#Transfer Risk Assessment

[michellesanches]

Data transfers based on the old EU SCC’s must be replaced before 21 March 2024

In February 2022, the UK introduced the International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) and the UK Addendum to the European Commission’s new standard contractual clauses (new EU SCCs). These documents, essential for data protection in the post-Brexit era, are designed to ensure that personal data transfers from the UK to countries not covered by the UK’s adequacy regulations comply with the UK…

[theambitiouswoman]

Wealth Building: What Rich People Do Differently

Wealthy people prioritize learning about personal finance, investing, and wealth building strategies. They always strive to gain more knowledge in these areas.

They maintain a long term perspective when setting financial goals and are patient in their pursuits.

Wealthy people diversify their investments across various asset classes to manage their risk.

Many of them are entrepreneurs who create and manage businesses as a means to build wealth.

They build and nurture professional networks opens doors to opportunities for investments, partnerships, and business growth.

They set clear, specific financial goals and regularly review and adjust their strategies to stay on track.

Wealthy individuals exercise discipline in their spending habits, avoiding impulse purchases and consistently saving and investing.

They assess and manage investment risks carefully, often with the guidance of financial advisors.

Many engage in philanthropy and charitable giving, recognizing the importance of supporting their communities and causes they care about.

Wealthy people invest in their personal development, acquiring new skills and knowledge to increase their earning potential or make better investment decisions.

They use legal tax strategies to minimize tax liabilities, such as tax advantaged accounts and tax efficient investments.

Legal structures like trusts and estate planning are employed to safeguard assets and facilitate smooth wealth transfer.

Wealthy people can adapt to changing economic conditions and market trends by diversifying income sources and investments.

Building wealth often involves overcoming setbacks and failures, and the wealthy demonstrates the result of persistence in their pursuit of financial success.

They have a positive and growth oriented mindset drives their belief in their ability to succeed and willingness to take calculated risks.

They prioritize acquiring and growing assets, emphasizing that assets generate income and wealth over time.

They are cautious about spending in liabilities (Things that do not make you money) and maximize their assets (add value) and those that detract from wealth (liabilities).

Instead of working solely for money, they make money work for them.

When they indulge in luxury purchases, they do so using returns on their investments rather than the money they earn or have saved.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The specific process by which Google enshittified its search

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

All digital businesses have the technical capacity to enshittify: the ability to change the underlying functions of the business from moment to moment and user to user, allowing for the rapid transfer of value between business customers, end users and shareholders:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

Which raises an important question: why do companies enshittify at a specific moment, after refraining from enshittifying before? After all, a company always has the potential to benefit by treating its business customers and end users worse, by giving them a worse deal. If you charge more for your product and pay your suppliers less, that leaves more money on the table for your investors.

Of course, it's not that simple. While cheating, price-gouging, and degrading your product can produce gains, these tactics also threaten losses. You might lose customers to a rival, or get punished by a regulator, or face mass resignations from your employees who really believe in your product.

Companies choose not to enshittify their products…until they choose to do so. One theory to explain this is that companies are engaged in a process of continuous assessment, gathering data about their competitive risks, their regulators' mettle, their employees' boldness. When these assessments indicate that the conditions are favorable to enshittification, the CEO walks over to the big "enshittification" lever on the wall and yanks it all the way to MAX.

Some companies have certainly done this – and paid the price. Think of Myspace or Yahoo: companies that made themselves worse by reducing quality and gouging on price (be it measured in dollars or attention – that is, ads) before sinking into obscure senescence. These companies made a bet that they could get richer while getting worse, and they were wrong, and they lost out.

But this model doesn't explain the Great Enshittening, in which all the tech companies are enshittifying at the same time. Maybe all these companies are subscribing to the same business newsletter (or, more likely, buying advice from the same management consultancy) (cough McKinsey cough) that is a kind of industry-wide starter pistol for enshittification.

I think it's something else. I think the main job of a CEO is to show up for work every morning and yank on the enshittification lever as hard as you can, in hopes that you can eke out some incremental gains in your company's cost-basis and/or income by shifting value away from your suppliers and customers to yourself.

We get good digital services when the enshittification lever doesn't budge – when it is constrained: by competition, by regulation, by interoperable mods and hacks that undo enshittification (like alternative clients and ad-blockers) and by workers who have bargaining power thanks to a tight labor market or a powerful union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

When Google ordered its staff to build a secret Chinese search engine that would censor search results and rat out dissidents to the Chinese secret police, googlers revolted and refused, and the project died:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

When Google tried to win a US government contract to build AI for drones used to target and murder civilians far from the battlefield, googlers revolted and refused, and the project died:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/technology/google-pentagon-project-maven.html

What's happened since – what's behind all the tech companies enshittifying all at once – is that tech worker power has been smashed, especially at Google, where 12,000 workers were fired just months after a $80b stock buyback that would have paid their wages for the next 27 years. Likewise, competition has receded from tech bosses' worries, thanks to lax antitrust enforcement that saw most credible competitors merged into behemoths, or neutralized with predatory pricing schemes. Lax enforcement of other policies – privacy, labor and consumer protection – loosened up the enshittification lever even more. And the expansion of IP rights, which criminalize most kinds of reverse engineering and aftermarket modification, means that interoperability no longer applies friction to the enshittification lever.

Now that every tech boss has an enshittification lever that moves very freely, they can show up for work, yank the enshittification lever, and it goes all the way to MAX. When googlers protested the company's complicity in the genocide in Gaza, Google didn't kill the project – it mass-fired the workers:

https://medium.com/@notechforapartheid/statement-from-google-workers-with-the-no-tech-for-apartheid-campaign-on-googles-indiscriminate-28ba4c9b7ce8

Enshittification is a macroeconomic phenomenon, determined by the regulatory environment for competition, privacy, labor, consumer protection and IP. But enshittification is also a microeconomic phenomenon, the result of innumerable boardroom and product-planning fights within companies in which would-be enshittifiers try to do things that make the company's products and services shittier wrestle with rivals who want to keep things as they are, or make them better, whether out of principle or fear of the consequences.

Those microeconomic wrestling-matches are where we find enshittification's heroes and villains – the people who fight for the user or stand up for a fair deal, versus the people who want to cheat and wreck to make things better for the company and win bonuses and promotions for themselves:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

These microeconomic struggles are usually obscure, because companies are secretive institutions and our glimpses into their deliberations are normally limited to the odd leaked memo, whistleblower tell-all, or spectacular worker revolt. But when a company gets dragged into court, a new window opens into the company's internal operations. That's especially true when the plaintiff is the US government.

Which brings me back to Google, the poster-child for enshittification, a company that revolutionized the internet a quarter of a century ago with a search-engine that was so good that it felt like magic, which has decayed so badly and so rapidly that whole sections of the internet are disappearing from view for the 90% of users who rely on the search engine as their gateway to the internet.

Google is being sued by the DOJ's Antitrust Division, and that means we are getting a very deep look into the company, as its internal emails and memos come to light:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

Google is a tech company, and tech companies have literary cultures – they run on email and other forms of written communication, even for casual speech, which is more likely to take place in a chat program than at a water-cooler. This means that tech companies have giant databases full of confessions to every crime they've ever committed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Large pieces of Google's database-of-crimes are now on display – so much, in fact, that it's hard for anyone to parse through it all and understand what it means. But some people are trying, and coming up with gold. One of those successful prospectors is Ed Zitron, who has produced a staggering account of the precise moment at which Google search tipped over into enshittification, which names the executives at the very heart of the rot:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Zitron tells the story of a boardroom struggle over search quality, in which Ben Gomes – a long-tenured googler who helped define the company during its best years – lost a fight with Prabhakar Raghavan, a computer scientist turned manager whose tactic for increasing the number of search queries (and thus the number of ads the company could show to searchers) was to decrease the quality of search. That way, searchers would have to spend more time on Google before they found what they were looking for.

Zitron contrasts the background of these two figures. Gomes, the hero, worked at Google for 19 years, solving fantastically hard technical scaling problems and eventually becoming the company's "search czar." Raghavan, the villain, "failed upwards" through his career, including a stint as Yahoo's head of search from 2005-12, a presiding over the collapse of Yahoo's search business. Under Raghavan's leadership, Yahoo's search market-share fell from 30.4% to 14%, and in the end, Yahoo jettisoned its search altogether and replaced it with Bing.

For Zitron, the memos show how Raghavan engineered the ouster of Gomes, with help from the company CEO, the ex-McKinseyite Sundar Pichai. It was a triumph for enshittification, a deliberate decision to make the product worse in order to make it more profitable, under the (correct) belief that the company's exclusivity deals to provide search everywhere from Iphones and Samsungs to Mozilla would mean that the business would face no consequences for doing so.

It a picture of a company that isn't just too big to fail – it's (as FTC Chair Lina Khan put it on The Daily Show) too big to care:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDTiWaYfcM

Zitron's done excellent sleuthing through the court exhibits here, and his writeup is incandescently brilliant. But there's one point I quibble with him on. Zitron writes that "It’s because the people running the tech industry are no longer those that built it."

I think that gets it backwards. I think that there were always enshittifiers in the C-suites of these companies. When Page and Brin brought in the war criminal Eric Schmidt to run the company, he surely started every day with a ritual, ferocious tug at that enshittification lever. The difference wasn't who was in the C-suite – the difference was how freely the lever moved.

On Saturday, I wrote:

The platforms used to treat us well and now treat us badly. That's not because they were setting a patient trap, luring us in with good treatment in the expectation of locking us in and turning on us. Tech bosses do not have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/22/kargo-kult-kaptialism/#dont-buy-it

Someone on Hacker News called that "silly," adding that "tech bosses do in fact have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years. That's literally the business model of most startups":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114339

That's not quite right, though. The business-model of the startup is to yank on the enshittification lever every day. Tech bosses don't lie in wait for the perfect moment to claw away all the value from their employees, users, business customers, and suppliers – they're always trying to get that value. It's only when they become too big to care that they succeed. That's the definition of being too big to care.

In antitrust circles, they sometimes say that "the process is the punishment." No matter what happens to the DOJ's case against Google, its internal workers have been made visible to the public. The secrecy surrounding the Google trial when it was underway meant that a lot of this stuff flew under the radar when it first appeared. But as Zitron's work shows, there is plenty of treasure to be found in that trove of documents that is now permanently in the public domain.

When future scholars study the enshittocene, they will look to accounts like Zitron's to mark the turning points from the old, good internet to the enshitternet. Let's hope those future scholars have a new, good internet on which to publish their findings.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

[brokenpieces-72]

Monster!141 x female! Jackalope/wendigo reader

CW/TW: poor eating habits, mentions of eating, mentions of human meat, crying, younger reader, note: in no way am I intending to offend anyone.

This was inspired by both @diejager and @bluegiragi and includes the reader character Hunter. This is also my first fanfiction being posted here and I have a couple to come if this one goes well.

A program is set up for hybrids that are considered difficult to control or dangerous to be around in public. Usually this is when their current living conditions are deemed as unsafe.

A jackalope with little knowledge of their own self fits both sides so locations and positions are set up for them to be in a safe controlled environment to learn how to keep themselves under control.

Price isn’t exactly happy when Laswell brings this to him. He’s not a babysitter and neither are his men. She explains to him there is little to be done and while she doesn’t agree with sending a vulnerable, uneducated, untrained teenager to a military base that deals with monsters, humans and hybrids alike, there isn’t much she can do either. Thankfully she does have some say in it, able to choose who comes on to the base. The files for candidates are sent to Price as well for review and upon looking at yours with a very dark and concerning past, he considers tossing it aside. Then he sees what hybrid you are. Having a few encounters in his past with hybrids like you he figures it would be safer taking you in then letting someone else get to you.

You do receive some training before transferring with a Retainer/handler who watches over you and determines whether you are ready to integrate into society. You aren’t sure if this will really help you join society but you figure it’s better someone taking you in rather than staying in the program. Price intends to put you to work after all and the location isn’t without risk. You’re told there are other hybrids on base, and you assume there will be at least a couple.

The first person you meet is Nikolai, the pilot for the awkward bumpy flight to base. He’s almost twice your height, plenty of people you have met are. You’re not very tall so not surprising, but you aren’t very used to people. Part of the program especially for you is keeping you isolated from most humans. His friendly attitude towards you is a little startling but you warm up to it quickly.

The flight was mostly your retainer setting ground rules and briefing you on what you will be doing. You would be training with him mostly, and doing everything he says. No stuffing your face, meals kept strict, and no seconds or late snacks. Nikolai calls you to the front halfway through the journey and lets you sit next to him. He could overhear your conversation with the retainer, wanted to give you a break from it while wanting to learn more about you.

You don’t have much to say, cause well you haven’t done much on your own. Well you do enjoy drawing, and reading. Sometimes writing is fun but that’s mostly it so far. He tells you a bit about the 141, recounting the small tales but while hinting at what hybrids you’ll be working with.

Soon you land on the base and exit the chopper heading towards the Task Force 141. In front is a dragon hybrid and next to him is a human, both in uniform. Names are exchanged and you’re led inside the base where you meet the others. You notice he’s missing a wing and his tail wrapping around the human’s leg. As a hybrid your instincts tell you what he’s doing. You’re not a massive threat to him being so young, but his body language makes it clear the value he puts in the medic and likely the rest of his men. He read your file, so you can’t blame him for being extra protective. You keep your head down as you’re taken inside with your handler.

You’re introduced to each of the 141 including the human, who asks to do a health assessment before anything else. Your retainer is strongly against this, insisting that you’ve already been cleared and don’t require one. There’s somewhat of a back and forth between them with you simply standing there. Your handler raises his voice and you have to dig your nails into your palm to not run off. You’re wondering if you should offer your own choice or ask someone what you should do while waiting. Price puts it forward that you get a check up so that Hunter can assess your conditions first hand.

You follow Hunter to their station in the infirmary, taking you to a private room. Hunter gets many looks while you follow them from the other soldiers with a couple even following with them to the room. You meet a harpy called Gaz and a werewolf called Soap. They stick closer to Hunter almost in a protective sense. Though each of them give you an acknowledgement. Soap has never smelled a hybrid like you before, and Gaz wasn’t sure what to make of you either. Your rabbit ears and antlers were hardly a cause for alarm though. You weren’t exactly intimidating. Hunter takes you into the private room while the two hybrids wait outside, offering to help them with paperwork and taking you to wherever you need to go next. The examination is very simple, checking to see your vitals, understanding how you worked so Hunter could help you on missions, and learning any instinctual habits you may have.

When Hunter asks you to take off your hoodie and remove your shirt, you do so. Their eyes go wide upon seeing your body. Your retainer’s “work” was evident by your rib cage and flattening stomach.

“When was the last time you ate?” Hunter asks.

When you tell them the last time you ate, they excuse themselves. You wait for about 15 minutes, when there’s a knock telling you to get dressed and come out. Gaz is still there but clearly Soap had left with Hunter. He takes you to a small room for you to bunk in for the next while.

You later find out Hunter had left the room and smacked your retainer for his methods. Even Price had to get involved to keep the two from getting more violent. Hunter is certainly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to patients. The handler believes that limiting your food intake will help you keep control. Hunter doesn’t agree with starving you, but Price can’t really argue with it.

The next while you’re training, and you do everything you can to keep up. Your limits are pushed and Price isn’t about to go easy on you. Partially cause he hopes the retainer will increase your food intake. It’s a lot, and Hunter doesn’t like seeing you running laps and drills knowing you haven’t been eating much. You push yourself hard, not giving in to judgements from humans or the other hybrids. It doesn’t matter if you’re the last or the worst or even fail the most, you keep pushing.

Meals are strict, with small but reasonable portions for you and eating by yourself in your room. For the next while this becomes the routine, with the occasional snack being slid to you by Hunter. It does make sleep difficult and your stomach growls periodically. Soap takes notice right away how bad it is, your stomach is almost like a random alarm for him, that he can’t shut off.

“You hungry?” He asks sarcastically. You shake your head, only for your stomach to object again. Soap rolls his eyes.

“Take a couple.” He says offering you some of his snacks. When you try to turn it down, he starts insisting harder. “Come on, the noise is drivin me bloody mad. Take em, a few won’t kill ya.”

You do so, and you take another couple after. Soon enough he’s slipping you pieces of his snacks when your handler isn’t around, like chips or cookies.

You have to go to school still, off base and some jerks decided to lock in a closet. Despite your protests and pleas they decide to leave you there overnight. You have a few snacks but you can feel yourself getting increasingly hungry, and you know it won’t be long until you lose it. You try your handler but they aren’t picking up. You don’t want to but you call Soap who picks up groggily.

“The hell is callin…” he groans.

“Soap it’s me…I’m really sorry…” there is a quiver in your voice as you talk.

“…kid? The bleeding hell you still doing up? Wait, where the ell are you?”

You explain you’re stuck and hungry and really need help.

“Alright alright…I’m on my way… you need food?”

“Yes.”

He sighs and asks what you want to eat, if there’s any comfort food you have while he’s getting his shoes and pants on.

“Are you mad…” you ask in a small voice he can just barely hear over the phone. He’s been in highschool as a hybrid and had people pick on him, call him a mutt yank at his tail, try to get him in trouble and whatnot.

“I’m mad at the pieces of shite that did this to you. What do you want to eat?” He says. You tell him and wait patiently after he hangs up.

Gaz is woken up, and looks over.

“Was goin on…” Gaz asks.

“Kid is stuck at school. Literally.” Soap says, lacing his shoes.

“She have food?” Gaz mutters rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“No, so I’m getting her some.”

“What she want?” Gaz yawns.

Soap tells him and he orders it for pick up before getting dressed himself.

“What is she still doing at school?” Gaz asked pulling his hoodie on. “Little help?”

Soap helps get Gaz’s wings through the slots on his hoodie as he explains. Gaz can relate. He’s been bullied as well, and hell you’re a kid with a strong will. It’s not fair for you to be pushed so hard only for school to make you feel like shit. They pick up the food and head over to the school.

“Come on.” Soap jogs to the door and tries it. “Mother…they don’t check if anyone’s still inside?”

Gaz takes one of his feathers off and picks the lock. Gaz opens it and Soap shifts and gets in, as soon as he can fit through the door.

“Kid you here?” He yells. Nothing. Gaz comes up behind him.

“I want to make a lassie joke so hard right now.” Gaz admits, while Soap picks up your scent and hurries off up and down the halls, trying to figure out where you are. He starts scratching at a maintenance door. Gaz knocks on it.

“Kid you in there?” He calls.

“Y-yes!” You call back.

“We’re gonna help you okay? Just hold tight.”

“Gaz move.” Soap says. Gaz just barely gets out of the way before Soap manages to smash it in. They find you curled up and clutching your stomach. Gaz flaps away the dust before stepping over the broken remains of the door. He gives you the bag ripping it open and you hands go in quickly. You ravenously eat away at the first thing you get, a still warm hashbrown. One bite and you stand up but Gaz keeps you sitting.

“Don’t choke, finish that first.” He orders. You do as he says a mutter through mouthfuls, “sorry.”

“So what exactly happened?” Soap asks.

“They pulled my ears and kept asking to see my tail… kept telling them I didn’t have one.” You mutter, finishing the hashbrown. “A few of them grabbed me and shoved me in here…kept calling me ‘bunny’ and ‘rabbit’. Said they would stuff me later.”

“No one’s stuffing anything except the assholes that did this and where it don’t shine.” Soap growls. In the dark it’s a little more intimidating with yellow glowing eyes. Gaz stretches a wing around you and gives you another piece of the order to munch on while he helps you out of the room. You go on about how they kept messing with you in various childish ways. The bullies had yanked your ears, played with your antlers and called you a bunny breeder. Gaz and Soap get you into the backseat and encourage you to keep eating.

“You got made fun of by the teachers pet?” Soap asked a little surprised.

“He said I was the new class pet.” You say. “Then he wouldn’t stop saying I had to eat carrots and wasn’t allowed to have any of the snacks I brought.”

“You ignore em?”

“Tried, but then he started telling me I shouldn’t be snacking and had to eat ruffage.”

“Wow…” Gaz says. “You could always threaten to gnaw on his pencils.”

“How’s the food?” Soap calls from the front.

“Good. I should stop though.”

“You almost finished?” Soap says checking on you in the rear view.

“Uh…halfway?” You relay after checking the bags contents.

“Keep eating.” Soap says.

Gaz gives Soap a look.

“One meal won’t kill her.” Soap says quietly.

“Thank you for getting me.” You say.

“Hunter would have my head.”

Sadly your bonding time doesn’t go unnoticed and Price calls you all into the office. Your handler is unhappy you didn’t try contacting him first, and you stay quiet. Price chews out Soap and Gaz for B&E and property damage, until they explain what had happened to you. He’s a bit more lenient but not by much.

You, Soap and Gaz have definitely bonded more and at this point you’ve sort of become the team’s pup. Soap and Gaz teach you to fight hand to hand, and they’re careful with you at first. You’re younger and smaller but you don’t hold back against them. They show you some maneuvers and Gaz uses his hardened feathers for knife training, going slow and giving you the chance to bat away his strikes. Off time is spent with them, getting a chance to go climbing or hanging out in the rec room. Soap teaches you how to play football, and Rudy and Alejandro join in as well. Soap and Alejandro definitely start showing off their speed and strength to the point you and Rudy find it safer to watch from the sidelines with Gaz. One wrong kick makes all your caution warranted, as you have to shove Rudy over and the ball takes off part of your antler and is pierced in the process. Hunter gave Soap a very harsh talking to afterwards, and made sure you were okay.

Your handler over time becomes less and less involved with you but maintains your eating routine. He keeps your training high giving you exercises daily, that keep you busy from dusk til dawn. It’s exhausting and Hunter does express some concern to your handler who eventually gives in and increases your food intake some more.

Soap and Gaz have basically taken over your sparring sessions, keeping you trained and ready for anything. You have found a couple weaknesses when you go one on one. If Soap shifts to werewolf, you can get him with belly rubs.

Rudy had started showing you some tracking skills, and even introduced you to his dog spirits. Both spirits are weary of you at first with the red and black growling while the other stayed close to its vessel protectively. After calming them, Alejandro shifts to a panther or jaguar based on the terrain and becomes the target to track. At first he makes it easy but since you don’t hold back on Soap and Gaz he doesn’t hold back on you. You and Rudy both have to try and find him before he finds you, which is a bit of a 50-50. Your own skills as a hybrid are shown to be useful in more wild and natural terrain. In fact you become the one to be the target and the two of them actually find some difficulty locating you.

“She couldn’t have gotten that far yet…” Rudy is scratching his head, genuinely dumbfounded. Alejandro shifts back next to him looking at his partner.

“Fast learner.” He comments, impressed by your skills.

“Si.” Rudy sighs before jerking forward, hit in the back from behind. “Agh!”

Alejandro checks Rudy’s jacket and finds a stain from a paintball. They both look up and towards where the shot had come from. There they see you behind a tree covered in dirt and mud, trying to hold back the grin on your face. The two men look at you surprised, and even Alejandro is stunned that he couldn’t detect you, while the white and blue cadejo trots over and barks at you, tugging at your clothes with his teeth. The two men look at each other baffled how you got 15 feet away from them without either noticing. Alejandro waves you over to them, while the cadejo playfully tugs at your jacket.

“Fall in corporal, back to base.” He calls over and you get up from your hiding spot. Your legs were dirty and…wet? The ground was damp but you were almost soaked.

“You take a bath Mija?” Alejandro asks crossing his arms.

“No sir.” You answer, shaking your head.

“You’re wet though.” Rudolfo comments, noticing the state of your pants as well.

“Yes sir.” You reply. Alejandro gives a half grin.

“Why are you wet corporal?” He asks.

“The river sir.” You answer. They hadn’t told you about the river nearby, not to mention it was a few clicks further than they had expected you to reach. You take note of their expression and shift slightly in place. “Should I not have…?”

“Por el contrario, you did very well Mija.” Rudolfo says.

“Very good.” Alejandro comments. “You cold?” He asks. You shake your head. There was a chill but it didn’t bother you. They take you back to base.

Missions go fairly well though you are often knocked down. It can be hard when you’re up against many other hybrid creatures. Ghost comes to your aid before any fatal blows can be made, consuming enemies in his shadows when he wasn’t slipping out of them to slit enemy throats. The lieutenant didn’t agree with bringing someone as young as you on missions, and hated that he was playing babysitter half the time. Ghost can sense something off about you though. Maybe it’s your smiling, or your friendliness, of this odd presence that seems to surround you like an aura. Either way, you show yourself to be a fast learner and strong soldier. Your main focus is to incapacitate enemies, even though you’ve been taught where vitals are and how to use a gun and a knife quickly.

“Would make life easier to kill… that’s what soldiers do.” He comments. You look out at the men he’s fed on. You’re quiet thinking for a moment before responding.

“If I killed all of them though…you wouldn’t get to eat as much.” You say with a cheeky smile. His expression doesn’t change.

“Don’t worry too much. Focus on your safety first.”

“Yes sir.” You say losing the smile. He’s not wrong. After that you ask Ghost for help with laying killing strikes. Not in the field but in training. He agrees mainly because you’ve shown promise and a willingness to improve yourself. Knife training with him is rough usually leading to you getting winded and on your back.

The hands on learning is honestly better than anything else though and your exercise routines just become a warm up. You look forward to everything and take everything seriously, asking questions and showing interest in what is presented to you. Weapons training is a bit daunting, as the guns are a bit heavy, but you find your skills work good with unconventional weapons. A slingshot proves strong with you, and even crossbows. Price helps you with improving your poor aim and there are times where you will spend almost an entire night just trying to hit the targets set in front of you.

Your handler is an afterthought except when you get invited to eat with them. He’s right there ready to tell you you can’t eat with them and your food is in your room. You excuse yourself and eat alone again. However on the nights he’s away you do take the opportunity to sit with them, and just bring your food out of your room. The amount while bigger is still small for a soldier, even for a teenager. Most of them assume it’s an insecurity for you so they don’t pressure you to eat more, or comment on it. Soap offers some of his snacks still.

Hunter is instructed when the handler goes on leave to give you meals he has premade for you. They have half a mind to toss them and get you to eat with everyone else, however much you wanted, but they leave the opaque container in your room as instructed.

You don’t eat any of it though. You recognize the smell and are both disturbed and distraught. No. Not that. Memories come flooding back, ones you wanted to stay buried. It takes everything not to break down, and your stomach is churning and begging for sustenance.

Do you tell someone? Would anyone believe you? Should you eat it? No of course not! But you’re so hungry and your mouth is watering. The scent makes your stomach do hard and painful flips, as if there was a grinding wheel whipping around in your belly. You try to look for snacks that you may have hung on to from Hunter but find nothing. The hunger starts to consume your thoughts faster than you’ve consumed anything. Your body starts to alter, you teeth grow sharper, your sense of smell grows stronger and you cling to yourself.

Hungry hungry hungry…starved…

You act fast and get your pillow case, tying it in your mouth, before getting your hoodie on and bolting. You’re fairly agile in your human form and your desire for sustenance drives you forward. Meat is everywhere but you don’t want it. You don’t want to want it. Any soldiers you pass, you keep your head down, and rush past them. You don’t even look up for your teammates calling for you, and instead bolt faster. You finally get outside and sprint for the woods with soldiers calling after you, and trying to stop you to figure out what’s going on. It isn’t long before your body shifts and contorts and you smell meat nearby.

Eat…eat…

Your sudden leave doesn’t go unnoticed. At first, your team saw you and thought you had to hurry somewhere or didn’t see them. Then Alejandro and Soap passed your door while talking.

“Hunter really told you no more football?” Alejandro asks.

“Won’t stop me from playan, but they did warn mae ‘bou-“ Soap and Alejandro both freeze in place smelling the food in your room, the door shut. What the fuck? They look at each other disturbed and in shock. Soap opens the door and his eyes widen in shock seeing what was inside the container.

“Steamin bloody Jesus.” He says while covering his nose and mouth with an arm. Flies buzzed around the human organs you were served in the container.

“The hell kind of diet is this, Mija?” Alejandro says under his breath. Soap puts the lid back on and takes it to Hunter. No way they would do this, but they likely knew who did.

“OI! Hunter!” Soap yells.

“Soap! Gods, please knock next ti-“

“The bloody hell is this!?” He demands holding up the container. Hunter is confused.

“The corporal’s meal? Why do you ha-“

Without wasting anymore time he sets it down and opens the lid enough for them to see. Hunter stands up from their desk quickly, and in shock.

“Soap the fuck is wrong wi-“ Hunter starts.

“The fuck kind of meal is this!” Alejandro barks.

“What?!” Hunter is just as confused.

“This is the corporal’s meal.” Alejandro clarifies.

Hunter is just as disturbed as they are and goes into the storage where the rest of your meals were being kept for the time of his leave. They found more organs and human remains. Hunter wasn’t sure whether to be pissed, disgusted or distraught.

“What the bloody… I’m taking this to Price immediately this is beyond fucked. Where’s the corporal right now?” Hunter demands to know. Soap recalls seeing you running down the hall.

“She’s run off.” Soap concludes. Hunter takes a moment to breath and calm themselves, somewhat relieved.

“She could be anywhere by now.” Alejandro adds recalling your tracking lessons.

Hunter heads for the door and the two hybrids follow as they go to the captain’s office. He looks up from some papers before standing, seeing the door open.

“The corporal is MIA.” Hunter states. Price is confused until they explain what was in the food. Price is angry, ready to roast the retainer upon his return but you are more important along with any bystanders. A search is put out and human soldiers are instructed to stay on base while Task Force 141 along with Rudy and Alejandro track you down. Price knew there was too much of a risk for regular humans to be close to you in this state.

The cadejos catch your scent and lead the search with Rudy keeping a watchful eye for any movement. Alejandro and Soap follow the scent and cadejos with Hunter riding Soap’s back to assist them. Gaz had taken to the sky trying to find you from above and cover more ground. The scent is how they follow you but they know you’re in the area by the sounds of screeches and unearthly clicking. Price hasn’t heard noises like that in a very long time. Ghost advises caution to everyone while he moves through the shadows and senses death all around them. He soon finds it as well.

At first a couple of bisected birds and bitten voles were traces. The deeper they went the bigger the animals. Soon it was small boars that had their meat stripped. There were a few large birds that had managed to escape but were bleeding. A few foxes were limping and cowering in their dens. When the team finally found you they kept their distance with Ghost being the closest to you, discovering why he had felt uneasy around you.

You were gorging yourself on the carcass of a large elk, and stuffing handfuls of blood and raw meat into your mouth savouring every bite. Dark crimson caked your mouth and hands as you continued eating, getting into your hair every time you decided to literally stuff your face. Your boney limbs and sharp fingers clawed pieces off and your jagged sharp teeth tore into thicker, tougher parts. Gaz lands in one of the tall trees while Alejandro circles around slowly and quietly planning to flank you if you tried to bolt, his oanthef form slinking around in the underbrush keeping distant and cautious. Soap proceeds closer, slowly. He has Hunter on his back and at the moment was a muscled riot shield for them. You continued feeding ignoring them all, when Soap noticed the screeching had stopped and heard your muffled whimpers and sobs mixed in with the sounds of your eating.

He moves closer and closer, letting Hunter walk next to him.

You stop eating to wipe your mouth fruitlessly. That’s when you notice the large wolf standing before you, staring at you with eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. In the moonlight he could see your tears, lightly cutting through the blood and grime on your face. Your eyes were pure white, and almost void of life. Hunter came up next to him, and you start to scramble back, worried you might go for them.

“Hey hey, no it’s okay. You’re okay…” they reach into their med bag and took out a chocolate bar, tearing off the wrapper for you and offering it. It was like an animal trainer trying to get their charge to trust them. You slowly crawl over, eyes blank and white, but docile.

“Let’s make it a bit smaller.” They mutter. Hunger breaks a piece and you back away again, crawling on all fours. Hunter leans in a bit, offering the smaller piece to you. You take it gingerly and bite down on the candy. When the human medic offers the rest, you dig into it, eating it like nothing had gone wrong. Like you hadn’t run off, shifted and started gorging on the elk carcass right next to you. The area was quiet while your team watched as you continued eating. The snack was so good, so much better than the carcass.

It had happened again. You lost control again. You were a monster and you killed so many innocent animals. Tears continued to fall as the regret set in. When you smell human meat and you’re hungry, it can set you off, making your only thoughts to be “eat”. Animals weren’t as effective hence the number you had taken out. Human food, like the candy, was a middle ground. It would take some time to bring you back to your human state, and taking less to do so.

When you finally spoke, all you could croak out was a small and raspy, “sorry”.

Hunter offers you some more food, proper food, and you eat it slowly, trying not to make yourself sick. First it was the chocolate bar, and then some crackers, an apple, some water, a few carrots. Your beastly features begin to dull, and you feel yourself growing tired. Hunter moves closer with every bite and holds you close while you cry into them, and continue eating the food they give you. Soap curls himself around you preventing escape and trying to comfort you and protect Hunter. Neither of them worries about the blood, they had worse before. Soon you tucker yourself out and Hunter picks you up, and gets back on Soaps back.

“Price, target found and incapacitated. Returning to base.” Ghost said over comms.

“Copy Lt.” Price responded through a long sigh of smoke.

When you woke up you had food next to you on the bed, and Soap asleep in a chair. He wakes up to see you eating the food left for you, and smiles.

“Mornin’ Corporal.” He says.

“I’m sorry.” You say.

“Don’t. You didna do anythin wrong.” He said. He ruffles your hair which you realize had been cut off rather awkwardly. Apparently the blood was too thick to wash, and cutting it was the safer option. You didn’t mind.

For the rest of your handlers leave, your eating becomes top priority. If you try to skip meals, you’re hauled to the mess hall, or get a protein bar in your hand. You get firm reminders that your actions that night are not your fault. Hunter is ensuring you get your meals at regular times, and that you’re staying healthy in your eating habits. They’ve also taken to checking your weight, and body, which regains some pounds. Meanwhile paperwork is being shifted around and sorted and handed and signed making a report about what happened and the illegal obtainment of human organs and their distribution. Laswell is more than pissed and ensures your handler is kept off base for longer than he had intended to be.

A couple months go by of you recovering and getting into a healthier routine. You mention to your team that your form is much different and (you later learn) the one they had seen happens when you get hungry and are unable to eat. With this comes the chance to show off your monsterous form, which leaves them with surprised looks and a bit of shock. Your human form grows and your head is replaced by a deer skull, while your limbs shed skin and are replaced with natural wood, and your rib cage and a few other pieces are beared for them to see. Like Soap your clothes do get torn up, but you prepared with a blanket nearby.

You look down at them, and step back a little while they stare. Price smiles seeing what you are meant to look like, the full spirit creature. Price approaches you first and you go lower for him to meet your eyes. A hand is place on your skull and tilt your head.

“Welcome to the 141.” He says smiling. Soap steps up and shifts to his wolf form. You get down on all fours for him and he gives a soft headbutt against your shoulder which you return.

“Stuck with us now Corporal.” He barks.

Soap helps you feel more comfortable with your form, and helps you learn to move in it as well, alongside Alejandro. You find that while you’re bipedal, running on all fours does have some speed to it. You’re even more of a natural climber, able to launch yourself off large tree trunks and latch on to the next one, making any large enough forest a parkour playground. The cadejos are weary still but Rudolfo continues working with you on tracking. Alejandro is often busy having to assist the captain with paperwork. Gaz starts helping you instead, making your hiding even more fun, since he has the best sight out of everyone. Now you’re the target even more for them to find, which they assume won’t be hard with your immense size but your terrain becomes a part of you, and you it letting you hide almost in plain sight.

Ghost assists you in ways you weren’t expecting, as he helps you feel more comfortable with death. Now your sparring and take down sessions often come with a small talk. Taking a life isn’t easy, and given your story, he wants you to know you’re defending yourself and others. It’s not uncommon for you to get a bit carried away on missions now, as you’re able to charge with Soap into a fray. Your larger size makes it easy for you to forget your surroundings. It leads to more casualties than knock outs. Price even tells you what he knows about wendigos and works on getting as much information from you about the handler as he can. Price lets you use him as a target now for shooting range, given how much better your aim has gotten.

Your team becomes your family as older siblings, uncles and sometimes even dads. They pass on everything they can to you. At this point they’ve come to see you as the pup in their pack, the one they raise into a fighter and protector for the future.

Visual reference for wendigo form

[veone]

GSHADE 3.5.0 Cracked Tutorial Feb.2023

‼️Update:3/2023‼️ Due to gshade somehow being online again! You can still install the program with this tutorial but to avoid the update to version 4.2 notification keeping you from proceeding-Download the program from mediafire and then turn your pc to airplane mode and continue the process below! Note that when you turn your internet back on that your going to get the notification still ignore it. That what I’m doing.

Alright with the recent events regarding the development team of GShade figuratively going under and the current version of this program available being far from perfect. It would be lovely to back to a version of GShade that doesn't have malware, the changes that disabled the depth of field effects, and the removal of some older shaders. So here's a tutorial on how to install 3.5.0 of GShade. It's the version that we as a collective switched to all those months back, when GShade popped off in the community. Also the version I used to take this picture and got from @toskasimz who sent me the files. She's the reason why I have my pretty pictures back. It took a long time to get my preset to look like this and the modern versions of Gshade and Reshade don't have the shaders for this anymore. The suggested skill level for this is basic knowledge of how to install Reshade/Gshade and knowledge of where to find the game Bin file and Program Files on your pc.

Note: This version is before the code that shut down your PC, if you manipulated the code of the program, was introduced. Use at your own risk. I personally have no issue with using it. I'm using my laptop I do school work on and I have no money to buy a new one so that's my assessment on how safe it is.

To start download this media fire file. It's a Rar file. Unzip it.

In the unzipped version of this file, you should have a folder that's highlighted below called GShade.

Inside that file are two folders. Program Files-G-Shade and TS4 Bin Folder. These folder names correspond with where the contents of these will go on your pc.

Alright inside the folders you should have the following content in the Program Files-G-Shade

Inside the TS4 Bin Folder, you should have the following contents inside it.

Place the GShade folder from the Program Files-G-Shade into your computer's Program(x86) file. This may have a different name based on your computer.

Next Place the contents of the TS4 Bin Folder which should be the G-Shade configuration file and the folder of GShade-Shaders into your Bin folder. (note I have gshade installed already so you won't have the extra files before installation.)

Now go back to the Program(x86) file on your PC and go into the G-shade folder.

Double Click to run the program.

This is where you gonna need to pull your Reshade/Gshade knowledge. You just install the program as normal to the game. I will say I don't know if this will work with other games.

Alright, this is what you should be left with after installing G-Shade. Everything transferred to the Program Files with the exception of this folder. Leave it be and go to the Program Files file on your pc.

Once in the Program Files folder double click the GShade Control Panel.

You should get the following screen Go to the Installations tab. Delete this file path. This is a very important step. It's not gonna work if you don't reinstall the program. Delete it and click Add New.

Install the program as viewed above. Click Next and set up your screenshot folder.

Click No on viewing the guild. You should have a control panel on your desktop. You can go in a convert you reshade presets if needed.

Alright if everything was done correctly open your game. It'll take a moment to load and when it does you greeted with the following screen on start-up.

Ignore the yellow text on the top. It says that your effects are disabled because it's not online. It works I could be misinterpreting what "effect" means but my shader work so I'm not complaining.

And there you go. Installed, and works perfectly. Don't update it. I don't know what it'll do. I have not tried. I will upload an edited version of my preset later this week or tonight. I have to tweak the color of the fog and make a decent post. Enjoy! I am open to helping under this post and in dms!

[callsign-muffin]

Heal Together: Chapter 3

(Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw fic)

I kinda want to make a playlist for this fic with all the music I mention in it. But I also work crazy hours and my writing time is my time to relax, so I don't know if I want to add something else on top of it if no one would care, ya know?

Masterlist

Word Count: 1.8k

“He started talking a little more last night.” Carly smiled after she finished giving you report, “He didn’t say much to me besides ‘thank you’ and asking for whatever he needed. Maybe you’ll be able to get more out of him, you guys seem to have really good rapport.”

“He responded very well to my sarcasm. Patient’s often don’t so it was a nice change.” You shrugged.

“Do you think he’s gonna be transferred to a step down unit?” She asked.

You nodded, “Yeah and I’ll miss him. It was nice having a patient I could actually interact with.”

Carly’s eyes widened, “What kind of ICU nurse are you? We love ‘em intubated and sedated.”

“A tired one!” You stated, “I need a few more sips of coffee and then let’s go sign off meds.”

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

Rooster was only slightly awake when Y/N and Carly entered the room to finish their morning sign off. They didn’t turn on the light, spoke in soft whispers, and used the glow of the computer screen as their light. He turned over groggily, as his vision cleared, he saw Y/N there. She looked so beautiful with her hair pulled back messily in a claw clip and her bright eyes quickly traveled back and forth as she compared the medications hanging on the IV pole with the computer. She moved about the space as if she owned it. Hell, with the way she’s helped Bradley the last 48 hours, she practically does own it.

“Good morning, Bradley.” She smiled down at him sweetly, “How ya feeling’?”

“Not too shabby.” His voice was still a bit raspy.

She feigned surprise, “Ah! He speaks!”

Rooster smiled up at her, “Soon you’ll be wishing I had that tube back down my throat to shut me up.”

She shook her head, “Never.”

“I see Carly removed your catheter last night.” Y/N inquired after finishing her head to toe assessment on Bradley.

He nodded, “About 2 hours ago at 5 in the morning. It was fucking awkward having someone 10 years younger than me touch my dick.” 

Y/N snorted trying to hold back a belly laugh, “I hate to break it to ya but that girl is more than 10 years younger than you.”

His face dropped in horror, “Holy shit, that’s a child!”

“She has the same license I do.” You shrugged, “She’s absolutely qualified to do what she does.”

“Unbelievable!” Rooster playfully rolled his eyes.

Y/N slightly pivoted the conversation, “You feel strong enough to get up and pee? Or do you need something to use while in bed?”

“Like a bottle?” He questioned.

She nodded, “We call it a bedside urinal but it’s the same idea.”

He nodded, “Yeah, I’ll try and get my ass up.”

“Good choice. You wanna try now?”

Bradley thought for a minute, “I mean… I probably should…”

“Alright champ, let’s do it nice and slow.” She moved his tray table out of the way.

He looked around, “Can you give a man get some privacy?”

“Not when you’re fresh off the vent. I’m not risking you falling ‘cause you have a shy bladder!” She rolled her eyes jokingly.

He grinned playfully, “Don’t go checking out my junk.”

“Already seen it and I wasn’t planning on doing it again.”

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

“Alright Lieutenant, looks like you’re cleared for transfer down to a medical observation floor.” A different older doctor from yesterday said with his posse of residents, “Glad to see you’re on the mend.”

“Me too, sir.” Bradley agreed.

The same resident from the day before, Carl Parks looked at you with disdain, “Nurse, I’ll get the transfer orders in when I can.”

“‘Preciate it, doc.” You fired back coolly. It was cute that he thought that he’d be able to get under your skin. 

They all exited and moved on to their next patient for rounds.

“What’s up his ass?” Rooster asked you.

You smirked, “The shame of being wrong.”

He gave you a questioning look.

“He didn’t think you were ready to get off the ventilator yesterday, I challenged him on it and the attending doctor took my side.” You explained, “Guys like him hate being wrong, their egos get bruised.”

He scoffed, “I don’t know how he’s smart enough to be a doctor if he was dumb enough to question you.”

“But what if this new unit sucks?” Bradley complained as you wheeled his bed down the hall and towards the elevator.

“All hospital units suck,” you scoffed, “Except for maybe labor and delivery.”

“I’m guessing my lack of vagina means I can’t go there.”

You stopped at the elevator and pressed the button, “You’d be correct.”

“Well shit.” He chuckled.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened; you carefully pushed the bed inside.

“This is a good thing,” you pressed the 3rd floor button, “the sooner you get out of the ICU, the closer you are to going home.”

Bradley sighed, “Yeah but… I’m going to miss you.”

“Really?” Butterflies began to flutter in your stomach. 

What the hell was that? You thought to yourself.

He nodded, “Yeah, you’re the first nurse that made me feel like a human being.”

You paused, taken aback by his words. “I don’t think you even understand how much it means to me to hear you say that.”

The elevator dinged again and the doors opened to your floor.

“I mean every word.” He said as you pushed him down the hall towards the medical observation unit, “You’re a good nurse— a great nurse.”

“Wow,” you stopped at the unit entrance and used your badge to open the doors, “Thank you so much for saying that.”

The nurse that was taking over Bradley’s care interrupted your conversation and helped you get his bed into the new room. You guys did your checks, you gave her a quick beside report, and you were good to go.

You looked at Bradley and sighed, “It was a pleasure taking care of you, Lt. Bradshaw. Keep getting better.”

He nodded and gave you a soft smile, “I will. Thank you for all you did for me.”

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

Two weeks later

It was Bradley’s first night out since before his deployment, it felt like a lifetime had gone by. He couldn’t wait to see all his friends at the Hard Deck and show them he was doing alright. The only one who’d seen him since he was med-evaced from the aircraft carrier was Phoenix. She was the one who picked him up from the hospital after discharge and took him home. He told her all about the angel nurse he met, how she bathed him and talked to him while he was intubated, how she was by his side to talk him through his extubation, how she made him laugh, and how he hasn’t stopped thinking about her.

“BRADSHAW,” Jake “Hangman” Seresin, his best frienemy, shouted across the bar from the pool table, “as I live and breathe!”

“We weren’t sure if he was living and breathing for a second back on the carrier.” Coyote quipped.

All the men greeted each other with big hugs and claps on the back. Despite their joking in the moment, those men were terrified that they were going to lose Rooster. Hangman was on the cot next to him in the infirmary as they were intubating him. It was a nightmare, to say the least.

“Glad you’re okay, buddy.” Bob said, “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Are you sure?” Bradley questioned, “But you don’t drink.”

Bob shook his head, “Doesn’t matter, I���m just so glad you’re here.”

Phoenix lovingly patted his cheek, “Awww Bob, you really are the best of all of us.”

“Truly.” Bradley agreed.

He could’ve sworn he was going crazy. He saw Y/N. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her. But to be fair, he thought he saw her everywhere. She hadn’t left his mind since the day he met her. But this time he heard her voice and her laugh in the crowd. His eyes scanned the crowded bar for a familiar face. BINGO! There sh was, waiting for a drink at the bar. With a familiar young, little blonde. Was that Carly the child?!

“Go find yourself a cute sailor or something!” He heard her say over the loud music, “That’s what I’d do if I was young and hot!”

“Y/N, shut up! You’re only 28, you’re young and hot too!” The little blonde nudged her.

Wow, she was just as beautiful as he remembered her. Though she was a little more dressed up, she still had that same calm and caring demeanor that she had every time she walked into his room in the ICU. She was wearing a tight white T-shirt and faded jeans, effortlessly beautiful.

“Oh no you don’t!” She grabbed Carly’s wrist as she tried to slip her card to the bartender who just served them their drinks.

Carly ignored her and handed over the card, “Oh yes I do! You’ve helped me so much ever since you started, I feel like I’m actually getting the hang of this nurse thing with your help. Let me treat you!”

Y/N pouted, “Fine! But no more after this!  You need to save your money for fun and adventure!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Carly saluted her like an officer.

█ ✪ █▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█ ✪ █

“Absolutely not,” You cried over the music at Carly and the other younger nurses that were with you at the Hard Deck.

“Absolutely yes!!!” Another young nurse, Madi handed you a tequila shot and a lime.

You groaned, “I’m too old for this!”

“NO YOU’RE NOT!” The girls chorused.

You looked down at the tiny glass, could your stomach even handle this anymore.

“Dooooooooo it!” Carly taunted evilly.

“Doooooooooooooooo it!” Sam echoed.

You groaned, “Ugh! Fine!” And you tossed the shot back like a champ, chasing it immediately with the lime. Your face contorted, “Oof it burns.”

All the girls cheered and threw their shots back together.

Suddenly the jukebox cut, making the room fall silent for a moment. Then a couple of chords slammed on a piano.

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain

Too much love drives a man insane

You broke my will, but what a thrill

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire

Your head whipped around, wondering where the hell this piano was coming from.

“Holy shit.” Carly’s jaw dropped.

You looked in the same general direction Carly was, “Holy shit.”

“What?!” Madi asked over the loud music and singing. Many others had since joined in.

“That’s the patient Y/N fought Parks about extubating .” She explained.

You were still frozen.

“He’s kinda hot.” Sam giggled.

All you could choke out was, “That’s quite the mustache.”

Tag list:

@sarah-bear706318

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[sonik-kun]

"If Jiang Cheng is all about debts, he should repay his debts to Wen Qing and Wen Ning!"

What debts? The two were from a sect that decimated his own. Be it willingly or not, they occupied the burned remains of his sect and helped the war effort on the Wen side (whilst assisting WWX and JC, but bear in mind, WQ only did it begrudgingly due to the risks associated with asissiting them. It's funny that y'all would jump to her defence whilst shitting on JC when she was in the exact same position he was in btw. But that's a debate for another day~).

Expecting him to pay a debt to the people that were, to at least some degree, complicit in numerous genocides is pretty messed up.

Even then, JC DID vouch for them to express his gratitude for helping him and WWX to escape and get their parent's remains back. But the other leaders shut him down when he did and scoffed at him. I feel like I've said this so many times on here, but he was in no position to argue any further on the matter. Especially when a more established sect leader like LXC was shut down, too.

As for the core transfer that he didn't consent to, how can he thank someone for that when he never knew it had happened in the first place?? Or asked for, for that matter?? The whole thing made him feel shitty anyway when he found out about it.

WQ and WWX, although both had good intentions, still had no right to experiment on him like that and keep this very invasive secret from him for so long, too. You can't just do something for someone without them knowing or consenting and expect them to repay that "debt" when you find yourself in a pinch. That's kinda like blackmail and is very coercive.. Something WWX and the Wen sibs are certainly not..

Then there's the situation with WN. Sure, he could be thankful for WN helping to get him to safety and treating his wounds (which, see my earlier point, JC did express gratitude.) But that opportunity kinda all fizzled out when WN killed JZX (I know it was an accident due to him being under the influence of DC but let's be real. That resentment is going to be there. Espeically since the topic greatly upsets JL soooo).

Even all that aside, you seriously can't expect JC to "repay his debts" and help WN and WQ out of that situation when the whole CW was against them. Helping them was suicidal and would bring on the wrath of the other major sects. And we all saw how that went for WWX (as JC rightly predicted)..

Had JC sided with the Wens and took them in to "pay his debts," he would have dragged the whole of his sect into the siege that happened soon after. This would mean more innocents would have been involved, and it would be the destruction of Lotus Pier all over again (and quite possibly the destruction of the Jiang, too). JC had to prioritise his own people. He would be a shit leader otherwise.

I feel as though some of y'all put some unrealistic expectations on JC when assessing his character. Especially when you compare him to the others in the story (returning back to my point I made earlier about him and WQ and how similar they both are).

On the topic of "debts" though, I would also like to argue that doing a good deed out of the kindness of your heart shouldn't be seen as a debt. And if you do something with the expectation that someone would do something for you back in kind, wouldn't that make you a shitty person? Is that what you're implying the Wen sibs are (or should be) ? Self-serving people who only help others if something is to be gained? 🤨

But what about the "debt" JC goes on about, you might ask? Oh, you mean the PROMISE that WWX made HIMSELF? That he would stay by JC's side? And be his subordinate? To fulfil his role as promised and expected of him?

That wasn't a debt.

WWX construed it as being one, but it doesn't fit the criteria, honestly. What WWX had was an obligation. He made that promise himself, and JC held him to it. It wasn't one JC forced him into as some form of servitiude, nor was it made in return for bed and board or something.

We know JC isn't truly about holding debts over others. If he was, he would have dangled his own sacrifice over WWX and used that to guilt trip him instead. Or force him to pay him back in kind. But he never did. Why? Because he loved WWX, and he didn't want him to feel "indebted" to him. Especially when WWX revealed his feelings of "letting go and moving on" to him.

You could go on forever about debts and who owes who what, but the thing is, each of these characters have hurt eachother in one way or another that at this point, the notion of who owes what doesn't matter anymore. The situation is far more complex than that. That's why all "debts" were dropped at the end, and JC and WWX just moved on. I feel that was the message MXTX tried to convey in her work. About moving on and letting go of grudges. Perhaps JC antis should take on that advice? And move on too?

[novankenn]

Tenuous Partnership (2)

With his custom fitted mirrored eye visor , securely situated over his eyes, and the hood of his hoody pulled up to cover the slightly unruly mess of golden locks, Jaune stepped from the shadows. Ozpin gave the young man a smile, and then indicated for him to follow.

"You'll be placed among the first years, once they arrive in a couple weeks." Ozpin informed Jaune as the pair walked along the hallways of Beacon, passing the third and fourth year students who were preparing to embark upon their two month long work shadow assignments.

"Can I ask why?"

"To socially acclimate you with society." Ozpin answered. "You have been isolating yourself in the basements for the better part of almost three years."

"But I like..."

"Be that as it may. You can not spend the remainder of your natural life hiding in the dark." Ozpin stopped walking and turned to face the young man. "Jaune there is a whole world out there for your to experience, and I refuse to allow you to molder away afraid of the outside world."

"But..."

"Jaune, as you know, you came here at the behest of your mother and aunt." Ozpin smiled, it was warm and comforting. "And that was only to help you gain control of your emerging powers in a safe and protected environment."

"But... but..."

"Jaune you are safe here. I and your aunt will defend you if anyone attempts to accost you with the intention of causing true harm." Ozpin placed a comforting hand on the slightly taller young man's shoulder. "It's time to stop hiding. You have a great future ahead of you. Don't waste it."

It was just after Ozpin finished speaking that a shadow fell over the pair. They both turned to see the weary looking Deputy Headmistress standing before them. Arms crossed over her ample chest.

"Glynda." Ozpin greeted her.

"Auntie." Jaune greeted in his turn.

"Are you sure about this Ozpin?" Glynda asked as she gave her nephew, the only son her sister had, a warm smile. "There are risks."

"I am, and we have made as good as preparations to mitigate those risks, as we can."

"I'm still not comfortable up here." Jaune commented as he noticed the questioning looks some of the passing students shot in their direction. "I should..."

"You will be staying in my quarters with me, from this point on, Jaune."

"But my stuff."

"It will be transferred from that... pigsty you called a room to your room in my apartment."

"But..." Jaune was cut off as Glynda moved in and pulled him into a hug. He stiffened slightly, but quickly relaxed as memories of feeling such warm comfort swept to the front of his mind.

"Jaune, it's time, and in my quarters you can dispense of this charade." she whispered in his ear. "You know I'm immune, just like you mother."

"I'm scared." Jaune informed his aunt, in the weakest whisper he had ever uttered.

"It is okay to be, but don't let it paralyze you." Glynda replied still holding her nephew in a tight hug. "You're not alone, you can do this."

"With your leave Headmaster." Glynda addressed Ozpin as she released her hold upon Jaune. "I would like to take Jaune to his new accommodations, and then out to the Emerald forest... for an assessment."

"Assessment?" Jaune asked totally caught off guard by that statement. He didn't know anything about being assessed. He didn't understand what he would assessed about.

"Very well." Ozpin turned from Glynda to Jaune. "I bid you a good day Mr. Arc, and remember we are here to support you. All of us."

"Thank you?"

"Come, Jaune. We have much to do."

"Okay?"

==> One <==

[kristinagehrmann]

The US Copyright Office is currently asking for input on generative AI systems ...

... to help assess whether legislative or regulatory steps in this area are warranted. Here is what I wrote to them, and what I want as a creative professional: AI systems undermine the value of human creative thinking and work, and harbor a danger for us creative people that should not be underestimated. There is a risk of a transfer of economic advantage to a few AI companies, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of creatives. It is the creative people with their works who create the data and marketing basis for the AI companies, from which the AI systems feed. AI systems cannot produce text, images or music without suitable training material, and the quality of that training material has a direct influence on the quality of the results. In order to supply the systems with the necessary data, the developers of those AI systems are currently using the works of creative people - without consent or even asking, and without remuneration. In addition, creative professionals are denied a financial participation in the exploitation of the AI results created on the basis of the material. My demand as a creative professional is this: The works and achievements of creative professionals must also be protected in digital space. The technical possibility of being able to read works via text and data mining must not legitimize any unlicensed use! The remuneration for the use of works is the economic basis on which creative people work. AI companies are clearly pursuing economic interests with their operation. The associated use of the work for commercial purposes must be properly licensed, and compensated appropriately. We need transparent training data as an access requirement for AI providers! In order to obtain market approval, AI providers must be able to transparently present this permission from the authors. The burden of proof and documentation of the data used - in the sense of applicable copyright law - lies with the user and not with the author. AI systems may only be trained from comprehensible, copyright-compliant sources.

____________________________

You can send your own comment to the Copyright Office here: https://www.regulations.gov/document/COLC-2023-0006-0001

My position is based on the Illustratoren Organisation's (Germany) recently published stance on AI generators: https://illustratoren-organisation.de/2023/04/04/ki-aber-fair-positionspapier-der-kreativwirtschaft-zum-einsatz-von-ki/

[girlactionfigure]

🟦 After Shabbat - Saturday night - events from Israel  

Yet More after-Shabbat UPDATES

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

( VIDEO - a Lebanese screams in shock at the massive airstrike in Beiruit that took out Hezbollah leader Nasrallah. )

SELICHOT start tonight (for Ashkenazim).. Selichot services are communal prayers for Divine forgiveness, said during the High Holiday season and on Jewish fast days. The first night of Selichot is the biggie, held after midnight on a Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah.  We ask G‑d to forgive us on a personal and communal level. An oft-repeated phrase is the “13 Attributes of Mercy,” which G‑d revealed to Moses at Sinai as the key to forgiveness. (Chabad.org)

❗️AIR TRAVEL.. The European Commission and EASA have decided to issue CZIBs recommending not to operate within the airspaces of Lebanon and Israel at all flight levels. The recommendation is valid until October 31, 2024, and can be reviewed earlier and adapted or withdrawn subject to the revised assessment.

A number of Wizzair flights TURNED AROUND on the way to Israel, as well as halting further service for 48 hours. 

Many Israeli travelers trapped overseas.

⚠️SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS.. Tiberias - Sept. 29-30, Golan - Sept. 29-30, remote learning only.

♦️IDF AIR FORCE COMMANDING GENERAL.. flew personally in the bombing mission against Hezbollah’s Nasrallah.  

♦️IDF WARNS.. IDF spokesman: Anyone who helps Hezbollah in Lebanon is putting himself at risk.  Residents of the Beka’a and the Dahiya in Beirut should evacuation.

♦️ATTACKING DEPOTS.. Lebanese reports that the IDF is attacking ammunition depots and rockets throughout southern Lebanon.  The reports also indicate that the IDF attacks weapons warehouses located in residential neighborhoods.

♦️BALLISTIC MISSILE INTERCEPTION.. arrow interceptor fired from Eilat, some missile parts fell into Jordan starting wildfires, previously noted a large piece fell by Tzur Hadassah, Judean hills, another large piece fell near Tulkarm - not far from Route 6.

🔹IRAN’S LEADER.. Reuters: Iran's supreme leader Khamenei was transferred to a "safe space”.

🔹SHEBA.. Enemy reports: An Israeli officer called a citizen at the Sheba farm and told him in Arabic to evacuate the entire place. (This is a tiny border area that Hezbollah has been claiming after the UN drew most of the border line placing it in Israel.  Also would be a good entry point for ground troops.)

🔹NASRALLAH REPLACEMENT.. Number 2 in Hezbollah, the chairman of the executive council, Hashem Safi al-Din, Hassan Nasrallah's cousin and Qassem Soleimani's son-in-law, was not killed in the attack in Beirut and he will be Hassan Nasrallah's successor.

🔹VARIOUS EMBASSIES in Lebanon evacuating non-essential staff.

🔹IRANIAN PROPAGANDA OR PARANOIA? Secretary of the Iranian Council General Mohsen Razai: "After Lebanon, Israel will attack Damascus and then Baghdad and maybe even Iran, for this reason the governments of Iran, Iraq and Syria must make their decision on this matter as soon as possible."

🔹RUSSIA SAYS.. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia: strongly condemns the elimination of Nasrallah, calls on Israel to stop all acts of aggression.

🔹US SEC STATE SAYS.. Blinken: We call for a ceasefire along the border between Israel and Lebanon.

🎯Did Israel just try to assassinate the head of Hezbollah's executive council, Hashem Safi al-Din?  Reports from Beirut about a powerful attack by the Air Force on a residential building that is suspected to have housed Safi al-Din.  We will wait for the IDF's verification.  Follow up, looks like some other Hezbollah commanders.

▪️ECONOMY.. Following the possibility of a severe war in the north: Moody's lowers the credit rating by two notches and adds a negative forecast, which will severely affect the cost of Israel’s borrowing.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Hurricane Oscar: Foresight, solidarity and unity in the face of any contingency

https://www.granma.cu/

Preserving people's lives is the priority in the face of the onslaught of Hurricane Oscar, said Joel Queipo Ruiz, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the Provincial Defense Council.

This governing body, activated in full composition, just like that of the municipalities, reviewed the provisions with which it acts in the current phase of cyclone alarm in which the territory finds itself.

Here, according to the assessment, the population protection commissions are activated up to the CDR level, with emphasis on the transfer of people to the homes of relatives and friends, and evacuation centers determined for these cases.

The actions aimed at ensuring the lives of our fellow citizens, although they have been accelerated in recent hours, have been based on rational movements that are made from the most distant and difficult-to-access sites, while taking into account residents in coastal flood zones.

Also taken into account are those who live near riverbanks, as well as in areas that may be covered by water due to rainfall, and in areas downstream of reservoirs, especially in the municipalities of Moa, Sagua de Tánamo and Frank País.

In addition, the protection of inhabitants in mountain communities and rural areas that may be isolated is being monitored, and they have been advised to move them to caves or engineering works near these sites.

The guidelines included strict restrictions on access to risk areas such as rivers, streams, canals, reservoirs and bridges, areas of potential landslides and waters below dams.

The municipal defense councils were required to increase the supply of drinking water to the most remote populations and those that depend on water trucks, while they were instructed to carefully follow and comply with what was established for the protection or evacuation of material resources stored in facilities with structural vulnerabilities.

Regarding the actions to be undertaken in the recovery phase after the passage of the meteor, among other things, it was decided to collect the vegetables and other agricultural products that the winds and rains could destroy, and at the same time speed up the harvest of those that could be damaged, which will be followed by the immediate sowing of short-cycle crops.

Regarding the handling of the storm in tourist resorts, where thousands of foreign visitors are staying, the authorities in the sector reported that all of them, as well as the nationals staying there, are protected.

It was also learned that in all coastal municipalities instructions were given for the return to land of vessels that were carrying out work at sea, so that they could be transferred to points that offer them safety.

Particular attention was paid to the availability of food, with agricultural authorities stating that instructions had been given to supply the markets with food and other products, and that their entities had been instructed to prepare soups and ajiacos, among other things, to sell to the population.

The actions undertaken to speed up the sale of the products in the standard family basket and to protect those in the warehouses were specified. In the province, actions continued for the distribution of fuel to the municipalities, so that the operation of the emergency generators can be assured, which guarantee, above all, the vitality of the medical services, the supply of water to the population and communications. Likewise, the sale of liquefied gas to the population continued.

[zoeykallus]

I humbly offer thee, Goddess of Fanfics, Queen of Clones, a wide variety of her favorite foods displayed on a carefully crafted mother of pearl dinner tray with sterling silverware, coupled with a bottle of the Gods' finest ambrosia.

May I beseech thee for a fic where Omega comes to see hunter's girlfriend as a big sister and the reader adopts her as such - just Omega fluff and happiness.

Or

One where hunter's girlfriend!reader rescues Omega and Crosshair from the empire and reunites them with Hunter. (A tall order. I've thought about doing this one myself, but I honestly believe that you're the only one that can do it justice).

Only when/if you're comfortable, Queen, I hope you're doing well! 💞

Aloha, loyal subject! 😋 Both ideas sound great. Unfortunately, there is still a lot to work through for me and my time is limited these days, so I can pick only one. I hope that's okay.

Well then, let me see what I can do here...

Hunter x Fem!Reader One-Shot - The Savior

Warnings: Angst/Canon Typical Violence/Fluff/Hurt/Comfort/Pfff, Canon, don't know her.

_______________

As a double agent, you work in the ranks of the Empire for the Resistance. Disguised. Your relationship with Hunter is dangerous, and any secret meeting with him, is therefore accordingly risky, and you see each other rather rarely. You are faced with a difficult decision when you realize that CF99 has taken some pretty tough losses. You are in a position where you could help, but you really have to risk everything.

________________

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

________________

>Master List<

The last time you spoke with Hunter was a little over a week ago. By now you know that Crosshair, a former member of Hunter's unit, is here on the station where you are stationed, as are so many other clones. A few days later, Tech, another member of Hunter's team, had an accident, was picked up more dead than alive by Storm Troopers and brought here as well. And today the girl was brought here, Omega. You've seen each other before, not often, and only in glimpses, but the girl recognized you right away. She's smart, didn't let on, so your cover is still intact. Until now. Omega is incredibly brave, she acts so mature for her age. Hunter has already taught her a lot. You haven't had a chance to tell Hunter that you've been transferred here, that you're okay, that Omega and his two brothers are still alive. You are plagued by an almost overwhelming inner turmoil. They have taken blood from the girl, but otherwise have no further tests scheduled yet. But you know Hemlock has more planned for her, you just don't know what yet.

Tech is lying in a baccta tank, it would take him a while to get back on his feet. You have an idea, a very dangerous idea, but for that you need help and the only one around you who is not injured at the moment and has enough combat experience is Crosshair. As you enter his cell, he sits on his cot and slowly raises his head, his eyes narrowed critically. His body language is not that of a prisoner; he does not seem rushed, or intimidated. On the contrary, his slow, confident movements are those of a hunter sizing up his prey. So they haven't broken him yet, good. He doesn't say a word, and neither do you at first. But after a while he snorts, "The next bitch with needles for me? You better get some helping hands, or I'll be jamming your needles down your throat". You frown, you sense the hatred resonating in his words, but the warning he utters tells you he's holding back. He wants to hurt you, he could, but he doesn't. Silently, you wonder why. "I don't have any needles with me," you say calmly, not moving from the spot.

Crosshair slowly stands up, and you are surprised how tall the slender clone soldier is. He strides towards you, even comes quite close to you. You don't back away, which leads him to look at you with interest. He tries to assess you, who you are, what you want, whether you might be a danger after all. "I need your help," you say calmly. He laughs humorlessly and finally hisses, "Go to hell." Unmoved, you tell him, "In case you haven't noticed, we're already in hell here." Crosshair blinks, then the corner of his mouth twitches very briefly, an implied smirk. "Maybe I misjudged you," he says thoughtfully, "It's possible I could like you after all." Crossing your arms in front of your chest, you raise your eyebrows in amusement, "You better not like me too much, I'm already dating one of your brothers" Crosshair blinks several times, then his brows move up. "You're confident, sassy, composed, not afraid of me...you must be Hunter's girl". You nod, impressed. "Not bad, a bullseye" Crosshair rolls his eyes, but then sits back down on the cot and says, "Yeah, I always hit the bull's eye, it's practically my signature. How would I be able to help you from in here?"

You smile and say, "I want you to help me help you."

The mood has reached a low that is almost unbearable. Hunter, Wrecker and Echo sit together on Pabuu, by the Marauder. Now and then, somber looks are exchanged, but no one says a word. They had failed to free Crosshair, instead they had even lost Tech, and shortly after Cid had betrayed them and Omega has been taken from them. Hunter feels adrift, his guilt eating him up from the inside out. He feels the loss physically, like a constant pain compressing his ribs. He longs for your comfort, your warm body against his, your comforting voice in his ear, your smell in his nose. Just when he needs you so badly, he can't reach you, and you haven't been in touch for a long time. The thought that he might have lost you too, keeps coming up and threatens to suffocate him, because you are the thought he clings to in his darkest moments to keep his head above water.

Even revenge was beyond reach for him. Cid immediately disappeared as soon as Hunter didn't look for a moment. The helpless rage hanging in his guts doesn't make the overall situation any better. For the first time, he has no plan, no idea what to do, no answers. Right now, he barely has enough motivation to breathe. He knows he can't give up, he still has brothers counting on him, and maybe Omega wasn't lost forever yet. But in the last mission he already lost one brother, his whole squad almost died. Now they were even fewer than before. Rex, of course, offered to help, as did Gregor and Howzer, but where should they start? How? Even with Tech's brilliant ideas, they had failed. Now Tech isn't around anymore. "I'm going to rip that bitch's head off," Wrecker growls. Hunter and Echo look at him, both a little surprised. Wrecker has never spoken like this before. Apparently there's also a point at which the kind-hearted, giant breaks. Echo finally sighs and says, "We all knew Cid wasn't a saint, but I didn't expect that." Hunter says somberly, "Neither did I, but that's the problem, I should have been prepared for this."

"Stop it," Wrecker growls, "It's not your fault, leader or not, you're still only human." Hunter doesn't want to discuss it, right now he just wants to bathe in self-pity and self-loathing, even though he knows how destructive that actually is. He walks past his two brothers into the interior of the shuttle without comment. From the cockpit, he hears a beep and realizes that they have received a message. "Guys come in, we have a message from an unknown sender". Wrecker and Echo hurriedly enter the cockpit. Echo looks at the sender's number and frowns. "I don't think the sender is really unknown to us." "You know the number?" asks Wrecker. He shakes his head and replies, "Not exactly, but take a closer look at the numbers, Hunter. Isn't that the date you met your flame. Our double agent?" For a moment, Hunter holds his breath, it takes him a small moment to regain his composure. This could be the glimmer of hope he can cling to now.

"You're right," he says a little breathlessly, and opens the message. There is no recording in the message, no video and no audio. Just a rather long string of numbers. "These are coordinates," Echo says after a moment's thought, "The first pair of numbers is the system, the second is several planets, and the third is a point in between. Maybe she wants to meet you there?" Hunter's heart beats up in his throat. His skin tingles, his pulse races. Is this really a message from you? He desperately hopes so. "You should go, at least one of us should find some comfort," Wrecker says with a wry smile. Echo frowns and says, "I don't want to be a killjoy, but she hasn't contacted you in a long time. And now she's sending a message with no picture or sound, just coordinates? This could be a trap" "Then we'll come along just in case," Wrecker grumbles, "And if it's not a trap, then we'll just have to close our eyes and ears for a while, so they can celebrate their meeting" Echo shrugs and says, "I can live with that. What do you say, Hunter?"

"I'll definitely look into it," Hunter says sternly, "but I can't ask you to come along." Wrecker unconsciously mimics one of Tech's mannerisms by jabbing his index finger vertically in the air and saying, "You can't forbid us, either!" Wistfulness spreads like a dull ache in his chest as Hunter sees the gesture, he misses Tech so much, but he smiles, and says, "You got that right, Wrecker."

It was not easy to find a trooper uniform that fits the sniper. It actually took several days to find and procure it. Omega wears handcuffs and walks in front of you, in front of Omega walks the disguised Crosshair. Next to you hovers the baccta tank you've covered up so no one can see Tech inside. Your pulse is racing, but outwardly you look absolutely calm. You are highly concentrated. This has to work, or you may all be doomed. Omega glances over her shoulder now and then, looking up at you nervously. You make sure no one hears or sees you at the moment and speak softly to her, "Look ahead, Omega, it's going to be okay." "Okay," the girl says softly and sighs. "We're almost there" you whisper to her. You're not so sure about that, but at least you try to radiate it. You make it as far as the hangar unmolested, but inside the hangar itself, a small group of Troopers consisting of four men stops you.

"What is that? A baccta tank? Where are you guys going with that thing? Who's the girl?"

You can see how Crosshair as well as Omega tense up. You have to do something, and you have to do it now, before things escalate. Adjusting your badge that clearly identifies you as a higher ranking officer, you use your full showmanship. The look you give the trooper is annoyed, angry, and condescending. You snarl, "You've got some nerve, Trooper. What's your ID number?" The Trooper pauses and looks at his fellow Troopers, he seems to be puzzled at first. When he looks back at you, you wave a finger at him. When he's finally within reach, you grab the fabric of his Blacks at his collar and pull the trooper down a bit, he leans in your direction in surprise, he definitely wasn't expecting that. "Take a good look at this ID, Trooper," you give him two breaths before continuing, "I've been personally ordered by Doctor Hemlock and Grand Admiral Tarkin to move the clone in this tank and the girl. The day started out shitty, I'm pressed for time, and you're getting on my nerves. If you don't fuck off right now and let me do my job, I'll make sure you get lined up against the nearest wall and shot, you little pipsqueak."

You push the trooper back again and nod to Crosshair, who rudely shoves the trooper back to his squad, underlining your act. "Sorry, M'am, won't happen again," says one of the other troopers. " I hope so for your sake," you grumble and resume your walk to the shuttle. Your heart races, you hardly dare to breathe, but you maintain the stony expression until you are inside the Imperial shuttle and the ramp has closed behind you. Finally, you breathe a sigh of relief. You feel sick with anxiety, on the verge of throwing up. Crosshair takes off the helmet, helps Omega secure the baccta tank in the cargo bay and says to you, "You're good, girl, almost gave me the willies". You say after a few breaths, with which you keep the nausea at bay, "I almost peed myself" The Sniper says with a wry smile, "Then you're a damn good actress, it for sure as hell didn't show" Crosshair finally makes his way to the cockpit and launches the shuttle. You strap Omega into one of the seats in the cockpit. The girl looks at you, but she doesn't protest. "We could be attacked, we're not quite safe yet, so I'm strapping you in," you explain calmly.

Omega nods in understanding. You are always surprised how brave the girl is. "Thank you," she says softly, "You risked a lot for us today. I can see why Hunter likes you so much." You laugh softly and smile. Hunter; just the thought of you seeing him again soon, should everything work out, makes your heart beat faster. "You better strap in too, they're already hailing us and I don't intend to answer them" Crosshair grumbles. You hurriedly sit down and are about to strap in when the first shots are fired at your shuttle. Crosshair makes two hard evasive maneuvers that almost throw you out of your seat again. Your fingers hastily grab the seatbelt, but each maneuver causes it to slip away from you again. You curse softly, your pulse racing. Another steep turn finally pulls you out of your seat. Everything turns for a moment, weightlessness, even your stomach seems to turn with the shuttle. Omega tries to reach for you, but you snap, "Don't!" You're afraid she might break her little fingers should the ship spin again in a moment and her fingers get tangled in your clothes. Then gravity kicks in again, and you slam into one of the other seats. Pain spreads like a wave through your ribs. Another quick spin of the ship, the back wall of the cockpit speeds towards you, the impact is violent, your world suddenly goes dark.

You slowly regain consciousness. You feel that you have been covered and are lying on soft ground. The surrounding voices are muffled, the words slowly become clearer, but they are spoken softly, as if they do not want to disturb you. Slowly, blinking, you open your eyes and hear Omega's little voice say excitedly, "She's waking up!" You hear quick footsteps. "Love, how do you feel?" Hunter's face appears above you. You breathe a sigh of relief, beaming at him. "We made it, didn't we?" you ask, a little breathlessly. Hunter's smile is warm and happy. "You did it, we're all together again," he says softly, gently stroking your cheek. You reach for his hand and hold it tightly where it touches your face. You say softly, almost in a whisper, "I missed you." Hunter sits down on the edge of the bed and leans over you, kissing your forehead, gently.

"I missed you too, Love, more than I can put into words". Crosshair briefly appears in your field of vision, "Hey Wildling, thanks, I won't forget this". Omega beams, "Me neither" and hurriedly follows the Sniper. You hear her start to pepper Crosshair with questions as the two leave the room and grin inside. "How's Tech?" you finally ask Hunter. Hunter laughs softly, "Right now he's still on crutches and has to rest a lot, but he's back to his old self, talking a lot, explaining absolutely everything he can think of to the people around him." That sounds like Tech, as you've come to know him, the thought is comforting. Hunter looks at you intensely. "I can't believe you really risked this, even gave up your cover at the Empire for this, your superiors at the resistance won't be happy. But I'm incredibly grateful, I don't even know what to say, how to thank you," Hunter suddenly says very seriously and urgently. You look at him and say, "I had to do it, it was the right thing to do, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or says. I had to follow my heart."

He takes your hand in his, brings it to his lips, and kisses the back of your hand. "You're much too good for me," he says softly. "What nonsense," you say with a laugh. Hunter smirks and lies down with you, gently wrapping his arms around you. You're only too happy to snuggle up to him with a relieved, happy sigh, enjoying his warmth, his closeness. "Will you do me a favor?" you ask in a whisper. "Anything you want, you just have to say it". After a deep breath in which you take in his scent, you say, "Don't ever let me go". His arms wrap around you a little tighter. "Your wish is my command"

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@projectdreamwalker

@1vlouds

@bandnerdlevel43

[radicallicious]

A female inmate at Mexico’s Chalco Penitentiary and Social Reintegration Center has reported that she was sexually assaulted by a trans-identified male who had been placed in her cell.

The male inmate had a history of sexual violence, and threatened to harm the victim’s children if she spoke out about what happened to her.

The assault occurred in July of 2022 after the trans-identified male inmate was transferred into the victim’s quarters. Despite having a history of violent sexual crimes and misconduct, the perpetrator was allowed to move into the women’s area where there was minimal security, with some sections being separated only by fabric curtains.

While the victim had initially been threatened into silence as the trans-identified male had promised to harm her family using contacts he had on the outside, she eventually reported the assault to prison authorities.

CODHEM, the Human Rights Commission of the State of Mexico, launched an investigation and determined that “one of the [incarcerated women] was sexually assaulted by her roommate, who was a trans woman with previous complaints of misconduct and probable sexual harassment.”

CODHEM further revealed that “the aggression was not prevented by the prison authorities,” with the facility administrators having conducted an insufficient assessment of the inmate without follow-up and with no consideration for the possible risks the trans-identified male inmate posed to the women.

But disturbingly, despite affirming that the sexual assault had taken place and that the transgender inmate had been a risk to the women, CODHEM ordered prison staff to attend a “gender perspective” course.

As reported by El Gráfico, members of the Interdisciplinary University Seminar on Citizen Security at the National Autonomous University of Mexico were in charge of giving the course on human rights and “gender perspective” to eighty prison officials.

The same University was recently embroiled in scandal after trans activists staged a “coup” and took control over one of the largest women’s washrooms on the campus in protest of a lesbian mural being painted nearby. Trans activists vandalized the washroom, painting graffiti that threatened women critical of gender ideology with “rape and death.”

Despite Mexico’s political constitution outlining that prisons must be sex-segregated, the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico has declared that there is no “strict difference between men and women.”

Since news of the assault broke, Mexican media have almost uniformly referred to the assailant as a “woman,” or “trans woman,” using feminine pronouns to refer to the rapist.

Speaking to Reduxx on the disturbing case, Laura Lecuona, the head of WDI Mexico and author of Gender Identity: Lies and Dangers, slammed CODHEM for perpetuating gender self-identification policy in light of the obvious risks it posed.

“A man with a history of sexual violence is serving his sentence in a women’s prison, where he raped and threatened a cellmate, and the state human rights commission thinks that the solution is to give prison employees a little course on ‘gender,'” Lecuona says, questioning: “What will they teach them in this course? Likely that ‘trans women are women.’ The only solution is to recognize that self-declaration of sex involves several dangers for women.”

Lecuona also says gender self-identification policies must be “abandoned” completely in order to protect women.

“Feminists have been warning about this for years. There is still time [for authorities] to rectify and fulfill their obligation to guarantee women a life free of violence.”

The employment of “gender” counselors in cases where women have been involuntarily housed in close quarters with men who declare a transgender identity is an international phenomenon. In July, Reduxx revealed that a man who identifies as transgender presented a speech for a Women’s Empowerment event held at New Jersey’s only correctional facility for women, where he lectured female inmates on the importance of “inclusivity.”

La’Nae Grant reportedly told the women that he believed “cisgender women” may hesitate to accept trans-identifying men as female due to jealousy or “competition” between the groups for male sexual partners. The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women has been plagued by violent male convicts being transferred into the prison, including a sadistic trans-identified male inmate who was handed a 50-year sentence in 2003 for the brutal rape and murder of a sex-trafficked woman from Ecuador.

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Placing males' feelings and delusions before women and compromising their security in the process... Absolutely terrible. I took my time to read about Perry Cerf (the man mentioned at the end of the article) and I was this close to vomiting. The description of his crime and what he did to the woman (who was referred as a 'hooker' by other media outlet... Nice) is gut-wrenching so be careful.

And the immediate solution to a sexual assault committed by a trans-identified male in a women's prison is taking courses on gender perspective, suggested by the National Human Rights Commission out of all people... Noted.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Light on the Darkside - Chapter Two.

Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to read, reblog and offer such nice commentary on the first chapter. I hope very much to hear from some of my so far silent readers, too. Your commentary matters. I understand that the first chapter wasn't an easy read, but this one is much less bleak as we get to know James a little better, and also introduce Ella. Oh, just as a reminder, with this being set in 1997, you'll find I use British slang words of that time. If anyone is unclear, just ask me!

Previous chapters - One

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 3,174

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Topics cover depression, suicide and eating disorders. Minors DNI!

Moor Acres Care Facility. It sounded very proper from the outset, and looked the furthest thing from a mental hospital. Set in an old, converted mansion sold off by an aristocratic family who had gone into financial ruin over two hundred years ago, it had been converted into an asylum prior to being brought up to modern standards as a mental health facility. Apparently, it was the best and the safest in Warwickshire.  

Each ward wasn’t truly a ward like in any other hospital, but instead made up of many single dwelling rooms, men on the top floor, women on the bottom. James was to reside in the young adult wing of the unit, housing people aged between 18 and 25 years old. Truly, they could have sequestered him in a shed upon the sprawling grounds and it wouldn’t have bothered him. Nothing much did for a person who didn’t want to be anywhere at all.  

He wasn’t truly in a fit state to listen to what an orderly who met him upon arrival began to explain, being as drugged up to the eyeballs at he was. He’d given them no choice, having proven he couldn’t be trusted not to be restrained and sedated, attempting to escape the hospital prior to his transfer to the facility. A male nurse had ended up with a broken nose for it, so he was still considered a high-risk patient for violent outbursts and thus being taken firstly to the high dependency ward.  

He would be monitored regularly while administered with various cocktails of medication in order to try and bring his violent streak down and his mood up, all while juggling the fact that he remained in a deeply suicidal state. He’d been beyond lucky, by all accounts, to have been found so quickly and the substantial amount of drugs he’d taken not do any lasting damage to his system, having vomited a good amount of them onto the bathroom floor.  

Mentally, the first doctor to have assessed him had been right, his diagnosis clinical depression, explaining his overall feeling of hopelessness and hollowness, coupled with the bouts of anger and overwhelming urge to resort to suicide.  

Until he began to show signs of calming down, he was doped up firstly on Lithium to keep his aggression under control, the doctors altering the dose after the first three weeks when he began to settle more between doses. Those weeks were a blur of feeling high as a kite, or so drowsy he slept for anything up to fifteen hours a day. For someone who loved to sleep, that wasn’t much of an issue, though.  

Sleep, drugs, whacked out zombification, sleep, food he wasn’t much in the mood for, sleep, drugs. Day in, day out. When his family came to see him for the first time, it was an awful sight to witness.  

Alan, Carole and Sam sat at the table in a small, private visiting room, watching as an orderly led James out, his arms no longer bandaged, but a pair of restraints still present upon his wrists. He looked like a ghost, a shell of his former self, Sam gulping as she looked into the same grey of her brother’s eyes she shared. No light was left in them at all. 

“Hello, kidda. How you feeling, eh?” Alan spoke, swallowing down an uncomfortable lump in his throat.  

James glanced up, his lip twitching, the muscles in his shoulder jumping. He blinked a few times, looking down at the table. He knew they were there, but it was as if he was sitting in the middle of a fish tank, with them on the other side of the glass. Everything was muted. Even his response to them.  

“Excuse me, excuse me!” Oh, yes. Carole was on form. “Can I speak to a doctor over why my son is sitting here unable to recognise us? We’re supposed to be here to support him. He doesn’t even know who we are!” 

“Carole, calm down. This isn’t helping, petal,” Alan advised, wrapping his arm around a visibly distressed Sam. It had been against his better judgement to bring her, too, but god, how she’d bent his ear in insistence to come and see her big brother. They might have fought like cat and dog while he still lived at home, but they adored each other beneath it.  

“And neither is our son sitting there like a zombie!” she spoke, gesticulating with an outstretched arm. “He’s flippin’ twitching and dribbling on himself, for Christ’s sake!”  

“It’s the Lithium,” the orderly supervising advised with nonchalance. “Makes ‘em twitch. He’ll be alright in a minute, his last dose is wearing off a bit but we have to keep him on it at a certain level, in case he gets violent.”  

Carole wasn’t having any of that, rising from her seat and demanding to have a doctor brought down, Alan standing too in an attempt to calm the situation. While her parents were over by the door, Sam pulled the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand, reaching across the table and drying the little bubble of dribble that gathered at the corner of her brother’s mouth, sniffing hard.  

She said nothing as she rose from her seat, moving to him and ducking under his arms, seating herself on his lap and wrapping him in a hug. Eventually, he leaned against her, the familiar scent of her body spray seeming to pull him from his fog a little. It jolted a memory in his brain. 

“You and that fucking crap! You smell like a prostitute’s bra!” 

“Oh yeah, Jimbo. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Only women you can get are ones you have to pay.” 

“Gobby dickhead. You ain’t funny, skin.” 

“I am! Just like your face!” 

Jimbo and skin. Skin as in skin and blister, the rhyming slang for sister, and Jimbo just because it was a play on his name. They rarely referred to one another as Sam or James.  

“I know I shout at you, steal your fags and clip your wallet chain to things so you get stuck, but I hate seeing you like this,” she sniffed, her tears wetting the top of his head, his brown roots showing from where the black dye was growing out. 

“Excuse me, no contact with the patient, please,” the orderly called, in between trying to fend off Carole and have a reasonable conversation with Alan as they waited for the doctor to arrive. 

“Oh, piss off! He’s my brother and he needs a hug!” 

“He’s a violence risk, come away,” he spoke, Sam glaring as she hung onto James tighter. 

“No. You might control him but you don’t tell me what to do!”  

“Gobby dickhead.” 

No. The orderly hadn’t stepped over the mark in retort. That was the slurred whisper of her brother, his eyes finally focusing as he looked up at her. “Alright, skin.” 

She began to giggle, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Alright, Jimbo. What the shit have they given you, elephant tranqs?” 

He hummed a little. “Feels like it.” Tightening his arms around her, he hugged her close, Sam feeling relieved as her tears diminished. Her brother always gave the best hugs. As for James, it was a small slice of comfort he sorely needed.  

He might not have ever said it out loud often, but he adored his sister to her bones. If one wanted to date Sam Kingston, he was very much the looming threat if she was mistreated. Her first boyfriend had discovered that the hard way, ending up having his own skateboard wrapped around his head by an irate James after she’d confided to him that Luke, the boy in question, had cheated on her.  

Stroking his hair, she kissed his forehead, giggling more when he pinched her waist, the place she couldn’t bear to be touched. “Stop it! Such a knob.” 

“Mm.” He went back into himself a little there, resting his head beneath her chin, Sam looking over to where the doctor had arrived.  

“Please don’t tell me to move. I just want to hug him and he’s alright. He’s talking and stuff, not much, but he’s alright.” 

The doctor nodded, pointing at them with his pen as he turned to the orderly. “Go and oversee, just in case.” While he spoke with their parents, the orderly moved over to stand close by, Sam giving him a disapproving look, James not bothered by his presence as he attempted to engage his brain enough to speak more. 

“How’s college?” 

“A big pile of wank!”  

“Chris Benson... is a top grade twat, innit?” 

She barked a laugh, throwing her head back. Yes, the director of the same sixth form he’d taken his A levels at too truly was just that. “He is, though! So, how are you feeling? Steve took me out for a pint the other day, said to say hello and not to hate him cos’ you probably do.” 

That hatred had diminished slightly, he had to concede. “M’alright. Feel like I’m in a fish tank. Bit fuzzy, like.” He then hummed a little laugh. “Tell Steve... he’s a wanker. But... I love him.”  

Shaking with her soft giggles, she stroked his hair lovingly. He was still in there somewhere, beyond the veil of drugs, beyond the depression that had led him into being sectioned. “I will, Jimbo.”  

He remained coherent enough to have a small chat with his parents once they’d finished talking to the doctor, their hour-long visit ending all too soon, Sam crying again as she hugged him goodbye.  

“Love you, dickhead.” 

“Love you too, skin.”  

Carole and Alan beamed at one another over that little interaction, the latter proud of his wife that she held it together for long enough to hug her son tightly, only bursting into tears and crying against his chest when they’d reached the car park.  

His doctor saw the visit as clear progress, but lamentably his patient began to slip again fairly quickly. Once again, his dosages were upped until James began to even out a little more. Clearly it was not conducive for a long-term solution, though, monitoring him closely and eventually adjusting him so he would be able to leave high dependency and continue his stay on the regular ward.  

Sertraline was the first he was tried on, but the side effects proved to be worse than the benefits of the treatment, those swiftly exchanged for a combination of Celexa and Lorazepam. He felt even worse for two weeks following the change, but at least he was no longer in restraints.  

That was until he managed to get a hold of a coffee mug, smash it and attempt to cut his throat on the shards of porcelain. It had taken three orderlies to bring him down and restrain him again, James being carried off to be stitched whilst covered in blood and laughing.  

“It doesn’t work! None of it fucking works! Just let me die, fucks sake!”  

“Not happening on my watch, pet,” Mary, the one nurse strong and capable enough to treat him unassisted spoke, moving out of the way of where his hand was bound, save him from scratching her. He had a tendency for that. “Eee now, lie still. Goodness, James. You’ve got the most beautiful skin and you’re ruining it with all these scars!”  

“I like to think they add to my character. Mister Jigsaw.”  

She peered over her bifocals at him. “You’re not funny, sweetheart. Now, lie still or you’ll be knocked out again. I’m giving you the choice most others wouldn’t.”  

He had to respect that, he supposed. Out of all the staff, he actually liked Mary best. Mostly that was because she knew who Black Sabbath were and in his more lucid moments, she would come and discuss the band who had served as such a big influence to him. It made having no access to music a little more bearable.  

After that attempt, he was once again closely monitored, his medications tinkered with, a balance seeming to be struck in making him amiable enough not to be restrained, but not so dopey that he slept all day or sat there zoned out and dribbling. Unlike a lot of horror stories over mental health facilities, the staff truly did want to treat the conditions of their patients rather than leave them in a vegetative state. The practises of the turn of the century truly were long condemned to history in that respect.  

“Right, your mum dropped off some clothes for you. No belts or shoelaces, obviously. She’s brought you some books and magazines, too.” 

“Music?” he questioned. She knew he would. 

“No, James. CD’s can be broken and used as a sharp. The last thing we want is you ripping yourself to bits again. Right, let’s see how you fare on your own. Checks are every fifteen minutes. Don’t let us down, pet.” 

As soon as Mary and her warm, Geordie lilt had closed the heavy door, he was out of the hospital gown he’d lived in and into his own clothes in a flash, feeling much more comfortable in the washed-out pair of ripped jeans and the well-worn band t shirt he pulled on, that particular one championing Mayhem, one of his favourites.  

Flinging himself down on the bed, he took a deep breath, slowly exhaling through his nose. He felt a lot clearer than he had in a long time, but still not right. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t sad. It was simply in a state of being. Still, if somebody had handed him a knife, he knew he would have done what he’d set out to do two months prior. The bleakness was a haunting void within him, only marginally closed by the administration of medications to treat it.  

Not happy, not sad, just there. Existing. Life in limbo, an exiled hiatus, high as a kite or asleep. There was no real in between and when there was, he felt like hell.  

“Would you say you felt much improvement in your overall mood since your arrival, James?” 

“Nah.” 

“Absolutely nothing at all in quelling those suicidal thoughts?” 

“Nah. Well, kinda.” 

“Can you offer an elaboration?” 

“Nah.” 

No, he wasn’t the easiest of patients to treat during his therapy sessions either, choosing to zone out for most of them. “Do you feel there is anything further we could do to benefit you while under our care?” 

“Let me go out for a smoke?” 

Dr. Beaumont shook her head. “I’m afraid grounds privileges are yet to be on offer to you.” 

She was fixed with a very hard stare in the wake of such. “Why? Ain’t tried to dropkick anyone lately, or off myself again. Total bullshit, this is.” 

“Indeed, you have not. We must give it longer before you are trusted, though. You are still considered a violence risk, even though no longer restrained. Little steps, James.” 

He didn’t even try to hide the snort of contempt. “What about music? Can I at least have my CD player, or a guitar? I miss playing.” 

That was positive for the doctor to hear. He’d made no mention of a desire to participate in anything that brought him joy in prior sessions. Alas, she had to let him down. “Not until we are fully confident over your ongoing stability. A guitar can be weaponised, strings pose a hanging risk. CD’s when broken pose a sharps risk and the last thing we want is for you to revert into self-harm.” 

“Top grade fucking rubbish.” 

“Now, James. Enough of that. I am prepared to meet you halfway, though. You may access the common room and socialise, although of course it will be under heavy supervision. Orderlies are present at all times. We allow the television to be on there, the radio, too.”  

Another snort. “Ain’t gonna be playing anything I like to watch or listen to though, innit?” 

Oh, yes. He was a difficult one. Clarice Beaumont had treated far worse in her forty years working within the mental health sector, though. “It’s perhaps better than being sequestered to your room, James. I’ve met you halfway here, please do give a little back in gratitude.” 

“Yeah, fair comment,” he smirked, his long form rising from his seat. “Thanks, doc.” The orderly waiting for him took him back upstairs to the ward, just as another was accompanying the next patient down to Dr. Beaumont’s office. They passed one another by without noticing each other, both stuck in their own private hell. 

“Good morning, Ella,” the doctor began brightly, the frail girl taking a seat. “How are you feeling today?” 

“Fat.”  

Yes, she often did, despite the fact she only weighed a miniscule 89lbs. It was a vast improvement on what she had weighed though, when admitted to the eating disorder unit at just five stone and three pounds. A stone of weight was a brilliant achievement, albeit administered through a tube directed into a port in her stomach.  

Since the removal of the port, it had been tricky to continue keeping weight on her, Ella often in tears and fits of anxiety over consuming something as simple as a sandwich. She’d pick at it, wail, complain that the cheese was too fatty, fling the food across the room and generally break down in a desperate, hyperventilating mess. 

While her anxiety was kept in check with medication, her therapy in trying to open her eyes to the fact she was emaciated was taking much longer to prove beneficial. Just like her last patient had been in his own way, Ella was just as dismissive.  

“Have you had breakfast this morning?” 

“Yes, a little bit.” 

“And what did you have?” 

“Cheerios.” 

“Oh, now you mentioned you like those before. Did you enjoy them?” 

“No. Chris made me have whole milk with them and I felt sick. I still feel sick now. I said I’d prefer skimmed milk, but she never bleedin’ listens to me. Whole milk is minging!” 

As ever, she was calorie counting. You could ask Ella for the exact number of calories in any type of food and she could usually tell you to the exact number, such was her fastidious predisposition to count everything she consumed. Upon arrival, she’d been restricting herself hugely. An apple, a peach and a can of Diet Coke were all she existed on daily. If she was made to eat anything else, the meal would find itself expelled into a toilet bowl very quickly afterwards. 

“We have discussed your calorie counting as your form of control, Ella. Perhaps we should go deeper into that in today’s session.” The young woman before her merely chewed on her thumb, her leg shaking back and forth with irritation.  

It was about to be another painstakingly long session for Dr. Beaumont, trying to reach a patient who truly had no desire to heal. Both Ella and James had that very much in common.  

[covid-safer-hotties]

SARS-CoV-2 Survival on Skin and its Transfer from Contaminated Surfaces - Preprint Posted Sept 19, 2024

An interesting preprint highlighting the lack of potential spread from covid fomites. Telling people to first and foremost wash their hands during an airborne pandemic is like telling people to wear propeller hats to keep bullies from beating them up in school.

Abstract Understanding the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, particularly its transfer from contaminated surfaces (fomites) to human skin, is crucial for mitigating the spread of COVID-19. While extensive research has examined the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 on various surfaces, there is limited understanding of how efficiently it transfers to human skin, and how long it survives on the skin. This study investigates two key aspects of SARS-CoV-2 transmission: (1) the transfer efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 from non-porous (plastic and metal) and porous (cardboard) surfaces to a 3D human skin model (LabSkin), and (2) the survival of SARS-CoV-2 on the skin under different temperature conditions. First, we validated LabSkin as a suitable surrogate for human skin by comparing the transfer efficiency of the bacteriophage Phi 6 from surfaces to LabSkin and to human volunteers fingers. No significant differences were observed, confirming LabSkin's suitability for these studies. Subsequently, the transfer of SARS-CoV-2 from surfaces to LabSkin was assessed, showing that plastic and metal surfaces had similar transfer efficiencies (~13%), while no transfer occurred from cardboard once the inoculum had dried on the surface. Finally, the survival of SARS-CoV-2 on skin was assessed, showing a rapid decay at higher temperatures, with a half-life ranging from 2.8 to 17.8 hours depending on the temperature. These findings enhance our understanding of viral transmission via fomites and inform public health strategies to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission through surface contact.

[mariacallous]

In October, Melissa began an in vitro fertilization cycle. A resident of Birmingham, Alabama, her fertility journey to that point had been not just difficult, but harrowing—earlier that year, she had nearly bled to death during a procedure to resolve a second-trimester miscarriage. When the IVF process yielded just a single viable embryo, she had it frozen, and a few months later started another cycle. “It’s very easy to lose an embryo,” she says. “This is such a delicate process.”

Melissa has a daughter, born when she was younger, but IVF represents her best and last chance to grow her family. After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that embryos are children, all of that is now on hold.

WIRED spoke with three women directly affected by the Alabama Supreme Court’s February 16 ruling, which stated that embryos are “unborn children … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.” Fearing legal liability given the broad scope of the language, several of the state’s most prominent IVF providers—including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama Fertility, and the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Mobile Infirmary—have paused treatments. That means patients like Melissa, who is going by a pseudonym given the sensitivity of the topic, are stuck in limbo, and in some cases running out of options.

“I’m rapidly losing time,” says Melissa. The 37-year-old has an autoimmune disorder that she needs to plan IVF cycles around; her ovarian reserves are low enough that her doctors say she has a window of a month, maybe two, to try again. If the ruling holds for much longer, she may not have another chance.

During IVF, patients take hormone-stimulating medications to trigger their ovaries to release mature eggs. The eggs are then retrieved with a small needle and fertilized with sperm in a lab to form embryos. Sometimes a successful IVF cycle can result in several embryos, but doctors typically transfer just one or two into the uterus at a time. Success isn’t promised; about one in three embryo transfers results in pregnancy.

That makes Melissa’s situation especially urgent. There’s no guarantee that her one embryo will result in a birth. But the ruling has disrupted the lives of women at every stage of treatment.

Lochrane Chase started IVF in August, after nearly a year of trying to get pregnant and using less intrusive fertility treatments, such as ovarian stimulation. The 36-year-old Birmingham native was able to freeze and store over two dozen embryos, of which several appeared viable after genetic screening. An embryo transfer in October resulted in a pregnancy, but Lochrane miscarried a few days later. “It was the saddest I’ve ever been in my life,” she says. She tried again in December; again, she miscarried.

Before another scheduled transfer in January, her doctor noticed fluid in her uterine lining; Lochrane underwent surgery in mid-February to address the issue, and scheduled another embryo transfer for March 18. Despite the uncertainty caused by the ruling, she has started taking the necessary hormones anyway in hopes that the situation resolves by then. If not, the medications would have been for nothing, and she’ll be left with no way forward.

That’s due in part to the severity of the new restrictions on embryos in Alabama. Both Melissa and Lochrane looked into getting treatment out of state as soon as the ruling came down, but quickly found that was an unworkable solution. Companies that transport embryos have paused shipping out of the state while assessing the legal risks associated with the ruling. In a statement emailed to WIRED, a representative from the University of Alabama at Birmingham said the health system is working to identify a company that is willing and able to transport their embryos to another facility as soon as possible: “It is our goal to help patients who are interested in this option do so safely, but—at this time—there are no options available.”

Even if patients could transport their embryos, IVF treatment often requires close proximity with the health care provider, making it infeasible for many.

“You have to do blood work every three days. You have to do ultrasounds. To travel to go do that, it’s almost impossible,” says Melissa. Within 24 hours of finding out that her treatment would be affected, Lochrane had made contact with clinics in Boston, Atlanta, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina—conversations that ended when embryo transportation shut down.

The impact is one of lost time and opportunity, but also of cost. Lochrane says she and her husband have spent $50,000 on fertility treatments so far. Each transfer costs $3,500; each round of medication another $500 or so. For Paula, a 38-year-old Birmingham resident, the bulk of her expenses are carried by Progyny, a fertility insurance company that she has access to through her husband’s job.

Paula, who also asked to use a pseudonym, has already undergone one embryo transfer, in April of last year. It resulted in a miscarriage. She now has three frozen embryos left, and had gotten authorization from Progyny earlier this year to attempt another transfer. That authorization has a three-month window, which expires on March 28. “The concern is, if we don’t do it before March 28, will our insurance do another authorization for us, because we live in Alabama?” she says. “It’s been very stressful. My blood pressure has been through the roof.”

In an emailed statement to WIRED, Progyny CEO Pete Anevski said that health care providers “can shift the authorization as needed,” and that the company “will continue to support its member patients and its network providers in Alabama.”

That support can only go so far, though, as long as the Alabama Supreme Court ruling persists. While all three women have frozen embryos, even that practice may be at risk. One of the many uncertainties of the ruling is whether freezing of embryos will be able to continue. “The cryopreservation of fertilized eggs is an essential component of infertility care at this point, and that whole enterprise is very much threatened,” says Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a professional organization that represents fertility specialists. Using frozen embryos for IVF is not only safe but has a higher success rate than fresh embryos.

It’s also unclear how the ruling will impact the egg retrieval process. About five to six days after fertilization, an early-stage embryo, called a blastocyst, forms. But not every fertilized egg goes on to develop into an embryo. This happens naturally, as well as in IVF labs. Under the Alabama ruling, this scenario could also open up a clinic to a potential lawsuit. “With this legal ruling, the question is, if an embryo fails to develop, will these health care providers be found liable for wrongful death or murder or manslaughter?” says Betsy Campbell, chief engagement officer at Resolve, an infertility nonprofit association based in McLean, Virginia.

In a Facebook post, Alabama Fertility Specialists said it is putting new IVF treatments on hold “due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” and is contacting affected patients.

In a statement emailed to WIRED, the University of Alabama at Birmingham said its Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility is pausing egg fertilization and embryo development because of “the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments.”

The patients whom WIRED spoke with all shared a sense of crushing uncertainty and anger.

“People don’t understand that when you’re put in a position to make decisions like [IVF treatment], you don’t make it lightly,” says Melissa. “That it sticks with you forever. That it changes you. To have laws that prevent you from making decisions that—as gut-wrenching as they are, as hard as they are—that you can’t make them for the health of your family, it’s an indescribable feeling.”

Even Lochrane, a lifelong Alabama resident, says that the ruling has made her seriously consider leaving. “I feel so powerless in this state,” she says. Lochrane is on the board of local nonprofits, serves as a deacon in her church, and is deeply involved with numerous civic organizations. Her family is here, as are her friends. Still, she says, the last week has dramatically shifted her perspective. “If I could move to Boston and have an opportunity to have a family there but not in Birmingham,” she says, “I would be at the airport now.”

IVF providers, patients, and advocates are hoping that the Alabama legislature could allow IVF to continue in the state. Last week, Alabama House minority leader Anthony Daniels, a Democrat, introduced a bill that would establish that a “fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being” under state law. Republican lawmakers are also expected to introduce similar legislation soon.

“We’re hopeful that there will be a legislative fix,” Campbell says. How long that fix takes, though, will have life-altering consequences for many Alabama IVF patients. And if it doesn’t materialize, most will be left with no options at all.

“We have healthy embryos,” says Lochrane. “We just want to be able to have children.”