#but a cancer drug would need time to test how effective it is

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

Very interested in the whole the FL has fatal cancer thing in Queen of Tears because the doctor told her by herself, told the husband, and the FL has been having hallucinations and other symptoms. Doesn't seem like this is a fake disease. So can she live? Without it feeling like magic?

I've watched two other dramas where a lead has fatal cancer from the beginning, Doom at Your Service and Moon in the Day but both of those were fantasy. I guess they set up her giving money to research and I'll have to suspend my disbelief if that comes true (I am a medical researcher, all the money in the world cannot make research go *that* fast)

Anyway, such an interesting premise. Curious to see where it goes!

[fatliberation]

Did u have a post abt how ozempic doesnt work somewhere on here? Tryna find it rn.

I don't post a whole lot about o/zempic or w/egovy in depth because it's a (somewhat) triggering topic for me. my dad is a lobbyist for n/ovo n/ordisk and he has continued to try to get me to take his drug because I have a "disease" that needs to be "treated." we've gotten into countless fights over it. I'm not in a place where I have the emotional energy to post about it, but here are some podcasts on the subject I have listened to and trust:

but yes, in short: it doesn't work, not for weight loss at least. it's prescribed with a diet and exercise (when their marketing relies on the fact that diets don't work. funny.) it doesn't make fat people thin, but it does make you lose a small percentage of your body weight (about 5 percent) because it's an appetite supressant. supposedly you would have to be on the drug for the rest of your life to keep that 5% off, and it's only been tested for a few years so we really have no clue of the long-term effects, and capitalism loves dependance! the side effects are horrible and are often too unbearable for folks to continue the drug. complete loss of interest and joy in eating, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, stomach pain, headache, dizziness, fatigue, even gallbladder and pancreas problems, gastroparesis, and blocked intestines. and there could be a risk of thyroid cancer.

[noparadiseinthis]

This is the first time I've posted here and it's also the first time I've written in English. Bear with me, Grammarly helps, but it doesn't work miracles.

How I feel when I see you right in front of me

Spencer Reid/fem!reader

Warnings: mention of previous drug addiction, mention of suicidal thoughts, mention of the reader's mother's cancer (sorry, it's for the plot), angst (I think)

Summary: Spencer has a new girlfriend. You're everything he could wish for. Unfortunately, you doesn't know about his previous "habit" and leaves something in plain sight. Is Spencer strong enough?

Words: 614

For Spencer, you're more than he deserves at any time in his life, but especially at times like this. Staring at the small tablet in front of him, Spencer knows he should have told you when things started to get serious, but he couldn't. He couldn't see the look in your eyes. He couldn't see the look in your eyes. He couldn't see the look of disappointment on your face when you found out you were seeing an addict - a former addict.

At least that would have avoided the situation. When you told him you'd buy your mother's medication and leave it at his house until you picked it up later, he didn't take much notice. He didn't think to ask what medicine she was taking. It seemed so obvious now. What else could a woman with cancer be prescribed?

Now Spencer looked at the morphine tablets as if they were his salvation or his worst enemy. Remembered all too well the feeling, the lethargy, the anxiety that itched under his skin when the effect wore off and he had to inject again. Morphine and Dilaudid weren't exactly the same thing, but they were close enough for her mind to flood with memories. For his skin to itch again. His arm was red and scratched, with perfect marks from the path his nails had traveled.

It's been so hard, Spence, you cried into his chest one night. Caring for a sick mother was enough to bring anyone down, he knew that more than anyone, which was why he resisted that tug on his flesh that led him to pick up a tablet. Just one, she won't notice. You didn't need him to become a burden in your life. You deserved someone better, someone worthy. Someone who didn't look at your mother's medicines as if they were a feast.

Getting sober was a long and arduous process, which he thought about interrupting several times. Now and then, when it got too hard, he thought about stopping something else too. His life. He never wanted to enter that spiral again. He couldn't throw it all away.

Spencer couldn't do many things, but it was still so easy. Reach out, take one of them, and put it in. Would such a small dose still have an effect after so long? Maybe he could try.

He grabbed his hair, forcing himself to think of you, of your proud smile every time he started telling you random facts about the least interesting subjects, but you listened anyway, with love in your eyes. A love he didn't deserve.

Sitting on the sofa, Spencer's hands drummed on his thighs. He didn't even blink anymore, staring at the morphine in front of him. The moment his fingers moved of their own accord, testing the texture of the table next to his enemy of the moment, the door to the living room opened.

"Spence, are you home? I've come for the medicine"

He had never felt so relieved to hear your voice, and immediately withdrew his hand, still horrified at the fact that he had almost reached her. Almost destroyed everything.

When you approached him, Spencer forced himself to form the most genuine smile he could manage, hugging you tightly.

"I love you," he whispered against your temple.

I love you and I'm not strong enough. Over his shoulder, Spencer was still looking at the pills. Wondering if he'd be able to hold back next time. Wondering what you'd say if you knew.

"I love you too," you said when you came out of his embrace, smiling fondly as you held your boyfriend's face in your hands.

That didn't help him.

[jazlynriddle]

Welcome to your life - Pt 3:

It's My Own Design Ch 6:

Summary:

Ominis fought to control his expression, to keep his hands from trembling. Five years. Five years since he'd seen his parents, and this. This was the reason they'd given him the honour of their time? This was the reason they'd sought him out at Hogwarts?

The bitterness welling up within him was thick enough to gag on.

New year, new allies, new responsibilities, new avenues of revenue, and new aspects of their own Ancient Magic to explore. As the Keeper and their partners enter their last year at Hogwarts, it remains to be seen if the new school year will bring with it new problems or adversaries, but they are confident in the strength of their relationship with Sebastian and Ominis. The three of them would endure, no matter what befell them.

And if they were wrong?

What a joke, they would suffer no alternative.

Warnings: Sebastian x MC x Ominis! Drug Addiction! Spoilers! Slow-burn corruption! Dark content! Fucked up 1800s orphanages! MC has no love for Anne or Solomon! Dubious happy ending (it's happy for MC, Seb and Ominis at least).

You can also read on AO3! (chapter specific warnings below)

Notes:

Warnings: More human experimentation, more so-done-with-this Ominis, more puppy Sebastian and some top 10 anime betrayals type stuff.

Geez, my chapters keep getting longer and longer... I am so tired...

One of my cats needed surgery to remove what are either mammary tumours or just clogged duct glands, which means there's a chance she might have breast cancer, and I'm waiting for the lab test results, which is really stressing me out, she's only 6 years old and that's far too young, I am not prepared to lose her! ToT

Not to mention, my other 15 year old cat got anemia for some unknown reason which is also worrying... Plus all of these expensive vet trips means my wallet is crying, and thus I am exhausted. So, I'm going to take a break and skip the next upload, but don't worry, I'll be back in 4 weeks, sorry! (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )づ

“I still don't think you should do this.” Ominis insisted with a frown, wringing his hands anxiously. “There isn't even any real reason to risk it!”

“It'll be alright, Ominis. We're here, aren't we?” Sebastian affectionately bumped his head against Ominis’ while rubbing a hand over his arm. “The pain energy Isidora extracted looks different, but that doesn't make this one dangerous.”

“That doesn't mean it's safe either.” Ominis countered sharply.

The Keeper sighed, setting the jar down on the picnic mat beside them and taking Ominis’ hand, threading their fingers together. “Ominis, I understand your concerns, but if I'm to understand how to relieve Anne's pain, I need to know for sure what I'm even extracting.”

“Then why do you have to test it? Why can't you just keep extracting until you get the same thing that Isidora got?” Ominis shook his head.

“Because I've been doing extractions for the last two weeks, and all we've gotten are three jars of this same new heavy liquid-like pain energy, rather than the smoky bubbly ones Isidora got.” The Keeper sighed. “We're at a bit of a roadblock here. I need to know what we even have, otherwise I can't be sure what else to try.”

“I just-” Ominis clenched his fingers tightly around theirs and took a shaky breath.

“I know.” The Keeper murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “It'll only be a small amount, less than a hit's worth. Even if it's different in a bad way, such a small amount surely wouldn't do much. Isidora’s extracted pain took many hits to have a lasting effect on me.”

“Plus, we have you, Ominis.” Sebastian smiled reassuringly, only for his words to have the opposite reaction, causing Ominis’ expression to cloud even further with fear.

“Whose healer capabilities we will not need.” The Keeper glared at Sebastian, who winced, realising he'd accidentally made it sound like it'd be Ominis’ fault if something went wrong, and he wasn't able to heal them. “But on the off chance that I do need to go to Saint Mungo's, you'll easily keep me alive. I have no doubts, so you shouldn't either. You being here in and of itself is a safety net.”

“That's right. Ominis, you were studying under Nurse Blainey for months and she's had nothing but praise for your progress.” Sebastian quickly followed. “Even if you don't trust yourself, you can trust us, and you should trust your teacher's judgments. Or are you saying that the woman who saved our beloved isn't a reliable healer?”

Ominis blinked at his unexpectedly shrewd approach and the Keeper smiled, there was that quick brain of Sebastian’s at work, he was clumsy, but he certainly could learn. Look at him, working around Ominis’ accountability anxiety with reason.

A soft huff left Ominis’ nose and he nodded with a smile. “I suppose I can't argue with that.”

“Good, because if you did, you'd be dimmer than me and that's a low bar.” Sebastian nodded firmly and the Keeper laughed at his confidence.

“Not sure you're quite that bad.” Ominis chuckled.

“Oh, I am fully aware of my status as the biggest idiot on the planet, but thanks anyway.” Sebastian grinned and placed a kiss on his cheek. “And even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“I suppose idiots die hard too, so that's kind of a good thing.” Ominis shook his head with a sardonic smile.

“Well then, in that case, we have nothing to fear.” The Keeper grinned as he gave a surprised laugh, deciding that Ominis seemed sufficiently appeased thanks to Sebastian's quick damage control. They released the blond's hand and collected the jar once more, before standing to put some distance between themselves and the boys, just in case.

Taking a few steps away from the picnic mat that they'd just had tea on, in the courtyard under a tree, the Keeper trod carefully across the soft young clovers that were growing and slowly overtaking the grounds. With a quick twist, the jar's cover came off and they lowered the tip of their wand into it, extracting a small bulb from the viscous pain energy gathered at its base.

Anticipation coiled in their chest. The Keeper hadn't been lying about the necessity of identifying the stuff they'd been extracting, but they had, admittedly, been very excited to try it. Holding the small bulb, they paused for a moment. Wait, how do I consume this...

The previous pain energy had been smoky, so inhalation was obvious. This one on the other hand... Well, it was more like a liquid. Swallowing? Tipping their head back and opening their mouth, the Keeper lowered the bulb onto their tongue.

There was nothing like a taste to it nor did it actually feel like anything physical was in their mouth, instead it felt like the morning mist, half there, half not, and it stung slightly as it passed, like alcohol. Streaming down their throat and fizzing in their chest.

The moment the sting evaporated, and the sensation ceased, the Keeper felt a familiar pulse of sweet burning energy flowing and throbbing through their body. Well, at least that was a similar sensation. Though, their heart sure was beating faster, was it excitement?

They pointed their wand at a nearby rock, a little larger than a head. “Accio.”

The rock obediently followed their call, however... the Keeper frowned as it landed on the floor a step away, continuing to roll sluggishly towards them, before coming to a stop at their feet.

“Is everything alright?” Sebastian called out, likely having seen their frown.

“Yes, I feel perfectly fine, just... it's strange, my magic hasn't been enhanced.” The Keeper hastened to reply, wouldn't want Ominis to have a panic attack after all.

“Perhaps it enhanced something else?” Sebastian suggested, standing, and walking towards them with Ominis in tow, since there hadn't been an explosion or anything like that.

The Keeper frowned, somehow, they felt restless. Unlike Isidora’s pain energy that sharpened their focus and senses, this one made them feel something almost akin to a burning itch in their muscles. The urge to pace or kick, their heartbeat pounding in their ears. Something else, eh?

Looking down at the rock at their feet, the Keeper drew their foot back and gave it a light kick.

The rock immediately flew across the field, slamming into a nearby wall of curing bricks and sending the bricks flying.

The Keeper stared at the would-be wall for a second, then at their foot, before groaning, rubbing a hand over their face. “Goddammit, we just stacked that yesterday.”

“Well, at least we know what it enhances now.” Sebastian grinned as he and Ominis came to a stop beside them, adding after a moment. “Also, your eyes are still red.”

“They are?” The Keeper blinked and Sebastian nodded mutely, swallowing the thickness forming in his throat when they turned their burning crimson glow on him. “I wonder why...”

“How are you feeling?” Ominis asked tentatively, reaching a hand out towards them.

“I'm alright.” The Keeper reassured, taking his hand, and resting it upon their chest. “My heart rate seems to have gone up but that's about it.”

Yeah, I think mine has too. Sebastian thought dryly to himself, releasing a heavy breath now that those ruby orbs had slid off him. There was something about their eyes, when they were like that, that made him feel like how he imagined prey would, when sighted by a predator. Though, he wasn't sure fear was what he was feeling.

Moving the Keeper’s hand to his shoulder, Ominis pressed his ear against their chest instead. “Hm. I suppose it's still a reasonable rate, like you've been for a jog.”

“See? I'm alright, love.” The Keeper squeezed his shoulder lightly as he straightened, before they held up the jar. “And, I think I've figured out what this is.”

“Oh? Care to share?” Sebastian asked, struggling to focus on the subject at hand when their crimson gaze returned to him, resting his eyes on their flushed cheeks instead.

“Since it was my physical strength that has been enhanced, I think that this is physical pain, whereas what Isidora extracted was emotional pain.” The Keeper explained, taking Ominis’ hand, and pulling him back towards the picnic mat.

“Emotional pain...” Sebastian hummed as he followed. “Her father?”

“Correct.” The Keeper nodded, taking a seat upon the mat as the red bled from their eyes, fading back into their usual colour. “Isidora was obsessed with relieving her father’s grief, the pain of loss, emotional pain. So, I think we can assume that all of the energy she extracted was emotional pain, which seems to enhance magic.”

“It is true that emotional distress can increase the strength of one's cast, perhaps that's why emotional pain enhances magic.” Ominis hummed thoughtfully, settling down beside them. “I wonder if physical pain energy boosts regeneration as well, since heightened strength and adrenaline aren't the only effects of physical pain. Pain signals the body to increase recovery efforts in the damaged region as well.”

“I have noticed that Macnair’s injuries healed slower after pain was removed, so there is a decent chance of that as well.” The Keeper agreed with a satisfied smirk.

It was quite promising that such a small amount of energy, barely a quarter of a jar, could boost their physical strength so much. Though unfortunately, its duration seemed quite similar to emotional pain as well, since they could already feel it draining from their veins.

Their gaze drifted to Sebastian as he took a seat across from them, his expression rather sombre.

“So, because we put Macnair through physical pain, that's what we got out of him.” Sebastian nodded absently. A few moments of silence passed before he met the Keeper's gaze with narrowed eyes. “Which do you think Anne suffers?”

The Keeper hummed thoughtfully. “That's hard to say, I mean, her pain is caused by a curse, it could be physical since she doubles over like her body hurts, but it could be both because its origin is a magical curse...”

“In other words, we won't know till we try.” Sebastian's eyes were dark as they lowered to his clenched fists, and not in the way the Keeper liked.

“I still need further practice and trial before I can do an extraction without damaging the subject's aura.” They murmured, taking Sebastian's hands in their own, coaxing them to relax and open, rubbing their thumbs against the deep crescents his nails had left in those palms. Those calloused hands, large, and warm like his heart, were the perfect vessel with which to hold the Keeper’s entire world.

Raising his hand and pressing their lips to his wrist, the Keeper met his eyes with a steady gaze. “But I will master it and save her.”

For you.

How long have we been down here?

The flickering light of the cell lamp was almost hypnotic, and Selwyn imagined that he could see patterns forming in indistinct shapes on the floor. Dank and devoid of colour, even the school's mattress of peasantry cloth was more comfortable than the cot he was curled up upon, trying desperately to ignore the screams of his friend tearing away at his sanity.

He didn't know why their captors had only been torturing Macnair, but to his shame, a part of Selwyn was relieved that the Keeper had only ever chained him up and waved their wand over him, seemingly without doing anything, even after their escape attempt.

Speaking of which, Merlin, it was awful not being able to stand on his left leg. Not that there was anywhere in particular to go, but he kept forgetting and putting weight on the foot, only for his ankle to give way and send him careening to the floor.

The Keeper's behaviour had been impossible to understand, and he distantly considered the possibility that the mudblood might simply be insane. Though, it was hard to imagine the ice prince of Slytherin and that cocky bookworm just following along with the whims of a no-name nutjob.

Still, regardless of their three captors' dynamics, the more pressing question... was why Sallow had stopped by his cell to drop off a can attached to a string that led out through the bars.

Put this to your ear, we've got something funny for you to hear.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean? A part of Selwyn wanted to ignore the instruction, but another was curious. It had been far too long since he'd had anything to sate his boredom. He and Macnair would talk through the bars to each other, keeping each other sane, but it wasn't the same as going out or playing.

So, he cautiously picked up the can, placed it against his ear and listened with bated breath.

The silence made the sound of his heart, beating in his ears, feel all the more agitating, each passing second heightening his anxiety and anticipation.

Until finally...

“Does it hurt?”

“Y- yes...”

“Would you like it to stop?”

“P- please... please...”

“But you see, I need someone to experiment on. If it's not you... then I guess it'd have to be your best mate next door.”

The blood in Selwyn's veins felt like ice, his vision swam, and his head throbbed.

“I-”

“Would you like that? For us to torture Selwyn instead?”

His heart pounded in his chest and his grip on the can tightened, beginning to leave indents in the thin metal. He wouldn't, his best friend wouldn't do that, Macnair was all he had in this hell hole-

“...yes...”

“Yes what?”

“P- please... don't hurt me a- anymore...”

“Say it properly, what do you want us to do? Who do you want us to hurt?”

“...please... hur- hurt Oberon... not- not me...”

It hurt...

Those words cutting deep into his chest, were hurting him already.

Words that shouldn't exist. He wanted to unhear them, to erase the memory of his best friend, speaking his name while throwing him under the carriage.

Selwyn clenched his teeth, angry tears welling in his eyes and pouring down his cheeks as he lobbed the can at the wall. He curled up on the bed, his heart aching, chest tight with betrayal, his breath catching in his throat, shaking with sobs as the last comfort he'd had... stabbed him in the neck.

The sound of metal clattering loudly against brick walls, in the neighbouring cell, brought a shark-like grin to the Keeper's face. Macnair had done exactly what they’d wanted, though admittedly, they were a little disappointed in him for it.

“Told you he'd do it.” Sebastian snickered.

“I suppose I was overestimating him.” The Keeper shrugged, even their fellow street rats had some level of ‘honour amongst thieves’ and a semblance of loyalty, what a wanker. “Alright, let's head over while it's fresh.”

At their words, Macnair sagged in visible relief, causing the Keeper's irritation at him to spike, and they gave him a few condescending pats on the cheek with a derisive sneer. “Oh, don't worry, best mate of the year, your torture resumes tomorrow.”

His face paled and Sebastian barked a laugh at his surprised expression. “What, did you think we meant forever? Wow, you're even more disgusting than I’d thought.”

“Sure glad you're not my best friend.” The Keeper shot one last scathing glance at the chained boy before striding towards the door. “Come on, Sebastian.”

“See ya tomorrow.” Sebastian grinned as he followed them out before dropping the boy from his shackles.

“How's the new gate design coming along by the way?” The Keeper asked idly as Sebastian closed the door.

“I've done the calculations, and it should be pretty easy to swap out the swinging doors for sliding ones. Maintenance won't be too much of a problem either, since we can just vanish any dirt.” Sebastian frowned, turning to face them. “The only downside is that it'd take more effort to open and close those doors, since we'd still want them heavy for security...”

“Hm, maybe we can find a way to enchant them to move on their own when unlocked...” The Keeper nodded. “Perhaps we can tie them to the ley lines later.”

“Sure, we can just stick with the swinging doors for now.” Sebastian shrugged.

“Let's get started then.” The Keeper grinned, unlocking, and opening the door to Selwyn's cell. “Oh Selwyn, you poor thing...”

“That's got to hurt, being betrayed like that. You were always following that oaf around, even since first year.” Sebastian smirked. “Were the two of you childhood friends?”

Unsurprisingly, the lump of a boy remained silent, and Sebastian snickered, taking a few quick steps forward to grab him by the arm, only for Selwyn to swing a fist at him.

“Woah there.” Sebastian chuckled, leaning back to dodge the weak swing, and laughing when Selwyn’s momentum carried him off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. “I know you're upset, but you really should know better.”

The snivelling boy glared at him from the floor through tear filled eyes.

“You're lucky we don't want you in physical pain...” Sebastian grabbed him by the collar instead, dragging Selwyn, choking, to his feet. “Yet.”

The Keeper watched with interest as Sebastian chained Selwyn to the wall. What would they find this time?

Taking a step back, Sebastian waved a hand at Selwyn in offering and the Keeper gave him a grateful pat on the head as they approached, drawing their wand. With a deep breath, they began.

Selwyn's aura was saturated.

Absolutely saturated in pain.

The Keeper shifted their wand with excitement, examining the density of pain pulsing through his body’s aura. Unlike physical pain, which radiated outwards from the point of injury, emotional pain seemed to pulse from the heart, spreading its debilitating poison everywhere.

Curiously enough, there was absolutely no difference between physical pain and emotional pain, in the way it presented and affected the body. If anything, the energy in his brain was far more disrupted and erratic than it would be with physical pain, explaining his reckless aggression towards Sebastian.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

A saying that'd been making the rounds recently. Anyone who'd lived on the streets knew the ridiculousness of such a phrase, when words could easily mean the difference between life and death. When deals could be both made and broken, lives destroyed at the word of those with power, when identity and morals alike could be forged and lost with mere words.

Only the pretentious aristocrats spouted such nonsense, and it seemed, that the undeniable truth, was that words could cut deeper than a blade, especially when one had little else. Perhaps it wasn't so strange that it was the street rats who knew this well.

Having finished examining the state of his aura, the Keeper proceeded to extract his pain, twisting their wand as they withdrew, a method they'd found streamlined the energy to minimise tearing. They'd reached the point where they could draw about a fifth of a jar without damaging the subject's aura, but they still needed more practice.

They could probably use more subjects.

Opening their eyes, the Keeper examined the smoky and bubbly glob attached to their wand. Yup, that was the pain energy they'd been taking to boost their magic, the type that Isidora had obsessed over.

“So, it's confirmed then.” Sebastian murmured, offering them an empty jar to store it in.

“Yes...” The Keeper gazed at the energy curiously. “I wonder if there are other things I can extract, besides pain.”

“Now there's a thought. I do wonder what the effects of other emotions and sensations would be when taken.” Sebastian gave a thoughtful hum.

“Only one way to find out.” The Keeper grinned. “But we'll probably need a plan to create those.”

“Good point.” Sebastian nodded. “Though, I doubt it'll be easy to get positive feelings from these guys. What about-”

“No. I'm not doing an extraction on you.” The Keeper cut him off firmly. “I'm nowhere near confident enough that I can do so without causing any damage, and I will not risk either you or Ominis.”

Sebastian grumbled to himself for a moment. “I trust you.”

“And that's lovely, but still no.” The Keeper smiled wryly, ruffling his hair gently. “There can be as many test subjects as we need, but there is only one of you.”

Sebastian's freckles were stark against his flushed cheeks, and he flashed a sheepish grin. “Do you make a habit of picking up boys in dungeons?”

“Not really, but I'd make an exception for you.” The Keeper smirked, before turning their attention back to Selwyn, grabbing a fistful of his hair and lifting his head. “Legilimens.”

The inside of his mind was curiously quiet, compared to Macnair’s after an extraction. They supposed it made sense, emotions were more strongly tied to identity and perhaps extracting his hurt had- no, this numbness and lack of feeling was too vast to be a result of their extraction.

Perhaps, like physical pain, overexposure to emotional pain would cause the body to naturally numb the senses to reduce the damage dealt to one's psyche. It was a good thing they hadn't delayed their extraction then.

That did make them wonder about Isidora’s father, was his pain not also numbed after overexposure? Or was the pain of his loss impossible to numb? Had Isidora’s father simply been a walking corpse, reduced to nothing but pain, kept alive only by her persistence, forcing him to remain in the world of the living?

Then again, the mere idea of losing either Sebastian or Ominis was enough to cause pain within the Keeper, perhaps there were also differences in response to pain, from person to person. They barely knew anything about Selwyn, perhaps this was just how he dealt with pain, by going numb.

Perhaps they couldn't apply the same standards for emotional pain to everybody in the way they'd assumed with physical pain. Perhaps, not even physical pain was the same across all humans either?

It is not your pain to take.

Professor Rackham's words to Isidora abruptly came to mind. Was it possible that Isidora, in her determination to restore his original unbroken self, had begged her father to move on and let go of his grief. That her pleas for him to do something that was not possible, were constantly inflicting new wounds upon his heart?

The Keeper considered what Sebastian had said to them after the whole debacle with Anne, when they'd asked if he'd rather things return to the way they were.

Anne and I have become very different people. We've grown apart over the years, we couldn't go back even if we tried. And... I wouldn't want to have never become friends with you.

The remedy for pain lay in finding new things to live for, not in removing the source of pain forcefully.

The Keeper had experienced their own brush with managing pain and fear, when their addiction to emotional pain energy had become an unhealthy overreliance. They'd only managed to overcome it and gain control over it because of their desire to be free of that crutch. To stand on their own, and thanks to their partners’ support, they'd succeeded.

Isidora never came to this realisation, and with her escapism and denial, she'd harmed her father far more than anything with which fate had dealt him. The Keeper couldn’t imagine doing that to Sebastian or Ominis, to be so fixated and obsessed with a ��past version’ of a person that they preferred, to the point of rejecting the actual person hurting before them in the present.

To only see the person they had been, rather than the person they are.

Sebastian, in spite of all of his flaws and shortcomings, had been able to grow, to learn to love again, to live again, even after losing Anne in the way that mattered most.

To approach his desire to cure her, not as a desire to return to the past, to undo what has been done, but instead to uphold his promise to her and move forward into the unknown future. To no longer seek a cure as a means of distracting himself from his loneliness and sorrow, his pain and despair, but instead with objectivity and resolve, as a task he'd set himself to.

They hadn’t been exaggerating when they'd said that there was only one of him, and more than ever, the Keeper was determined to help Sebastian, to save Anne so he could move on.

The healthy way, not the way Isidora had tried.

Goddamnit, they really needed more test subjects.

“Here's an idea.” The Keeper hummed, rolling their wand between their fingers as they paced before Macnair’s strung up and quivering form. “The Cruciatus curse is considered to be traumatic enough to cause mental harm as well as physical.”

“Must take a lot more than that to mentally harm you.” Sebastian grinned from where he was leaning against the wall, sounding rather proud of that.

“Come now, love. We both know you weren't putting your all into that one.” The Keeper chuckled.

“Did you want me to?” Sebastian's grin widened.

“Focus, darling.” The Keeper shook their head, before giving him a small smirk. “Maybe.”

His eyes went dark with heat at the confirmation and the Keeper rolled their eyes. Horny boy.

“But the point is.” The Keeper continued. “I wonder what would come from the Cruciatus curse.”

“Hm, well that's what he's for innit? Let's try it out.” Sebastian drew his wand. “Shall I?”

“Hang on. Accio gag.” The Keeper caught the woven rod with straps attached, that flew over to them from the bag on the floor nearby. Forcing Macnair’s jaw open despite his frenzied protests and fastening it to his face before waving a hand at him. “Alright, curse away.”

“Crucio!” Sebastian cast the spell, watching with a sharp grin as Macnair’s body instantly seized up, his eyes bulging and muffled screams squeezing past the gag while the Keeper began examining the boy's aura.

And it was fascinating. The moment the spell hit, his aura exploded with pain, it was everywhere and in such high quantities that they could barely believe their senses. Taking a deep breath, the Keeper began their extraction, only for the stream of smoke that they were pulling out, to become a raging river, and they cursed as an enormous gash ripped open across Macnair’s aura.

“Blast it!” The Keeper's eyes snapped open, what the fuck had happened? They had only caught a wisp of energy, why did his aura-

They stared at the mass hanging off their wand.

“Hey, are you alright?”

The Keeper barely heard Sebastian, too busy staring at the strange glob of energy they'd extracted.

It was... beautiful in a way, like red and black lava rolling endlessly from top to bottom, little bubbles floating and swirling around it, similar to the way Ancient magic would swirl about them when they stood upon the focus point of a Trace.

“Are you alright?” The Keeper jumped when Sebastian placed his hand on their shoulder, startling them out of their reverie.

“Yeah. I'm fine.” The Keeper shook their head, gesturing at Macnair. “Unfortunately, however, he isn't.”

“Did I hold the Cruciatus too long?” Sebastian frowned, scrutinising the boy's panting and limp form as he handed the Keeper an empty jar.

“No, you can't tell, but his aura is torn.” The Keeper grimaced as they shoved the energy they'd extracted into a jar, before returning their wand to scanning his aura. “He looks fine, but his ability to feel is pouring out of him like a faucet. In days or weeks, he'll be an empty husk.”

“Is there a way to repair it?” Sebastian frowned.

“Not that I know of. So far, I've been relying on natural recovery for minor tears, but this one is even bigger than the one Isidora left in her father, and she didn't even seem to notice that she'd torn it in the first place.” The Keeper paused, before scoffing. “Or she was simply insane enough to think that losing one's ability to even feel pain altogether, was a good thing.”

The Keeper eyed Macnair critically, watching the gushing energy pouring from his body like a disturbing misty spray of blood. Perhaps they'd might as well extract everything they could from him before he emptied entirely?

“I'll try to salvage what I can.” The Keeper closed their eyes and attempted to collect the energy bleeding from his body.

Unfortunately, the exact moment that the energy escaped his aura, and hit the air, it instantly evaporated into the atmosphere, rendering it impossible to collect.

Fine.

The Keeper tried instead to collect the energy as it bottlenecked at the gaping wound, but they were thwarted yet again, the flow of the energy being far too aggressive for them to grasp. It was like trying to row a boat upstream, against the current, with their Ancient magic simply getting dragged along by the cascade, out of his body to dissolve with his energy.

Each repeated attempt at fusing their ancient magic with any of the pain flowing out, simply drained their magic, and then said magic was promptly wasted. Aggravating, extremely aggravating. The Keeper was about to adjust their position to try catching anything they could from further up, when they felt a pair of hands take them by the shoulders.

“Okay, I'm going to do an Ominis and say that's enough. You're going to collapse.” Sebastian's arm wrapped around their waist, holding them against his chest to stabilise them, and only then did the Keeper realise that they were teetering like before.

“No, he's draining too quickly.” The Keeper shook their head. “If I miss this chance, I might not get another.”

“Ominis will kill me if I let you continue, and I feel like I'd be killing you by letting you continue.” Sebastian glared at them.

“Ugh, okay, how about you cast Crucio again? It might make the pain easier to draw.” The Keeper sighed.

“...are you just saying that so I'll let you continue?” Sebastian's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“I'm not. If it doesn't make it easier, I'll stop. Alright?” The Keeper smiled wryly. They were so used to Ominis’ fussing, that it was kind of sweet for Sebastian to be the one doing it for a change.

For several moments, his eyes searched theirs for any sign of deception, before Sebastian's jaw tightened, and his gaze sharpened.

“Deal.” Sebastian turned his glare on Macnair, looking quite pissed, as though it were somehow the boy's fault that the Keeper needed to exert themselves, continuing to support them with one arm around their waist, while he levelled his wand at Macnair with the other. “Crucio!”

The Keeper took a breath and dived back into Macnair’s aura, disregarding the high-pitched shrieks wheezing around his gag, as they attempted to weld their magic to as much of the pain as they could, before it escaped. Seeping into every crevice they could, before sucking all of it back towards themselves, pulling everything they could from his aura without any care for further damage.

“It's... it's working, it's easier to extract now.” The Keeper grimaced at the shakiness of their own voice and could feel Sebastian's arm tense against their body. “Just... a bit more and I’ll stop.”

Their vision was hazy when their eyes opened, depositing what they'd collected into the jar still hanging from their left hand, closing it, and simply letting it drop on the floor before casting Accio to call an empty jar to them from their bag, feeling the slight drain on their magic darken their vision further.

But they couldn't stop now, even with Sebastian's plainly concerned eyes upon them, the Keeper pressed on, they wouldn't get a second chance. Macnair was used up, so they had to make the most of him. They continued to extract, until they had two filled jars of that lava-like energy and Macnair’s throat was so raw from screaming that it no longer produced sound.

With each drain, the amount of pain being created by the Cruciatus curse seemed to become more... diluted, even in spite of the unforgivable. They did want to try and extract more, since this new energy type currently cost an entire test subject, but Isidora’s notes said she passed out during her first extraction, and they felt like they were pretty close to doing the same.

The Keeper sighed as they screwed the cover shut on the second jar. “I think that's... about as much as we'll get. It probably wouldn't... be very... effective to... to con...ti...”

The moment the Keeper's body went limp, Sebastian dropped his wand to catch them with both hands, releasing a soft grunt of effort.

And there they go. He sighed, gazing down at them as their head lolled back against his shoulder, brushing the sweat damp hair from their forehead with a mix of fondness and exasperation. Exactly as he'd expected, they really were pushing themselves to the limit for this. He glared at Macnair, sparing a moment to deliver a firm kick to his leg. Stupid weak purist with a fragile aura-

Naturally, at the impulsive movement, he found his balance to be at risk and grudgingly decided it was more important to keep his Keeper off the floor. Draping their arm over his shoulders and crouching, he hooked his arm under their knees and cradled them to his chest, before snatching his wand from where it'd fallen, and casting a feather-light charm on the Keeper's clothes.

It was tricky to grab the two jars off the floor, but he managed, setting them down in the Keeper's lap temporarily until he could carry them over to the bag and deposit the jars in it. Then came the cumbersome part, crouching again, he balanced his unconscious partner on his knee to sling the bag over his shoulder.

Honestly, as he stepped out of the cell and closed the door behind him, Sebastian was quite proud of himself for getting to that point, and it took him half the walk up the stairs before he realised that he'd forgotten to release Macnair from his restraints.

“Tynx.” Sebastian called out when he reached the second basement landing and the elf promptly appeared beside him.

“Master!” Sebastian had never seen the stoic elf quite so horrified, big eyes wide with fear, and he almost thought Tynx was in legitimate danger of passing out as well.

“They're alright, just unconscious from magic exhaustion.” Sebastian quickly rushed to reassure the elf. “I need you to clean up Macnair's cell and let him out of his chains.”

Tynx frowned at him for a moment, and Sebastian cocked an eyebrow, wondering if the elf was actually being suspicious of him or even considering the possibility that Sebastian had harmed his own lover, before Tynx gave a slow nod. “Yes... sir.”

The elf popped away and Sebastian sighed, well, he supposed it was a good thing that they had an elf that loyal, he probably shouldn't be too irritated about that.

No, the thing he should be irritated about, was his workaholic lover irresponsibly passing out and leaving the gargantuan, monumental, and terrifying job of explaining what happened...

To Ominis.

“Love, I'm fi-”

“You don't get to say that after Sebastian hauled your magically drained arse out of the Dungeons.” Ominis snapped, reaching out to shove the Keeper back down onto the bed, preventing them from sitting up.

“Up three flights of stairs.” Sebastian added, helpfully draping himself across the Keeper's stomach and propping his chin up on his elbows to avoid putting too much weight on them.

The Keeper rolled their eyes. “If you weren't intelligent enough to use a feather-light charm, I shall denounce you as my lover.”

“Of course I did.” Sebastian gasped in mock offence.

“Then what's the difference between carrying me up the stairs and going up on your own?” The Keeper raised an eyebrow.

“Being able to see the steps.” Sebastian replied easily.

There was a pause, before Ominis sighed. “Well, he's got a point, that's dangerous for you people relying on sight.”

The Keeper chuckled. “I'd love if your wand could teach ours how to see the way you do.”

“Why does that sound sexual to me?” Sebastian muttered, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“Get your head out of the gutter.” Ominis rolled up the parchment in his hand and bopped Sebastian on the head with it. “And go back to your homework.”

“Come on, there's still two weeks of holiday left!” Sebastian groaned, dropping his head and his full weight onto the Keeper's stomach.

“Oof- Seb, I love you, but you are not feather-light.” The Keeper shoved playfully at him, only getting a cheeky grin in response.

“The last time I let you procrastinate, you ended up embarrassing yourself, doing your homework in the great hall.” Ominis shook his head.

“Still got good grades though.” Sebastian countered and Ominis’ glare intensified. “Ugh, fine.”

He sighed, dragging himself off the Keeper, and the bed, with some grumbling, before seating himself at the table with his partially finished homework.

With Sebastian out of the way, the Keeper tried to sit up again, only for Ominis to push them down once more, and they groaned, holding his hand to their chest, and dragging him down along with them. “Come on, Ominis, I've been lying in bed for a day now. Any longer and I will surely begin to atrophy.”

Ominis braced himself on the bed, leaning over them with an expression that plainly said, ‘I'm a healer in training and you are spouting hippogriff shite’. “Right, muscle atrophy after lying down for a day.”

“Well, I probably wouldn't atrophy, if we were to do other things whilst lying on the bed.” The Keeper grinned when Ominis ears turned red, and Sebastian burst into laughter from the table.

“Smooth.” Sebastian grinned, before coughing when Ominis shot a glare in his general direction. “That is, don't mind me, I'll just be, er, doing my homework over- over here.”

“Come on darling, I'm feeling much better already.” The Keeper cooed, caressing Ominis’ cheek gently.

His eyes narrowed. “No. You are staying right here, lying down and resting.”

Dropping their head back on the bed, the Keeper gave a long-suffering sigh, releasing his hand and patting him on the arm. “Alright, alright. I give, you win.”

“Good.” Ominis straightened, brushing his hair back primly and the Keeper couldn’t help but smile as he returned to perching elegantly on the edge of the bed with his parchment.

He is so posh, holy shite. How were they fucking such a prim and posh guy? And loving it too. Crazy. If someone had told them three years ago, that they'd be shacking up with a prissy little lord that they willingly bent the knee to, the Keeper would've socked that person in the face, kneed them in the groin and thrown them out a window for such egregious and unfathomable insult.

But God they loved this guy, and his... wand, they hadn't been joking when they said they enjoyed blowing Ominis. It was just as pretty as he was. Then again, Seb's was great too. Hard to compare really, both were great in their own way. It wasn't like the Keeper ever paid much attention to any others’, they had been trying not to, in fact. Perhaps they were just biased because of who these particular magic wands were attached to.

Did I really just think of dicks as ‘magic wands’? The Keeper shook their head. See, this is what happens when I’m too tired to plan and have nothing to do. Certainly quite magical though, undeniably-

Wiggling to the side slightly and resting their head against Ominis’ lap, they asked curiously. “What've you got there darling?”

Smiling helplessly, as though he could tell that his lover was bored and was trying to make it his problem too, Ominis replied simply. “A letter from Poppy, now hush love, I'm reading.”

The Keeper glared at Sebastian when he snickered from across the room, it was probably his fault that Ominis was so apt at shutting bored people down with such finesse in the first place. Sighing, they began entertaining themselves by counting the beauty marks sprinkled along Ominis’ neck while he ran his fingers across the parchment, until he gave a concerned hum.

“What is it?” The Keeper asked, definitely not jumping on the chance to reinitiate conversation.

“Hm, Poppy has asked if she could visit to see the vivariums...” Ominis’ expression was plainly uncertain, and the Keeper frowned.

“We've only finished the ground floor and first floor of the castle. If she visits any time soon, it'll be fairly obvious that we're building all this from scratch.” They shook their head. “We’ll have to deny her request.”

“And exactly how should I go about that?” Ominis frowned, looking rather put out as he set down the letter. “I'd rather not give her the impression I'm rejecting her and cause offence, it was your idea to ask for her help.”

The Keeper sighed, and there came the panicked responsibility pushing, right on cue. Smiling wryly, they sat up, took Ominis’ hands where they were anxiously wringing, and reassured him gently. “You needn't fret so, Poppy is reasonable and if we ask her to respect our wishes, she won't hold it against us, and I would never simply drop such a task like this entirely on your shoulders. We can think of a response together.”

Ominis took a deep breath and returned the comforting squeeze of their hands around his, releasing the breath slowly. “You're right, I- I'm sorry.”

“It's quite alright, I understand that you've been enjoying your penpal friendship with Poppy and are afraid of losing it.” The Keeper smiled, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

“Hey, at least you never have to worry about offending either of us. With all the violence you've dealt to us, we'd have left ages ago if such a thing were possible.” Sebastian casually contributed with a distracted shrug, staring at his parchment with a slightly confused frown.

The Keeper blinked at him for a moment. Well, was that blunt? Yes. Was that direct? Yes. Was that missing the point? Also, yes. But was he wrong? Actually... no.

“What Sebastian's trying to say is that you can always rely on us to have your back, no matter what you say or do.” The Keeper rephrased for him.

Across the room, Sebastian raised his head, and now it was his turn to blink. “Wow, that sounded much better than what I said.”

Ominis frowned, hesitating for a few moments before quietly asking. “...do you think I would?”

“Wouldn’t complain if you did, but we don’t expect you to.” The Keeper smiled.

“Yeah, you mother us enough already.” Sebastian's tone was dry, yet his affection was still plain despite that.

Ominis chuckled, blinking rapidly for a breath, and swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Alright... then, do either of you have an idea for how to turn her down gently? I’m quite at a loss.”

“Well, we don't have to turn her down fully, she just can't come over right now.” Sebastian's expression became thoughtful. “We'll most likely be done with the castle long before the end of the coming school year. So, we can just say that she’s welcome to visit then, at least it's a timeframe.”

“We can probably get away with saying that I don't want the half-finished project to be seen.” The Keeper nodded, before giving a casual shrug. “I don't exactly have a reputation for letting people see me practising or stuff like that. And I study with you two.”

“That's true...” Ominis hummed softly, his expression slightly guilty. “Are you sure you want to take responsibility for rejecting her? I mean, I did say earlier- but I don't want you to feel forced...”

“It's fine, Ominis. I don’t mind, she's probably used to it at this point.” The Keeper chuckled.

“You're not even lying per se, it's true that the vivariums will be done by the end of the school year, and they don’t even let people copy their homework.” Sebastian grinned. “See? We told no lies.”

Ominis’ distant stare became sharp with silent judgement, and Sebastian cleared his throat, sitting upright in his chair defensively. “What? Look, it's not like that time, alright? Not like Poppy's going to track us back to Dìon to see if we're lying and insert herself into-”

“And I think that you should start penning your letter in response before you begin to forget what we discussed!” The Keeper quipped brightly, patting Ominis on the shoulder while shooting Sebastian a glare that very clearly told him to shut up before he triggered Ominis further, which he wisely obeyed.

Begrudgingly, Ominis stood and went to find his self-writing quill while Sebastian returned to his homework to distract himself from that guilt inducing memory lane, his shoulders hunched with shame, and the Keeper flopped back onto the bed with a tired sigh. Well, at least they were more tired now, probably be a good idea to follow healer's orders and get more rest...

The sound of Ominis unexpectedly walking back into the room caught their attention and the Keeper raised their head to watch as Ominis set down a steaming teacup beside Sebastian.

“Here, some hot tea will help you relax and focus.” Ominis sighed, and the brunet's face practically lit up, his eyes suspiciously shiny.

“Thanks, Ominis.” He partially stood, just high enough to place a kiss on Ominis’ cheek, getting a gentle pat on the head in return as Sebastian sat back down to concentrate on his homework with a lighter atmosphere about him. While the blond wandered off to the other side of the room and drew the curtain for some privacy as he used his quill.

A soft and relieved smile spread across the Keeper's face. It was nice being reminded that they didn't always have to intervene, like a soldier on guard duty, that the two boys had their own form of communication that predated their inclusion.

That despite the differences between Ominis and Sebastian, their difficulties communicating with each other and their rocky past, they still insisted on being together. Their love, and determination to make each other happy, to lessen each other's hurt, was quite sweet. Like a cat and a dog trying to live together and groom each other in their own way. Their differences only made the miracle of their relationship all the more beautiful.

As the Keeper closed their eyes, they were filled with warmth and happiness at being a part of this beautiful thing. It made every effort worth it.

They made every effort worth it.

Notes:

Tynx: The master managed to carve a perfect rectangle into the bedrock of Dìon's hill without breaking a sweat. What in Merlin's name could they have done that was intensive enough to make them pass out from exertion??? (｡ŏ_ŏ) Maybe I should walk down, in case the whole dungeon is gone...

The way a person sees themselves and the way others see them are rarely the same. Relationships, I find, are a struggle to understand and recognise both. Which of course, can be hard, especially in the event that a person's view of themselves is, in fact, drastically different from the person everyone else sees them as.

Healthy romantic love seeks to love both the person you think your partner is, and the person your partner thinks they are, while disregarding the person you wish they were.

A person should never be placed on a pedestal nor should one's world rely upon another person forever remaining unchanging and immutable, because all people grow and change, due to interaction with the world and their experiences. All people change over time and we kinda have to always be prepared for that and be prepared to accept that.

Your idea of who another person is should not stagnate and become cast in stone, otherwise you will one day blink and realise that you don't know the person in front of you at all. It takes effort to remain up-to-date on a person's emotional and mental state.

Both Selwyn and Anne learnt this the hard way.

“I can fix him/her/them” is not something anyone should seriously think, when entering a relationship, the only person that can fix them is themselves. It's their own choice if they want to change and loving someone means being ready to love them forever even if they never “get better” or become the person you hope they will. All you can do is be ready to support them if they do want to change.

Humans are not built equal and the best relationship dynamic is when both/all parties are willing to pick up each other's slack and cover for each other's shortcomings, or hobble clumsily together through something both/all parties are bad at. Despite knowing that the specific distribution of slack-picking will not ever be logistically equal, a healthy relationship is one where the effort is equal and appreciated by each other.

Ominis may not be able to commit to decision-making, but his partners are willing to pick up that slack for him because they can see and appreciate that he does care and put in effort for them too, as shown through his grace when Sebastian shoots himself in the foot.

Due to all of this, compatibility with (or at the very least, understanding of) each other's love language is important for relationships as well. While incompatibility can be worked around with enough effort and dedication (which makes it more fun to write in fiction), in reality, it's more sustainable to be someone who makes your partner feel happy just by being yourself and doing things that don't require much effort, and vice versa.

And, to be clear, these all apply to both romantic and platonic relationships.

I do hope you guys don't mind me waxing pretentious poetry in these notes, I just have a lot of thoughts on relationships between human beans xD

Okay, I may, more accurately, be a little obsessed with it...

[toyybox]

Spiderwebs #14: Tape VII (Perception)

Masterlist

content: lab whump, captivity, immortal whumpee, starvation

By now, Heather had a fairly good idea of Jackie’s limits. That was to say, there were none. Unless she found something specific, a kind of kryptonite to crack him. Until then? Fire, extreme temperatures, physical injury, and all manner of poison—all of that was on the table. 

She was not interested in pointlessly wounding him, however. Heather had many pet projects, synthetic drugs she'd been developing here and there alongside the cancer treatment. The problem with testing them was that she never knew how much damage they'd do. What seemed like an innocuous compound would rupture the subject's liver or clot all their blood, and it was a hassle to replace them afterwards. One could only buy so many dogs, after all. 

But things were different now. The only damage she could do to Jackie was emotional. And what was there to be upset about? It was only a few pills. The effects were temporary, anyway. 

Her subject was awake that fine Tuesday morning. Her last experiment took place on Friday, so it had been four days. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, bright-eyed and ready, holding something in his hands. Before she could say anything, he spoke.

"Hi. I have a list of demands." He handed her a sheet of paper torn from the notebook. "Take your time, there's a lot to read."

She didn't accept the paper. "Demands? Excuse me?"

"Requests, if you want. Just read it." He nudged the paper forward. "Please?"  

"Fine." She straightened the sheet. On it, there was a list written in a neat and slanted script. It read as follows:

Lamp Mouchette — Georges Bernanos Calendar  Tea Fridge Telephone Blender Cake (chocolate preferred) Going outside?

"I can't tell if you're joking." Heather crumpled the paper into a ball. "Are you ready for the experiment, then?"

"Lady. Listen. Was there nothing on that list you could get?"

"No."

"Not a single thing? Come on, please? I'm so bored all the time. You can't imagine."

"Bored?" she repeated, incredulous. "What about the book and the—what was it, the notepad?"

"Do you expect me to entertain myself with a single book and a few pieces of paper?" He began to lightly pace the room, gesturing while he spoke, like a stand-up comic retelling a story. "That’s nothing. I can't even talk to anybody. You’re the most interesting part of my day."

"Why would you need a telephone to entertain yourself?"  

"I—well, I need to call my coworkers, don't I?"

"No? Do you think I’m an idiot?"

He stopped walking—then began walking again in the other direction. "Okay, fine. I'll be honest, I just wanted to know if you'd do it. An experiment, I guess. It doesn't matter. What about the fridge and the blender? And the cake?"

"You don’t need those. I'm the one who gives you food."

"Yeah, unless you forget, and you forget all the time. You didn't give me anything yesterday."

"I didn't forget," she hissed. "This experiment requires an empty stomach. I'm not giving you a blender, or tea, or any of these other ridiculous things."

"Not even the book?"

"The book? Mouchette?" She unfolded the crumpled ball of paper. "No."

"Why?"

"You spoiled brat." She let the paper fall to the floor. "Ask me for one more thing. I dare you."

In his eyes passed a conflicted flicker, as he searched her expression. "But—"

"You're talking back." She stepped forward. To her delight, Jackie stepped backwards as well, as if her presence had its own kind of gravity.

"I'm not. I won’t ask for anything else, but—"

"I don't care. I don’t want to hear it."

"Wait. Please. Pretty please with a cherry on top and whatever. This last thing is really important." He paused, then swallowed, continuing when she didn’t make a move to interrupt him. "I want to go outside."

"I don't see how that's my problem."

"I’m being serious. I’m sick of staying in this room. It’s making me go crazy."

"You'll be fine." 

"I won't be fine. You don’t get it, I’m—I don’t—" He began to falter under the weight of her stare. "It's—I'm not—come on, lady. Just for a few minutes. One minute. Thirty seconds, even. I can’t—“

"You can. You'll survive. Stop bitching for a moment, okay?" She stepped forward until his back was to the wall. "Why am I keeping you here? Remind me."

"For experiments?" 

"Exactly. You're my test subject. Test subjects aren't supposed to complain. Test subjects are supposed to sit there and shut up and do the fucking test."

"And that’s what I have to do for the rest of my life?" His voice trembled with what could be anger or fear, or a nauseating mixture of the two. “Stay here and shut up? I‘m not even allowed to talk now?”

She had never met someone so theatrical. "Oh, calm down. I didn't tell you to go mute. You can talk. Just stop complaining. It won't kill you to be quiet for a second." She paused. "Well, I guess that's a given. My point is, you'll be fine."

"Really." 

"Yes. Really." 

Something sour but colder fell over him, as his shoulders slumped a little. That was all the fight he had, or he'd seen that this wasn't going anywhere. Or he was afraid of being vivisected again. 

"I guess you're right," he said. "I wasn’t being serious, anyway."

"In that case, why did you ask?"

"Bored." His previously troubled expression cracked into a grin. "You're just so interesting to talk to."

"I'm sure. Let's continue, then? I’ll need you to take these."

She brought a bottle of pills from her book bag. He studied the white plastic container, barely an inch tall, completely opaque. Unlike regular pharmaceutical bottles, it was devoid of any labels. 

"Another sedative?" he asked.

She unscrewed the safety cap, pressing down then twisting up. "No. Maybe. My results so far have been… inconclusive."

"What’s it supposed to do?"

"I'll tell you once the experiment's done. Hold out your hand."

In his open palm, she dispensed two tablets. They were as white as the container, circular, small as buttons. They were solid but surfaced with a powdery texture. He took them and, though he didn’t look thrilled about it, swallowed them with a gulp of water from his bottle. He stood still and waited.

“The effect won’t be immediate, you know.” 

“I’m not stupid,” he said, although there was no heat simmering the words. “How long ‘til they work?”

“It depends. I’ll give it an hour.”

He nodded. “And you’ll bring food soon?”

“No.” She placed the bottle back into the bag. “Maybe tomorrow. I don’t want any interference with the experiment.”

“Amazing. Thanks so much.” He pushed past her, away from the wall, and sat in the chair. He crossed his arms on the table and buried his head in them. 

He was quiet, at least. He stopped complaining. Yet, Heather felt no less irritated. Jackie was doing this on purpose. Sulking like a sullen child. It was all a ploy to get back at her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting, then. She’d come back in an hour, she’d finish the experiment, and she’d get on with the rest of her day. 

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

The minutes passed by. From the basement, she heard occasional, faint thumping sounds. She wrote it off as another of Jackie’s attempts at being as annoying as possible. There was too much work to be done to pay it any mind. The end of the hour arrived soon enough. 

When she returned, Jackie was huddled on his bed. 

“Tape number seven. Five-fifty milligrams of thermoregulation stimulant administered an hour earlier. Subject appears lethargic. Jackie?”

He didn’t reply. She discovered the source of the sound—he was hitting his head against the wall, repetitively, like he was trying to drown something out.

Heather cleared her throat as she stood over him. 

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Hi. Is this supposed to hurt?”

“Hurt?” This wasn’t going as planned. “On a scale of—“

“At least an eight.” He collapsed back into bed with a small groan. “Is this ‘cause I was talking back?” 

“No, not at all.” Heather pulled the journal out from the bookbag and uncapped her pen. “What’s the pain like?”

“Bad.”

She frowned. If he was trying to be funny, this was not the time. Or maybe he really was in too much agony to think straight. “Is it a stabbing pain? Burning? Aching?”

“Burning, yeah.”

“How odd.” She wrote her findings down. “The drug was supposed to replicate the sensation of warmth. I don’t think it’s ever hurt before. It’s made a few guinea pigs die of hypothermia, but…” She pressed a hand to his skin. It was cold, even colder than before, nearly the temperature it was in the freezer. He was sweating a little, on his palms and the back of his neck. “I suppose that if the nervous system is targeted, the drug may activate pain receptors rather than thermoregulation. Jackie, you said it felt like burning?"

He nodded weakly.

"Oh, interesting. That points towards the stimulant being too powerful. The desired result is a mild heat, not enough to cause pain. It must have gone wrong somewhere.” She played with the pen between her fingers as she mused on this. “It’s also possible the dosage was too high. A few more trials may be needed.”

“Can you make it stop?” he asked, muffled through the fabric of the bed. 

The answer was a resounding maybe, but Heather didn’t let the unknown get her down. This was nothing but another opportunity. For science! The nervous system was especially fascinating to Heather. The sparks and electric impulses that defined life. The body's only window to the world outside. And yet, nerves were so malleable. Delicate, for something so important. All perceptions and sensations could be altered, enhanced, or dulled, puppeted along by only a string of chemicals. Nothing more thrilling than that. 

She had developed an opioid recently, one that could be strong enough to drown out the pain of an exposed bone. This was a perfect time to test it out. 

“I can try,” Heather replied, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Hang in there. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Taglist:

@theelvishcowgirl

@lthrboy

[drdemonprince]

I am very drawn to your idea of informed consent for all drugs/no formal diagnoses idea, but do you think this applies to physical ailments as well? I feel like doctors have a much more in-depth understanding of something like cancer than a patient would and I worry that allowing any drug to be used might make it easier for misinformed conspiracy-theorizing people to end up receiving the wrong treatments.

Fabulous question, as I am currently writing a piece on informed consent as a model that could be applied to all drugs.

First, I'll say that I don't think informed consent maps onto diagnosing all medical conditions -- for the exact reasons you describe. I only think informed consent applies to mental health diagnoses, which are social constructions/external judgements that aren't verifiable with medical tests the way say, cancer can be tested for. I do believe informed consent should be practiced for all treatments and drugs though.

I think educating patients about the effects a medication has, and the specific symptoms and conditions the med is indicated for is definitely a crucial part of providing true informed consent. If a patient has been misinformed or misled or don't have access to quality medical information, they can't provide informed consent.

This is why for many medical conditions and treatments, checking blood levels, reviewing all other medications for contraindications, and discussing the risks and side effects as well as the benefits are absolutely essential.

Informed consent doesn't mean a wanton dangerous free for all, not anymore than anarchy means like rampant unchecked violence or whatever we've been fear mongered into thinking it is. Testing trans patients blood levels, biopsying cancer patients, giving anemics echochardiograms, interviewing patients about how they are feeling, running tests, reporting the tests results back accurately and clearly, giving the patient the full spread of info in a comprehensible fashion, etc, is all part of what informed consent means by definition.

That said, for true informed consent to work, we need to invest more in educating and training medical providers and we dramatically need to increase the provider to patient ratio and change the grueling hours that providers usually work, so that doctors/NPs/pharmacists actually take the time to fully inform all their patients of all they need to know.

[trickricksblog08]

Cancer killer …

Please share in yr groups

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

👉Read about the *Lemon Peel* & it pains me to hear about these facts & proves that the drug companies would rather profit on our *Pains & Suffering* than educate us on *Alternative Medicines & Natural Remedies.* Feel sorry for those *Dead & Gone* that couldn't afford or get hold of the *Chemo* or whatever medicines they prescribe and didn't know about these facts, thank goodness for *Social Media*

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

AMAZING FROZEN LEMONS

Place the washed lemon in the freezer.

Once frozen, get your grater, & shred the whole lemon (no need to peel it) and sprinkle it on your foods!

On vegetables, salad, ice cream, soup, cereals, noodles, spaghetti sauce,

rice, sushi, fish dishes, ... the list is endless.

All the foods will get an unexpected wonderful taste!

Most likely, you only think of lemon juice as vitamin C ??

Not anymore!

What's the major advantage of using the whole lemon other than preventing waste & adding new taste to your dishes?

Lemon peels contain as much as 5 to 10 times more vitamins than the lemon juice itself & that's what you've been wasting!

Lemon peels are health rejuvenators in eradicating toxic

elements in the body.

The surprising benefits of lemon is the miraculous ability to kill cancer cells! It is 10,000 times stronger

than chemotherapy!!

Why do we not know about that?

Because there are laboratories interested in making a synthetic version that will bring them huge profits.

You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease.

Its taste is pleasant and it does not produce the horrific

effects of chemotherapy.

How many people will die while this closely guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the multimillionaires large corporations?

This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types.

It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective against internal parasites and worms,

it regulates blood pressure

& an antidepressant, combats stress & nervous disorders.

The source of this information is fascinating: it comes from one of the largest drug

manufacturers in the world, says that after more than 20 laboratory tests since 1970,the extracts revealed that It destroys the malignant cells in 12 cancers, including colon, breast, prostate, lung & pancreas...

The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better effect than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world, slowing the growth of cancer cells.

And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells. .

So, give those lemons a good wash, freeze them and grate them. Your whole body will love you for it!!

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

Request: Pls forward to lots of friends and to all your dear ones at home and abroad🌿

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

[gretakatharinaa]

pressure - about male mental health

When I was in sixth grade, the teacher handed out exams we took a week before. Obviously, everyone was nervous about their grade. The boy behind me, a good friend at the time, didn’t pass the test.

I turned around only to see him panicking. "It’s just one grade and it’s the beginning of the school year" I said, hoping he would worry less. 

"No, you don’t understand!" He answered, his voice seemingly shaking from panic "I won’t be able to finish school with grades like this!"

"We’re in sixth grade!" I said, surprised by his train of thoughts.

And then, he went on to say something my eleven year old self hadn’t thought yet once:

"No you don’t get it. If I get a bad grade now and I don’t get better, don’t finish school or i finish but with a bad average; I will get a bad job and won’t make enough money. One day I have to feed a whole family, like, four people or something. I can’t do that without money"

When I was in seventh grade, there was this boy in my class. We weren’t that close but did talk to each other from time to time. 

One day, I don’t remember why, he came to me crying about some problems he had at home. Nothing too serious but serious enough to make him feel bad.

I consoled him and after a while, he stopped crying. We hugged and he thanked me for being there for him. He paused and said: "Please don’t tell anyone I cried, it’s so embarrassing. The boys will make fun of me if they knew."

As a teenager, i used to visit my grandparents a few times a year. Their neighbors' kids would always come over to my grandparents farm because their dad was an alcoholic and sometimes hard to be around.

"Maybe your dad needs to go to therapy, maybe he needs to talk about stuff" I told them once, while we were feeding the chickens.

The older sister answered: "Our dad doesn’t want to talk about feelings."

Her younger sister bent down to pet a chicken and without even looking at us she chimed in "He never really talks about anything. He just drinks." and she said it like it's the most normal thing in the world.

Male mental health is something rarely talked about. It’s something people experience. The boy feeling the financial pressure of a family 20 years in advance, the boy being too scared to openly cry or the girls feeling abandoned by their dad.

In 2021, 75% of the suicides in Germany were committed by men. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us as I’m sure you’ve all heard that suicide amongst men is extremely high - as opposed to suicide amongst women.

The question is, why is that?

For starters, men chose more lethal and violent means which decreases the amount of attempted self-killings. Most of the time and unfortunately, their methods are successful. 

Their communication style is also very different: Men may be less likely to openly express their emotions or seek help, leading to a lack of emotional support.

Further on, there is also this stigma around mental health: Societal expectations and traditional gender roles may discourage men from admitting vulnerability or seeking mental health support.

When it comes to substance abuse (alcohol included!), since there are higher rates among males, there is a great possibility of drugs contributing to an increased risk of suicidal behavior.

In some cases, the men that do seek help (or at least try) often get dismissed, misdiagnosed or go unnoticed by doctors or any professionals due to stereotypes.

It’s interesting, I myself know of girls or women who have gone to the doctor or gyno with problems and were dismissed as overreacting. A few years back, my doctor wouldn’t want to take me in for a breast cancer exam „because the later I know, the better“ ?! When I wanted to quit birth control, my doctor said and I QUOTE: „Ugh, do you know how many girls come crying to me about the side effects of birth control? I mean, are you even aware that you will get pregnant if you stop taking it? Are you ready for that?“

So trust me when I tell you I know what it’s like to not being taken seriously regarding your health. And many men suffer greatly. It’s already hard to work up the courage and be a man in this society that wants to change his mental state, let a lone then being dismissed as „just stressed“ or „not that serious, maybe work out more“.

After that, who would give therapy or and doctor another try? And who could blame men for pulling back on socializing.

Which brings me to my next point: Social isolation is something men are often more prone to, thus resulting in the bottling up of feelings and in some cases, severe drug abuse. 

It’s a deep dark rabbit hole.

So, what’s the solution? 

As usual, the answer isn’t easy or short.

I think, and this is just my personal opinion, we should start early on:

To avoid the mental load building up over the years, we need to start educating and re-educating about mental health and the expressions of emotions from an early age on.

At school, at home, everywhere. We need to praise kids for carrying out their emotions, not punish them. 

We need to force our male friends to talk about the things that bother them and keep a promise of confidentiality, creating a safe space. 

We also need better doctors, less stereotypes and of course more equality, but that’s a given.

We need to look left and right, to see if there is someone struggling with their words. 

We need to get rid of alcoholic dads and pressured boys.

i really hope to give my son the emotional freedom my male friends didn't have.

[ferel6]

This gets INCREDIBLY LONG, so a little tl;dr here for you: I decided to become a healthy volunteer for clinical research studies in order to fill a hole I thought I had in my fetish dreams, but got addicted to being a test subject. Because it was SO MUCH FUN.

I'm not on here much because this is a secretive place for me (much like a lot of you) and I don't have a lot of alone time.

I just got back from a trip recently and haven't been able to parse my feelings about it. I need to share my fun experiences with SOMEONE because not many people in my life appreciate the feelings I have for them like a lot of you will.

Clearly, by the reposts and likes, I have a medical fetish. Strongest for EKGs, blood pressure cuffs, catheters, oxygen masks. But also for most things medical related. I have ton of equipment that I've used on myself and others.

My wife is a wonderful supporter of anything that turns me on more and has been a fantastic patient for me. But she doesnt have the appreciation for medical equipment, she doesn't love the feeling of a mask over her nose and mouth, the light touch of wires across her chest, like I do.

As I've gotten older, I've needed to figure out more about myself and why I have these feelings. I've always liked being the patient, always wanted to be the experiment.

An idea came to me while I was involved in biometrics screening at work and I wondered why I had never thought of it before: why not volunteer as a healthy subject for clinical research?

I dove head first into it, checking out all the available research programs in my area (there were a lot), but what I began to realize is I didn't just want to be pumped full of experimental drugs and to find out what they do (even though most of those studies would involve the equipment I enjoyed). I wanted something more...basic. Something less experimental, but more intimate.

I found the perfect study, one that still required vitals monitoring (my reason for interest), but also helped further science in a way that interested me personally. A venous occlusion and distension study that looked at the effect NSAIDs have on veins to potentially help patients with Periferal Arterial Disease (PAD). I was nervous to tell my wife about it (just as nervous in fact as when I told her about my fetish initially). But she was perfectly OK with it, mentioning that clinical volunteers are a needed commodity.

With that, I sent off a message to the clinical research coordinator. And I waited. And waited. And waited.

It took about a week of nervous anticipation before she responded with a phone call. She explained the procedure, how they would measure the volume of my arm, hook up an IV retrograde into the forearm, wrap blood pressure-like cuffs around my wrist, forearm, and bicep to force the blood out of my arm for the occlusion portion. Heartrate would be monitored via a 3-lead EKG, BP would be taken periodically on my other arm, as well as continual BP measured via a device wrapped around my wrist and finger called a finometer. She asked if all that sounded ok.

Yes. 1000% yes.

We set up an appointment for a few weeks later and my sex drive went into overdrive at the prospect. My wife was a bit wary of this at first, but eventually warmed up to the idea and reaped the benefits of my overactive imagination.

The day of the experiment, I drove to the medical center, walking briskly past all the patients milling about the general hospital area, past the cancer center, and on toward the cardiac and vascular institute. God, it was such a rush feeling like I belonged there, but for a fun reason, not because I was sick. That sterile hospital smell, the sounds, the lights, the doctors and nurses passing me in their scrubs, going about their business.

I arrived outside of the clinical research floor and was immediately met by the clinical coordinator, no time to get my bearings, no more sitting and waiting. It was finally go time.

She whisked me past receptionists, then past equipment strewn in the hallways, doors leading to open rooms with beds in the middle, until we arrived at "my" room.

I tried not to stare as we entered. It was REALLY HARD. My quick glance took in the table in the middle of the room, the racks of monitoring equipment on the left wall, baskets with wires and tubes hanging out the tops, a large ultrasound machine to the right of the table, a roller tray with what I knew was an IV kit as well as several other syringes in sterile packaging.

I followed the coordinators instruction to sit and fill out my pre-procedure paperwork while she went over all the things that would happen to me (like I needed to hear it again, I'd read the paperwork at least 20 times throughout the prior weeks). Then she took my height and weight, and listened to my lungs and heart. I was a nervous wreck, so my heartrate was a bit high. She chocked it up to dehydration and got me a cup of ice water. Next we measured my arm volume by dunking it in a long tube of water and noting the displacement. Then I was sent to the bathroom before the start of the procedure while she retrieved the other members of the clinical team.

I had a few precious moments to myself in the cramped room once I got back to take everything else in. The computers by the back right corner. The windows out to look over a helipad, as we were on the fourth floor. Just how much juicy equipment lay on the racks on the far wall. None of this was helping my heartrate to slow down.

The coordinator came back in with a tech in tow and told me to hop up on the table in the center so she could get baseline BP, and get me hooked up to the EKG and get my IV placed.

I padded over after taking my shoes and socks off and used the stool to sit down on the table. The tech began wrapping the oh so familiar dark blue cuff around my right arm, while the coordinator pulled over the tray with the syringes and IV kit. At the coordinators request the BP cuff inflated as I sat there trying to calm my thumping heart. She remarked a mostly normal BP, much to my surprise, 125/85, only slightly on the high side for me. She had me lay down and we took it again two more times! God it felt amazing to just have someone so interested in my blood pressure.

The fun was just beginning, though. The coordinator took my left arm in her hands and pulled it over to the tray. Getting gloves on and cracking open the IV kit, she set about cleaning my arm and wrapping a band around my bicep, a steady stream of questions about my family, my job, and answers to my questions back. General banter while she looked down at my arm with such scrutiny, poking the inside of my elbow to confirm a good vein, then a quick jab as the IV entered and was dressed in a flash. I've had flu shots that hurt more, she was such a pro.

The banter continued as she dug around in a bag for three sticky electrodes, tenting my loose tshirt to reach just below my left side ribs, and my left and right shoulders. The tech helped her get the wires attached and I soon turned to see the delicious green line on the screen spiking up and down to a fair 110 bpm. The coordinator remarked again about my higher heartrate, but I informed her it was probably just nerves from my first visit and that I had a naturally high heartrate (I usually sit in the high 80s).

We continued onward, another male tech coming in, as well as the lead clinical physician who would be doing the ultrasound on my arm during the occlusion and infusion. They all busied themselves with various tasks, noting my HR, my BP, or prepping the occlusion cuffs.

The primary clinical physician asked if he could bring in a student intern, as a petite asian girl, probably half my age in her first few years of college shuffled in from the hall. "Of course" was my only response, the more the merrier. Good GOD was I trying so hard not to be turned on by all the extra staff and the entire situation.

Things moved quickly from here. The techs wrapped a cuff around my wrist, my forearm underneath the IV, and around my bicep.

The coordinator lifted my arm up and gave me a roll of gauze to squeeze. After squeezing for a few seconds she said "Five, four, three, two, one, cuff one up" and with the signature puff of air, the cuff around my wrist inflated, incredibly tight. "Five, four, three, two, one, cuff two up", and the second cuff on my forearm tightened, pushing the pooled blood in my forearm away even further (the pressure felt so odd on the retrograde IV at my elbow). "Five, four, three, two, one, cuff three up", and with that the last cuff around my bicep inflated, tighter than I'd ever pumped up a BP cuff during my own play, cutting off circulation to my entire left arm.

The tingling started in earnest as the coordinator told me I could relax my arm and the primary physician set about my forearm with cold gel and the ultrasound probe. I thought perhaps I'd lose more feeling in that arm, but I could feel the lightest touch from the physician, the push and pull of the probe as he clicked keys to zero in on the veins he was looking to image. He talked quietly with his intern, pointing to the screen, to my arm. She would nod and note things as well, also motioning to whatever they saw on the monitor.

The rest of the techs also milled about, the coordinator asking for time to be marked and noting my heartrate. I'd forgotten the monitor, as I was so focused on my left arm. Turning my neck I saw my HR had shot up to 144 bpm! My BP was also much higher as well topping at 155/100. Guess having an extra arms worth of blood rushing around my body sure changed my biometrics.

We waited for some time, taking new baseline statistics of my body's functions. 10 minutes passed, me simply lying there with my arm going numb, the continual squeeze of the finometer on my finger giving me an indication of my pulse.

Next up the coordinator sidled up next to my head, dragged the tray back over and set about getting the first syringe ready. She informed me there were 50ml, separated into 5 different syringes. "They may have doses of Ketorelac, or it may simply be saline, based on randomized trial".

As she began the first infusion, the primary physician and his intern were back on the ultrasound, probing and watching the spot where the IV entered my arm. I could feel the gentle caress of the probe as cold liquid filled my veins, again surprised at how much I could still feel despite 15 full minutes of cut off circulation.

The coordinator hooked up the next syringe and asked how I was feeling.

"I'm great!" I replied promptly.

"Alright, there's four more of these, so just let me know if the pressure gets to be too much in your arm."

She hooked up the next and pushed the plunger slowly down. My arm felt cold now, the liquid going in fluctuating between warm and cool, an odd sensation. The physician continued talking to his intern. The techs and the coordinator would talk amongst themselves as well.

"See this here as it's infused"

"Which one is that, the second?"

"We're on 17 minutes"

"Heartrates up, BP is a little higher as well"

"Still doing OK? I'm going to start the next, just let me know if it begins to be too much."

It was...so much. All of it. A pleasant buzzing whir in my mind, like ASMR but stronger, dominated my brain. All I could do was feel the sensations of my body and listen to the researchers as they talked about my body's functions and what they were doing to me like I wasn't a person to them. Like I was this enigma, this puzzle that needed solving. Just a subject, an experiment for them to run.

Once the infusions were all in place, and another 5 minutes had passed, the cuff was released and warmth and stabbing pins and needles filled my veins and arteries again.

More vitals were taken to confirm changes in my blood pressure, but after the release it was simply a matter of cleaning up. And just like that it was over.

I was cleaned up, given a meal card to use at the cafeteria, told how much my help was appreciated and sent on my way.

I've just come back from my fifth time (first time back since the pandemic), some of the studies have taken place in the MRI center (MRIs are relaxing and I love the idea of my brain being scanned).

And now i just feel the looming emptiness inside. There is so much anticipation and excitement each time I set up dates to go be a research subject. So much feeling. And when I'm there, when I'm being worked on and monitored, when I'm being watched over and dolled upon, I feel so good and right.

It's addictive, like a drug. I want more. I want to go back every week so they can poke me with more needles, watch my heartrate take off at the inflation of a cuff.

Anyway. If you've read this far, congrats on seeing a bit of my not so normal psyche. Glad there are plenty of people out there to volunteer who, like me, don't mind the uncomfortable and invasive parts of medical advancement.

If you think you can control yourself (I actually did a pretty good job in the end of keeping my lust under control), you may want to consider being a healthy volunteer as well. It's definitely an experience you'll never forget.

Feel free to ask questions and such, I'll answer them when I can.

[little-chattes]

Ok, but the fact remains that animals are just not close enough proxies for human beings to consistently provide reproducible results. True, mice and human beings share 85% of their genetic code, but there’s a huge gulf in that 15% difference!

Think for a second about how differently a drug can affect any two people, maybe working great for one person and causing debilitating side effects for another, and that’s between members of the same species who share 99.9% of their DNA. Now imagine that same scenario with members of two completely different species and results are highly unlikely to translate well.

95% of drugs that pass animal pre-clinical trials go on to fail in human clinical trials. 95%! Yes, animal models have been an invaluable tool in the development of modern medicine as we know it, but there is absolutely room to improve a system that has a 95% failure rate.

To quote the former director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Richard Klausner:

“The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse, we have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in humans, we need to acknowledge the fact that use of animals will not make us better scientists, but bitter scientists.”

SO, if the answer isn’t animal testing, then what is it? As mentioned, we can’t go straight to human trials because that would be wildly unethical, so instead the direction the biomedical community is increasingly leaning into is 3D human cell models. It makes sense, right? A solution which allows testing human medicine on something which is biologically human, but not a person.

Some models take the form of tiny ‘organoids’ which mimic the 3D cell layers of real human organs. Other models are multi-channel organs-on-chips which allow researchers to mimic blood flow and mechanical stress on organ specific tissue, AND when a bunch of these organs-on-chips are linked in a chain, they have the potential to mimic the interactive system of the body. The science gets even cooler when you consider the possibilities of taking cells directly from a sick person, creating their own personalized 3D cell model, and then testing drugs on the model to find the perfect treatment plan.

Earlier this year, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics act was amended to approve the use of these kinds of animal alternatives and remove the requirement for animal testing on certain bioproducts. Does this mean all animal testing should stop today? No, of course not. This is a transition that’s going to take time, but it’s absolutely the direction researchers should be striving towards in the interest of better ethics AND better science.

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[briamichellewrites]

One of a kind. This was how Bria was remembered. The Biography channel aired a documentary about her life. They concentrated on her childhood, career, and private life. That included her drug habit. Mike, Jason, and the band were profiled in interviews. The general public was unaware of her addiction. She was a complicated person. That was the most appropriate way to describe her. Mike discussed the impact her fame had on her.

She desired to remain anonymous from the media and the paparazzi. She felt the happiest at home. She had the freedom to be herself without fear of judgment. Even when she appeared confident, she had moments when she struggled with herself. She never thought she was better than anyone else, and she could not understand why people made such a big deal about her.

The most difficult thing for her was her parents' deaths in a car accident. She was extremely close to them. Losing them was like losing control over her life. Her drug use worsened after that, and they feared she would die. She was using cocaine or heroin every few hours. They realized something was wrong when she started losing weight. She had bags under her eyes and symptoms similar to the flu.

Jason, her husband, was the one who confronted her addiction. They sat down. He removed her socks, revealing needle marks on her feet. She was injecting heroin into her feet so that no one would notice. Before she went to rehab, they put her through a detox program.

She was sober for two years before relapsing. Jason went through rehab and stayed sober. He fought for her and their marriage because he genuinely loved her. They never considered getting divorced. He had firsthand experience with addiction. Because he understood what she was going through, he was able to feel compassion for her.

Her addiction had no effect on her professional career. She would take some time off and go to rehabilitation. Her team threatened to abandon her after her last relapse. She burst out crying because she did not want to lose them. She spent six months in rehab before moving into a sober living house for a year. She then began to attend therapy appointments and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. She would attend meetings on a daily basis.

She stayed sober for the rest of her life. Because she was sober, she was able to advance her career more. She progressed from a singer-songwriter and model to an actress. Hollywood wanted to work with her because of her talent and professionalism. She loved it! Even though the days were extremely long, she was always cheerful and never complained.

It was an honour simply to be asked. She never thought she matched the other actors' abilities. They needed to convince her that she was. She performed in comedies, dramas, and whatever else they threw at her. They enjoyed seeing her on screen because they were extremely proud of her.

She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was just a toddler. She underwent two years of chemotherapy before going into remission. When she began to show signs of the disease relapsing, they suspected she had resumed drug use. She denied it. They refused to believe her because she had previously lied to them.

She finally persuaded Mike to accompany her to her doctor's appointment. The doctor evaluated her symptoms and administered tests. M4 Acute Myeloid Leukemia was her diagnosis. Her diagnosis was extremely difficult for them to process. She underwent intensive chemotherapy treatments using various drugs. It had an impact on her physical health. She lost her hair, but she kept her sense of humour. There were times when she reassured them more than they did her. She battled cancer with all of her strength until the end.

Instead of being admitted to hospice, she preferred to die at home. Jason employed two full-time nurses for her. They came in and assisted her with tasks such as using the restroom and basic hygiene. They also spent private time with her.

She went from walking to using a wheelchair due to her weakness. They took her to the Academy Awards to accept the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She thought it was hilarious when they brought the microphone down to her, saving her from having to stand up. That was the best night she would had in quite some time. She was overjoyed to get dressed up and leave the house.

She died two days later. They talked about how they received Mike's call. She was 40 years old. They had a private funeral with everyone she cared about. The band and their families, Muto and Donna, as well as Topher and Brad, came to show their respect. She could make fun of herself or walk into a room without knowing anyone. Then walk away, having made a new friend. She was selfless and never looked down on others.

"Bria inspired us.” Bradford stated, "When she fell, she got back up."

"She had natural talent. It did not matter what she did. She had to perform in front of an audience. We all knew she would be famous someday, and she was," Mike said.

Throughout the documentary, videos of her life and career were shown. They also displayed personal photos. The episode was 45 minutes long, including commercials. Jason invited everyone over to see it. After Bria's death, he remained in the house she helped design. It had been two years since she died, and he was not ready to start dating again. He and Mike founded Bria's Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to her memory.

The organization contributed to the cost of mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people. She would have been proud of them for doing it. They held fundraising events and charity drives. After Chester lost his battle with addiction and mental illness, they focused on suicide prevention. Every month, the band and their families volunteered their time.

They were now sitting in her theatre room, waiting for the episode to begin. Jason provided pillows, blankets, snacks, and beverages. They all began to relax. It had been a long time since they had all been together. They needed to catch up after the show had ended. They both laughed and cried throughout the show. They did an excellent job of portraying Bria. They talked during commercial breaks but were silent when the show resumed.

Mike covered his face when they showed her singing Crash Into Me with Bradford on guitar. He was overcome with grief. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. Dave comforted him by wrapping his arm around his shoulders. A few minutes later, he stopped crying.

"This is what Brad and I do when we are not busy. We like to play Mountain Dew Pong. It is probably not the best thing to do with my ADHD, but fuck it. It is two in the afternoon, and we have no idea how long we will be here. So we need the energy.”

"She is winning," he said, laughing.

"How many cups have you had so far?" someone off camera asked.

"I think I had about two. I am slightly buzzed. My husband will wonder what the hell I did all day when I return home full of energy."

Jason gave a laugh. Brad recalled when they shot that. They were making a movie together and were both exhausted because they had to arrive on set at six a.m. She never complained despite the fact that the day had been extremely long. They wiped their tears away as the credits rolled. Dave asked Mike if he was okay. Yes, thanks.

[warningsine]

Researchers have discovered a major driver of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and several other immune disorders that affect the spine, liver and arteries, raising hopes for millions of people worldwide.

The breakthrough is particularly exciting because the newly found biological pathway can be targeted by drugs that are already used, with work under way to adapt them to patients with IBD and other conditions.

“What we have found is one of the very central pathways that goes wrong when people get inflammatory bowel disease and this has been something of a holy grail,” said Dr James Lee, the group leader of the genetic mechanisms of disease laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London.

Lee added: “Even for pure, fundamental immunology this is a really exciting discovery. But to show this is dysregulated in people who get disease not only gives us a better understanding of the disease, it tells us this is something we can treat.”

More than half a million people in the UK have inflammatory bowel disease, the two main forms of which are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, with at least 7 million affected globally. They arise when the immune system attacks the bowel, causing an array of debilitating symptoms from abdominal pain and weight loss to diarrhoea and blood in stools. While medicines such as steroids can ease the symptoms, some patients require surgery to remove part of their bowel.

Lee’s research team “stumbled” on the discovery after investigating a “gene desert”, a stretch of DNA on chromosome 21 that does not code for proteins, which has previously been linked to IBD and other autoimmune diseases. Writing in Nature, they describe how they found a section of DNA that behaves like a volume control for nearby genes. This “enhancer” was seen only in immune cells called macrophages where it boosted a gene called ETS2 and ramped up the risk of IBD.

Through gene editing experiments, the scientists showed that ETS2 is central to the inflammatory behaviour of macrophages and their ability to damage the bowel in IBD. “There’s been a search for some time for the central drivers of this pathogenic process, and this is what we’ve stumbled on,” said Lee, who is also a consultant gastroenterologist at the Royal Free hospital and UCL.

The same biological pathway is thought to drive other autoimmune disorders, including ankylosing spondylitis, which causes spine and joint inflammation in about one in 1,000 people worldwide, and rarer autoimmune diseases that affect the liver and arteries.

While there are no drugs that specifically target the ETS2 gene, the scientists identified a class of anticancer drugs called MEK inhibitors that they suspected would dampen the gene’s activity. In laboratory tests, the drugs performed as expected, reducing inflammation in gut samples from patients with IBD.

Because MEK inhibitors have side-effects in other organs, the scientists have begun work to adapt the medicine so it targets only a patient’s macrophages. This is done by creating a “conjugate” where the drug molecule is attached to a synthetic antibody that binds only to the target cells. “It’s safer because it’s more targeted and you can use a lower dose,” said Lee. “We have already developed the antibody conjugate, I have it sitting in my freezer.”

Clinical trials are still needed to see whether the adapted drug reduces IBD and other autoimmune conditions, but because MEK inhibitors are already used in cancer patients, researchers hope that process could be swift and potentially completed within five years.

In further work, the scientists found that the ETS2 gene is at least half a million years old and was carried by neanderthals and other archaic humans. “It has been preserved over evolutionary history probably because it is important in early bacterial responses,” said Lee. “So you wouldn’t want to knock it out all together. You just need to turn down its activity by 50% and the effect of that may be enough.”

Ruth Wakeman at Crohn’s and Colitis UK said: “Crohn’s and colitis are complex, lifelong conditions for which there is no cure, but research like this is helping us to answer some of the big questions about what causes them. This research is a really exciting step towards the possibility of a world free from Crohn’s and colitis.”

[vanesa]

Quotes from How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (Jordan Ellenberg)

Mathematics is the extension of common sense by other means.

... If there's an optimal answer, it's somewhere in the middle, and deviating from it in either direction is bad news. Nonlinear thinking means which way you should go depends on where you already are. This insight isn't new . Already in Roman times we find Horace's famous remark "Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denmique fines, quos ultra citranque mequit consistere rectum". ("There is a proper measure in things. There are, finally, certain boundaries short of and beyond which what is right cannot exist.") And further back still, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes that eating either too much or too little is troubling to the constitution. The optimum is somewhere in between, because the relation between eating and health isn't linear, but curved, with bad outcomes on both ends.

A significance test is a scientific instrument, and like any other instrument, it has a certain degree of precision. If you make the test more sensitive - by increasing the size of the studied population, for example - you enable yourself to see ever-smaller effects. That's the power of the method, but also its danger. The truth is, the null hypothesis, if we take it literally, is probably just about always false. When you drop a powerful drug into a patient's bloodstream, it's hard to believe the intervention has exactly zero effect on the probability that the patient will develop esophageal cancer, or thrombosis, or bad breath. Every part of the body speaks to every other, in a complex feedback loop of influence and control. Everything you do either gives you cancer or prevents it. In principle, if you carry out a powerful enough study, you can find out which it is. But those effects are usually so minuscule that they can be safely ignored. Just because we can detect them doesn't always mean they matter.

... In fields ranging from political science to economics to psychology to sociology, statistical detectives have found a noticeable upward slope as the p-value approaches the 0.5 threshold ... That slope is the shape of p-hacking. It tells you that a lot of experimental results that belong over on the unpublishable side of the p = 0.5 boundary have been cajoled, prodded, tweaked, or just plain tortured until, at least, they end up on the happy side of the line. That's good for the scientists who need publications, but it's bad for science. ... To live or die by the 0.5 is to make a basic category error, treating a continuous variable (how much evidence do we have the drug works, the gene predicts IQ, fertile women like Republicans?) as if it were a binary one (true or false? yes or no?). Science should be allowed to report statistically insignificant data.

... Fisher certainly understood that clearing the significant bar wasn't the same thing as finding the truth. He envisions a richer, more iterated approach, writing in 1926: "A scientific fact should be regarded as experimentally established only if a properly designed experiment rarely fails to give this level of significance." Not "succeeds in giving", but "rarely fails to give". A statistically significant finding gives you a clue, suggesting a promising a place to focus your research energy. The significance test is the detective, not the judge.

The p-value is the answer to the question "The chance that the observed experimental result would occur, given that the null hypothesis is correct." But what we want to know is the other conditional probability: "The chance that the null hypothesis is correct, given that we observed a certain experimental result." The danger arises precisely when we confuse the second quantity for the first.

You probably know what Sherlock Holmes had to say about inference, the most famous thing he ever said that wasn't "Elementary!': "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Doesn't that sound cool, reasonable, indisputable? But it doesn't tell the whole story. What Sherlock Holmes should have said was: "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, unless the truth is a hypothesis it didn't occur to you to consider." Less pithy, more correct.

It's not wrong to say Hilbert was a genius. But it's more right to say that what Hilbert accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person.

There's such thing as being too precise. The models we use to score standardized tests could give SAT scores to several decimal places, if we let them, but we shouldn't - students are anxious enough as it is, without having to worry about their classmate nosing ahead of them by a hundredth of a point.

The difference between judges and mathematicians is the judges have to find a way to pretend they know, while mathematicians are free to tell the truth.

You might think I'd be really into decimal places. The conjoined twin of the stereotype that mathematicians are always certain is the stereotype that we are always precise, determined to compute everything to as many decimal places as possible. It isn't so. We want to compute everything to as many decimal places as necessary. There is a young man in China named Lu Chao who learned and recited 67,890 digits of pi. That's an impressive feat of memory. But is it interesting? No, because the digits of pi are not interesting. As far as anyone knows, they're as good as random. Pi itself is interesting, to be sure. But pi is not its digits, it is merely specified by its digits, in the same way the Eiffel Tower is specified by the longitude and latitude 48.8586° N, 2.942° E. Add as many decimal places to those numbers as you wan, and they still won't tell you what makes the Eiffel Tower the Eiffel Tower.

... the sensation of mathematical understanding - of suddenly knowing what's going on, with total certainty, all the way to the bottom - is a special thing, attainable in a few if any other places in life. You feel you've reached into the universe's guts and put your hand on the wire. It's hard to describe to people who haven't experienced it.

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[gales-big-naturals]

Weed person here and the main seller of CBD in my store! I can tell you the same thing I tell my customers who are scared to try CBD. Idk how informed your mom is so if you wanna share this with her it might help.

Firstly like some people in the replies are saying, calling CBD a drug is a bit of a stretch. It doesn’t produce any sort of psychoactive effects so you don’t get the sort of high you would with other substances.

It’s overall very safe to take, safe enough that veterinarians prescribe it to pets fairly often. It can be a very effective form of pain relief and I’ve had customers using it to treat anything from cancer pain to ankle sprains. It can even be used in the treatment of other medical conditions. I have an epileptic friend who would have several grand mal seizures a month but since her doctor switched her to CBD she hardly has any.

The main effect experienced from CBD is drowsiness. The feeling is somewhat similar to a muscle relaxer. There are no behavioural changes that occur with CBD usage. Beyond a high dose likely leaving you a bit sluggish, no more than after a bad nights sleep though.

CBD doesn’t produce a “hangover” type effect and people can continue their business as usual while taking CBD. I’d caution driving on a high dose as reaction time could be impaired but I know many people who will take CBD through the day at their jobs. Many jobs that test for THC and other substances don’t test for CBD since it rarely impacts any sort of performance at work.

Here in Canada cannabis is legal both medicinally and recreationally. There are a lot of regulations about dosages on THC products and how strong things like edibles can be (especially here in Saskatchewan) but CBD is much less regulated. Not because people aren’t worried but because adverse effects are rare and usually minor.

Medically speaking the only concerns that come to mind is potential blood thinning though this isn’t an issue for most users. The only person I’ve ever met who was concerned about that one was someone with hemophilia. High doses can cause liver abnormalities but about the same as expected with otc medications like acetaminophen.

There are a lot of studies that still need to be done and a lot of scientists working to understand CBD and all of its potential risks and benefits. Overall though it is quite safe to use and the worst experience I’ve personally heard of is just not feeling it. I’d be more concerned about the prolonged use of caffeine and it’s effects on the body than CBD.

Lots of misinformation out there on both sides sides. It’s not like alcohol or hard drugs but it’s irresponsible to listen to people saying it’s completely risk free. The truth is that the studies are still being done and there is plenty that isn’t known just yet. Right now the benefits seem to outweigh the risks which is why it’s so accessible in so many places.

Hopefully something in here helps put your moms mind at ease about it but if not still NAH, I understand her hesitation especially with all the misinformation about cannabis products but a CBD gummy is very low risk

Am I the asshole for doing drugs at home?

I (24nb) live at home with my mom (57f) and my stepdad (60m). I’m lucky enough to live here rent-free while I save up to go back to school. I have several part-time jobs while I work on college apps and more job apps. This is all very stressful for me, so every once in a while, I take edibles. It helps with my chronic pain and insomnia issues as well. They aren’t strong at all, I literally can’t get high off of them, but my mom told me she’s uncomfortable with me taking them. I tried explaining to her that they were safe, legal, and for a medical reason, but she wouldn’t listen to me. All she said was, “I’m just not comfortable with it,” over and over. So I told her, “I won’t talk about it in front of you,” and she got upset. I get where she’s coming from, her ex-husband was an addict, but it’s not like I’m shooting up heroin or out getting STIs. I know there isn’t anything wrong with me choosing CBD for stress and pain over any other medication, but I feel like an asshole for not respecting my mom’s wishes because she lets me live with her for free.

What are these acronyms?

[anjumanpatil]

What Is Triple-Negative Breast Cancer?

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer which lacks all three receptors commonly found on tumor cells.

Imagine cancer cells as houses; their front door may contain three different locks called receptors. If your cancer features any of these three locks, doctors have several tools such as hormone therapy or other drugs available that may help them attack and eliminate cancerous cells more effectively.

But for those diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, that means there aren't three locks, leaving doctors fewer tools for treating your disease - including chemotherapy as one effective option.

How Is Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Treated? 

In general, patients first require having either the lump removed (through lumpectomy or mastectomy) or all breast removed. After that, chemotherapy treatments may be recommended in order to target any remaining cancer cells - either those within their breast or those that may have spread outward from it - that cannot be seen visually. Sometimes doctors will even suggest chemotherapy in advance in order to shrink cancer tumors further.

Lumpectomy

In lumpectomy surgery, a surgeon will surgically extract any lump from your breast as well as its surrounding lymph nodes to detect possible cancer cells that have spread beyond their original location. This process usually takes an hour or two and most women stay at the hospital only temporarily before heading home afterwards.

Mastectomy

With a mastectomy, your surgeon will perform surgery on both breasts and nearby lymph nodes in order to assess whether cancer has spread. Some women elect breast reconstruction during this procedure as well.

Radiation therapy 

typically follows lumpectomies to destroy any remaining cancerous cells in your breasts. Treatment takes 20 minutes per day and most women come four or five times weekly for six weeks at least to see their radiation doctor for this procedure.

Chemotherapy

Cancerous cells from your lump may have spread, so chemotherapy's goal is to destroy them wherever they exist in order to decrease the chances that it will spread or come back. Chemotherapy reduces this risk.

What Are Some Common Side Effects of Treatment?

Hair Loss

Cancer chemotherapy treatments may cause your hair to thin out quickly and potentially thinning completely within two to four weeks, as your scalp becomes susceptible to immune cells that eat away at its cells and make up their own defense mechanisms against disease and illness. New treatments may be available to address hair loss so speak to your physician if this is an area of great concern to you. Your hair will begin growing back approximately four to six weeks post chemotherapy treatment has finished.

Nausea

Many women experience sickness and fatigue after each chemotherapy treatment. If this occurs for you, contact your physician and he or she can prescribe medicine to alleviate it.

Tiredness

After chemotherapy or radiation therapy, patients may feel exhausted or have trouble thinking and remembering certain details. Most often these side effects resolve within two weeks after therapy ends.

Lymphedema After surgery or radiation treatments to your lymph nodes, lymph fluid may not drain properly and begin accumulating under your skin, leading to swelling in certain parts of your body and potentially lymphedema.

Your Doctor Will Address Skin Changes

After receiving radiation therapy, some areas of skin may experience reddening or peeling similar to what would occur after sunburning. Your physician can advise the best course of treatment.

Do I Need Genetic Counseling and Testing? 

Your doctor may suggest visiting a genetic counselor. A genetic counselor gathers information on any history of cancer in your family to assess your risk for breast cancer; for example, people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage tend to be at increased risk due to certain inherited changes (mutations) that increase this risk, including triple-negative breast cancers. Once evaluated by this individual, they may suggest getting genetic tested as part of this process.

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