#blood separation centrifuge

[labmate-inc]

Blood Card Centrifuge

A blood card centrifuge is a type of centrifuge designed specifically for use with blood cards, which are small, specialized cards used for collecting, transporting, and storing blood samples. These centrifuges are often compact and portable, making them suitable for use in various settings such as clinics, hospitals, or fieldwork.These centrifuges may have features such as adjustable speed and time settings, as well as options for different rotor configurations to accommodate various sample sizes and types of blood cards.

[michadeau]

tch no one can answer my question of what does blood serum taste like

[juvaprp]

Explore the world of blood plasma separation machines! Learn how they work, their medical applications, and how JUVA PRP's kits can help you unlock the potential of PRP therapy.

[ceilidho]

fear of god

There's someone outside the spacecraft. You don't remember them being part of the crew. Part 10 masterlist

-

Only after incinerating the original samples do you second guess your actions.

Too late by then. By the time it occurs to you that it might’ve been smarter to keep the samples to reference later, they’re already in biohazard bins, autoclaved and in the process of being incinerated, flames dancing behind the glass. 

You can only watch dispassionately. Mistakes made in crisis; you keep yielding to the thin stretch of fear across the vanishing point of your paranoia and hoping you won’t make the same mistake again, only to repeat the same pattern. 

Over lunch in the mess, you bite back your anxiety and ask Gaz to come by the lab in the morning in order to draw another vial of blood. He spreads his legs under the table until his knees taps against yours.

There’s a glint in his eye when he smiles. “Something wrong with the one from yesterday?”

Stare and swallow your pride. “I…accidentally contaminated it. Can you come by?”

“Of course, doctor. Anything for you.”

You grit your teeth to avoid snapping at him in front of everyone else, the mess full for a change. Under the table, you press your knees together until your legs tremble. 

True to his word, Gaz comes by first thing in the morning, perky enough to rub you the wrong way. You slept poorly again though, so it’d be hard to rub you the right way. 

“You look tired, love,” Gaz observes quietly, the paper crinkling under him as he sits himself down on the exam table.

“I am tired.” Your voice is subdued, weary, but somehow the thought of being vulnerable in front of him doesn’t scare you the way it once did. Your dynamic these days is an interesting one. Two people in on the same secret. It makes you feel almost close to him in a way, a shared intimacy that doesn’t extend to the rest of the crew. 

“Didn’t get enough sleep?” he asks.

“No, I—” 

A man stands at the end of a long corridor, shrouded in darkness.

You are powerless to stop him unless he wants to be stopped.

He is coming for you. He is holding out his hand and waiting for you to take it.

You rub your forehead where it aches. “No. Not enough.”

Hadir follows not long after, the door sliding shut behind him as you prep the syringe. You don’t respond when he says good morning, not in the mood for pleasantries or conversation with everything else going on. It’s hard to feel up to being friendly when this whole situation feels like a thinly veiled attempt to monitor you, like you’re the untrustworthy one when two feet away, Gaz sits with a serene smile on his face and twiddles his thumbs. 

There’s a small pleasure in plunging a needle into his vein again, but you’re not cruel enough to try and make it hurt. You’re not even sure if you could. 

He doesn’t so much as wince. 

You’re much more efficient about it with Hadir hovering over your shoulder, immediately transferring Gaz’s blood into capillary tubes after drawing it from him and flitting to the other side of the room to place the tubes into the centrifuge. It’s not a long wait—ten minutes tops—but you spend it hunched over the centrifuge. On the other side of the room, Gaz and Hadir chit chat like nothing’s wrong. 

The second the centrifuge beeps, you pop the lid and remove the tubes. Perfectly separated; no different than the day before. You repeat the same steps as Hadir watches, pipetting the supernatant fluid into a new test tube and preparing the slides, shoulders tense the whole time. Waiting for him to stop and correct you. 

It never comes—as it shouldn’t. You may not be above question, but you’re good at your job. You wouldn’t have messed up something as simple as a blood test of all things.

Then, you sit down in front of the microscope. 

Something in your gut tells you what’s going to happen before it does. You slip the slide under the microscope and lean forward into the eyepiece only to find perfectly normal red blood cells. No strange wandering cells bending into confounding shapes. Just erythrocytes sitting peacefully on the blood smear slide, not overlapping and not too widely spread apart.

You look over at Gaz when Hadir takes your place, the man still sitting on the examination table as if waiting for your permission to leave. The smile on his face is as placid as ever, almost affectionate. You’d almost believe it too, if you didn’t know any better. 

Why are you doing this? You wish you could just ask him outright. It borders on the cruel. Like a humiliation ritual, the both of you knowing that the blood cells under the microscope aren’t what they seem. Why are you putting me through this?

His eyes twinkle. Because I can, they say. 

It doesn’t take Hadir very long to come to the same conclusion as you. 

“Looks all good to me,” Hadir pronounces, smiling brightly when he pulls away from the eyepiece. “See, doc? Yesterday’s must’ve been a fluke.”

You nod instead of answering. It seems trivial to respond with words; nothing you could say would express the deep well opening up inside of you, the ever widening gap between you and the reality you once took for granted. All you can do is sit there in silence as the two of them leave together.

That seemingly no one aside from you can seem to articulate or even comprehend the magnitude of the situation at hand is starting to get to you. 

Deep within every quiet corner of the universe lie the seeds of destruction; a throbbing, cancerous heart. There’s no epiphany there though, no revelation or moment of enlightenment to shock you to your core—you know that life and death are inextricably intertwined, an egg nesting within another egg. Supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. Figs and wasps. Beginnings and endings.

Now one is knocking at your door, asking to come in.

The day severs itself into two when Farah finds you making a cup of tea in the galley. Your guard is already up when the door slides open and she marches in, so geared up to be scolded that you flinch at the sound of the door sliding shut. 

“We need to talk,” Farah says. Her tone brooks no argument. You’ve been dreading this confrontation, but you aren’t particularly shocked by its arrival. News travels fast in confined spaces; gossip faster. You knew from the second that you got Hadir involved after promising that you wouldn’t share your misgivings about Gaz with anyone other than Farah that this would be coming.

“Now?”

“If you’re not busy.”

You’re not and you know she knows that, so instead of arguing you just nod and pour your tea down the sink, following her out of the galley.

She steers you down a hallway away from the main corridor that leads towards the brig and several supply rooms. At the end of the hall, the brig just around the bend behind her, Farah stops and turns to face you, arms across her chest. Her face is set in a stern cast. 

“Why did you ask Hadir to help you with a blood test? He’s not the ship’s medic.”

That being her first question does come as a surprise. You’d assumed she’d immediately tear into you about involving Hadir in your arrangement, not interrogate you about leaning on another crew member for advice and support. 

“I didn’t ask him to. He volunteered.”

“Why did he volunteer?”

“I…thought there was something wrong with Gaz’s blood sample from the other day. I asked him if he could confirm if there was something wrong. I just needed a second pair of eyes.”

A terrible idea in retrospect. You should’ve anticipated Hadir’s reaction and the subsequent fallout. 

“He told me about what you said yesterday. About Gaz. Do I need to be concerned?”

“Well, I am concerned about Gaz. If you’d seen his blood the other day—”

“I mean concerned about you.”

You blink, floored. “Concerned about me?” you ask in bewilderment. “What did I do?” 

“You told Hadir that you didn’t think Gaz was human. How is anyone supposed to take that? You might not like him, but he's part of the crew now, and insinuating that about someone on the crew is—”

“Wait, wait—I’m sorry I got Hadir involved when I said I wouldn’t, but—I thought when you said you’d keep an eye on Gaz that it meant you…had similar suspicions.”

She looks at you strangely. “I never promised to keep an eye on Gaz. What are you talking about?”

Her response leaves you at a loss for words. Suddenly and acutely aware that you have been having two separate conversations—you assuming that Farah’s frustration stemmed from involving her brother when she previously asked you not to, and her assuming something entirely different. 

“Yes, we did,” you insist. “You told me the other day that you would as long as—”

Something moves in the shadows. 

Your eyes flick towards it instinctively. Then your body goes rigid.

A slender, dark eyed woman watches you from the end of the hall, her lips tilted up in an enigmatic grin. Half-shrouded in shadow, you notice her only because you catch her moving in your peripheral vision when she shifts her weight to one leg. You notice first the familiar stripped headscarf wrapped around her head. Then, the smaller details of her face—full eyebrows and aquiline nose, the soft rounded corners of her jaw pulled tight with her smile. 

“Doctor?” the Farah in front of you asks. Your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, blood pressure spiking. 

The other woman takes a step into the light. It’s Farah in shape and appearance, but there’s something off about it. Like you’re aware now of something intrinsically lesser about it when shown in opposition to the real thing. 

The Farah in front of you frowns, concerned at your sudden silence. You’re aware now of how much more solid she is, real as a gut punch. Real as grass beneath your feet back on Earth or the heat of the sun on your face, all dulled out in space.

“Did we talk the other day?” you ask. “The other day—after the navigation system was fixed?”

And her eyes say it before her lips do. 

“We haven’t spoken in days. I stayed back to help Alex after that meeting.”

Cold reality flashes briefly before you: hollow voices and replicas. What have your eyes been seeing? Reality laps against the smoothened rocks of your mind. Do you know what’s happening to you?

Can you trust what’s really in front of you?

The thing behind Farah wearing her face approaches without sound, coming closer and closer until it stands right beside her, mirroring her stance, its face screwing itself into a similarly serious expression. Double vision. Your vision is blurry around the edges, fear making you tremble something fierce. 

You keep waiting for Farah to notice it standing right beside her, for her to suddenly turn her head and see it there, but she doesn’t. She stares at you with mounting concern. 

And then you blink, the two versions blurring and then overlapping. 

Your throat makes a sound like a whimper. You take a step back, the metal clang of your boot against the floor jarring in the silence. 

“I have to go,” you whisper, the blood draining from your face, your lips almost numb.  

She calls after you when you turn around, hurrying back down the hall whence you came, but you don’t stop, breaking into a run when you hear Farah come after you.

Rat in a maze. Mouse in a trap. You scurry down corridors knowing that there’s no place to run to. At every point, there is a wall past which you cannot go. Hauntingly familiar twists and turns, everything saturated with the memory of itself, the same walls you’ve seen innumerable times. The ship fills with low creaks and hollow sounds, cramped quarters and over familiarity to the point of suffocation. 

And then the nothingness that waits for you right outside the ship. Billions upon billions of miles of dark emptiness surrounding you, only occasionally interrupted by pockets of cold clouds of gas, even more seldomly coming together in precisely the right way for a star or planet to be born. 

Set in contrast with the vast infinity just beyond your walls, the ship feels impossibly small. A tiny speck floating through the cosmos. 

You wish you could wrench a window open and climb out of it. 

You can feel it swell up in your chest at first, bigger and bigger, stretching you around its immensity. Suddenly unable to take in a full breath, your chest too tight for your lungs to fill. Your body is somewhere else behind you, on a ship drifting through space, no certainty that you’ll ever return home. Earth is so far away—tens of millions of miles away from you and no way to get back. 

There’s a hand on your nape suddenly. 

“Hey,” a low voice murmurs. “Are you alright, love?” 

You don’t answer, heaving for breath. Chest collapsing in on itself. A dying star; tiny, tiny light flickering in and out of existence. Hands sweating profusely. Heart hammering against your chest so hard it hurts. 

“I’m with you, love—I’m not going anywhere.”

The voice murmurs low in your ear again, susurrus but too far away for you to make out. Then, a hand on your low back guiding you away, tucking you into a soft, warm place. You go with it. Dark. No blinding artificial lights blinding you. 

“C’mon, breathe with me,” the voice guides you. “Deep breaths. In, out, in, out—”

You follow their instructions, taking in a shaky breath and holding before expelling it. 

“There you go—that’s good,” he praises softly.

The come down is rough. All that adrenaline dumping straight out of you, heart still lurching in your chest. You’ve never had a panic attack before, but you know what to expect in the aftermath and it doesn’t disappoint. You might as well have been hit by a truck for how much your body aches. 

When you finally have the wherewithal to look around and take stock of the situation, you notice that you’re in someone else’s quarters, the lights dimmed until only a sliver of light penetrates through the dark. It’s one of the smaller rooms, no porthole to gaze out through into the blackness of space—only a cot and a folding table mounted into the wall. 

Crouched in front of you, your limp hands held in his while his thumbs rub soothing circles on the backs of your hands, is Gaz. 

Your horror is a beast on the periphery of your consciousness. Too depleted for it to overwhelm you. But you feel it balloon in your chest even though it doesn’t have the strength to move you. 

“Love, listen—shh, no, no, no,” Gaz shushes you when you try to cry out. “No, enough, you need to calm down. Just let me speak, alright?” 

He shuffles closer to you until he looms over you, your knees spread wide to accommodate him. You get a better sense of his true size from this angle, the man composed of solid, compact muscle, his narrow waist deceptive, giving him a leaner appearance from afar than up close. You know now how much room he can take up when he wants to. 

“None of this is your fault,” he says. He shifts, releasing your hands to cup your elbows instead, smoothing his hands up your arms. “You’ve worked so hard to show them the truth, but they just don’t want to see.”

“It’s—they can’t see because of you—” you croak. 

Gaz shakes his head. “No, no. If they wanted to, they’d see through it. Like you have.”

“No—you’re doing something to me.” 

His lips flick up into a smile. “Doing something?”

“You’re making me see things that aren’t there,” you whisper, shrinking into yourself. “I don’t even know what’s fucking real anymore—you’re scaring me.”

Even this close, you smell nothing. No heat emanates from his body or breath puffs from his lungs. It’s like a monolith looms over you, staring down at you through eyes that you can see but cannot comprehend. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a man. But he is not; he is something altogether different. 

A habitation of otherness smiling down at your unraveling interiority.

“I can make them believe you. I can help them see it with their own eyes. Would you like that, love?”

He says it with so much tenderness, stroking the backs of his knuckles over your cheek. 

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer at first. You’re stuck gazing into his eyes. 

“What I mean,” he says, leaning in until his words are all you can hear. “Is that I can take away every shadow of doubt from their minds until all that’s left is the cold clarity of certitude. Show them what I’ve shown you.”

Gaz cups your face in both hands, fingers spread wide over your cheeks and neck, drawing you in until your lips brush against his. Softer than you expected, with a touch of texture. You don’t know what to think of him anymore, whether it’s your lips touching his now or whether this is all happening in your head. 

Then your lips part and he sighs into your mouth. His lips glide over yours, tenderer than you expected. Soft and wet; silky. Warmth spreads across your chest, everything suddenly concentrated on his kiss. It deepens almost naturally, your hands lifting to fist in the collar of his shirt and drag him closer to you, exhaling harshly into his mouth when you pull back to breathe, only to fall back into him again. Mouth tasting of something you can’t put your finger on; almost ambrosial. 

Is this what he’s wanted this whole time? The thought vanishes as soon as it comes. You’re a ball on a tether swinging in circles, a small planet orbiting this sun. And you’re slowly, but surely, sinking into him, gravity pulling you so close that you can feel the heat of flames against your cheeks. 

He breaks the kiss and your eyes flutter open to find him staring back at you through half-lidded eyes. “Well?”

“Please.”

Gaz smiles against your lips.

[yeet-me-dad-dy]

The Arcane - Chapter Four - Anomaly

Summary: You find an anomaly in Viktor's blood. He takes you down to see his old doctor. You meet Vander.

Characters: Viktor x Male Reader (Dr Raven) x Jayce (Eventually)

Warnings: Blood

Words: 2,408

After Viktor departed from your lab, you set the centrifuge, prepared a slide, poured yourself a drink, and sat down to examine his blood more closely. It was clear right away that something was wrong.

“What the…?” you mumbled as you gazed through the microscope.

His red blood cell count was fine and the cells were dispersed nicely – not too close together, not too far apart, not clumped up in groups. But there was an… anomaly. Around the white spot of hemoglobin at the center of each cell was a blue ring.

That’s why his blood seems purple. The red and blue are mixing. You made a quick, preliminary note of the observation. Without more testing, there was no way to know whether this anomaly was strictly discoloration, or if it was something more serious. Was it preventing the cells from transporting oxygen throughout his body? You would have to separate a cell and look more closely at the… mutation? Toxin? You weren’t sure. Normally, this kind of mystery would delight you. You were excited at the prospect of making new discoveries, of course, but you were also worried. Would the research you were conducting on your own blood be able to fix a problem you’d never seen before and hadn’t accounted for during testing? The best way to find out what would happen if you mixed your blood with Viktors was to do just that.

You prepared a secondary slide, focused the microscope, then pricked your finger. Carefully, you picked up a tiny bit of your blood on the end of a scalpel and dropped it into Viktor’s on the slide. You peered through the lens, holding your breath. With other samples of diseased blood, the common trend was that your blood would mix with the foreign sample and dissolve whatever anomaly it found present, whether that be an infection or something else, rendering it harmless. From there, the theory was that this bi-product would be filtered out of the blood when it traveled through the liver, and then be disposed of in the urine.

That was only a theory, however, because none of your subjects ever survived long enough to prove it. For some, death took seconds. For others, minutes, hours, or even days. For all of them, though, it was excruciating.

And this was why: After a few seconds of contact with your blood, Viktor’s cells began to burst. You expected no less. The main focus of your research was figuring out how to make your blood less volatile. You couldn’t figure out why it had the effect it did, and while some of your research had proven promising in delaying the inevitable, you had been unable to stop it entirely.

This small test was a good sign, despite the outcome. This proved that your blood could remove the anomaly from Viktor’s cells if it turned out to be harmful. You just had to find a way to get it to work without killing him, which is what you’d been trying to do for the last hundred years with no success. You sighed and leaned back in your chair, pinching the bridge of your nose. There were other tests to run, other observations to be made. It could be that the blue ring was nothing more than a strange pigmentation phenomenon and wasn’t hurting him at all. It could be that his previous doctors had been so focused on this strange blue ring that they had completely missed a more obvious answer. The human body, so intricate and complex… Everything was connected. If one thing went wrong, everything was affected.

You stopped by Heimerdinger’s office later that evening, around five, with dinner for Viktor.

“The apple wasn’t enough?” he asked slyly when you set the bag of take-out on the desk next to him.

“I’m afraid it’s going to take more than an apple to keep this doctor away. Sorry,” you smirked.

“What if I throw it hard enough?”

You chuckled and pulled up an extra chair to sit next to him. He put down the notes he was organizing for Heimerdinger and opened the bag to see what you had brought him. A fresh, hot, healthy meal awaited him, and while he didn’t usually have much of an appetite, the smell of it was making his mouth water.

“Any breakthroughs?” he asked as he fished the fork out of the bag.

“Breakthroughs? No. Curious observations? Many.”

“Do tell.”

“There’s still more testing to be done, but what I can tell you is that your blood is healthy, except for one thing.”

“Oh?”

You nabbed the orange out of the bag and peeled it for him.

“There’s an… anomaly," you explained. A blue ring around the hemoglobin in each red cell that shouldn’t be there.”

“Anomaly indeed,” Viktor agreed, his brows furrowed. “So what does this mean?”

“Like I said, there’s more testing to be done to find out what that ring actually is and what effect its having on your body. It could just be pigmentation.”

“But then, what’s causing it?”

You shrugged.

“That’s the million dollar question. A question I’m afraid I’ll have to take a lot more samples in order to answer. Samples of more than just your blood.”

He tilted his head to the side, not quite understanding.

“Plasma and bone, primarily.”

Oh. Those were not pleasant samples to give.

“But those can wait for now” you assured him with a soft smile when you saw the sick look on his face.

After dinner, you took Viktor to your lab to show him the slides and explained what he was seeing, chatting at length about the possible causes and effects of the mysterious blue ring. Then, when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, it was time for Viktor to show you to the Undercity, where you hoped his medical records could be found.

The Undercity was damp and smelly, with a comforting darkness pierced by blinding neon lights. The gaze of every Trencher was on you and Viktor as you wound through the narrow, muddy streets, some glittering with greed as they took in your expensive clothes, and others darkened by fear when your red-hot gaze found theirs. You were on edge and Viktor could tell.

“Relax, will you?” he said as he limped along.

“Not sure I can do that,” you chuckled dryly.

The streets became thinner, the buildings more dense and compact the farther down you traveled. The deeper he led you, the thicker and more oppressive the air became, as well. It didn’t take long for Viktor to start coughing.

“Stop, Viktor,” you said, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “I can find my way from here. I want you to go back where the air is nicer.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but another coughing fit overtook him. When he finally got control of it, he nodded.

“I’ll met you on the bridge.”

“No,” you shook your head. “I want you to stay close. Meet me at the edge The Lanes.”

Worried I’m going to get mugged, are you?” he smirked.

“Of course I am.”

His smirk fell, and he frowned.

“The people of The Undercity aren’t animals, doctor.”

“No, but some of them are desperate, and you would make an easy mark.”

“That applies to people in Piltover, too, you know.”

“I know. Which is why I would be asking you to stick close if we were up there, too.”

He sighed. He wanted to be offended, to argue that he could take care of himself, but instead, he found your protectiveness… endearing.

“At the edge of The Lanes, then,” he agreed.

It wasn’t a long walk back, and anyone who so much as looked at Viktor shied away when they saw you watching. He would be fine. As he limped away, you turned and continuing deeper into The Fissures. The air down here wasn’t necessarily toxic anymore, thanks to the filtration system that House Kirraman had installed years ago. But it was still heavy, and, gods, the smell. Like sulfur and sewage. The people down here regarded you with mistrust. Topsiders didn't come down here unless they were there for shady dealings. You didn't belong... Or did you? You were scary enough to fit in, that was for sure, but your clothes betrayed your status. You yourself were an anomaly in the veins of The Undercity.

You approached one of the first people you encountered, but she scurried away, hissing obscenities, before you could ask your question. It took you quite some time to find anyone willing to point you toward Viktor’s former doctor. When you did finally find him, you were not impressed in the least. Actually, you were appalled. The “hospital” was nothing more than a run-down shack. It may have been a proper hospital at one point, but now it was nothing more than dirt and grime on some old boards.

A bell chimed overhead when you opened the door and stepped inside. Somehow, the air in here was even stuffier than out there. You curled your lip, disgusted at the state of the place. It didn’t look like it had been cleaned in years. Bottles with various colored liquids filled shelves alongside ancient medical tools. You were thankful the glass on the bottles was so filthy. Some of the things floating in them were… questionable. You weren’t sure you wanted to know exactly what they contained.

An older man with a potbelly appeared from a door in the back. He wore a leather apron, stained with old, dried blood, and the frizzy white hair atop his head stuck out at odd angles. He was hunched and limped when he walked, and one of his eyes seemed to be glued permanently shut with some kind of greenish pus. He looked more like a mad scientist than a doctor.

“How can I help?” he asked with a voice like gravel, resting his fat, filthy hands on the reception desk.

“My name is Doctor Raven. I’m here regarding a former patient of yours, Viktor. I need his medical records.”

He didn’t react for a moment, and you wondered if he’d heard you at all. Finally, he nodded slowly.

“Viktor, yes… I remember now.”

“Do you have his records?” you asked.

He grumbled and looked around.

“I think… Yes…”

He shuffled back into the back room and was gone for ages before finally reappearing with a file. He handed it to you, and you were thankful you’d worn your gloves as you took it from him. You opened it. Three pages.

“This is it?” you asked, glancing up at him.

He shrugged.

“There wasn’t much to record. Bad bones, bad blood.”

You scoffed and shook your head.

“Thanks,” you mumbled as you turned to leave.

He cleared his throat loudly, catching your attention, and you heard him shuffle up behind you. He glared at you, his hand out, palm up.

Of course.

You fished a few coins out of your pocket and handed them to him, careful not to make contact.

You were frustrated and in poor spirits when you met back up with Viktor. He stood when you approached, eyes bright and curious.

“Did you find him?”

You held up the file.

“Not sure it was worth our time, but yes.”

He took the file and thumbed through it.

“This is it?” he asked.

“I asked the same thing.”

“I visited him hundreds of times while I lived down here, and this is all he has…” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“I’ll make do,” you assured him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

You stuck close to his side as you picked your way back through the broken streets to the bridge, giving more than a few warning growls to those with greedy eyes and sticky fingers. You stopped halfway across.

“Go ahead,” you said. “I think I’m going to linger for a bit. I want to have a look around. This place disgusts me, I won’t lie, but… It’s also exactly the kind of place I want to help. The kind of people I want to help.”

Viktor smiled.

“Take your time, Doctor.”

You did take your time, talking with those that would give you the time of day, asking about their health and their woes. You knew that the Upper City didn’t care much for those below, but you didn’t realize the full extent of their neglect. You were glad that Viktor got out of there. Eventually, you found your way to a bar called The Last Drop. The barkeeper greeted you heartily and asked what you’d like to drink. You declined the drink politely and instead continued your investigation.

“Yeah, things can get pretty bad down here,” he said quietly. “We don’t have much in the way of medical attention, but the doctors we do have do what they can to help. On top of that, the food down here isn’t great. We have plenty of seafood, but fresh fruit and vegetables are few and far between.”

You nodded, listening intently. He leaned forward on the bar.

“What’s a fancy doctor like you doing down here anyway?” he asked, more quietly.

“I came with a patient, to get medical records from his former doctor. I’ve only been in Piltover for two days, and I have to admit, I’m not delighted to see how they treat this part of their population.”

He scoffed.

“Topside couldn’t care less about what goes on down here in the Trenches.”

“Yes, that’s the conclusion I came to as well,” you said quietly.

“Sure I can’t get you a drink?” he asked. “You look like you could use one.”

You chuckled.

“No, thank you. I should be heading back. Thanks for talking with me.”

You tried to give him some coin for his time and information, but he refused with a chuckle.

“No need for that, Doctor. You just do what you can to help the people down here, and we'll call it even. Hey, what’s your name, before you go?”

“Raven,” you answered as you stepped down from the barstool. “Doctor Raven.”

“Vander,” he said, offering his hand.

You didn’t want to touch the Fissures doctor, but Vander’s hand, you didn’t hesitate to shake.

“Until next time, then, Vander.”

You bid him farewell and made your way back toward home, following the path illuminated by the silver glow of the moon.

[wonderinc-sonic]

A Promise to Kronos on Ao3

Teen ◇ No ship ◇ Angst ◇ 1.2k

Omega looks deep into the furnace where Eggman Robots go to be recycled.

Team dark week day 1! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh @teamdarkweek

Omega held his body very still, his torso poised and upright, as though within it was a cup of lava filled to the brim - just the rhythm of his steps threatened to melt his whole insides with it.

He was a soldier unused, stationed in the empty room with nothing but that worthless pod of slime and unconscious meat, forgotten and rotting beside it.

He was facing the body of the creator as it melted into metal goop: he should have known he was too cowardly to meet them himself.

He was watching the draconic abomination of Doctor Eggman's greatest achievement, and even that didn't please the genius. There never was anything to be won in this cycle.

And today, he stood facing the incinerator; the teeth of that grinning emblem were actually gaps lit by fires and outlined by reinforced bars. As another batch of bots was cleared for termination, the teeth receded into the moustache, giving the Eggman a gaping maw with which he swallowed his children like a titan.

Omega couldn't feel them through the blistering heat from outside and within him, but he was flanked by his teammates. One of them was saying something, but his linguistic processing was offline, so it sounded the same as the bars that clanked back down, the squeal of trapped air escaping metal bodies, the roaring of wind rushing around in a circle to keep the fires aerated. Visible through the grates beneath their feet, metal flowed like blood from steak squeezed out on a plate. It shone and lit them up for a moment.

Someone was touching him and making a sound. They didn't exert much pressure, but he shook them off with a standard amount of force - they were sent skidding into the wall with a yelp. Someone else was blocking his path now; they were below his field of vision and pushing him backwards with immense force, but he braced and stared beyond them. They clanked their spines against his metal chest.

Metal. Metal that was flowing beneath his feet was the same that made him. How many lives had this ore that he called his own lived before it encased him? The Badnik and the biological batteries they chewed were all burned the same, separated by the immense heat. Did that rid the body of the soul?

Yes. It certainly did. Because he was sure at this moment that he could hold rage more blinding than any carbon body could tolerate: only a machine such as himself could hope to feel this burning heat. After all, they were born of it, and returned to it.

The mouth started to open again, as another mound of bodies - some still conscious, but immobilised - started to fall from the compactor above. Omega's steps towards the incinerator were thunderous, if only in his own deaf sensors.

Something tugged on his arm, gently then firmly, and finally with unholy power. He did not turn to them as they pulled so hard they separated the canon from the body and cried out in alarm. External temperatures were too high for them to follow him now. His joints started to feel slippery.

As he looked down into the pits, the teeth-gates opened for him like they were waiting for him, and the floor beneath his feet tipped forward. He grabbed one tooth-bar and watched as the next load were recycled, inspecting the furnace from inside; he saw grinding wheels of stone cogs chewing the bodies as they melted down, then slipped through the cracks to be collected and separated. He saw the ventilation and turning rod that whipped the air around, enjoying centrifugal force to maintain the pressure in the air. If this crank could be stopped, the grinding would cease, causing the hot air and fire spill out once not encircled in this airflow. It would burst out through these teeth, rushing through the room, filling it and consuming the air in here too. His occular units were becoming unreachable, ignoring instructions and almost slipping from their sockets as his body started to slump.

His premeditation came to a crashing end when an explosion rattled him, as something burst into existence behind him. Something fabric singed and smoked as a gloved hand grabbed him and snapped them out of their present space and time as quickly as it arrived.

His body gave an unhealthy crack: apparated somewhere new, his shell made contact with fresh powdery snow and the expanded metal snapped back to its normal volume and split the middle of his chest casing.

There was shouting over and around him, and the sky above was dark. Slowly, he restarted the sensory processes. His mind pinged with all the damage he detected in himself. He dismissed the warnings, and re-engaged language.

"I don't know. It was hot. I was trying to take us somewhere opposite."

"Well, thanks for that! How the hell do we move him like this?"

"Give me a minute, just hold him together."

Snowy white ears were illuminated by his own glowing eyes as she leant over him, checking for signs of conscious movement. He blinked his shutters, and she huffed in relief.

"And just what were you playing at? Trying to recycle yourself, you idiot?" She hissed into his helmet as she removed one of his drooping eyes to examine the damage to the joint.

Right, they had had a plan: cut off Eggman's supplies, one of which was metal both from mines, and from his own recycling.

"Directive-" His speaker was distorted and garbled: "Destroy forge."

Shadow leant over him now too, Chaos Emerald glowing in his burnt-bare paw.

"Without destroying you in the process." He muttered, and with a loud whoosh, they were back in the workshop, talking of plans and reconnaissance while the pieces of him were carefully taken for repair, one by one. He stared up at the ceiling, seeing a disfigured and melted body reflected on the chrome conductor panels they use8d for Chaos experiments. The outside now could match the in - completely reformed in rage. Shadow and Rouge took turns fussing over him, gently swapping, mending and welding his parts back together.

"Sorry about your arm," Shadow murmured to him, hours or no time after they'd returned.

"It is of no consequence." The broken voice-box responded. Shadow sniffed firmly, and he and Rouge looked at each other over his body.

"We get that what we saw must have been... emotional for you, in a sort of way," Rouge began. She was delicately detaching his middle from his leg motors at the 'belt', wriggling out melted and misshapen screws with tiny magnets.

"But you can't take revenge that'll kill you. We don't allow it." Shadow finished firmly for her.

He stared blankly at Shadow. There was something that he couldn't understand in either of these two - their concern for him was beyond what was warranted: as long as his core thoughts remained, his body was there to be spent and exchanged for blood. And there was something they couldn't understand in him too, now, he supposed. He had seen in himself for the first time: he was made, and still running on, fire.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Jam Scam Update

Rachel is not interested in making cash off this scam, perhaps her grift is FOLLOWERS

It's very telling that she hasn't posted the jam scam (or scam jam) on her own company Instagram account, & yet she demands each recipient to give her a jam scam shout out w/photo & mention on their Instagram accounts🤡 Make that make sense (smh)

I didn't want to say this, but now that I'm not alone: her jam scam resembles donor blood particles going for a spin (centrifugation) to separate the various blood products. My guess is that we are seeing lemon juice & pulp settle at the bottom of the jar, but what is inside the jar looks gross. The fact that she had some association w/a particular LA restaurant doesn't help my imagination 🤮

Comments from Reddit:

Someone on Twitter is tracking the jam scam jars:

Yesterday they staged strawberries, today we see raspberries. 🙄

Proper Wiseguy on YouTube thinks Charles is paying Nacho to hang out with Sparry so he can "have a friend." 😂😂😂

Nacho & wife received a NEW #10 jamscam jar🤔

Memes:

[redd956]

Whump Prompt List: NMA Edition

Based off of my NMA worldbuilding line

AKA Whump that @demondamage would like. AKA: nonhuman whumpees, experiment whump, medical whump, lab whump

CW: Violence, Hospital Whump, Experiment Whump, Nonhuman whumpees, Death Mention, Needles

Draining whumpee's blood in order to centrifuge a special resource from it

Hooking whumpee up to an IV that contains some form of sedative, paralytic, or similar formula inside of it

A physically powerful whumpee needing to be held down by a group, as a sedative is forcefully entered into their system

Whumpee watching their blood exit their veins through a tube, knowing theirs nothing they can do, slowly realizing that they're taking too much

Whumpee getting their blood drained, not knowing if their captors are going to stop before it's too late, or if they plan to get rid of whumpee this way after all

Filing down whumpee's sharp teeth, their pointed claws, sawing off their horns, tying down their tail. Whatever needs to be done to keep the nonhuman whumpee from having an advantage.

Whumpee being kept sedated or out of it, until they are needed for their magic

Muzzled and/or restrained whumpee lashing out at the doctors analyzing

Whumpee's every nonhuman aspect being analyzed, their privacy completely invaded, as doctors poke and prod, crooning over their find

A group of whumpees are captures, and they all fear the worse. However after one is found to be more rare than the others, they quickly discover that for one of them, it's going to be much much worse.

Multiple whumpees getting separated based off of the research that needs to be conducted on them

A limp whumpee, kept down for research, needing to be moved or treated as a comatose patient since the doctors dealing with them are too scared of their abilities

Testing to see what whumpee reacts painfully too, how they heal from the different things tested on them, watching them slowly grow terrified of the scientist opening their door

Taking a marker to whumpee's skin and going to town, preparing for the next set of plans

Forcing whumpee to use their magic or nonhuman abilities far past their limit

Whumpee growing more and more tired as they loose their magic/blood, watching the world darken and the noise of life muffle

Doctors taunting and teasing a heavily restrained whumpee. Whumpee, who is normally such a dangerous creature, can do nothing as they pull on their tail or forcibly spread out their wings

Hands latching onto whumpee's face, moving their head into the position they need to

Whumpee waking to the feeling of fingers prodding for the perfect injection spot

Strapping whumpee down to a table, the doctor admiring their work, thinking they'd never see a nonhuman of this type to work on

Whumpee being returned to a cell full of other nonhuman whumpees after a finish experiment, being plopped down unceremoniously in front of the others, before the doctor looks up to pick the next one

Tattooing whumpee to know what experiment group they belong to

Holding an oxygen mask to whumpee's face, watching as the mist of a sedative kicks in

[thehyperrequiem]

The Alliance of Craftworld Classic Monsters Headcanons

👻Larry Da Vinci (Poltergeist)

Unlike Poltergeists, he has no interest in haunting people, he rather haunts people's houses just for living (Ironic Pun) and/or doing chores when people are asleep, but like phantoms, he is a noisy ghost, so he might accidentally scare some people.

He does change shape, one being his normal look (He looks like himself but some bits of his newspaper and cardboard are tattered) and his scary form (Which he uses to scare off hoodlums)

He might be unliving, but he is dating a reanimated corpse of a lady.

When he is in his scary form, the 3-D Glasses of his would add color to his pupils.

🔩Victoria von Bathysphere (Frankenstein's Bride)

Doesn't feel any pain at all, but it can annoy her if someone separates her body part (Arm, Leg, etc) from her.

She sometimes run on electricity, but the wind-up key on her back helps her to move if needed.

Some parts of her parts are steampunk machinery

She can detach her parts for a joke, just to get some people to laugh. (She one time does it when someone ask her for a "hand")

🦇Clive Handforth (Vampire)

He often carries an umbrella around during daytime so that way he doesn't burn in sunlight.

Instead of drinking red blood, he actually prefers to drink red liquids that aren't blood (Red Juice, Red Ink, just to name a few), he even puts red liquid in his coffee just for flavor.

Clive's Bat Form is just a bat shaped origami with paper clips for wing joints

He can change into many animals, but he prefers the bat because...why not?

It doesn't bother him to have a reflection...

🏇Avalon Centrifuge (Centaur)

You might be thinking; is Centaur! Avalon is a normal horse centaur? Nope, his Horse Half is a Pony Breed (Small Horse)

He may be short, but his ego is quite big!

He likes to show off his pretty saddle and his pony sized horse gear, just to show what he is made of!

Avalon likes to run in empty meadows in his halftime, he loves the feeling of his hair flying in the wind

🪴Eve Silvia Paragorica (Plant Monster)

Eve is bounded in a Plant Pot, so she grows vine tentacles from her pot to help her navigate. She is only out of her pot if she is in her world (Eve's Asylum)

Any plant life that is near her range, she can manipulate the said plant to her will

She doesn't like eating any meat really, she just eats flies

She can empathize with plant life, which means that she can sense anything about the plants and their conditions, she can even feel their pain.

She always visits Clive just to cheer him up and hang out with him.

🧪Dr. Herbert Higginbotham (Jekyll and Hyde Monster)

Herbert's Hyde Side's name is Bernard Burnout (Or Mr. Burnout for Short) in reference to the fact that matches can start fires

Herbert doesn't mind his bad side at all, he refers to him as a Roommate.

Mr. Burnout is the complete opposite of Herbert; Herbert is a chilled-out matchbox with farfetched metaphors for his language, Burnout however is an insane monster who makes animalistic sounds (mostly).

Mr. Burnout is pretty dangerous, but in Herbert's defense, his bad side was particularly hungry at the time.

And what does Mr. Burnout eat? Socks and other inedible stuff, but mostly socks.

Whenever Herbert is in Danger, Mr. Burnout comes out to play...and by play, I mean causing chaos! After Mr. Burnout turns back to Herbert; Herbert doesn't remember much on what he did as Mr. Burnout.

Inspired by @iamblue15's classic monsters au work

[artmolonara]

Blood Trail - A Lumpy Where's Waldo Vamp Fic Commission- Part 3 of 3

Last chapter! Sorry for the delay, but you know how it is with holidays.

I was commissioned by @whenthedeeppurplefalls to write this via my Ko-Fi, link will be at the end of the fic.

***Warning: Contains violence, blood, injury, body horror, viscera, and highly suggestive themes. I hope you all enjoy!***

A cold towel to the face wasn't enough to perk them up, but a shower seemed like too much effort at this point.

With a heavy sigh, the Detective returned to their study, the centrifuge of their headache. Documents were placed in random spots, but they knew where everything was, and what it all said. One simple message: they were screwed.

Sitting down at the desk, they adjusted the table lamp, hoping to literally and metaphorically shed some light on the situation. Once again, they followed the paper path and played everything out from the start.

There were two separate stories to this. The Detective's and everyone else's.

The official story was that the team hadn't managed to find enough evidence of the cult to make massive arrests that night, but there had been some people taken into custody, mainly for minor misdemeanors, nothing out of the ordinary. There had been one hiccup though, in regards to the Detective. They had reported an assault by a tall assailant, one the rest of the team hadn't seen. The Detective had been found passed out and injured after contact had been lost, a broken arm and internal bleeding putting them in a cast. They had been in a state of some delirium when found, and were quickly taken to the hospital to treat the anemia and broken bones. The task force would continue to look into the cult, as they witnessed the main target leaving the club and being driven to a secondary location. The reports of the tall man, whom the Detective had said was called Waldo, would be made a suspect in relation to the cult, though this connection was still currently pending with the board, as doubt had crept in around the legitimacy of the Detective's claims that night.

This was all, of course, total BS.

A red pen was snatched up and began to make red circles to drive out the frustration.

What had actually happened... no one would have believed, both because it was totally fantastical, and because the ones to convince had been brainwashed.

The cult had been there, all of them most likely, and leading them all, the serpent's head had reared, striped and sharp-toothed. Waldo. That was his name, and he was no ordinary human being.

A familiar itch set in, and the Detective rubbed their neck to satiate it, not liking the warmth it blossomed.

A vampire's bite.

They had done research on the tropes, seeing which were similar to the experience. It was all a mixed bag of different stories, all taking liberty with the fantasy characters of myth.

But it wasn't a myth. And only the Detective knew it.

They couldn't bring this forward, as they knew the danger it would pose them. Professionally, to start spouting that they had been attacked by a vampire, and that the cult was a legion of vampires and/or thralls, would certainly be a nail in the coffin of their career. Worse, it would potentially mean danger to themself, as the team had been bewitched by the creature's influence.

The red pen circling burned into a watching eye. They crumpled the piece and scooted it off the table with the rest.

Hypnotism was a popular power to give a vampire in fiction. Seeing it, experiencing it, in real life, was another thing altogether. It had felt... odd, from what they remember. Like nothing was wrong, initially, when they had been ensnared. It was if their will and desire had simply changed of their own volition, that they wanted to dance, to follow, to be bitten, to be his. Only when the colors of the trip had melted away did they realize they were being controlled, like waking up from a convincing dream.

The after effects were still being felt, as even now, a faint glimmer of infrared and ultraviolet flickered in the corners of their vision. Though, if they ignored their paranoia, that also could be a result of the pain medication they were currently taking while on leave.

They absentmindedly scratched at the cast, trying to focus back on the looming threat, but finding it difficult.

A glance to the clock showed why. Way past late, almost morning, sun would be up in a few hours.

That brought on another worry. After the encounter, the Detective had felt a shift in their circadian rhythm. During the day, it was difficult to keep their eyes open, but as soon as the sun set, there was a sudden rush of adrenaline.

This had led to multiple checks in the bathroom mirror for any... changes. But everything seemed normal. No fangs sprouting, eyes changing color, or signs that they were going to explode were observed. Only the bite mark remained like a brand, as well as the faint scratch on their forehead, three lines in a VI shape. Still, they would continue to monitor themself.

Ablutions carried out, they made their rounds, passing a vacant room that gave them a sullen pause, a wonder as what could have been if fate had been different for her. They trailed their fingers over the door, moving on through the halls of the empty house, checking periodically that the windows were locked, and the garlic salt lines were unbroken. Hopefully, this deterrent would work, couldn't be too careful.

The bedroom yawned large before them, its king sized bed an imposing reminder that they were alone now.

Memories came rushing back, the moments before the black wall.

A human being reduced to a larval cocoon for that monster's spawn.

The realization that he had done this multiple times before, and why they couldn't find Wenda.

Because she had been with them that whole time, and was gone, simultaneously.

An echo of her had peered down at them through the eyes of Waldo, and had said, "Hello."

From there, they couldn't see past that point, only waking up, and she... he was gone. Would always be gone.

It was all too much, even now, and they collapsed on the bed, weeping with grief at knowing the horrible fate that had befallen her.

Tears fell like a stream, till the world turned blurry, and exhaustion took hold.

...

Miasma behind the eyes. Echoes of light at tail ends of the spectrum. They felt it all around, like it had seeped into the muscles and filled them with shimmering sand.

Their eyes had opened without realizing it, the dark of the ceiling coming into focus.

A faint picture of light painted the expanse, squares of window light, too faint to be morning, too few to be unobstructed by...

The Detective looked and saw the form silhouetted, windows upon windows reflecting and refracting stained glass cherry wine.

A numbness traveled throughout despite the fear that told them to move, the body they inhabited refusing to budge.

A dream... please let this be a dream...

A tap on the frame by a self brought wooden knocker, an ask for invitation.

And here, a pause. A choice presented.

All the preparation at avoidance, the steps at protection, the fear of what awaited, all still there, clawing to reason.

But, deep within, a want to know more, of knowing the inevitable, limited other options on the horizon dictated the course that must be taken, regardless of the outcome.

The Detective, with what little control they had been granted, acquiesced and nodded.

Like formless smoke, the apparition passed through the barrier, billowing towards like liquid black static, never blinking. A weight bent the bed, and the face took shape, smiling.

"Hello again."

The soft cadence in the tone rotted them to the core, a maggot swarm liquefying interior emotions till they welled out of a corner eye, misting the creature in a mock halo, like an image out of romance film.

It was fitting and parody all at once.

"You..." Their throat produced noise, somehow, strangled with the deep roots of ten thousand nagging questions, furies, pleas. One found path to the finish line, "Are you... her?"

It was not a baseless question in tone, more like a statement that required confirmation.

Unfortunately, they got it.

Waldo tilted his head, at just an angle so the eyes peaked under the glasses rim. There was a flash, the Detective saw the veins that lived in the back of their eyes, then beyond that, reaching fingers feeling along memory paths, flicking on the light in room after room, photo after photo.

"Yes... but no.... depends on your definition of being." The memory of the club, resurfaced, pulled up unwillingly, the person chrysalis becoming a copy of him, knowing the same fate had befallen Wenda. "I retain the memories of only the most deserving. They are now everlasting. They are... Me..."

Looming, skeletal, the figure encompassed their vision, "All that she was is now in me. Her memory, her emotions, her love... for you..." If there was that most pure of feeling, it was buried deep behind all, as the only thing the Detective could see burning in those irises was a hungering desire that made them want to shrink away.

But they persisted, too held fast by the agony.

"Why..." they whispered, an anger rearing, "Why did... How could she..." This was a tactic, a vie for control, to present what they knew to be false to reveal the truth. They had hoped for interjection, correction, the spoken proof that it had all been him, puppeteering, steering, forcing.

Waldo sensed this, saw through the ploy, and did not lie. His expression turned serious and cold, a chill that the Detective could feel in their teeth.

"You think me so monstrous, Detective?" It was a mocking laugh that held no humor. A chilled hand cupped their cheek. "I do not subsume the unwilling. She came to be unraveled, as all the others before, seeking only that which I can provide; escape without end."

They searched, but there was no falsehood. And that was more horrifying. "But then... why did she..." Their question was earnest this time.

The smoldering gaze dimmed to a soft somber glow.

Whether through the vampire's assistance, or their own puzzle-piecing, an explanation was found, one that was shattering. They had known deep down, had suspected, but it was too painful to put into words. So much unsaid.

But when would they ever get a chance to say it? She was gone.

And soon, most likely, so would they.

"I'm sorry," sobs were quiet in the still darkness, magnified with grief, "I'm so sorry. I should have been there for you... s'all my fault. All my fault!" Their voice reached a shrill suppressed shriek.

A talon fell across their lips, hushing them. Rhinestone eyes of blood amber bloomed in their vision, and a soothing constriction wormed through the Detective's mind, keeping those horrible memories at a distance.

"It wasn't your fault," the voice smoothed out the turbulent tide, "What befell you both was a tragedy, unimaginable. No one should have to experience it. Such loss, such death, such cruel, unjust fate..."

The claws began to trail, the hand unfurling to a mask that rested just above the Detective's face. "She didn't deserve that pain," Waldo purred, "And neither do you..."

Fingertips rested on forehead and cheeks. Through the gaps, those rose petals sparkled. Beneath was the gleam of twin daggers, hanging, poised. A serpent's tongue outlined them with a swipe, and for a moment, the Detective could feel it, a phantom memory that tingled and raised hairs.

"I give this, unto you, my precious one. The ultimate choice..." Pressure molding to them, shadowing them, overtaking all. They could think of nothing else, feeling fire rising to meet the cold.

Breath at their wound, aching, afraid, anticipating.

"Let me give you a taste..."

Black light poured into their veins as they felt the needles pierce, flowing a blinding exuberance that filled and filled and didn't stop, replacing what was being taken.

They were aware this time, knew what was befalling, yet somehow didn't care... almost...

The thought of wondering 'is this was what she felt' was agonizing, and made them roil.

Simultaneously, they were filled with sorrow. She had become this, apart, absorbed, out of a sadness they hadn't been able to help. And now, a part of them wanted to follow. To join her...

They could feel her, in those hands, those presses, familiar echoes, Polaroid imitations scrap-booked with who knows how many.

There was a humming chuckle tinged with their blood.

Five, the voice curled through their mind like vines as a stony thumb traced the VI cut on their forehead, For now...

And there it was, the proposal.

He wanted them. All of them, every part, ever drop, ever bit of their essence, till there was nothing left.

Why was that so alluring?

A deep gulp resounded in their ear, making them see glittering space a moment. A shudder ran through them that wasn't their own. Waldo raised off of them, seemingly shaking, eyes distant in ecstasy.

He felt them staring, eyes meeting. When did the glasses fall? They were now absent, along with that silly hat. Before them, he was outlined in moonlight, the tomb shed from his skin, now full, youthful and handsome, all from the life siphoned away, given freely.

Waldo laughed softly, lidded eyes smoldering through ebony strands. "Your blood really is something else."

And as he kissed them, they had to agree with him.

...

There was a period of melodious orchestra, the sinews of brain matter wrote taut and vibrated like violin strings, music that echoed in the empty chambers of their mind, full of nothing else.

Past memories flitted by, here and there, only to be copied and overwritten by this new being of multitude experience.

He alternated between drinking from their cup, and then finding a new or familiar vise to treat them to, allowing them to fill back up before draining again.

This went on for... how long was it...?

Blurry eyes, dancing with satin hues, looked out past him to the room. Things had changed. The windows were drawn and covered with thick curtains, fixtures that had not been there before. The fabric was patterned and elegant, and billowed up to the four poster... this wasn't their bed... but it was still the room... how long had they been here?

Glancing around, they spied the others. Had they always been there? They stood, observing, eight eyes blinking at them in unison. Which one had been Wenda?

Did it even matter?

There was an itch, and only now did they recall the cast they wore, a result of their gall. It had nearly been forgotten, the pain numb, along with everything.

Soft lips apologized into their flesh, "Sorry that happened to you." He kissed the hardened plaster, running a claw sensually up and down it, "Would you like me to fix it for you?"

There was no doubt in the Detective's mind that he could do it. All that was needed was their gentle, "...Yes..."

With a crescent moon grin, Waldo proceeded to tear apart the cast as if it were tissue paper. It made a static charge jolt up the Detective's spine.

The arm seemed just as worse off as when it had been bound, the flesh swollen, cut, and bruised. Faint gashes were scaring over, a memory of them sealed with a teasing tongue brought maroon to the Detective's cheeks. The break had been set to heal but it would take a few more weeks... perhaps they hadn't been here long after all.

Waldo inspected the arm, his eyes felt like they were peering through the flesh to the calcium beneath.

After a long silent moment of breaths, those eyes met their's again, a shimmering, warping, radiating curtain of hypnotic nebulas.

Words ran up their spine and through the hair on the back of their neck, nestling into the crown of their head.

I don't blame you for looking away.

What?

Before they could voice the question, Waldo's surgically sharp claw cut a line through the skin.

What struck the Detective first was the pain; there was none.

Then was the fact that there was no blood; he had taken it all.

Through the slit of flesh, softly parted by Waldo's digits, the threads of muscle lay, red like crime case string. White lines crossed over them, and as Waldo's claw gingerly stroked one, the Detective's fist reflexively curled.

Their tendons.

A wave of nausea set it, and prophecy fulfilled, they looked away.

He was there beside them, another him, smiling softly, and gently squeezing their shoulder as she would always do when they were nervous.

"It's ok, I got you."

They breathed shakily, weakly. They felt other hands on them, the other Waldos crowding around, softly pawing, distracting, as the main one worked.

A rhythm of breath was set by all, and soon, the Detective found themself mimicking unconsciously, calming down from the shock.

Then the curiosity snuck in, as they could still feel it, a strange warm pull under the skin, within their arm. Not uncomfortable, it was... it was...

They looked back.

Wound splayed open like a crimson bowl, the flesh of muscle having been parted to reveal the bones, splintered, put back together like a jigsaw puzzle. And between the ulna and radius, between all the folds of living mass, lapped a tongue, curling around pulsing veins and sinews, its owner's eyes glazed in satiation.

The Detective found they could not breath.

As the appendage swiped and tasted, polishing along the bones, the cracks began to mend and disappear. Slowly, everything else began to knit back together, taste buds tenderly lavishing, till the seam stitched close, and was gone.

Pale hands gave the forearm a firm squeeze, "Does that feel better?"

Heart was hammering, something was stirring, beads of sweat formed and fell, and still, the breath would not come, hitched.

"I-I..." the tone produced was airy and cued a ting of embarrassment to rise to light upon their cheeks.

Waldo's eyes, all of them, bore into the Detective. The main one inhaled, then sniffed with interest. He leaned back, taking them all in, realizing...

"Oh... you enjoyed that, didn't you?"

A deep mocking chuckle vibrated the room, fueling flames that licked the Detective's interior, causing them to shift from the sensation. The fire within turned rubidium as those burning eyes melted into theirs.

"If you want..." palms pressed and pulled, softening the meat that was their body, the warmest one caging the racing heart like a promise, an offer, a spoken temptation, "... I can take it further... would you like that?"

It was all his gaze, the collage of all that had come before, the passion and desirable depravity multiplied, all consuming with yawning hungry unknown.

It was the Call of the Void.

The Detective leaned in, and let go.

"Yes..."

Irises replaced with smiling maws, widening in a steaming hiss of elation, entrance to the cave of untold delights.

The Detective became aware of their surroundings for the last time as they were propped up against the headboard, a multitude of pillows at their back, placed just so to give the Detective the perfect angle of the show, a perfect view of the stage.

The canvas being their own torso, bare... hadn't they been wearing a night shirt? They couldn't remember, and didn't care.

A nail positioned between their collarbones, pressing, a bead of scarlet rosebudding at the tip. Fingers curled around their arms and legs like iron cuffs, clamping around the Detective's head to ensure no movement. For this, they mustn't look away.

Watch.

The command rang clear and undeniable, as the nail began to travel down, slowly, unzipping.

The Detective wasn't going to flee now, relaxed and accepting in the steel grasp of this monster, but as multiple fingers dug into the slit and pulled, their body betrayed and reflexively spasmed at the sight, a motion those hands had been waiting for.

As for their mind, a forefront thought looked out upon this strange new alien landscape and marveled at its beauty. But that dissociation was being pestered by the last line of rational sense.

Those are our organs, our organs! Oh God! Oh God! No! No! No~

Then, as an exhale wafted into them, filling them with a pleasant chill, the station changed.

...My insides... oh my god... yessss...

A noise escaped them,and they could hear it resounding below. A hum of encouragement tickled their ears, lips pressed in odd places.

The one, HIM, leaned back to admire the vivisect expanse, like admiring it like a work of art.

"You know, I never can get over how beautiful the colors inside are."

He reached within, they rose to meet him.

"The stomach is a marvelous baby blue."

Waldo gave the robin's egg viscera a gentle press, and the Detective tasted bile in the back of their throat. They swallowed with a shiver.

"The lungs, lavender."

A squeeze forced an exhale, and he held it a moment, letting them experience that control. Releasing, they watched themself breath, like the fluttering wings of a butterfly.

"Then down here," The daggers traced lower, lower, to that spiraled ensemble of intestines, "taupe... or is it beige?" Lithe fingers slowly plugged past the mass of folded tubes, and began to fish around, "Now... where is..."

Lightning strike, a bolt shot through the Detective, causing them to gasp and spasm.

What the heck was...

Five mouths grinned, they could feel the teeth on their skin.

"Found it."

And with that, Waldo began to stir.

Wave after wave flooded them with light, their body and voice was no longer their own. Hands kept them positioned, but were free to roam, as with the mouths. Those began to sample them just as the main one had, and it seemed their veins still had a little bit more to give. And they would happily give it, so long as they could keep taking all this, all, all!

My insides, oh God, he's there, there, there! Oh my god!

The mind circled and stayed on the same track, chasing the feeling and what it gave them, radiance and electric thought, buzzing and pent, and more, and more, and more, and~

Too much, oh God, please!

As if he heard them, though it was likely they had said it aloud, Waldo looked up at them, fangs teasing his lips.

This is just the start.

The statement echoed in their head; the Detective couldn't help the sob.

There were no more words left to say, and those that were thought were simple enough.

Please, end it, finish it, end, end me, end me, finish me, please!

A tear fell, a kiss took it.

I have much more to show you.

The pale hand reached further within, almost sinking inside, filling the hollow where pleasure now grew.

In and out, faster still, the Detective panted, feeling a pull of the soul, and something give way.

Waldo pulled out his prize.

My favorite color.

A heart.

The Detective's beating heart.

Still hooked up to veins, near empty. Each pulse pushed a lifeblood line through translucent veins, an effect that mimicked the sweater that walled them.

The piece that made them whole was brought up to Waldo's lips.

The final choice.

Do you accept?

There was only one answer.

Yes... please...

The dentin flashed, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

Lungs inflated, then let loose an orchestra of sound.

"Yes, oh, please, just take it, take it, TAKE ME PLEASE!!!"

Echoes filled the chamber, their church, ringing dim, allowed to settle to frantic quiet, all but beat and breath.

Then a hum, a purr, a rising laughter, till it was just him, spotlighted, haloed, madness.

The jaw unhinged...

"As you wish."

...and teeth sunk in with a satisfying SHNK!

...

With a cry, the Detective awoke, clutching their chest in a cold sweat.

The world slowly swum into focus. They were in their room, bathed in pinkish light of near dawn, dusted by drops of exterior rain. All was still, changed from moments ago, back to it's original state. Out of the dream.

The dream. It came crawling back like basilisk, coiling in their bosom, settling, smiling.

Their arm remained cast, not as itchy, and nothing seemed amiss, but there was a change.

They could feel him still, all over, inside, every piece a part unraveling.

And a problem had arisen, one that was rather... unfortunate.

They should have felt revulsion, anger, hatred, determination.

But the definitions were removed, lost, covered up by something new and indulging, pleasant and promising no pain.

And they were so sick of hurting.

So with a shaky sigh, they turned on their side, allowing mind to fade to Kool-aid bliss.

...

From a high corner of the window, unnoticed, Waldo peered in.

His claws gripped the frames dangerously as he watched the Detective, HIS detective, dealing with their "problem."

They were nearly ready.

...

But did he want them like that?

Waldo found himself contemplating other options, ones they had never considered, illogical, yet persistent.

This one was perfectly slated to become the sixth, yet the thought of them incorporating was... distasteful?

No, further from the truth, the Detective tasted divine.

Was that merely it?

A selfish desire to keep that taste around? An indulgence of appetite?

... perhaps...

He gazed upon them intently, mapping every thrash, every hair, every sound, scent, outline, the Detective, dearest...

Now they knew.

They had made a mistake.

The wife, she remained, had infected him, changed his nature in a way unforeseen.

A given heart for a gained one.

A puff of air frosted the glass, a mark made out of a habit adopted framed the Detective in valentine.

"I think I love you more than I love myself..."

And there it was, unheard, but felt, as the problem was solved, for both of them.

Morning light approaching, Waldo retreated back into the dark, weighing the paths now to take.

Consume.

Absorb.

Conquer.

Alter.

All laid gifts upon his altar.

Whichever he chose, one thing would be the same.

They were his.

And he was theirs.

~FIN~

ALL DONE!!

It actually ended a little sooner than expected narrative wise. I had a scene after this planned, though perhaps it's good I cut it out, as I didn't know what path to end it from there anyway. Shooting now for open ended/open to interpretation as to what will happen after.

Maybe I'll write some of those ending variants for a future project. IDK. Comms will be open for that.

I will say that I did give a very subtle reason as to why Wenda was susceptible to Waldo's influence. I won't go into that much, as it is a very sad subject, but I will just say that there is a reason Junior doesn't exist in this story; they never got to be.

If you like my writing, consider supporting me on Ko-Fi via the link below. It would really help me out a lot. If you want to request a fic like this, I have a commission slots for writing open over there. Feel free to DM me if you're interested!

Buy me a Ko-Fi

[heckthis-heckallofthis]

My brain will not let go of this AU so:

CB Cells getting transfused into Friends HC (?)

CB1 refers to the first body, CB2 refers to the second body. Assume none of the main group died because I will not accept this tragedy. They're put in friends for a REASON. If you don't remember their names, here's a Twitter post showing all of them. Read more separator bc this post is LONG.

RBCS + U1196

CB1 cells probably get so traumatized. I can hear AA2153 SCREAMING so loud to try to not to get pulled away into some unknown environment. BD7599 would already have a plan for when this happens and tries to pull both his juniors back, but because he tries to get both of them, it fails and he falls into the syringe anyways.

1196 technically could've escaped (probably was far enough away not to get pulled in) but she can't let AA go, that's her twink. So she goes along anyways.

I'm honestly surprised they never show what it looks like inside the syringe, centrifuge or blood storage. AA would knock on the plastic to try to get back out, he's the last one to pass out from the cold. I don't think they'd be conscious during the centrifuge, but imagine waking up to see you're all bunched up tightly with all your coworkers, that's crazy.

First one to wake up would also be AA, gets up screaming and looking around his surroundings expecting something horrible or grim. Only bad thing he figures out is that the body feels a little colder than he's used to. (Maybe Friends lost a bit too much blood in an accident.)

Wakes up and looks for his friends, CaWF blood cells see him and asks if he's okay (he's as pale as a ghost from how stressed he is) He doesn't hear them and continues looking anyways.

By the time he finds NC8429, BD is already conversing with the native RBCs. He doesn't even notice AA and NC until they tap his shoulder. I bet he'd be so glad they're alive he'd hug them fr.

1196 is killing off the bacteria that hitched a ride with the syringe. When she tries to phagocytose it she hits another neutrophil (2145) who's doing the same thing. They stare at each other for a second before 2145 cuts it in half to share it. 1196 is a little confused but hey, she got some, that's a win in her book.

They all still have a little PTSD so they're all a little flighty, F!RBCs welcome them a lot but AA is searching every capillary, vein and artery for something amiss. NC and BD are both suspicious of being transfused again but aren't as bad as AA. Once F!RBCs explain they were a bit shorthanded from a big bleed they probably stop being so worried about having to work in a bad environment.

CB2 gang have exactly no idea what to expect. They look around and are so confused because that's literally not where they were when they were last in the body. Somehow they got teleported to the entirely other half of the body?? They're in the oxygenated blood vessels despite last holding CO2???

Their map is entirely wrong now, they keep walking into vessels to be met with dead ends where a road should be, and walking into roads with tons of branches when it should be only 1 straight walkway. What confuses them even more now is how there are female RBCs along with only male neutrophils.

They'd also be shocked at how clean the vessels are, no rust, no residue, no scarring. I'm sure they'd figure out eventually they're in a different body.

Once they meet up with CB1 RBCs they rush off to finish their work (if this body needed a transfusion, it must need their help as soon as possible right?) By the end of the day they ran more laps around the body more times than they've ever had in a day because the blood pressure's good and the calves are actually doing their job and pumping blood like they should.

By the end of the day they probably feel so good with how easy it felt to do all of that. They try to do one last round before the lung cells are like "uh, guys? Y'all already finished your quotas for the next week, take a rest." The cells in Friends actually have reasonable work requirements and resting times, so the other RBCs are staring at them weirdly like "why are they going through their quota so fast?" "They want extra income from overtime or something?"

I think AA and DA4901 both try to fight the lung cell on that like "What do you mean?? You guys have oxygen right there, let us take it!!" And the lung cells like "uhh legally I can't do that, your colleagues want to do their job too y'know?"

BD is so pleasantly surprised, he even asks "So I can just, go home?? At 5 pm??" And confusedly the F!Lung cells ask him back "you need to ask for permission??" He pulls NC along with him to go explore the body's facilities and tries to pull AA with him but fails.

QJ0076 and SS1104 pass out on the floor. They're lying there while DA and AA ask around to make SURE that they can't do any more work. Some RBCs walk up to them very concerned that they don't have enough salary to afford an apartment or house and offer them to stay at their place.

At some point some F!RBCs ask for both of their contacts in case they (SS and QJ) need anything in the future. "Contact? What?" And the F!RBCs get even more concerned that they don't even have a phone. They offer to argue with their boss about salary before SS explains they're not native to the body so it's ok.

I think each group will share an apartment together at the start so they won't lose each other and also be able to save more money until they fully establish themselves into the body.

BD and NC already finished exploring the commodities of half the body by the third day while AA is walking and searching for 1196 (little does he know she's patrolling the lymph to get used to the body's vessels and migration routes because she's crashed into walls trying to migrate so many times it's getting embarrassing)

SS would also be exploring the body and maybe read more into the labor laws he never thought could exist, but get distracted by the various shops. QJ is following him and dragging him into various shops filled with delicious looking food

DA is running through the body with NO oxygen in his hands to burn his energy. Accidentally crashing into IM1235 and clamouring to help her pick up her oxygen because when that happens in his old body it'd be a big deal. 1235 tries calming him down because my god he's rushing and so anxious.

"you're one of the blood cells from outside!" And she quickly starts a conversation with him. Asks him if he's got any plans for the day and asks him to deliver her oxygen with her (he's so glad he met her bc of this)

She takes a break and brings him to the spleen but he's still worried about not doing his job enough. BD and NC are there too (by coincidence) they're all super confused by the spleen only having male hosts, DA is fine with it (bisexuality). BD wouldn't mind too much (he just talks to them casually like a guy) and NC wouldn't know what to think. They'd also call him cute.

DA gets distracted only for a bit so 1235 offers to let him deliver her oxygen (her delivering the box and he holds 1 tank of oxygen) Because he isn't used to having the energy to smile at the people he's delivered to, he always has that resting bitch face that scares the hell out of cells. 1235 will look like :D while he's just >: |

Eventually SS and QJ manage to buy a phone for each of themselves, along with urging the others to buy one for themselves too. AA was skeptical until they tell him he can use it to talk to 1196 whenever he wants, in which he then got one without another question.

1196 communicates with 2145 through 0% words and 100% staring and gestures. 3033 watches them like "what the fuck" and 2145 stares back at her and she's like "I know, right?"

AA might get the wrong idea at first bc 1196 is spending a lotta time with him, but it's okay, because 2145 is just helping 1196 integrate with the other neutrophils and explained (once again, without words) that his target is KT Squad leader.

She got a phone super early because HT thought getting her one is less trouble than having to get one of the other neutrophils to send his message to attack. The other neutrophils are super confused about how she detects antigens without a receptor, but eh, they don't judge her much for it.

AA loves to send her pictures everyday, at first he wasn't used to using it, so he kept taking blurry and out of focus images, but eventually got the hang of it and even managing to take selfies. She reacts to them like "wow" and "keep up the work" it sounds unenthusiastic, but she loves them.

QJ and SS fully exploring the limits of their phones spams gifs in the group chat whenever they have the free time (which is almost every day) and bothers DA by spamming him. DA (also not used to the phone) just sends "Stop." @ them (they don't stop)

SS makes fun of DA for not knowing how to use his phone but he's not that much better either, only just a few days ago when the KT squad asked him why his profile was blank when he realized he could change it. Also he's in the KT squad group chat, not because they added him in there but because he asked to be in there and wanted to see what they were talking about.

DA is the type of guy to not understand that to interact with his phone efficiently you just tap it lightly, so he always presses kinda hard into it and complains that it's really inconvenient. I think probably the same thing happens with BD but I think NC (who is way more proficient since he has less experience with ANYTHING so he absorbs knowledge easier) would be able to teach him

By next week they're finally allowed to deliver their own boxes again but their habits really, REALLY die hard. They try not to rush and enjoy the journey but they're already so used to sprinting across the body they think that a light jog is normal pace (it's not) so even though they tried not to Speedrun it, they still manage to finish it faster than what normal rbcs are supposed to do.

What's worse is on their days off, CB2 gang has no idea what to do because they've never had one before. SS is off to terrorize the KT squad again (he's like an even worse drill sergeant but this one isn't bound by the legal system to not mistreat them)

DA is sprinting around the body again until 1235 asks if he wants to join her girls only party. She knows he's not a girl but also, she knows he's kinda lonely so invites him anyways. He gets a silly bow on his head and his nails painted while all the other girls are looking at him a little confused.

"uh… RBC, he's not a girl… is he….?" "Oh no no!! It just sounded like he's never got to do something like this back where he was from so I wanted to show him!!"

He's happy about having a full 24 hour day to relax and have fun without worrying about ANYTHING, even if he is a little paranoid. He doesn't show it on his expression but I'm sure 1235 can tell he likes it. Not sure Abt the other girls tho.

1235 takes a photo with him together and tells him to send it to his friends to show them how much fun he's having. SS calls him a pretty boy while QJ is jealous he didn't get invited. DA still doesn't know how she got the image that she took with her phone, on his phone, and how he sent that image that he didn't take, to his friends.

POV: You are BD7599 asking the other senior RBC's why the spleen and liver only have hosts and no hostesses only to learn that in this body EVERY RBC is into men. Even the male presenting ones. Also you get hit on by other RBC guys.

I don't know which is funnier, making NC just a little gay and figuring out he is because of the hosts in the organs that host RBC's, or making him not into men at all and being stressed out about how to explain that to the super nice and gentlemanly hosts in the various organs.

AA tries out the liver's host bar after a moderate drinking night and has that exact same scene of him when 1196 comes up and covers his boner except he's with a guy instead and he's even more embarrassed.

SS loves minding the KT squad's business. Cross is stressing Abt what to message 3033 and he's like "c'mon, you literally kill for a living, how hard can it be??"

DA writing out things like "Closest glucose shop" "nearest vending machine" in the CB2 group chat bc he's confused.

They learn about video calls and lose their minds. SS tries to show the others the KT cells he's been tormenting but his hand is too shaky to see anything. DA looks like those old people who use a phone for the first time, putting it too close to his face. QJ manages to figure it out but accidentally presses the end call button and can't figure out how to rejoin the call.

Similar thing with CB1 but NC is actually using it properly while he's trying to teach BD how to angle his phone properly, and AA is holding it fine but he keeps aiming it at 1196 bc he loves looking at her.

DA asks around for a map of the body because he's still not used to the vessels and every RBC just advises him to look at his phone (he doesn't know that his phone has a map app) Only when he sees IM1235 open his app up to add in her address does he realize. "THERE WAS A MAP IN HERE THE WHOLE TIME??"

When they deliver to Dendritic cell he shows them ALL his beloved lactic acid bacterium. NC, SS and QJ find it cute and or impressive.

When they deliver to M cell and he spews his apoptosis thing. They turn to stare at DA when he says that he feels like it's barely worth it to keep living. Depending on how healed DA is he'd slap him and tell him to get it together or he'd be like "Yeah."

[abybweisse]

Ch204, Spoilers (part 1)

I've got the untranslated chapter (part 1) below the cut.

Despite the Halloween cover art, we are still on assignment.

The staff is talking about how Theo is next, as top student in the Pomeranian class.

We have confirmation that Layla/Al is Vega (Collie at the orphanage), while Doll is Canopus (Corgi at the orphanage). I know that was most likely the case, but I was hoping their rooms at Sphere Music Hall had been switched. However, Doll definitely goes with the bare minimum bedroom that's shown for Canopus, and Layla/Al definitely goes with the lavish bedroom shown for Vega. I accept and make peace with this information.

I wish I knew what else the staff was saying. But then they definitely talk about the blood supply, maybe specifically about Canopus, since they have Doll there, who is in need of a blood transfusion.

Now Snake and Finny must know for sure that this is a blood collection facility, too, though they already know they have to shut the place down for killing kids and saving their bodies and organs.

Idk whether they need to use the centrifuge, or if they are simply showing it to us again. About the only reason I can see for them using the centrifuge now is if they need to separate the plasma from the blood cells. If so, and they are actually transfusing just plasma, then it would finally make sense to only use AB/Sirius for real Ciel.

I have no idea what the kids are saying, though Finny might be mentioning his backstory again.

But Theo is really letting it sink in what is about to happen to him... if he can't stop it.

Is he still wallowing in fear, or is he planning something?

Ever since we found out last month that Theo would be next, I've been expecting him to use himself as bait, sort of, and for the others to somehow sneak into the carriage when he's taken away. A bit like how our earl and Sebastian/Rathbone set up for Ran-Mao to dress as our earl and be used as bait when Snake's snake attacked again (murders arc). He could pretend like he has no idea what's about to happen and hope the others can save him. Risky....

Will post part 2 soon.

[tagrasso-art]

Day 3: Vampiric

Personal log of Sc.D. A. Harlow.

My esteemed colleague has failed to properly secure and lock up her specimens. This led to some rather intriguing observations. Two vampiric semiexoskeletal specimens, more armored slug than insectoid, escaped containment. One of the two managed to sting me with its proboscis before I noticed its presence. Within about twelve seconds it was writhing, then died. Naturally I secured it and its still living kin and then accessed my colleagues files. As it turned out, the species was labelled as possessing a highly potent and fast acting neurotoxin, inducing paralysis which can lead to death in smaller life forms by disabling the musculature that circulates blood. I however, felt perfectly fine. After a few tests with the living specimen and cloned mice from our database, I have come to the conclusion that the specimens venom is utterly ineffective against terrestrial, or at least mammalian species. Furthermore, mammalian blood appears highly toxic to the specimen. I 'borrowed' a few more of the slugs and fed them phases of blood separated via centrifuge. They appear susceptible to red blood cells specifically. Further testing with ion labelled hemoglobin led to a broad array of labelled compounds in the specimen's guts, while the hemoglobin itself has vanished without trace. I suspect that it has been metabolized into some compound that displays extreme toxicity to the specimen. Further tests pending, once I find a good excuse for why my colleagues terraria are empty.

[juvaprp]

Your Trusted Partner for Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy Solutions

Welcome to the forefront of innovation in Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy. At JUVA PRP, we're committed to revolutionizing the field of regenerative aesthetics with our customizable solutions tailored for practitioners in the USA.

[stuff-plus-textposts]

Nothing At All is a Good Song

Nothing At All is a song from How To Dance In Ohio the musical that I really really like. I have this whole animatic to it mapped out in my head, but I haven't got the skill or patience to actually draw it. But the song's singer Desmond Edwards said that they would want to read the outline I've written, so here it is! It's very long and I'm sorry.

I work in a lab at a hospital, and this is about my job.

I walk into the lab, into the break room, and put my purse down. On “It’s not like I’m shocked by the ableist cliches, but they do make me tired,” I reach into my purse and put on a barrette (which I actually wear everyday). The barrette then turns red and becomes a wisp of smoke following me. 

“Do I only exist on this planet to make somebody else feel inspired?” I’m grabbing a lab coat from the closet when the wisp flies away from me, I turn to follow it and see one of my coworkers waving at me. Said coworker is drawn with no eyes or nose, just a mouth and eyebrows - everyone in the animatic is drawn like this except for myself. I wave awkwardly back. 

“I’m no object of pity, and if that’s what you see, then clearly you aren’t seeing me” the camera circles around me, showing a hallway that looks like I’ve made it longer for dramatic effect but that actually is that long, and then pans around so you can see my face as I start walking down the hall towards the core lab. 

I pretend to be my own OCs a lot, so the characters I turn into are my own characters. As I turn into each one, the wisp of red smoke becomes an article of clothing on them. First is Jaimy, who has a big red bow. Then Tris, who has a red ring, and finally Jada, who has a red headband. As the line gets to “today’s look is nothing, nothing at all” I fade back into my normal self with the wisp of smoke at my shoulders, and walk over to my work station. I type at my computer with the wisp curling over my wrists, I grab a pneumatic tube that’s just come in with the smoke curling around the tube and my hands. 

“I try to have patience meeting folks where they’re at” I sit at my chair talking to my boss, who is on one knee in front of me because she's really tall. “But this gets under my skin” she stands up to walk away. “Cause if you’re writing about me, then getting to know me should be where you begin” my boss goes over to one of my coworkers, a guy who acts like and is treated like he’s a supervisor even though he’s not, and says something. The two of them look directly at me, then back at each other. 

“It’s so condescending assuming the worst” We see my hand reaching towards a piece of paper on a printer, which is me attempting to do an assignment that I’m capable of doing but don’t have permission to do. The wisp of smoke curls around my hand and pulls it back, forcing me to turn away and see my boss. I glare daggers at her but that’s all I can do. 

“When I’m Wanda Maximoff” My glare fades and I turn into my OC Taylor, the red wisp becoming a wand in my hand. “I can change my own reality” using the wand, I open up a centrifuge and remove the tubes of blood to float in front of me. Unlike most of the animatic, which is black and white, the tubes are in color. They’ve been spun already so you can clearly see the red blood cells at the bottom, the separator gel, and the plasma/serum on top. Some of the tubes have light green tops and some have gold tops (if you’re curious what I’m talking about, look up centrifuged blood gold top). “When I’m Gaga I’m ready to rehearse” I change into my OC Jodie, stepping forward into a pirouette, the red wisp turns into a rehearsal skirt, and the tubes of blood are still floating in front of me. “When I’m Miles Morales I really do believe I am a superhero in the multiverse” I change into my OC Cytherea and start to float, the wisp becomes glowing red eyes, and for a moment the tubes of blood turn into crystals in front of me. “But todays look is nothing, nothing at all” I morph back into myself and come back down to the ground. The tubes of blood become tubes of blood again and return to my hands. The red wisp goes back to being a red wisp at my shoulders. 

“Then come the voices of doubt saying right on cue” we see the core lab, where my coworkers are doing regular core lab stuff, like typing at computers and putting stuff into machines. “This world will never make space for people like you” my coworkers all look at me, now looking angry, and now shaded red. I take a step back. “I see my past rejections framed and hung on the wall” The tubes of blood fall out of my hands, not like I dropped them or anything but just like in a floaty way. I also start to float as the background becomes black behind me, and we see representations drawn in red of various crappy things that have happened to me. This includes F’s on papers, children laughing at me, and mean quotes people have said to me. They scroll by in the background. 

“And I wish I felt nothing, nothing at all” I start crying and I curl up into a ball. The background changes to say in giant red letters “Autism.” But then the red disappears from the actual word, turning it white; the red becomes becomes the wisp again, circling around my whole body. “Nothing at all” the black background fades, leaving me in a cloud of red. “So sick of good intentions, that only make me feel small” still surrounded by the cloud. I look up and see the lab in front of me, except I am literally small now, and it is huge. “Your good intentions all add up to” I fall to my knees with my hands over my ears. “Nothing at all” suddenly I am normal sized again, holding the tubes of blood like I was before. I shake my head a little bit and look startled, as if I was trying to shake myself back to reality after zoning out. 

In the instrumental break, I walk over to one of the stations in the core lab and put the tubes of blood in the rack. Then I’m seen getting my purse and leaving the lab. 

“That’s why tomorrow night I will not be at the formal dance” we see me driving home, coming inside, and walking upstairs to pull out my laptop. “though I’ve worked hard to get there all this year.” The red wisp settles around my shoulders, still weird and wispy but not floating anymore, just resting. I take a deep breath and open my laptop. “That’s right, tomorrow night I will be doing my first livestream” I open up a zoom meeting entitled ‘Ableism in the workplace’ and click join, “to discuss the controversy further here!” I wave at the people in the meeting, and you can see the clock behind me displaying the time 5:30. “Cause the whole conversation” we see a girl wearing noise cancelling headphones talking on the screen. “Needs a huge overhaul.” We see a boy talking on the screen. “And if we simply do nothing.” I wave again, and you can see that the clock reads 6:30 now. I close the laptop and look sad. The red wisp starts to float again “nothing will change at all.” The wisp becomes a single red tear which falls down my cheek. 

In the final instrumental, I wipe the tear away. My hand stays on my face as I move it up to rub at my head, like I’m pushing my hair away from my face. When I pull my hand away, the red is gone and it has turned back into the barrette that I put on at the beginning. I set the barrette down on top of my laptop, alongside my employee badge, and stand up to walk away. The end.

Don't worry though, this makes my job sound awful, but it's actually really cool and most of my coworkers don't suck. This is a picture taken for lab week a few weeks ago, I'm the white girl sitting in the front :)

@wakanda-never I hope you like it! I know it isn't exactly what the song is about, but it's what it makes me feel. Thank you for everything you did with HTDIO, it's one of my favorite musicals ever because it makes me feel so seen.

[strangeauthor]

i'm so sorry to be the bearer of disturbing news, but vampire facials go as follows.

BIG warning for blood and needles description.

Basically, they take your blood when you show up, put it into a centrifuge to separate it into its constituent parts, and inject your own plasma back into your face, repeatedly with tiny needles. so the face heals the many little wounds slowly, and apparently, the blood products introduced to them are supposed to help heal it in a way that it looks younger. Somehow. very strange celebrity anti-aging thing. bet it wasn't cheap either.

if they were re-using needles between clients to cut costs, i major bloodborne pathogen issue is super unsurprising.

WHAT THE FUCK