rollin park by ratboysims

george's brewpub by silrosse

solcaf by silrosse

rise and grind cafe by littledica (cc required)

industrial plant cafe by therealpraline

the forgotten by bottsbotts

les boules du lhama by e-aplouf

kids center by anadius

health and fitness center by jessiejessan

planete popemiel by e-aplouf

bamboo wok by silrosse

windenberg

plant shop by simlicy

island bluffs by wafl

thriftea by kateemerald

old quad restaurant by simlicy

old town bridal by simlicy

old town center by simlicy

the new old quarter inn by simlicy

bathe de rill by simlicy

ocean crown by ratboysims

discotheque pan europa by moonbearsim

patisserie by stjernesky

san myshuno

planet honey pop! by allisas

culpepper heights by bottsbotts

the naked gnome by bottsbotts

casbah gallery by pictureamoebae (cc required)

stargazer lounge by ratboysims

skye gym by ratboysims (converted to a library in my save)

myshuno meadows by simlicy

brindleton bay

pupperstone park by thaisvolpe

vet clinic by simlicy

yacht club by simlicy

grimalkin kitchen and tap by quiecence90

cat cafe by therealpraline

bedlington boathouse by simlicy

deadgrass discoveries by simlicy

del sol valley

hotel by simlicy

studio pbp by roxxysims

ward park and cafe by pinneaple8904

orchid a go go by whyeverr

newcrest cinema and arcade by silrossse (renovated to fit into del valley in my save)

starbucks and gym by simlicy

pride music festival by kriint (i placed on a bigger lot and expanded on the existing one)

sulani

laguna mermaid beach by feliciabrenning

sapphire shores by kwizz66

sulani juice bar by simcubeez

ohan'ali beach by simlicy

hang loose hangout by vulpeculai

evergreen harbor

quarry building by marie-lennie-joe

utopia cafe by silrosse

warehouse nightclub by simlicy

the waterfront by luckyheather

sprucewood pool by ratboysims

mt. komorebi

matsu no yu by tamo-sim

komorebi onsen by tksims__0oy

senbamachi market by diviniityx

hanamigawa koen by kaledz

izakaya ippai x2 by mariakarita

restaurant and karaoke bar by bottsbotts

henford-on-bagley

romantic woodland wedding by riemunen

granite lake by wafl (renovated to fit into henford-on-bagley in my save)

finchwick village hall by thesimline

the gnome's arms by yuliana_fib

copperdale

high school by aharris00britney

auditorium by luzy_lou_77

thriftea by luzy_lou_77

lakeview park by tinynezumi

mt komorebi cafe by pchrseen

teddy’s pizza and arcade by ratboysims

#sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 gallery finds #ts4 lot finds

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citrusses · 1 year ago

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July 2023: AO3 Wrapped 🎁🍊

A monthly roundup of *some* of my favorite fics of the year.

A Saviour’s Guide to Manners and Decorum by @wolfpants (E, 13K)

Honorary Minister Harry Potter (yes, he's fully aware his job title is meaningless, and he quite likes it that way) is a disaster at public events.

Listen, if there's two things I will never, ever, ever get enough of it is etiquette lessons and longing. This fic is perfect to me.

Everybody Hates a Tourist by @wolfpants (E, 51K)

On a stag do in sunny Brighton with the Gryffindor lads, the last person Harry expects to run into is Draco Malfoy.

Started reading this at night and went, sorry, sleep, you aren't happening. Could not rest until I finished it. The most beautiful discovery of love and oneself.

Fledgling by @tackytigerfic (G, 3K)

Two young dads meet at a farmers market. They exchange parenting tips, longing looks, and root vegetables.

This is so very, very lovely in a chaotic (newborns!!), achingly sweet way. In my head this is "*The* Drarry dads fic."

heaven to gaudy day by @maesterchill (M, 809)

Istanbul. The morning after the night before. And Malfoy's in a mood.

Under 1000 words of pure gorgeousness.

I only want the ones I envy (I envy) by @porcelainheart3 (E, 13K)

Despite this arrangement he has with Draco, conducted entirely in the privacy of a dusty stationery cabinet, Harry is definitely not gay. But to appease his friends, he agrees to go on one (1) date with a man. Just to be sure.

ABSOLUTE TREAT, SUPREME BANGER. A confection of a fic -- the dialogue, the details, all adding up to a densely-packed, seven layer slice of dessert.

Muscle Memory by @corvuscrowned (E, 8K)

There's something just beneath the surface, just at the periphery of Harry's mind. They've been here before — they've done this before. If only he could remember it.

I think this has my favorite last line of a fic all year. Maybe ever. This is exactly the kind of narratively layered, brilliant and beautifully captivating fic that Crow has done so well so many times. A gift.

Rich Friend by @sorrybutblog (E, 19K)

As far as Harry can tell, Draco Malfoy is still rich as hell. He’s just not a wizard anymore. Featuring: Draco Malfoy trying to make it as a Muggle pop star, Harry Potter as our confused and horny hero, bad driving, good music, and the mysterious magic of falling for someone.

LKSJ:FLKJSD. I mean, this is a perfect Harry POV fic, the most believable Drarry dynamic in the midst of a fic about Draco as a Muggle pop star named Dragon, the "I'm with the band" fic I didn't know I needed. I love it with my whole soul.

Sun Thief by @floydig, (E, 28K)

It’s 2005, and Draco Malfoy says, “Fuck the Ministry,” Harry works as a handyman in muggle London, and Draco should really stop pissing off the Squib gangs.

Bracingly original, thrilling to read, does not hold the reader's hand at all and just throws you into it -- fantastic.

Waking Up Slow by @sweet-s0rr0w (E, 22K)

'Twas the night before Christmas, although it’s July/Draco’s a shopkeeper, no-one knows why/There’s hiking and witch caves, freak snowfalls and more/Bad Christmas jumpers, nosy neighbours galore/Narcissa’s here too, but… something’s amiss/And what’s in those chocolates that’s making them kiss?

No one can make me SEE a fic the way Sweet does. The writing in this is so tangibly gorgeous, the love story is so tender and sweet and funny and lovely. The most charming of fics.

#citrus recs #2023 recs #all bops no skips #drarry fic recs

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ericleo108 · 1 year ago

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CosmicLuve.com July 2023 - The Main Thing

Necessary prerequisite posts:

108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (book)

Sentientism 2022

Cosmic Love Feb 2020 - Emma Watson

Cosmic Love April 2022: Cary Charlotte or Mary

Cosmic Luve July 2022 - Smoke Blunts Response Treatise

Cosmic Luve Aug 2022 - Coast

Cosmic Luve Sept 2022 - Hope

Cosmic Luve Oct 2022 - Folklore

Cosmic Luve April 2023 - Sun

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Into

This is a pivotal post and touches on all relevant cosmic luves (as in persons, as well as ties in many posts). This post builds off the story developed in “Sept 2022 Hope” and especially “April 2023 Sun.” You won’t understand the theory or meaning of this post unless you read the Sentientism post and other log entries to see that these coincidences are common occurrences and how I interpret them. The fundamental understanding of all this comes from my book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness.”

The intent of this cosmic luve log is to explain what I see as Gaia/Earth communicating. The basic theory is that the Earth and stars are conscious due to their magnetism. They have abilities like “telepathic randonauting” and “points of realization” to try and communicate which can affect things like evolution subtly but consistently. I show how Gaia could be manipulating our behaviors by influencing our cognition throughout the cosmic luve blog.

Where we left off…

When we left off I talked about the semantics of the sun in lil’dicky’s show, how I’m searching for Marcus Lemonis, and couldn’t afford help from Ryini. Well, I said screw it and signed up for Ryini even though it takes my whole music budget for the month. It’s been a couple months and I have found the investment worth it.

We have a personalized meeting a couple of times a month with a group chat twice per week. This has helped me focus on marketing like making vertical music videos. With their help, we have been breaking them down into segments and running ads through Instagram to get followers and plays on Spotify. They have done things that are invaluable like turning me onto Spotify’s Discovery marketing feature that gets me thousands of plays per month now. I feel like it been worth it and they’re here to help and gonna keep working until I see a good amount of success or at least get my money back. I’m practicing a 7 track set to perform online and at local venues. Hopefully, I’ll have plenty to point to by next cosmic luve entry.

Marcus and Dave

I stopped looking for Marcus Lemonis because I don’t think he wants to be found. It’s obvious to me he has to know I exist and is just ignoring my request for a meeting. I forgot to mention in the last cosmic luve post that my song called “Process, People, Product” which is taken from his quotes about business from Marcus drops on November 16th 2023.

It’s worth explaining and furthering the semantics in Dave’s yellow dress. I should of mentioned this in the last post “Sun” but it didn’t come to me until right after I published it. The semantic trope goes as follows and furthers the story of the sun’s communication. Our sun is exemplified as a male. Dave in his yellow dress (exemplifying the sun) came out the same time as my song “Bong hits for Jesus.” Jesus is gods son and based off the myth of the sun (click here for more) as I show in my Atheist Raps blog post. “Bong Hits” is about smoking weed. In Dave’s song about smoking weed “Too High” he talks and makes jokes about the sun (having a dick). This also is a callback to the first Emma Watson post where she is pointing to a letter E in yellow.

Looking back

I have a confession to make. Gaia has taught me that when one door closes another one opens. In February I made a tweet along the line of “When they say when one door closes another one opens is bullshit, I quit my job months ago and haven’t found anything.” I quit my job in August 2022 and said that in February 2023. Come to find out that I got my first big royalty check in August 2022 and hadn’t been informed yet and didn’t find out until March 2023. When it was May I have now received my second $1500 royalty check in 6 months. The second royalty check came just after I decided not to go to Marcus’s event. Even with the royalty payment I didn’t really have enough to go because it was $500 plus hotel and airfare. I used the money to pay off my credit card which is full of music production and promotion expenses.

It seems that financial security is coming slowly, but coming, I just need to focus on building momentum and doing the work. It’s just frustrating cuz I can’t afford anything else and forgo a lot to make all this music happen and I haven’t had real relief for years. The truth is I’m still struggling and have not even come close to breaking even with what I’ve invested, but it’s a start. I am currently desperate for more royalties or financial help.

Looking forward I want 100 tracks by December 2024. If you want to know about coming projects while hearing what I have to say about Big oil, global warming, and blue watch the July 16th 2023 sunday update.

Coincidences

The first cosmic luve occurrence I’ve had since last time was small but was with Taylor Swift. “Karma” is a song that was on The Chalice Mixtape in 2017, I’ve also had it remade and it drops October 6th, 2023. There was a small but unmistakable coincidence in Taylor’s “Karma” video. In my song “cosmic love brownies” that I uploaded months ago and comes out December 13, the lyric is “I got a Saturn in watching over you, cause you’re a supernova girl.” Here is the tweet I made about it. But this lyric reminded me of Taylor standing with Ice Spice lassoing the moon and Saturn in her “Karma” music video.

Then I had a small occurrence with Hailee Steinfeld when my song “We Make The Party” dropped. I talk about it in my “We Make The Party” blog post but basically, I didn’t realize I would be releasing the song so close to the official start of summer. It has the lyrics “Nothing feels good as her in the summer, we make it hot like global warming.” On the 22nd Hailee posted her magazine feature in The Laterals as their “summer girl.” Unfortunately, I didn’t get a screenshot so you’ll have to look it up. This reminded me of Hailee’s newest song “Sunkissin” which feels like a ‘call-back’ from the sun where Hailee sings “Come and catch a wave, Fade away like it rains in the summertime (In the summertime).”

Although I just published a song called “Vulnerable” responding to a Selena Gomez song by the same name I haven’t seen any coincidences. It's worth mentioning I have thought to myself on many occasions that these women are like the sirens of Greek mythology. Selena reminds me of the ocean and therefore has the strongest association with this feeling and semantics.

Other coincidences since last time include that Cornell West announced his run for President with the Green Party days after I dropped “Philosophy 101” which is based on his Masterclass. And Russ met Dr.Dre right before “Freaky naughty” dropped which is musically inspired by Dr. Dre. I feel like this is Gaia building off my July 2022 Smoke Blunts post.

Emma Watson

Finally, The reflections I got from Emma are so stark and can be interpreted so profoundly that it seems like Emma follows me and is doing it on purpose. But I maintain it’s just Gaia using her as a vessel to reflect my life and work because Gaia and the sun think Emma and I should be together for compatibility and acumen reasons. The truth is for Emma to be reflecting me on purpose she would have to know intimate details of my life which makes me believe it’s much more likely she is being manipulated by some unexplainable phenomenon that I am desperately trying to explain.

You can follow the tweet thread but basically, I’ve been responding to Emma’s Instagram stories through Twitter. I’m just gonna leave the tweets linked which have pictures of Emma’s IG posts. It started June 1st when Emma semantically reflected my poem in the Cosmic Luve Sun April 2023 post (click here for the tweet). It’s worth mentioning that I love otters, they’re probably my favorite marine animal, and I used to do horse videos on my Facebook page. It seems to have a cohesive message of “I’m loving you without possession” but Emma would have to know I love otters and did my horse videos.

I stopped doing the word of the day rhyme on July 3rd was the last day. Then on July 11th I retweeted about Global Warming emissions and how I no longer was going to create an album to berate the oil industry. On June 11th, the original June 29th post that I made due to the smoke blanketing Michigan from Canadian wildfires that are happening due to global warming, came full circle. This is because that’s when I found out the EPA could cut 90% of emissions.

The next day Emma posted a cosmic luve response of the “Elementals” movie. I wrote her a poem and said Emma was the “main thing” because she had a picture on her story that also said, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” Emma has been the whole purpose of my music as Eric Leo 108 since the beginning in 2017 (when I dropped the Chalice Mixtape) and before (Click here to see the tweet). It’s worth noting that my best-performing track in the week she posted this became “Hey Emma.” Keeping with the “Elementals” theme the hook to “Hey Emma” exclaims that Emma can “make it hot, being oh so cool.”

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I just want to mention that also during this time I put out a call out for a videographer saying I need help and I just wanna say I wish Emma was my videographer. In keeping with the notion Emma would have to know my personal life otherwise, it’s Gaia… about a week or two prior to the Elemental post, I went kayaking for the first time and got drunk on the river in Michigan with some friends. I loved it and have been asking them to do it again ever since. Maybe Gaia and the sun are telling Emma and I that we should go Kayaking for our first date if we ever get there.

#Emma Watson #hiphop #rap #Selena Gomez #taylor swift #Hailee Steinfeld #cosmic luve #love #cosmic

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communistkenobi · 2 years ago

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the thought I am about to voice is going to be very messy and rough and probably overly generalised, but I’m coming to the point in my education (& I’m picking out Fanon, Said, Cesaire in particular here) where I feel like empiricism as a system of thinking is at a crisis point for me. rationalism and positivism and scientific discovery broadly as a way of systemising information and thinking about the world has been so deeply bound up in projects of capitalism and empire, legitimising the “civilising efforts” of colonial occupations of various “irrational” societies across the world, producing “The West” as a political entity that is seen as ultimately rational, and creating this body of secular authority (“scientific knowledge”) that is imbedded in the maintenance of “The West” and its component states, an authority that can only be understood and contributed to as an academic via the same capitalistic market logics that govern everything else - that to be “empirical” about the world, to present myself as someone whose beliefs are informed by provable discoverable “facts” about reality, feels very similar to an allegiance to capital-E Empire in general.

And Marxism has been very clarifying for me in this regard, to be able to use empiricism and make empirical claims that are fundamentally counter-hegemonic to capitalism, but it still comes out of this same European enlightenment tradition. But absent that I don’t know what else there is lol. Like empiricism feels like the only game in town but it’s a game with so much blood on its hands that I don’t know if it’s something you can export out of capitalism. To use an example, is eugenics a “misuse” of science? My answer to that question is both yes and no - yes in the sense that a belief in eugenics is not backed by evidence, that when you put the idea that some “gene pools” are “better” than others and that you need to get rid of “the bad ones” to scientific tests, this does not stand up to scientific scrutiny because the categorical bins you use to define good and bad gene pools are also not biological or scientific (eg race), as well as a bunch of other issues, so eugenics fails the empirical smell test. But eugenics is also effectively “true” because the belief in it has produced unquantifiable amounts of imperial violence. It’s “true” in the sense that it has become a rational logic by which empire justifies itself, and so imperial powers behave as if it is true. And because eugenics emerges out of enlightenment scientific thinking, a project itself that emerges from capitalism/colonialism, can it really be called a misuse if it’s accomplishing exactly what European imperial powers need it to?

Like I guess basically what I need clarified for me is, is it possible to believe in empiricism as an epistemic authority without it being ultimately used for imperial ends. If you believe that capital-T Truth is discoverable, and that the more that Truth is used to inform the organisation of society, the better off society will be (which, as a communist, I generally do believe), does that lead you to fundamentally imperialistic conclusions?

#book club #making this not rebloggable lol. theory mutuals please chime in though #or anyone actually. I feel like the conclusion I’m at about empiricism is inevitable #but I don’t know what to do with it #and abandoning it seems like not an option #I’m also using a bunch of words that I’m not defining super clearly #like I said this is messy #and gets into the level of theory I’m not equipped to deal with #like debating Is Empiricism Good is not something I’m academically equipped to do #I tend to be more at the level of using theory to talk about history or policy or etc

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jcmarchi · 1 month ago

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Translating MIT research into real-world results

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/translating-mit-research-into-real-world-results/

Translating MIT research into real-world results

Inventive solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems are being discovered in labs, classrooms, and centers across MIT every day. Many of these solutions move from the lab to the commercial world with the help of over 85 Institute resources that comprise MIT’s robust innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem. The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) draws on MIT’s wealth of I&E knowledge and experience to help researchers commercialize their breakthrough technologies through the J-WAFS Solutions grant program. By collaborating with I&E programs on campus, J-WAFS prepares MIT researchers for the commercial world, where their novel innovations aim to improve productivity, accessibility, and sustainability of water and food systems, creating economic, environmental, and societal benefits along the way.

The J-WAFS Solutions program launched in 2015 with support from Community Jameel, an international organization that advances science and learning for communities to thrive. Since 2015, J-WAFS Solutions has supported 19 projects with one-year grants of up to $150,000, with some projects receiving renewal grants for a second year of support. Solutions projects all address challenges related to water or food. Modeled after the esteemed grant program of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, and initially administered by Deshpande Center staff, the J-WAFS Solutions program follows a similar approach by supporting projects that have already completed the basic research and proof-of-concept phases. With technologies that are one to three years away from commercialization, grantees work on identifying their potential markets and learn to focus on how their technology can meet the needs of future customers.

“Ingenuity thrives at MIT, driving inventions that can be translated into real-world applications for widespread adoption, implantation, and use,” says J-WAFS Director Professor John H. Lienhard V. “But successful commercialization of MIT technology requires engineers to focus on many challenges beyond making the technology work. MIT’s I&E network offers a variety of programs that help researchers develop technology readiness, investigate markets, conduct customer discovery, and initiate product design and development,” Lienhard adds. “With this strong I&E framework, many J-WAFS Solutions teams have established startup companies by the completion of the grant. J-WAFS-supported technologies have had powerful, positive effects on human welfare. Together, the J-WAFS Solutions program and MIT’s I&E ecosystem demonstrate how academic research can evolve into business innovations that make a better world,” Lienhard says.

Creating I&E collaborations

In addition to support for furthering research, J-WAFS Solutions grants allow faculty, students, postdocs, and research staff to learn the fundamentals of how to transform their work into commercial products and companies. As part of the grant requirements, researchers must interact with mentors through MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). VMS connects MIT entrepreneurs with teams of carefully selected professionals who provide free and confidential mentorship, guidance, and other services to help advance ideas into for-profit, for-benefit, or nonprofit ventures. Since 2000, VMS has mentored over 4,600 MIT entrepreneurs across all industries, through a dynamic and accomplished group of nearly 200 mentors who volunteer their time so that others may succeed. The mentors provide impartial and unbiased advice to members of the MIT community, including MIT alumni in the Boston area. J-WAFS Solutions teams have been guided by 21 mentors from numerous companies and nonprofits. Mentors often attend project events and progress meetings throughout the grant period.

“Working with VMS has provided me and my organization with a valuable sounding board for a range of topics, big and small,” says Eric Verploegen PhD ’08, former research engineer in MIT’s D-Lab and founder of J-WAFS spinout CoolVeg. Along with professors Leon Glicksman and Daniel Frey, Verploegen received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2021 to commercialize cold-storage chambers that use evaporative cooling to help farmers preserve fruits and vegetables in rural off-grid communities. Verploegen started CoolVeg in 2022 to increase access and adoption of open-source, evaporative cooling technologies through collaborations with businesses, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies. “Working as a solo founder at my nonprofit venture, it is always great to have avenues to get feedback on communications approaches, overall strategy, and operational issues that my mentors have experience with,” Verploegen says. Three years after the initial Solutions grant, one of the VMS mentors assigned to the evaporative cooling team still acts as a mentor to Verploegen today.

Another Solutions grant requirement is for teams to participate in the Spark program — a free, three-week course that provides an entry point for researchers to explore the potential value of their innovation. Spark is part of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps), which is an “immersive, entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention to impact.” In 2018, MIT received an award from the NSF, establishing the New England Regional Innovation Corps Node (NE I-Corps) to deliver I-Corps training to participants across New England. Trainings are open to researchers, engineers, scientists, and others who want to engage in a customer discovery process for their technology. Offered regularly throughout the year, the Spark course helps participants identify markets and explore customer needs in order to understand how their technologies can be positioned competitively in their target markets. They learn to assess barriers to adoption, as well as potential regulatory issues or other challenges to commercialization. NE-I-Corps reports that since its start, over 1,200 researchers from MIT have completed the program and have gone on to launch 175 ventures, raising over $3.3 billion in funding from grants and investors, and creating over 1,800 jobs.

Constantinos Katsimpouras, a research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering, went through the NE I-Corps Spark program to better understand the customer base for a technology he developed with professors Gregory Stephanopoulos and Anthony Sinskey. The group received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2021 for their microbial platform that converts food waste from the dairy industry into valuable products. “As a scientist with no prior experience in entrepreneurship, the program introduced me to important concepts and tools for conducting customer interviews and adopting a new mindset,” notes Katsimpouras. “Most importantly, it encouraged me to get out of the building and engage in interviews with potential customers and stakeholders, providing me with invaluable insights and a deeper understanding of my industry,” he adds. These interviews also helped connect the team with companies willing to provide resources to test and improve their technology — a critical step to the scale-up of any lab invention.

In the case of Professor Cem Tasan’s research group in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the I-Corps program led them to the J-WAFS Solutions grant, instead of the other way around. Tasan is currently working with postdoc Onur Guvenc on a J-WAFS Solutions project to manufacture formable sheet metal by consolidating steel scrap without melting, thereby reducing water use compared to traditional steel processing. Before applying for the Solutions grant, Guvenc took part in NE I-Corps. Like Katsimpouras, Guvenc benefited from the interaction with industry. “This program required me to step out of the lab and engage with potential customers, allowing me to learn about their immediate challenges and test my initial assumptions about the market,” Guvenc recalls. “My interviews with industry professionals also made me aware of the connection between water consumption and steelmaking processes, which ultimately led to the J-WAFS 2023 Solutions Grant,” says Guvenc.

After completing the Spark program, participants may be eligible to apply for the Fusion program, which provides microgrants of up to $1,500 to conduct further customer discovery. The Fusion program is self-paced, requiring teams to conduct 12 additional customer interviews and craft a final presentation summarizing their key learnings. Professor Patrick Doyle’s J-WAFS Solutions team completed the Spark and Fusion programs at MIT. Most recently, their team was accepted to join the NSF I-Corps National program with a $50,000 award. The intensive program requires teams to complete an additional 100 customer discovery interviews over seven weeks. Located in the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Doyle lab is working on a sustainable microparticle hydrogel system to rapidly remove micropollutants from water. The team’s focus has expanded to higher value purifications in amino acid and biopharmaceutical manufacturing applications. Devashish Gokhale PhD ’24 worked with Doyle on much of the underlying science.

“Our platform technology could potentially be used for selective separations in very diverse market segments, ranging from individual consumers to large industries and government bodies with varied use-cases,” Gokhale explains. He goes on to say, “The I-Corps Spark program added significant value by providing me with an effective framework to approach this problem … I was assigned a mentor who provided critical feedback, teaching me how to formulate effective questions and identify promising opportunities.” Gokhale says that by the end of Spark, the team was able to identify the best target markets for their products. He also says that the program provided valuable seminars on topics like intellectual property, which was helpful in subsequent discussions the team had with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office.

Another member of Doyle’s team, Arjav Shah, a recent PhD from MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a current MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, is spearheading the team’s commercialization plans. Shah attended Fusion last fall and hopes to lead efforts to incorporate a startup company called hydroGel. “I admire the hypothesis-driven approach of the I-Corps program,” says Shah. “It has enabled us to identify our customers’ biggest pain points, which will hopefully lead us to finding a product-market fit.” He adds “based on our learnings from the program, we have been able to pivot to impact-driven, higher-value applications in the food processing and biopharmaceutical industries.” Postdoc Luca Mazzaferro will lead the technical team at hydroGel alongside Shah.

In a different project, Qinmin Zheng, a postdoc in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is working with Professor Andrew Whittle and Lecturer Fábio Duarte. Zheng plans to take the Fusion course this fall to advance their J-WAFS Solutions project that aims to commercialize a novel sensor to quantify the relative abundance of major algal species and provide early detection of harmful algal blooms. After completing Spark, Zheng says he’s “excited to participate in the Fusion program, and potentially the National I-Corps program, to further explore market opportunities and minimize risks in our future product development.”

Economic and societal benefits

Commercializing technologies developed at MIT is one of the ways J-WAFS helps ensure that MIT research advances will have real-world impacts in water and food systems. Since its inception, the J-WAFS Solutions program has awarded 28 grants (including renewals), which have supported 19 projects that address a wide range of global water and food challenges. The program has distributed over $4 million to 24 professors, 11 research staff, 15 postdocs, and 30 students across MIT. Nearly half of all J-WAFS Solutions projects have resulted in spinout companies or commercialized products, including eight companies to date plus two open-source technologies.

Nona Technologies is an example of a J-WAFS spinout that is helping the world by developing new approaches to produce freshwater for drinking. Desalination — the process of removing salts from seawater — typically requires a large-scale technology called reverse osmosis. But Nona created a desalination device that can work in remote off-grid locations. By separating salt and bacteria from water using electric current through a process called ion concentration polarization (ICP), their technology also reduces overall energy consumption. The novel method was developed by Jongyoon Han, professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering, and research scientist Junghyo Yoon. Along with Bruce Crawford, a Sloan MBA alum, Han and Yoon created Nona Technologies to bring their lightweight, energy-efficient desalination technology to the market.

“My feeling early on was that once you have technology, commercialization will take care of itself,” admits Crawford. The team completed both the Spark and Fusion programs and quickly realized that much more work would be required. “Even in our first 24 interviews, we learned that the two first markets we envisioned would not be viable in the near term, and we also got our first hints at the beachhead we ultimately selected,” says Crawford. Nona Technologies has since won MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, received media attention from outlets like Newsweek and Fortune, and hired a team that continues to further the technology for deployment in resource-limited areas where clean drinking water may be scarce.

Food-borne diseases sicken millions of people worldwide each year, but J-WAFS researchers are addressing this issue by integrating molecular engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence to revolutionize food pathogen testing. Professors Tim Swager and Alexander Klibanov, of the Department of Chemistry, were awarded one of the first J-WAFS Solutions grants for their sensor that targets food safety pathogens. The sensor uses specialized droplets that behave like a dynamic lens, changing in the presence of target bacteria in order to detect dangerous bacterial contamination in food. In 2018, Swager launched Xibus Systems Inc. to bring the sensor to market and advance food safety for greater public health, sustainability, and economic security.

“Our involvement with the J-WAFS Solutions Program has been vital,” says Swager. “It has provided us with a bridge between the academic world and the business world and allowed us to perform more detailed work to create a usable application,” he adds. In 2022, Xibus developed a product called XiSafe, which enables the detection of contaminants like salmonella and listeria faster and with higher sensitivity than other food testing products. The innovation could save food processors billions of dollars worldwide and prevent thousands of food-borne fatalities annually.

J-WAFS Solutions companies have raised nearly $66 million in venture capital and other funding. Just this past June, J-WAFS spinout SiTration announced that it raised an $11.8 million seed round. Jeffrey Grossman, a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was another early J-WAFS Solutions grantee for his work on low-cost energy-efficient filters for desalination. The project enabled the development of nanoporous membranes and resulted in two spinout companies, Via Separations and SiTration. SiTration was co-founded by Brendan Smith PhD ’18, who was a part of the original J-WAFS team. Smith is CEO of the company and has overseen the advancement of the membrane technology, which has gone on to reduce cost and resource consumption in industrial wastewater treatment, advanced manufacturing, and resource extraction of materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel from recycled electric vehicle batteries. The company also recently announced that it is working with the mining company Rio Tinto to handle harmful wastewater generated at mines.

But it’s not just J-WAFS spinout companies that are producing real-world results. Products like the ECC Vial — a portable, low-cost method for E. coli detection in water — have been brought to the market and helped thousands of people. The test kit was developed by MIT D-Lab Lecturer Susan Murcott and Professor Jeffrey Ravel of the MIT History Section. The duo received a J-WAFS Solutions grant in 2018 to promote safely managed drinking water and improved public health in Nepal, where it is difficult to identify which wells are contaminated by E. coli. By the end of their grant period, the team had manufactured approximately 3,200 units, of which 2,350 were distributed — enough to help 12,000 people in Nepal. The researchers also trained local Nepalese on best manufacturing practices.

“It’s very important, in my life experience, to follow your dream and to serve others,” says Murcott. Economic success is important to the health of any venture, whether it’s a company or a product, but equally important is the social impact — a philosophy that J-WAFS research strives to uphold. “Do something because it’s worth doing and because it changes people’s lives and saves lives,” Murcott adds.

As J-WAFS prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, we look forward to continued collaboration with MIT’s many I&E programs to advance knowledge and develop solutions that will have tangible effects on the world’s water and food systems.

Learn more about the J-WAFS Solutions program and about innovation and entrepreneurship at MIT.

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ilikereadingactually · 2 months ago

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Time's Agent

Time's Agent by Brenda Peynado

HOLY SHIT. i'm wrung out after reading this, what an absolute stunner! Peynado has offered both hopeful and devastating possible futures, wrapped up in one tight package of grief. it's wild how much happens in this novella, and how much of it had me by the throat.

the premise is fascinating: the discovery of pocket worlds, different sizes and biomes and time dilations, accessed by doorways that humans have stumbled on accidentally for the entirety of our history on Earth. but these worlds, like any other discovery, are eventually at the mercy of human greed. it's a book about the violence of colonialism and capitalism, and the longing to undo those harms or find a way out from under them.

but these huge-scale themes are distilled through Raquel, an archaeologist in the Dominican Republic, part of an institution that studies pocket worlds, alongside her botanist wife Marlena. the action of this book—and there's a lot of it—is full of dazzling technology and hops in and out of pristine or utterly ecologically ruined dimensions, but the heart of it is with Raquel and the grief of her mistakes and the desperate hopes she tries to make real.

i barely even know what to say about this, even though i've now rambled for three paragraphs. it's breathtaking. it knocked my socks off. i have a sudden craving for mango.

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley from NetGalley. i think this one was actually marketed to me by email, for which i'm insanely grateful, as i might have missed it otherwise!

try this if you: are into weird time and space physics, dig LatAm and Caribbean stories, love to cry while reading, want more archaeology and botany in your sff, or have a hate on for exploitative fruit corporations.

some lines i really liked: a collection of large and small griefs

I am ready to wish. I take a breath. The raging air in my lungs screaming to be let out, I chant, I will not think about before, I will not think about before. But time never lets it be that easy, does it? Grief can make a single breath feel like a thousand years, but when you want to stay in the moment forever, time is a hound that hunts you down. Time, my enemy. Time, the thief.

___

The buzz of insects worshiping flowers. The floral exhalation of the rustling wild. A small, burbling stream that cut through the meadow like a smile. The magnified curvature of the sky like we were walking through the meadow and the sky at once. We felt brilliant, new, released from the crush of Earth Standard.

___

She told me that centuries ago, imported bananas tasted different, but that cultivated species had been decimated by a fungus. The echoes of that flavor could still be found in the formulated candies that pretended to be essence of banana. Essence of all that we'd lost.

___

But aren't all anniversaries relative? We can celebrate and mourn every day if we want.

pub date: August 13, 2024! go get this book immediately

#books and reading #booklr #bookblr #book recs #book reviews #latam speculative fiction #queer sff #time's agent #brenda peynado

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femmefatalevibe · 1 year ago

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Hello! Hope you're doing well! Do you have any tips or advice for someone who doesn't know what they want to do in life?

Do you have any suggestions for jobs that don't involve traditional 9-5 s or losing privacy (like social media may result in)?

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Femme Fatale Guide: How To Build Your Personal Brand & Self Concept

Femme Fatale Journal Prompts: Questions For Self-Reflection & Growth in 2023

Femme Fatale Secrets: How To Master Your Shadow Self & Embrace Your Dark Feminine Energy (Journal Prompts)

Some entrepreneurial jobs that aren't being an influencer and allow you to keep your privacy include:

Virtual Assistant

Ghostwriter/writing e-books and courses, blogs, running interest or industry-focused social accounts, etc. with a pseudonym

Graphic designer

Copywriter

Coder/Programmer, Developer (like Website building)

Social media manager/strategist

Photographer

Selling your photography, art, or designs online

Videographer/Video Editor

Reselling (clothes, shoes, homeware, etc.) and flipping items/property

Publicist/Marketing specialist

Accountant/Bookkeeper

HR professional

Legal consultant

Translator

Data analyst

Business consultant

Project manager

SEO expert

Data analyst

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 9 months ago

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As we await to potentially hear some news on COYOTE VS. ACME - a film that might possibly be locked away forever because of executives being jackasses, let me share a piece of Disney history:

It's often written that THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, made at Walt Disney Feature Animation and released theatrically in 1990, was a victim of a squashed marketing campaign. The studio's first sequel, the story often goes: After the film opened with underwhelming numbers the same week as HOME ALONE, then-Chairman of the Disney film division Jeffrey Katzenberg pulled all the marketing for the film and thus left it to fade away into the Christmas season. It remained the sole disappointment of the "Disney Renaissance", sandwiched between hit films like OLIVER & COMPANY, THE LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, and THE LION KING.

Here are two corrections to that tale...

A) The marketing was not pulled immediately.

B) The film was deemed dead-on-arrival *well* before release.

So, a week or so after the film came out, Disney tried a "now playing" trailer that ran before other movies in auditoriums next door. It's proof that Disney didn't give up on the movie right away, and gave it one last push... But it just didn't do it, and the movie made less than half of what LITTLE MERMAID made a year earlier.

youtube

As for the film being written off (not as a tax write-off!), here's what happened.

In March 1989, Disney theatrically re-released the original THE RESCUERS that came out all the way back in 1977. This was the film's third ever theatrical release, the previous one being in 1983. A good chunk of the Disney animated classics did pretty robust business in re-issues, before they came to home video. BAMBI, for example, made over $30m in the summer of 1988, SNOW WHITE made over $46m in 1987.

The $21m gross that THE RESCUERS pulled in, in early 1989, was deemed a disappointment. THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER was greenlit on the grounds of the original having earned the most money for a Disney animated film on its initial release. The rationale from executives after that must've been "Oh crap... We greenlit a sequel to this thing."

It was apparently too late to cancel, though, so they went through with it. If anything, it served as a good testing ground for that digital ink-and-paint software Disney Animation staff were toying with for a single shot in THE LITTLE MERMAID. A little thing called C.A.P.S. It also allowed more time on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN.

THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER went into production, but there wasn't much confidence in it before release. Even though they attached a new half-hour Mickey Mouse cartoon to it (THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER), this was treated as a minor effort long before release. The execs were far more excited about BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, as by that point, the LITTLE MERMAID songwriting team - of course, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken - had been brought onto the movie after the previous version had been thrown right out.

So DOWN UNDER served as a stopgap, and its failing meant no more theatrical sequels (sans Roy E. Disney's pet project, FANTASIA 2000) and probably no more animated action-adventures like it. The string of movies released thereafter stuck very close to LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's templates. But in the end, they got the C.A.P.S. system's success out of it, and an eventual home video hit.

Now, think about THE RESCUERS not doing great on that re-release... And DOWN UNDER's release date. March 1989, November 1990. Disney actually had plenty of time to throw that movie out, but they didn't... Whatever the reason, they didn't.

And here, today, we have David Zaslav - CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery - shelving near-complete or fully-completed movies for tax write-off purposes. Loser behavior. See the damn thing through, mate.

I could also relate the time Disney's movie division firmly determined that audiences had moved on from fairy tales, following the disappointing box office returns of THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. In early 2010, it was made very clear that there would never be another fairy tale movie from the studio. Despite a history in making beloved fairy tale adaptations or fairy tale-like stories... Nope, it was all over. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull acting like the pallbearers, saying that Disney Animation wouldn't invest in any.

At the time, a SNOW QUEEN movie was put on ice, a JACK AND THE BEANSTALK tale had trouble taking off... but one movie was a little too far along to cancel... RAPUNZEL. And that picture had already gone through a few director changes and reinventions, which no doubt ballooned its budget over the course of three decades. There had been various goes at a Rapunzel story at Disney Animation in the late '90s and in the early-to-mid aughts, in addition to another version that was not quite approved of by Lasseter. Glen Keane, who was supposed to direct the film with Dean Wellins, stepped down. RAPUNZEL's journey to the screen was as long as her hair.

So in the final lap, in early 2010, the movie was re-titled from RAPUNZEL to TANGLED in a silly attempt to make it appeal to the audience that supposedly tanked THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG: 6-to-12 year old boys... Yeah, that was a real low point, wasn't it? Silly focus groups. I'll always get a kick out of the sketch that longtime Disney storyman/artist Floyd Norman whipped up for it in response:

But what do I know? TANGLED came out in fall 2010 and was a very popular film. Right afterwards, THE SNOW QUEEN was put back into development, as was the JACK AND THE BEANSTALK movie. As you probably know, THE SNOW QUEEN became FROZEN, while the latter - titled GIGANTIC - lumbered through development hell and ultimately got canned by Lasseter. Disney would also proceed to remake several animated fairy tales in live-action, from CINDERELLA to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to ALADDIN.

However, Disney Animation at least completed TANGLED. And released it. Saw it through, no matter what level of confidence that the higher management at The Walt Disney Company had in it. GIGANTIC wasn't anywhere near completion when it was scrapped, as the movie had been penciled in for a Thanksgiving 2020 release, and the movie was put on the shelf in fall 2017. A good three years prior.

That's when you DO cancel something, should you ever.

Not right near completion. Or even halfway there. Looking at you, former DreamWorks management, with LARRIKINS and B.O.O. and MONKEYS OF MUMBAI-yes indeedy I still haven't forgotten about that.

Anyways, if you're almost done, just fucking complete it. Maybe down the line, it won't be much of a loss. It might even be a surprise hit.

#Youtube

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