#i get why certain majors should take lab

[pilferingapples]

I got so into the joy of Boops I didn't even check my mail and almost MISSED this Important Announcement yesterday!! Article under cut in case they take it down:

The producer of Willy’s Chocolate Experience has announced that the Roald Dahl rip-off will transfer to Broadway, with an opening-night performance slated for April 25 at 11pm — just in time for Tony Awards consideration.

The interactive show made international headlines in February when it played a warehouse in Glasgow. Lured by AI-generated images of a fantastical candy wonderland, Scottish ticket-buyers plunked down £35 each to enter the workshop of “Willy McDuff,” a whimsical chocolatier assisted by green-haired “Wonkidoodles” and haunted by “The Unknown,” a rival candy-maker who inhabits the walls of the factory.

Derided as “Willy Wonka’s Meth Lab,” the immersive production fell far short of the expectations set by marketing material, with actors struggling to bring coherence to a script that was obviously authored by ChatGPT, on a set that looked like a daycare on Riker’s Island. An audience revolt prematurely ended the run, with several ticket-buyers demanding refunds from the event’s visibly frazzled organizer.

“We learned so much from our out-of-town tryout,” the upbeat producer told TheaterMania, reframing the whole thing as a brilliant publicity stunt.

“I’ve been closely collaborating with our script doctor, Goog LeGemini, and I think we’ve solved the major problem of The Unknown being too…unknown. She is now an unhoused victim of Willy’s gentrification, a socially relevant backstory that I think makes for a much richer narrative. That was all the Glasgow run was missing, really.”

TheaterMania can exclusively reveal that Willy’s Chocolate Experience will play the defunct McDonald’s on 42nd Street next to the New Amsterdam Theatre. “It’s a perfect opportunity to snag tourists unable to get into Aladdin,” the producer enthused. “They might feel a little disappointed at first, but just wait until they get a load of our show.”

While the shuttered 42nd Street McDonald’s has not previously been considered a Broadway house, our investigations revealed that a certain former Broadway League president quietly elevated the venue on February 15 through an obscure administrative procedure that has gone unnoticed by the theatrical press until now.

“Between Here Lies Love and the revival of Cabaret, it’s clear that producers are seeking more versatile venues,” said the ex-prez when reached for comment, “and I can think of no better space for immersive shows than this hamburger palace with a theatrical marquee. You’re welcome, Broadway.”

Readers interested in a deeper dive should return to TheaterMania on Friday, when our desperate Story of the Week columnist will have banged out 2,000 words about why this is happening and how it will have absolutely no impact on this year’s Tony Awards.

Until then, we wish you a very happy April Fools’ Day.

[kk095]

Christine’s Malpractice Case

Every year, there are thousands of medical malpractice cases reported in the United States. Ranging from surgical or procedural errors, to misdiagnosis, to anesthesia errors, and many other possible factors not listed. We all have a certain level of trust in medical professionals because of their many years of training and education. However, these professionals are people too, and are prone to making mistakes from time to time. Unfortunately when medical professionals make a mistake, it can have major consequences for their patient- leading to further injury, disability, or even death. Sadly, one such case took place at our hospital recently.

The patient was Christine Rossi. She was 47 years old and stood at only 5 feet tall, but her big personality made up for her lack of height. She had a pleasantly plump figure, beautiful brown eyes, shoulder length brown hair, was olive skinned since she was of Italian descent, and always had a fresh mani+pedi. She looked good for her age since she never had kids, and she was never married- but definitely married to her career as a medical malpractice attorney.

Christine’s case began when she was brought into our emergency department one evening straight from her office. She was wheeled into trauma 1 sitting up on the gurney, stripped down to just her bra and underwear. She was wearing an oxygen mask, had EKG electrodes all over her chest, and had IVs going in both arms. “hi, I’m Dr Lindsay. Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Dr Lindsay, the ER attending from that evening asked Christine in a calm, inviting tone. Christine was gasping for air and had one hand on her chest. Her eyes were absolutely bugging out at times, and she was visibly uncomfortable. “my chest…” Christine utters to Lindsay. “your chest hurts? How long has it been hurting you?” Dr Lindsay asks in response. “since yesterday… but it got worse- a lot worse just now…” Christine tells Dr Lindsay.

On the heart monitors, Dr Lindsay saw that Christine was tachycardic, hypotensive, and had an abnormal EKG. The EKG showed unifocal PVCs with ST elevation. The doctor ordered some blood tests: a CBC, BMP, tox screen, and a stat cardiac enzyme test. An echocardiogram and chest x ray were also ordered while the blood was being drawn for the labs.

While the blood samples were sent off to the lab, the chest x ray was performed first. The only thing that was abnormal was some swelling and irritation in both lungs. This can be caused in part by Christine’s rapid, labored breathing, but it can also be associated with blood clots in the lungs, heart attacks, or fluid buildup in the lungs (for example, from pneumonia, covid, and sometimes severe bronchitis). The chest x ray definitely provided some good information, but it didn’t give Dr Lindsay the whole picture, so an echocardiogram was ordered. The echo showed right ventricular hypertrophy. Basically, the right side of her heart was enlarged and working much harder than it should. With the stat cardiac enzyme lab still pending, a dose of nitro was given for chest pain, and cardiology was called for consultation.

The two members of our cardio team to arrive were Dr Rachel, one of our cardiothoracic surgeons, and her cardio resident Dr Sarah. “hey guys, I appreciate you coming down. I think she’s having an acute STEMI and needs the cath lab, just waiting on the cardiac enzyme test to come back to confirm. What do you think?” Dr Lindsay says to the 2 cardio doctors. Dr Sarah looks at Dr Rachel, waiting for her to do the talking. “don’t look at me! What do you think of Dr Lindsay’s assessment?” Dr Rachel told Sarah, trying to get her resident to take some initiative. “I um… I agree.” The resident replies hesitantly. “why do you agree? Go on!” Dr Rachel tells Sarah. “well… um… the EKG shows ST elevation. And uh…. The patient has angina pectoris and shortness of breath.” The resident replies, nervously, and without confidence.

Nurse Nancy walks into the room with a few pieces of paper. “labs are back.” She says, handing the papers to Dr Lindsay. “Cardiac enzymes are high. This is definitely a STEMI.” Dr Lindsay says thinking out loud. “ok, let’s get her to the cath lab. We need to start a central line and get a stent in her.” Dr Rachel called out to the rest of the ER team. “what… what’s going on?” a nervous Christine asked, still breathing heavily. “you’re having a heart attack and we have to put a stent in, ok?’” Dr Lindsay tells the nervous lawyer. “a heart attack?!” Christine asks in response, surprised at what she’s heard. “am I going to die?!” Christine continued. “you’re in great hands! We’ve seen plenty of heart attacks like this. We’re going to place a stent, keep you here for a day or two, and you should be good to go.” Dr Lindsay replies with relative confidence, oblivious to the fact of what was to come. “Can you call my mom? I’m scared…” Christine asks Lindsay, still short of breath, visibly in pain from the crushing pressure she felt in her chest. “of course! We’ll have one of the nurses reach out to her, ok?” Lindsay replies, reassuring.

Over the following few minutes, Christine is taken up to the cardiac catheterization lab. She’s laid flat on the table and her bra is removed, allowing her large, D cup breasts to spill out. “alright Christine, our resident Dr Sarah will place the line and the stent. We’ll be getting started shortly.” Dr Rachel tells the nervous attorney. “the resident? I don’t want her to practice on me…” Christine protests, having a gut feeling against having the resident perform the catheterization and stent placement. “don’t worry ma’am, me and Dr Lindsay have done these plenty of times. Sarah will have plenty of adult supervision!” Dr Rachel tells Christine, attempting to add a little comedic relief to the urgent situation. Christine still had a bad feeling about it, but ultimately agreed to let Sarah perform the procedure.

The upper right portion of Christine’s chest was splashed with betadine to sterilize the area. The resident identifies the superior midpoint of the clavicle, and moves down a few centimeters. This is the location of the subclavian vein, so it’s important that the correct location be identified in the early stages of the procedure. Next, a local anesthetic is injected into Christine’s chest to numb the skin and some of the underlying tissues. She winced in pain, feeling a pinch and a burn from the injection. It normally takes 45-60 seconds for the local anesthetic to numb the area effectively, so in the meantime, an ultrasound was set up. This is to further confirm the location of the subclavian vein, and to follow the catheter’s path once placed. Next, a hollow needle was advanced through the skin. Christine could feel the pressure of the needle being inserted, but no pain. The resident Sarah advanced the needle slowly into the beautiful attorney’s chest, looking at the ultrasound monitor. Eventually, the needle was in the correct depth and blood was aspirated. The needle was held in place for a moment while the blunt guide wire was maneuvered through the needle and into the subclavian vein. While inserting the guide wire, Sarah pulled it out and inserted it again quickly, unnoticed by Rachel or Lindsay. However, everything seemed fine at the time. But in that moment, unbeknownst to everyone, Sarah introduced an air bubble into the central line, which would now become a ticking time bomb.

Eventually, the guide wire and catheter were sent to the correct location, and the occluded coronary artery was identified. A small stent was navigated into the central line and carefully and methodically navigated to the correct location. Once the stent was in place, it was placed and opened, restoring blood flow to the previously blocked artery. After confirming the placement of the stent via ultrasound and x ray, the guide wire was removed and a port was left in the initial site to leave the central line open for the duration of Christine’s hospital stay.

After the procedure was completed, Christine was brought back to an exam room in the ER to wait until a bed opened up in the recovery area. “how’re you feeling?” Dr Lindsay asked. “I definitely notice a difference. Thank you…” Christine replied, no longer breathing heavily, and seemed a lot more calm than earlier. “look who’s here!” nurse Nancy says excited, bringing Christine’s 70 year old mother Marie into the room. Marie hurries over to the bed as fast as her 70 year old body can, and gives her daughter a hug and a kiss. “How are you doing sweetie? They said you had a heart attack!” the concerned mother asks. “I’m doing a lot better mom! Thanks for coming.” She replies, with a smile on her face. “we’ll leave you two alone. It’s been quite a day, right?” Dr Lindsay said, exiting the room with nurse Nancy.

Approximately 2 hours go by. “something’s wrong! Come in, quick!” 70 year old Marie shouts to the ER team while scurrying out of the exam room, visibly worried. Dr Lindsay, nurse Heather, and nurse Nancy head into the room. The heart monitors are chirping loudly, showing that Christine is severely hypotensive and tachycardic. Christine’s eyes are shut, but she’s groaning. “christine? What’s wrong?” Dr Lindsay asks, doing a gentle sternal rub, to which Christine doesn’t respond. “she passed out and won’t wake up! What happened?!” Marie asks in a panicked tone. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, ok?” Dr Lindsay replied. Heather shined a pen light into Christine’s eyes and both pupils were fixed and dilated. “Pupils blown Linds” Heather tells Lindsay, shaking her head. “lets get her intubated! Get cardio back down here NOW!” Lindsay shouts, wondering what the hell just happened. “christine? Can you squeeze my hand?” Lindsay asks, receiving no response. Marie was holding her daughter’s other hand and talking to her while chaos ensued. “get me a 7.0 ET tube!” Lindsay shouted.

The ET tube was being navigated carefully into the woman’s airway by Lindsay. “no pulse, starting compressions!” Heather called out. “damn it!” Lindsay said frustrated, finishing her rapid sequence intubation. Heather delivered deep, violent chest compressions on Christine while her 70 year old mother continued to hold her hand and stroke her hair. “she’s in PEA. Push epi and atropine. And where the hell’s cardio?!” Dr Lindsay shouted again, frustrated. While Lindsay ambu bagged and lead the code, Heather continued delivering CPR. Christine’s chest caved in, and her belly jiggled outwards. Her breasts shook and trembled from the residual force of the compressions being received.

Dr Rachel and Sarah enter the room and are shocked, seeing their seemingly stable patient having her chest pumped violently. “what happened?!” Rachel asked, stunned. “I figured you two might try to figure that out for us. Any ideas?” Lindsay replied sternly. “what do you mean? She was fine a little while ago!” Rachel replied. “sarah even did a good job on her first stent placement and central line.” Rachel continued. “wait! This was the first time she ever operated on someone?!” Marie shouted, overhearing what was said. “ma’am… believe me, she is absolutely qualified. And every procedure has its risks.” Rachel replied, jumping to Sarah’s immediate defense. “did she kill my baby girl?!” Marie asked, becoming teary eyed. “Ma’am, why don’t we bring you to a private waiting room while the doctors work.” Nurse Nancy suggested, trying to gently direct the 70 year old woman out of the room. “no no no, I’m not going anywhere! That’s my daughter!” Marie shouted, tears running down her face, still holding her daughter’s hand as her chest was being absolutely pummeled.

The heartbreaking scene was interrupted by Dr Lindsay announcing that v-fib was on the monitors. “alright, charge the paddles to 200.” Lindsay called out. Nancy gently made Marie back away from the table because of the impending shock. The paddles were pressed up against Marie’s bare chest, the ambu bag was temporarily detached, and the shock was delivered. Marie’s body flopped on the table while a KA-THUNK was heard in the room. “still no change, charge to 250.” Lindsay called out, shaking her head a bit. After a cycle of compressions, the next shock was delivered. The electricity ran through the 47 year old’s limp, lifeless body, causing her to twitch sharply in response. “no pulse, let’s hit her again at 300.” Lindsay responded, looking at the monitors. “please… save my baby! That’s my little girl!” Marie begged the team while living every parent’s worst nightmare. “paddles charged.” Heather called out. The defibs were placed back onto Christine’s chest, and shock #3 was promptly delivered. Christine’s feet kicked up above the table and slammed back down half a second later, showing off the deep, soft, silky, prominent wrinkles throughout the soles of her size 7 feet. “still nothing doc.” Heather said, having 2 fingers placed on Christine’s neck for a carotid pulse. The paddles were recharged, and in a moment’s notice, Christine was shocked at 360j. Her body reacted more violently to the stronger shock, with her eyes opening up halfway, staring blankly up above. “PEA, resuming compressions.” Dr Lindsay said, taking over CPR for Heather.

More meds were pushed while CPR went on. However, it took another 6 minutes to produce another shockable rhythm. Nonetheless, when v-fib appeared on the monitors again, the paddles were recharged to 360 joules, and Christine was shocked again. Marie’s lifeless body twitched abruptly in reaction to the shock while her eyes remained open, staring blankly at the ceiling above. After another cycle of chest compressions, the next shock was delivered, causing Christine’s toes to curl, once again showing off the deep, soft wrinkles in the soles of her feet. But unfortunately at that point, the code started to become more redundant: CPR, shock, meds, repeat.

It was now 24 minutes into the code and Christine was still in v-fib. Her complexion was a ghastly pale color, her skin was ice cold to the touch, and there was a huge bruise on the center of her chest from all the CPR she’d received. At that point it was Dr Rachel doing CPR while Lindsay still ran the code. Lindsay looked around the room, eventually making eye contact with Rachel. Lindsay shook her head at Rachel, knowing Christine wasn’t coming back. Dr Rachel backed off, and nurse Heather detached the ambu bag. “what’s going on? Why are you stopping?” Marie asked the team, still holding her daughter’s hand. “I’m so sorry ma’am…” Dr Lindsay said, before Marie interrupted, “no no no! Shock her again! Keep pounding her chest! There’s gotta be SOMETHING you can do, right?!” Dr Lindsay paused for a moment, then said “I’m so sorry ma’am. We did everything we could. Your daughter’s heart won’t restart, and her brain has been deprived of oxygen for so long.” Marie started to cry at the point, practically crumbling to the floor. “time of death, 8:45pm.” Dr Lindsay said, peeling her gloves off. “no no no!” Marie wept. Nurse Nancy scurried over to try and console the woman while Heather began basic postmortem care.

The monitors were switched off, the EKG electrodes were disconnected, and the ambu bag was detached. A toe tag was filled out and placed on the big toe of Christine’s left foot, dangling in front of her beautiful, wrinkly soles. Her body was covered up, but Heather lowered the blanket down to Christine’s shoulders so Marie could have as much time as she needed to grieve her daughter’s tragic passing.

Since the exact cause of Christine’s death was unknown, an autopsy was ordered. The results of said autopsy concluded that Christine died from an air embolism that traveled to her brain. Essentially, air was introduced in the central line by Sarah, and it eventually traveled to the brain and got stuck in the smaller, more delicate vessels there. With these findings in mind, Marie was able to sue the hospital for Malpractice and received a hefty settlement payment. It was an absolute tragedy that Marie witnessed the death of her own daughter, and it was also a bit ironic that a medical malpractice attorney died from medical malpractice.

[moldygreenblue]

this makes no sense?

the new year’s eve riots happened on december 31 of 1958. rapture civil war officially begins in 1959. the events of bioshock with jack happened in 1960 (being stated right at the start of the game).

burial at sea ep 1 and a majority of ep 2 takes place on december 31 of 1958. ep 2 even shows how the attack of kashmir restaurant came to be, with atlas getting elizabeth to help him escape the makeshift prison he and his followers are in...even though there’s a canonical prison revealed in bioshock 2 that is persephone.

(a bit of a sidetrack, but frank faked his death to become atlas. i’m certain frank as atlas would have found a way to not get through into prison! makeshift or a legit one!)

also in ep 2, atlas at one point got elizabeth’s help to retrieve the code for the ace in the hole that is jack...even though atlas should realistically have knowledge of it. back as frank, he no doubt was hanging around in the labs to see how jack’s progress was going. this should be something he knows. but he doesn’t, and has to get outside help.

given that elizabeth was unconscious for a time before waking up to help atlas, that means the remainder of ep 2 takes place in 1959, probably january.

if it’s january 1959 when atlas got the code

why did atlas thought of waiting a full year (and a bit more?) for jack to get on the plane and kickstart the events of bioshock 1? am i missing something here? did i get the timeline wrong?

[blametheeditor]

The Expense Of Trust | Chapter 1

Anomalies and Incident Reports

Next

Content Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of death and murder. Mentions of others being lesser than. Intent to kill. Death by anomaly. Darker themes and tone.

Run Down: In the instant of a site-wide containment breach, there are only a few protocols available to follow. Know the right people, hope to be at the right place at the right time, and whatever you do, don't trust anything.

Well, well, well

__________________________________

“Have you been keeping David in line?” 

“You mean have I been keeping Fritz out of trouble?” 

“Yes to both questions, James,” Fritz grins, quick to wipe it away before David can spot it and threaten to report for insubordination. He really never knows when the senior researcher will actually follow through on requesting a change for an assistant. “There haven’t been any experiments that required him to put on a lab coat.” 

“Thank goodness,” has David glaring at the phone currently on speaker, the sarcasm in James’ voice loud and clear. There’s also a few sounds of shouting in the background, but neither of them comment. “How would he ever survive?”

“It’s not my fault your idiotic institution has dumbass rules.”

Fritz wisely decides not to join in on reminding the tall man never seen wearing anything but a full piece suit why a lab coat is required. He doesn’t need a lecture about how it’s a crime forcing such clothing to be covered by such a gaudy accessory. Not with James ensuring he sighs loud enough there’s no mistaking it. “Oh no, you’re so right, David. Getting acid spilt on you and damaging your suit that way is much better than protecting it and yourself for the sake of aesthetics. Remind me, what are you two doing right now?” 

David sends a look that says Fritz will cover for him, or the redheaded teenager is going to regret it, especially when they don’t have a specific date for when James will return to protect him from the senior researcher’s wrath. 

Fritz glances around the room they had been assigned to today. With David standing in the corner by the door, his phone sitting on a nearby table. Almost directly opposite, the teenager stands at the sterilized counter beside a sealed glovebox that takes up a majority of the space. 

Good news, technically David doesn’t need a lab coat right now considering the substance they’re testing is already safely inside the chamber. Bad news, he’s being a terrible role model for following safety procedures. 

“He’s safely out of the contamination area,” Fritz offers. 

“At this point people will begin to genuinely ask how you ever became qualified to be a senior researcher,” James remarks. 

“Well certain people should stay out of other’s business when it doesn’t concern them,” David growls. 

“I can’t help but feel like that was a jab toward me.” 

“Of course it was a jab toward you!”

Fritz quickly hides his laughter as the two continue to fight, focusing back on the task at hand. Putting on gloves and goggles before starting only a few basic tests on what had been described to them as a chemical produced by SCP-8202 that’s more of just an unknown variable rather than a harmful one. 

Honestly, he’s kind of curious how David and James became such good friends. Despite the hostility, the tactical response officer on the other end of the phone is called almost weekly, if not daily depending on what managed to annoy David enough that he needed to demand support. And it’s usually because someone brought up the lack of him wearing anything for safety. 

The best part is James doesn’t tell the senior researcher to stop, or to lower the amount, despite the fact they all know he is currently working an active mission of containing an anomaly offsite. The soft shouts from before has turned into larger amounts, and yet the argument still continues. There really never it any anger unless David is actively distracting him and refuses to hang up when things get...chaotic. 

David’s never been the cause of a mission failing, or of someone getting hurt. But James has been pretty good at balancing entertaining his friend, and ensuring he knows that as good as the officer is at his job, he’s not an all-powerful being who can make everything wrong with the world vanish with the snap of his fingers. 

Fritz jumps as a siren suddenly blares. He actively attempts to set the breaker in his hand down carefully despite the uncontrollable shaking, but there’s no denying the terror snaking its way into his mind. Panick almost wanting to make him throw the fragile object despite it containing a still fairly unknown chemical just to get out, get to safety, he has to-! 

The redhead curls in on himself when he feels two hands on his shoulders, stopping his frantic movements. He takes a moment to take a few deep breaths before looking up at David’s flat expression. At least there’s no anger. 

“It’s not to alert us there’s been a containment breach,” David begins. “This one is to let everyone know they’re doing a controlled transfer to get an SCP to another facility.” 

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, to latch onto ‘controlled transfer’. Hesitate at the fact the siren doesn’t sound like the one to signal the immediate need to evacuate, a lot softer and with a different pitch than the one he heard during orientation. Suddenly feels embarrassed by his reaction. 

“S-Sorry,” Fritz murmurs. He finally manages to carefully set down the beaker before withdrawing his hands from the box. 

David frees him, but instead of demanding they begin the report with the few things Fritz accomplished, the tall man motions to the door. “Let’s go watch it.” 

Fritz will admit he completely froze out of pure terror. At the thought at getting anywhere near an anomaly outside of containment, whether or not it’s controlled with multiple personnel ensuring nothing goes wrong. “W-Watch it?”

“It’ll be safe. The message I got this morning even encouraged us to watch.” 

“It will be completely safe, Fritz,” James pipes up. “You should check it out, even for just a second.” 

Now Fritz feels humiliated rather than embarrassed. The two teaming up due to knowing why he reacted to both the siren and the suggestion in such a way. It’s even worse James understood what happened despite being on a phone call. Fritz almost regrets admitting a little bit about why he’s an assistant researcher for the Foundation. 

...James has never been malicious, though. If anything, David figured out real quick that the redhead would be the only thing that’d lower his anger if, say, there was a call right as the officer was about to capture an anomaly before it literally blew up in his face. 

And despite the superior outer shell, David’s been more or less warming up to Fritz. No longer wrinkles his nose when the teenager is in close proximity or snaps to shut up despite responding to a question that had been asked. Even before then, the senior researcher wasn’t trying to torture the unwanted assistant, just find ways to pass him along to someone else. 

After a few months of working together, Fritz isn’t despised. David isn’t walking out the door to force his assistant to follow considering today he was tasked specifically to help the tall man with the sole reason David always knows what’s best. 

“...we, we can go watch.” 

“Hanging up, James.” 

“Don’t hesitate to call back.” 

David roll his eyes as he pockets his phone before walking out of the room. Fritz jolts at the realization he’s being left behind before shedding his gloves and goggles, chasing after the man who’s a full foot taller and yet never slows his pace down. 

“He bitches about me calling, but whenever the dumbass is worried about you he’s more than happy to get covered in ash again despite complaining it took him weeks to get it all off.” 

The teenager is forced to jog to keep up. “Well, you do-” 

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

Fritz smiles at the threatening tone despite knowing where they’re headed. Glad to have something to keep his mind off of it. Forcing his limbs not to lock up as he repeats the promises this is safe. Nothing will happen.

David’s hand catches Fritz’s lab coat before he can jog past the senior researcher, yelping as he’s pulled toward a set of large windows he’s never seen before. He then slowly moves closer when it becomes clear they’re not looking into a room level with them, his breath catching at the sight of having to look down, down, down before he finally spots the ground floor. Which is both terrifying and yet comforting knowing they’re so far away from the anomaly. 

The redhead nearly screams when he finally spots it. Such a small form from this high up, but a creature not made for this world none the less. One that’s tall, so thin he can see the edges of its internal structure, and a muted teal color from head to toe. An eerie figure that only becomes uncanny when it takes a stuttering step forward, swaying as if it’ll fall over at any second. 

Then it lunges.

David catches him before he can sprint away, pulling the teenager close so there’s no escape. From the anomaly, from the idea the officers currently standing directly beside it getting attacked, at the memories of that same walk advancing toward Fritz. 

”Whaaat are you s-so afraid of?”

“You’re not wrong to assume anyone but James are complete dumbasses when it comes to interacting with SCP’s without dying themselves,” David muses, sounding almost annoyed. 

Fritz takes a deep breath when it’s clear he’s acting like a scared child, far from the professional assistant researcher he’s done everything in his power to be for David due to the man accepting nothing but perfection from those around him. Clenches his fist and grits his teeth in order to see what’s being spoken about. 

Unable to help but stare at the anomaly being completely frozen midair, unable to complete the lunge that was too fast to avoid. 

“But no one would transfer an SCP without first having all of the proper equipment,” David finishes. “Not to mention, we’re inside a place built on protecting against things like this. Humans like James are trained on responding to situations where someone’s in danger.” 

Just like that night, when Fritz should have been killed. Unable to escape even if he could get himself to move, to run. It was faster than him. Didn’t feel any remorse wearing the skin of someone he knew. There was a field agent who managed to save him before it was too late.

...David’s actually trying to comfort him. 

Fritz blinks at the realization. Because this was more than just explaining why someone’s being stupid, those words were specifically meant for reassurance. It makes him smile at the black mail he can give to James when the man’s back on site before leaving for another mission. Appreciative, but never thought he’d see the day. 

“What are you looking at, dumbass?” 

Fritz’s smile immediately disappears when it’s clear he was caught. "I, I appreciate you letting me watch.” 

David scowls before suddenly turning on his heel in order to walk back the way they came. Fritz takes a moment to watch the anomaly slowly wake up, its limbs carefully resetting itself to stand rather than falling to the floor in order to make its way to the waiting truck. Quickly running after his senior researcher. 

“Now get back to work!” 

Fritz nods as he grins. Finds himself a lot less tense despite the siren still blaring. Straightening up in attention when David places a hand on his head, almost confused at seeing the hazel eyes harden. 

“I won’t let any SCP hurt you. If anything ever happens, wait until I find you.” 

It’s such an odd request. Yet it’s said so earnestly Fritz can only nod. “Okay, Dr. Harrison.” 

He should’ve seen it coming, but then again it’s David. Someone who rarely does certain actions only James tends to do out of fondness. Meaning the senior researcher earns a squawk as he ruffles the red hair with a smirk. “Dumbass.”

Fritz tries everything in his power to get his breathing under controlling, going so far as to holding it instead of hyperventilating. It’s the only thing he can do. Not when his body reacted on its own as soon as the siren started blaring. Sending him diving under the counter before curling into the smallest ball possible. 

Now, of all times, why was he remembering that day? Of both David and James attempting to help him with the obvious terror? The promise Fritz made? 

Maybe because it’s better to think about that rather than the fact the entire site has been compromised. At the fact Fritz had been working completely alone while testing a few chemicals after agreeing to switch tasks with his colleague for the day. Knowing he won’t be saved, that this is it, but unable to help but feel comfort and hope that somehow David will actually be able to find him. That James will appear on site despite the fact he left for a mission two days ago. 

Fritz knows it’s nothing but wishful thinking, and yet he can’t bare the thought of a fatal anomaly stumbling upon him at any minute. 

He truthfully doesn’t know what’s better. Knowing that something went wrong is one thing. The siren states there’s been a site-wide containment breach, meaning either an anomaly entered by itself and is causing havoc, or every single cell for hundreds of documented anomalies have just unlocked. Considering the door to the room Fritz was conducting experiments in opened on its own occurred without anyone’s presence, it staying opening, it’s clear the latter is true. 

Yet he hasn’t heard or seen any evidence of every anomaly escaping at once. It’s been almost too quiet, not even the sounds of personnel running or screaming. So despite everything saying he needs to evacuate as soon as possible, it almost feels like nothing’s wrong. 

Fritz still can’t move. Can’t even try to peer into the hallway just to see if he should start running. Not when he’s locked in place. Even when he hears the distinct sound of footsteps quickly making their way down the hallway. Despite the fact they’re getting closer and closer to him. And he’s just waiting, just like before. 

He can only stare in horror as shoes appear in his field of vision as something walks into the room. 

...he knows those shoes. 

“Fritz!” 

That’s David’s voice. Not a stranger’s, not a warped cry of an anomaly. But that can’t be real. How would the man find him? How-? 

Fritz can’t breathe when the figure is suddenly kneeling to reveal David, who looks relieved when he spots the shivering redhead. “You scared the shit out of me. Come on we need to go.” 

It’s automatic, reaching out to accept the outstretched hand. The promise Fritz will be kept safe. Or at the very least won’t be alone. 

”Come heeeere.”

Fritz yanks his hand back, bumping into the wall in the attempt to get as far away from the thing trying to trick him. Shaking his head to force himself not to trust what seems like a genuine look of confusion and concern. 

“Are you D-Dr. Harrison?” 

It takes a moment to register what was asked, especially because Fritz can’t speak above a whisper. But he sees when it’s comprehended. The look of fond annoyance so familiar it hurts. “What kind of dumbass question is that?”

That seals it. That this really is David and not something pretending to be him. Responding in such a way that couldn’t be rehearsed enough to sound that genuine. 

Fritz lunges forward, the taller’s eyes widening in surprise before yelping as the momentum sends them both falling. The redhead doesn’t apologize though, not when he’s too busy clinging to David as tightly as possible, slumping in relief when all that happens is a sigh before he’s hugged instead of getting killed because he made the wrong choice. 

“It’s okay. Nothing’s going to touch you now that I’m here,” David murmurs. Fritz doesn’t want to call out the lie. Not when he was found. He doesn’t know how, and maybe he doesn’t want to know, but the promise was kept.

Fritz laughs when he’s awkwardly pat on the back after a minute. “Th-Thanks for, for finding me.” 

“I said I would, didn’t I?” David demands. The redhead doesn’t protest as he’s sat up, snorting when the senior researcher’s first priority is to dust his suit off. “Shut up, be grateful I didn’t yell at you for making me lie on the floor.” 

If there had been any doubts before, they would’ve disappeared by now. No one but David can be that protective over his suit. Despite the siren still attempting to alert anyone around that can hear it there has been a fatal error somewhere on site. 

Before Fritz can ask what happened, he’s being helped to his feet before getting lead out the door. There’s no time to realize and panic that they could encounter a dangerous anomaly immediately. Not when he’s already standing in the hallway that’s...completely empty. The pure white walls untouched. 

“Stay behind me.” 

David doesn’t free his arm until Fritz nods to state he understands. The senior researcher then begins to walk down the hallway, his assistant immediately following at a slight jog in order to keep up with the fairly quick pace. Almost like today wasn’t any different from yesterday. Or a few days before that. 

When they reach a corner, David doesn’t hesitate to round it without so much as slowing down, Fritz essentially left behind as he skids to a halt. Panicked at the fact something could’ve been waiting. The senior researcher almost acting like the entire facility hasn’t been compromised. The doors to the observation rooms of certain anomalies are wide open not even a few feet away. 

"Fritz?” 

Green eyes blink up at David watching him worriedly. Realized he left the teenager behind and came back for him. It causes Fritz to hug himself knowing he’s the reason they’re no longer heading toward the exit. Able to be stumbled upon by an anomaly. “Y-You just, what if-?” 

“Hey, take a deep breath,” David softly commands. “I will get us safely out of here in one piece whether we encounter an SCP or not. But I need you to trust me.”

Trust the man who managed to find him without being told of the switched tasks. The man who refuses to follow standard safety procedures. The man who ridiculed him from day one of being assigned as assistant. The man who acts like he’s a god at times and had a habit of refusing to obey instructions when an observation became compromised. 

The same man who did find him to make sure he got out safely. 

“...I trust you Dr. Harrison.” 

David smiles as he squeezes Fritz’s shoulder. “Just stay close, don’t stop unless I do. I’ll explain once we’re out.” 

He nods to say he’ll accept it. Confused and still terrified that David’s only acting like he’s invincible. But if they do get out safely, Fritz will never doubt the tall man again. 

Fritz obediently jogs after David as they round the corner, biting his tongue when instead of following the hallways toward the ‘nearest’ exit, they seem to take a roundabout path instead as they make a right instead of continuing forward. To be honest, the facility is so vast the redhead can’t help but get lost at times. Maybe there are quicker ways to get out. Ones assistant researchers aren’t knowledgeable of. 

“I really hope that stupid thing got turned off as well,” David mumbles. “We should’ve already found- James!” 

Fritz yelps as he collides with the taller figure suddenly coming to a stop, unable to say anything about the amused smirk he earns due to getting a bit dazed from the impact. He’s not nearly as confused to not grab David’s arm to hold him back before he can start down the hallway to where a familiar figure stands. One that shouldn’t be possible. Yet it perks up at the called name. 

It looks like James. From his brown hair to the custom made tactical belt clipped around his waist. They haven’t heard the man speak, but at least David isn’t forcing them to go towards what might be the officer they know. 

“H-How do we know?” Fritz breathes. Unable to finish the sentence. Pleads David understands he’s not questioning the senior researcher, just questioning if they can trust what they see. 

It takes a moment, but a soft ‘ah’ is made once David realizes. “It’s James. I’d be able to tell if it was an SCP in disguise.” 

Fritz wants to ask how, but it’s too late, ‘James’ slowing down when he gets about a few feet away with his hands held up in surrender. “Hey, Fritz. It’s just me. The same one you called about David possibly going on a rampage because someone tried to make him wear a lab coat again.” 

That sounds convincing, but he can’t know for sure, meaning he doesn’t let go of the arm attempting to tug them both forward. If David’s wrong about being able to tell what’s an anomaly. Is that a reaction James would have? Is that from years of containing different creatures with unknown abilities, or just something trying its hardest to earn their trust?

"What about the same one you secretly called because you were concerned David was sick because he acting ‘too nice���?” 

“You did what?” 

Fritz doesn’t respond to David’s question, lunging toward the familiar smirk at managing to get on the taller’s nerve. He’s caught before immediately getting pulled into a hug. Definitely their James. “S-Sorry.” 

“No, you did good,” the officer assures. “We all know David is a terrible role model.” 

“I am not!” David exclaims. “I was right, wasn’t I!”

Brown eyes roll before Fritz is gently pushed away in order for James to pat down his arms, a more than familiar ritual by now. “Have either of you encountered anything? I only saw one anomaly.” 

“Nothing as of yet. Don’t know if that’s a good sign or a really bad one.”

Fritz watches as James seems to hesitate, meeting his gaze before looking up at David. “Bad. Meaning we need to get out as soon as possible, meaning you’re leading the way.” 

The senior researcher doesn’t question it. Only checks to make sure they’re ready to go before heading back the way they came. This time at a much slower pace in which Fritz no longer has to jog just to keep up. 

Somehow, it makes this ten times worse. Fritz knows they might being going slower because now they actually have someone who can at least keep an anomaly at bay if not neutralize it for a short period of time. Knows it’s because James is keeping an eye behind them with one glance back at the officer. David might not be trained to help on missions in capturing anomalies, but it wouldn’t be surprising it he wasn’t given a few lessons on what should be done if something like this ever happened.

But it gives Fritz time to think. To jump at every little sound reverberating through the hallways he hadn’t noticed before. Following David, but feeling like he’s missing something if he’s in front instead of James. 

“Did you just arrive on site?” Fritz finally asks. Quietly because it feels wrong if he raised his voice anymore. Needing to talk. 

“I did, actually. We just transported a keter that’s no longer contained, but I had been on my way to find you guys when the siren started.” 

“Do we know why it happened?” David calls over his shoulder. 

“It came from the higher ups,” James all but growls. “I didn’t see any damage, didn’t feel the entire place shake from an explosion. And considering the lights and ventilation system is still functioning, there was a specific command put in to open all cells.” 

Fritz gasps as David suddenly stops again, crashing against the taller and stumbling back. He nearly trips over his own feet to fall onto the hard ground when James manages to catch his arm. He appreciates it considering that he should have expected such a reaction from that kind of revelation. That a site-wide containment breach was due to one of the O5 allowing it to happen. 

However, David doesn’t whirl around to demand more information. Doesn’t argue over why such a system was in place. The senior researcher’s attention locked onto the open doorway directly to their left. 

“There’s an SCP in that room.” 

...how does David know? Why is he acting so calm? It was said in such a nonchalant way Fritz has no time to process what it really means until James is already entering a room that was strictly meant for storing files and equipment and opening the next door.

Instead of revealing a small broom closet, there is an entire hallway identical to the one they stand in except for a closed brown door patiently waiting to be opened on the opposite side. 

“The repeating one moved?” David demands, the redhead too scared and stunned too protest being pushed behind the taller and further away from possibly getting locked in another dimension with no clear way out. 

James doesn’t respond as he closes the door, reaches into his belt, and attaches a small round metal plate to it. One with the Foundation’s symbol engraved on it, marking the door as the entrance to an anomaly. 

“It did.” The officer joins them back into the hallway as he looks back the direction they came to the direction they are going. “We need to move with a little more caution. And absolutely no closed in staircases.”

This is worse than they previously thought. Fritz assumed that while the doors to the cells opened, that didn’t mean any extra equipment was deactivated as well, meaning certain lights and emitters should still be functioning properly to hold certain things in place. This means everything has been turned off and anomalies that are better described as nothing more than a presence rather than a physical being can just move without a single warning. 

David glances down at the teenager by his side. “I can only sense SCP’s within a short radiance.” 

“Then I suggest we check corners before turning them.” 

Fritz doesn’t try to ask what they mean. He is all too aware this is getting worse by the minute. If he starts demanding answers now then he’ll be putting them all in danger. And if he starts panicking that will only distract and slow them down. Right now he just needs to trust the two doing everything in their power to getting them all out safely. 

He only nods to show agreement to the new rule alongside David. Then they hear what sounds like someone running as fast as they can. 

Fritz is already being pushed in the opposite direction of where the echoing noise is originating from as James reaches for his belt. It wasn’t nearly enough time, not when a man suddenly slides across the opening of the hallway they stand. Is on his feet a second and already sprinting in their direction. 

It’s clear they hadn’t been noticed previously when he made the turn. The moment he does is the same moment Fritz realizes he’s wearing a D-Class uniform and looking more fearful than hostile. 

“Run!” 

Both James and David doesn’t hesitate to heed the man’s frantic yell. Not when the overhead light of where he had been suddenly shatters, glass and sparks falling at the same time overwhelming darkness blankets a full ten feet of the hallway. Makes it seem as if there had been nothing there in the first place. 

Fritz is almost glad as he turns to run for his life, not wanting any reason to see what is chasing them.

[genius-built-donatello]

こんにちは！I'm curious, what are our brothers like in the future?

Ah, of course. I was wondering when you were going to ask.

Well, I should first put a disclaimer: I don’t actually remember much of what our brothers were like at your age, so comparisons will not come easy to me unless I were to review a significant amount of past footage.

That being said, I’m fairly certain Raph was only about six feet around the time of the invasion, and now he’s over ten, so… Oh, and if you were wondering, Leo’s a good foot and a bit shorter than us. Feel free to rub that in his face. I know I do.

All of them are pretty busy (as am I), so it’s not often that we have conversations not related to work recently. Still, they all try to make an effort.

Mikey has jobs around the base as a cook, unofficial therapist, babysitter, co-designer for the base (with me), and occasionally helps in the medbay as his mystic powers are suited to healing wounds and relieving pain. Any other time he’s meditating and/or honing his mystic powers. She’s in the lab fairly often when helping me with designs (this arrangement is why I have to ask her opinion on the new greenhouse designs and can’t go forward with them until he approves. Eyeroll). He’s still kept all his optimism (infuriating at times) and tends to frequently give me words of “wisdom” if she sees me apparently looking too down. He’s the most powerful mystic user out of anyone here, a force to be reckoned with, but his ninpo draws from his lifeforce and has made him age at an alarmingly faster rate than the rest of us. She seems to be physically about sixty years old. I’m… trying to work on something to help.

Leo’s almost as busy as me. He tries to take on as many jobs as possible, including chores, and he’s also our main strategist, sword-fighter, medic, about a dozen other minor jobs including generally being the one to keep up the spirits of the Resistance (his way is with karaoke and movie nights. Can you guess who has to salvage and restore the movies for said movie nights and the songs for said karaoke nights). He’s also the one who has the final say on what the Resistance needs me to make. Hence why most of our conversations are work-related; I get majority of my tasks from him, especially with big projects such as “fifty guns by next week” and “twenty full sets of armour” and “a new speaker unless you still have to make those crutches by the way why haven’t you done that yet” et cetera, et cetera. He’s not serious, exactly, but he’s certainly more on edge as the days go by. Which is understandable. I think he and I get approximately the same amount of sleep (which is, as my head has made me painfully aware, not much).

Raph is, as I mentioned before, frankly a giant. He mainly works with Leo on battle strategy, but often he’s checking in on everyone (including me). He also likes to work in the nursery with the smaller children. He insists on going on as many missions as possible, always needing to be making sure everyone’s safe. Which is fine, he is not easy to take down-

Wait…

Past me, I must cut this conversation short because I think I just saw April walk by on the cameras okay BYE I’LL TALK TO YOU LATER

[zexal-club]

Introduction to my two newest OCs from my original-story universe, Escapism! (Considering changing the name) This is also an introduction to Escapism in general.

The whole thing is a concept that I want to turn into a video game someday, but until it's complete, enjoy my ramblings.

The brown haired girl is the protagonist Olivia, and the orange haired girl next to her is her (girl)friend Anneliese.

You probably recognise Olivia from my account. That's right, the girl on my pfp is NOT my OC avatar! Shocking!

The main goal of the game is for Olivia to help Anneliese escape from her home/house along with her older brother Max and other brother, who I haven't named. I might cut them out of the final version though, we'll have to see.

Why do they need to escape?

Their father is a control freak and a mad scientist.

The majority of the enemies you face are The Scientist's experiments he's created/worked on, with the bosses being the more 'special' or more thought-out and perfected ones. The final boss is, of course, The Scientist himself.

Also, I feel like I should clarify this: Escapism is intended to be a horror game. I won't go into detail into the scary and disturbing stuff, but be warned. Also, no jumpscares will be in this game. I don't do jumpscares.

Despite the concept intending to be about escaping the house, most of the ideas I have for the game so far take place in The Scientist's lab. Look, this is still a major WIP, okay? I'll think of something.

Gameplay includes not only fighting enemies but also interacting with and even befriending more kind and friendly experiments.

While most of the filler/generic mook enemies are basically just mindless monster drones, some of the experiments are actually humans. Or at least were, until they were changed. Now, it might be hard to call them that. Some of the human experiments are the kind ones that you can befriend in the game, while others were twisted people even before they were brought to the lab, with their newfound abilities and powers gained from the experiments further fueling their corrupt agendas. These more cruel experiments serve as bosses.

You can find out things about the experiments, though both talking with them, which gets them to share things about their personality and backstories, and through different files and notes scattered around that you can find and read. Both dialogue exchange and research reviewing reveal certain things about them.

Files contain backstory elements, details on how the experimenting went, and the abilities, strengths, and weaknesses of the subjects. Dialogue exchange helps you understand them better on a personal level.

What do you all think?

@kousaka-ayumu @yukii0nna @gritsandbrits

[staringdownabarrel]

I think the thing a lot of people tend to get caught up on when it comes to whether or not Harry Kim should have been promoted is the actual circumstances of promotion in previous shows. (Yes, I'm aware there's another post going around at the moment about this topic, and yes, that did inspire this one. However, my opinion is a bit wall of text-y and I don't want to derail someone else's post, even if I do largely agree with them.)

The number one biggest indicator that a character will be promoted is if they take on the responsibilities of becoming a department head. It happened to Worf: he went from being a lieutenant, junior grade in TNG's first season to being a full lieutenant in season three, after he'd been head of security for a while. It happened with LaForge as well: he was a lieutenant, junior grade in season one (there were four different chief engineers that season and he wasn't one), a full lieutenant just before season two (which is when he became chief engineer), and a lieutenant commander just before season three.

The second biggest indicator tends to be when the definition of what their role means expands. This is what happened to Ben Sisko. Early on in DS9, he's a commander of a frontier outpost and most of the real decisions end up being booted back up to Starfleet Command. But as the seasons go on and his role expands to include long-lasting tactical/strategic decisions and more and more diplomatic and first contact responsibilities (both previously associated mostly with starship command), he gets promoted to captain. Notice how Bashir and Dax are both promoted off-screen at some point as well.

Harry Kim meets both of these requirements. He's bumped up to chief of operations more or less immediately after entering the Delta Quadrant, and he performs pretty well in this role overall. Ultimately, there's no reason why he shouldn't have been a lieutenant, junior grade by the start of the second season.

The definition of what it means to be Voyager's chief of operations expands as the show goes on, too. Initially, it doesn't seem to be that far removed from any other engineering job on a Starfleet ship, but as time goes on, he's also being dragged into major engineering design jobs. This includes integrating Borg technology into the ship's capabilities, including the astrometrics lab and helping to design the Delta Flyer.

Really, the best argument for Kim not to be promoted is because of potential rivalry with the Maquis crew. Tuvok might have gotten a promotion simply because he'd worked well with both crews in the past--he'd been on the Val Jean with the Maquis crew for a while before they went to the Delta Quadrant.

But even if we take this argument seriously, Janeway still had the option of promoting Torres as well. There's no reason why she couldn't have been a lieutenant commander by the end of the show, given it's not an uncommon rank for chief engineers.

Torres' rank is a bit of a mysterious thing. For most of the show's run, she's a lieutenant, junior grade, but in the first half a dozen episodes or so, she's a full lieutenant. (So was Tom Paris--go look at his collar.) The thing is that in those early episodes of Voyager, there was a production error where Tuvok was wearing a lieutenant commander's pips but was only referred to as a lieutenant in the opening credits and in dialogue as well, and when they changed his insignia, they changed Torres' as well (and also Paris').

The thing is that having her as a full lieutenant made much more sense. Joe Carey, the engineer who was being considered for the role of chief engineer in Parallax, was a full lieutenant and remained one for the rest of the show. Having Torres keep a rank equal to his would make sense in that context.

The other big counter-argument I tend to see is that well, there's nowhere for Kim to go if he gets promoted too far. I reject this argument on the face of it because it ignores how certain officers will go to a certain ship, decide it's home now, and stay there for decades. Picard was the commanding officer of the Stargazer for 22 years for example, and most of his senior staff on the Enterprise-D and -E served under him for fifteen years. Most of the senior staff that served under Kirk on his Enterprise seemed to stay on the NCC-1701 for most of their careers after that point as well; largely in the same positions. There's obviously no up or out policy in Starfleet and it doesn't seem to be that much of a hindrance to gaining rank.

So there was definitely room to promote Harry Kim and still have it make sense in the context of the ship, even though they were 70,000 light years from home. The only reasons to not promote him were bullshit reasons that don't really make that much sense from an in-universe perspective.

[wanderinglotus7]

WAITING Season

Hello friends, it seems like forever since I actually posted something on here other than some photos and videos of a few trips I've taken. Your girl has been struggling, even drowning. Yet, I'm still standing! My physical health has been my greatest enemy lately. Without retelling my whole journey- because that gets exhausting- I have updates. So, back in 2022 I was diagnosed with PCOS and most of my symptoms stem from hormonal imbalances. From there I had many lab tests conducted and a few of them repeated which sucked. However, I'm happy that Dr. S was being cautious and doing everything she could before any major decisions would have to be made. At the beginning of 2024, I found out that my body is overproducing the stress hormone cortisol. Late March, a MRI scan revealed that I have a tiny noncancerous tumor located on my pituitary gland (located in the center of my brain). This tumor pressing on this gland is the root cause of my body overproducing the cortisol and throwing my body out of whack. The remedy is surgery. June 7th I met with a pituitary gland specialist doctor and surgeon. Along with PCOS, I was diagnosed with Cushings Disease which is related to the cortisol. They both said that if the surgery is successful all of my symptoms should go away for good. Thank you Jesus! Before I can schedule the actual surgery, I have to get a vision exam (June 27th) and a CT scan (July 1st). Each person is different but the recovery process should take about 3 months.

This is a sucky way of getting an extended vacation from work. A sucky way of escaping from Boston for awhile. I keep reminding myself and telling others that I'm bless to have health insurance to help with my medical expenses. I'm bless that all my specialty care (with the PCOS clinic & Pituitary Gland clinic) is under the same medical system-Beth Israel which I'm an employee at BIDMC. Nobody wants a tumor, but I'm bless that it's small & isn't cancer. I'm bless that I'm young because I can probably recover better compared to someone of an older age. I'm just BLESSED!!!!! Also, I've been receiving lots of support from the Adelante & CVPR team once I decided to share my story with some folks from work. My supervisor Cynthia has been really supportive, and I think I even made her cry one day when I was giving her updates on my appointments (sorry). On the other hand, I've had mixed reactions from family & friends that are aware of my situation. Another reminder that I'm really out here in Boston by myself. Not only that but this situation has shown me people's true colors. I don't need people in my life who disappear and go silent on me when I need them the most. Time to say Good-bye to those people. I don't need energy leeches in my life.

Going away to SC & VA gave me the space I needed to accept the fact I have PCOS & a tumor. Honestly, I've been numb about this whole reality and just coasting emotionally because I'm still trying to process my emotions and getting frustrated with people keep asking me how I'm feeling. I can't provide a answer if I don't have a answer for myself. The funny thing is about a week or two weeks before SC, I had a total mental breakdown over everything that's going on in my life. Caroline really came thru that day! I'm bless to have her as a friend. It was nice to have someone genuinely listen to me in that moment and didn't ask anything from me which is completely new and foreign to me. There is a reason why God places certain people into our lives at a particular time. I felt so much better after our conversation. That conversation has helped me have some tough conversations with some people and in combination with a writing prompt from my poetry class. I can identify those who make up my village and are truly my friends.

WHAT IS HOME? I'm still trying to figure out what home means to me and what home looks like. I mentioned this to my Grandmother, and what she shared with me finally clicked. Home is where you feel loved. Ding dong this is why Boston doesn't feel like home. Yes, I have a support system here, but it's not the type of love I'm searching for myself. Boston isn't conducive to the future I envision and pray for myself. Like Bobbie said to me this morning, "I'm trying to find where I belong". In my heart, I know I don't belong in Boston or even in MA. I belong somewhere else and that somewhere maybe in NC or somewhere else (who knows). I love my family, but I know Gloucester isn't my forever either though Gloucester, like Thailand, will always have a special place in my heart.

Boston has really tested my strength & patience. 8/7/24 will be 4 years since I moved here from Gloucester. I might be here for another two years because I'm determined to earn my LICSW which I can start preparing for the clinical exam next year. So, I should earn my license in 2026. From there, I can go anywhere! Boston has given me the opportunity to achieve my academic dreams/goals. Because of Boston College my first internship with Amirah open the door for me to be working with Adelante. Adelante has been my gateway into my involvement within the Anti-Human Trafficking movement. However working for BIDMC makes it feel like I'm working two jobs instead of one. I'm a social work advocate with Adelante. I'm a clinical social worker/advocate for the Center for Violence Prevention & Recovery. One side of my job shows me what I like about my job (Adelante). The other side of my job shows me what I don't like about my job (CVPR). Hopefully during my recovery time, God will provide me with the answers I'm looking for related to my career after I earn my LICSW. I still would like a hybrid work model, do counseling & advocacy, but not work in a medical center and not be On-call. In an ideal world, I would like to have a manageable work/life balance where I can work in a bookstore and on the side either be a counselor for those 13 to 25 years-old or be a supervisor/mentor for young professionals in the social work field.

In the bigger picture, I’m ready for a change in scenery. I’m ready to live in my own apartment or live in my first little starter home like a two bedroom. I’m sick of living with roommates. I’m tired of feeling like I’m living on top of other people. I’m tired of living in such a crowded space. I want my personal space back! I want to be able to either sit on my front porch or in my backyard without feeling like my space is being intruded on or cannot enjoy the peace & quiet. I want to be closer to nature without having to live in the middle of nowhere. I want a good combination between the city and country life but not live in the suburbs. At 27, I’m ready to settle down. I’m ready to enjoy a slower pace of life. The freedom to enjoy my cup of tea, reading & writing, maintain a career while enjoying being a wife & mother.

I told myself before 2023 ended, I’m going to invest more into myself from my physical health to my emotional health to my creative life. I slacked a bit between April and May, but I’ve been able to lose some weight. I’m 5lbs away from my summer goal. I had a few hiccups but I’ve found peace with my relationship/breakup with my ex and my mental health is at baseline (no panic attacks). These poetry workshops I’m attending have been therapeutic and are a nice distraction from my world. A healthy avenue to channel my art and release any stress in my life. Also, I’m learning and gaining so much skills to improve as a writer and a poet. It was a disguised blessing that Mariposa didn’t become a finalist in the Button Poetry chapbook contest, but it was for the best. I realized I wasn’t truly finished writing my story until I released that piece of myself that was holding on to Erik. I’m proud of myself for setting and being firm with my boundaries in all aspects of my life!

My path may look a little different now, but the destination remains and looks the same. I’m still going to Jamaica next July (2025). I’m looking forward to attending Caroline’s wedding. In honor of my Granddaddy, I’m getting a Bluejay tattoo because he has been my protector since he passed away. I’m looking forward to publishing Mariposa. I’m emotionally prepared to enter my next relationship. I’m still growing my relationship with God and doing my best to live like Christ. I’m taking control over my life!

[temtemlimited]

What Should Be Considered Before Purchasing Diamond Jewellery & Bracelets?

Buying diamond earrings and bracelets is an important process and people should be well-informed into making a purchase. When purchasing diamond & silver jewellery or even lab-grown diamond jewels; or Silver Necklace and silver diamond bracelets, some key considerations are paramount at certain times. These factors help you choose the right provider to get the most adequate amount of return on your investment and more importantly, personal satisfaction.

Different Kinds of Diamonds. 

Natural vs. Man Made Diamonds

One of the things that will be decided early in the game would be whether one wants to go the natural diamond route or the man-made diamond route. Lab-created diamonds take only weeks to synthesize in a lab environment where conditions are close to those in the earth’s crust where the diamonds are formed. Nevertheless, all the qualities for both types of diamonds are the same but lab grown stones are more cost-efficient and cause no damage to the environment.

The Four Cs: It entails the first characteristic of diamond in the stone jewels industry. When selecting diamond jewellery, it’s essential to understand that the Four Cs: Diamond jewellery must be bought with an understanding of the Four Cs

Cut: Carat is undoubtedly the weight of the diamond and tells how weighty-jewellery is to the light to reflect. Only an ideal shape diamond shows good color because it reflects light well and appears brighter.

Clarity: The other term relates to the quality of the diamond concerning clarity or the presence of inclusions. Transparency implies there are fewer defects.

Color: These diamonds are graded based on scale D (colorless), E (near colorless), F (colorless), G (colors), H (of color), I (yellow), J (yellow) to Z (light yellow and brown). The second type of diamonds are the colorless ones which are the most expensive and popular.

Carat: Carat refers to the weight of the item. It is clear that this occurs because larger diamonds are relatively rarer than small ones and hence more expensive.

All these factors affect the look of the diamond and how affordable it is. Silver and gold: A comparative evaluation of two ethical perspectives.

Silver Jewellery

Some of the reasons why silver jewelry are preferred are:

Silver is rather inexpensive and very adjustable. The alloy – sterling silver has 92 %. 5% silver and 7. Any other metal is 5% but usually copper does not rust and is very pliable to make different designs. For silver jewellery products, it is important to check a hallmark sign which shows the purity of the silver.

Silver Bracelets and Silver Diamond Bracelets

Diamond earrings are classic, but there are also some very modern styles of silver bracelets out there. A silver diamond bracelet could be chosen on its design, quality of silver, or the quality of the set diamonds. A classic silver diamond bracelet should be not only beautiful but also strong enough to withstand regular use or be worn at the right occasions.

Evaluating Craftsmanship and Design

It is also important to note that for any jewellery to be beautiful and long lasting it has to be well made. Examine the following aspects:

Setting: It is also important to ensure that the diamonds or the gemstones are well set. Prong settings, bezel settings, and channel settings all bring their own degree of security and accents to a ring design.

Finish: Another characteristic of quality jewellery is the manner in which the finish is carried out. Good works will be smooth with minimal or no burrs.

Design: Think of your personal fashion and the events where you intend to wear the jewels. Traditional design can be considered to be more eternal and classical and innovative design is one of a kind and trendy.

Certification and Authenticity

One should buy from a professional diamond dealer who offers certified jewelry from a major gemological laboratory such as GIA or IGI. It is thought that these certificates provide detailed information about the diamond for example the quality and where it originates from to help the buyer in making purchases.

Budget Considerations

A budget can make selecting diamond jewellery and bracelets easier and minimize spending money wastefully. Diamonds can be purchased artificially as well as naturally and there is a considerable difference in cost when comparing the two.

Ethical and Environmental Considerations

What constitutes ethical purchasing, and its relationship to sustainable purchasing. Synthetic diamonds are less harmful to the environment and are also perceived as friendlier to the system of diamond production as compared to some natural diamonds. If you are under pressure to buy diamonds for some occasion, check whether they are conflict-free by those instruments like the KP.

Personalization and Customization

Some people go as far as using their own jewelry to make a customized piece that holds personal meaning and is tailored to their desires. Some jewelers also have a customization option which allows you to select the type of metal used, number, cut and type of diamond inlays and the design meant on the piece among other things in order to create a unique piece.

Care and Maintenance

There are some best general practices for keeping your jewelry in a good condition. Silver jewellery might after a period get tarnished including silver bracelets and silver diamond bracelets. Most residents’ silver should be polished with silver polishing cloth and or stored in anti-tarnish bags. It is also worth mentioning that the diamond jewelry needs maintenance as well, as any items should be washed from time to time and examined in order to prevent stones from falling and checking if the prongs are not damaged or the diamonds are not broken due to rubbing.

Conclusion

When one acquires diamond jewelry and bracelet it is as if they have genuinely become the owner of something incredibly wonderful.Be it natural or lab created diamonds or Four Cs and all that’s related to silver jewellery – now you are aware of some aspects and can make a responsible decision. It is advisable to consider focusing on the jewelry priority on artistry, accreditation, and sustainability as this way you’ll be able to make the right choice for jewelry that not only looks good, but is good. Regardless of the material your bracelet may be made of, silver bracelets are a testament to timelessness or maybe you prefer the sparkle of diamonds – what really matters is that you invest time into jewelry research and make sure to buy a piece that is memorable.

[jcmarchi]

Jay Dawani is Co-founder & CEO of Lemurian Labs – Interview Series

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/jay-dawani-is-co-founder-ceo-of-lemurian-labs-interview-series/

Jay Dawani is Co-founder & CEO of Lemurian Labs – Interview Series

Jay Dawani is Co-founder & CEO of Lemurian Labs. Lemurian Labs is on a mission to deliver affordable, accessible, and efficient AI computers, driven by the belief that AI should not be a luxury but a tool accessible to everyone. The founding team at Lemurian Labs combines expertise in AI, compilers, numerical algorithms, and computer architecture, united by a single purpose: to reimagine accelerated computing.

Can you walk us through your background and what got you into AI to begin with?

Absolutely. I’d been programming since I was 12 and building my own games and such, but I actually got into AI when I was 15 because of a friend of my fathers who was into computers. He fed my curiosity and gave me books to read such as Von Neumann’s ‘The Computer and The Brain’, Minsky’s ‘Perceptrons’, Russel and Norvig’s ‘AI A Modern Approach’. These books influenced my thinking a lot and it felt almost obvious then that AI was going to be transformative and I just had to be a part of this field. 

When it came time for university I really wanted to study AI but I didn’t find any universities offering that, so I decided to major in applied mathematics instead and a little while after I got to university I heard about AlexNet’s results on ImageNet, which was really exciting. At that time I had this now or never moment happen in my head and went full bore into reading every paper and book I could get my hands on related to neural networks and sought out all the leaders in the field to learn from them, because how often do you get to be there at the birth of a new industry and learn from its pioneers. 

Very quickly I realized I don’t enjoy research, but I do enjoy solving problems and building AI enabled products. That led me to working on autonomous cars and robots, AI for material discovery, generative models for multi-physics simulations, AI based simulators for training professional racecar drivers and helping with car setups, space robots, algorithmic trading, and much more. 

Now, having done all that, I’m trying to reign in the cost of AI training and deployments because that will be the greatest hurdle we face on our path to enabling a world where every person and company can have access to and benefit from AI in the most economical way possible.

Many companies working in accelerated computing have founders that have built careers in semiconductors and infrastructure. How do you think your past experience in AI and mathematics impacts your ability to understand the market and compete effectively?

I actually think not coming from the industry gives me the benefit of having the outsider advantage. I have found it to be the case quite often that not having knowledge of industry norms or conventional wisdoms gives one the freedom to explore more freely and go deeper than most others would because you’re unencumbered by biases. 

I have the freedom to ask ‘dumber’ questions and test assumptions in a way that most others wouldn’t because a lot of things are accepted truths. In the past two years I’ve had several conversations with folks within the industry where they are very dogmatic about something but they can’t tell me the provenance of the idea, which I find very puzzling. I like to understand why certain choices were made, and what assumptions or conditions were there at that time and if they still hold. 

Coming from an AI background I tend to take a software view by looking at where the workloads today, and here are all the possible ways they may change over time, and modeling the entire ML pipeline for training and inference to understand the bottlenecks, which tells me where the opportunities to deliver value are. And because I come from a mathematical background I like to model things to get as close to truth as I can, and have that guide me. For example, we have built models to calculate system performance for total cost of ownership and we can measure the benefit we can bring to customers with software and/or hardware and to better understand our constraints and the different knobs available to us, and dozens of other models for various things. We are very data driven, and we use the insights from these models to guide our efforts and tradeoffs. 

It seems like progress in AI has primarily come from scaling, which requires exponentially more compute and energy. It seems like we’re in an arms race with every company trying to build the biggest model, and there appears to be no end in sight. Do you think there is a way out of this?

There are always ways. Scaling has proven extremely useful, and I don’t think we’ve seen the end yet. We will very soon see models being trained with a cost of at least a billion dollars. If you want to be a leader in generative AI and create bleeding edge foundation models you’ll need to be spending at least a few billion a year on compute. Now, there are natural limits to scaling, such as being able to construct a large enough dataset for a model of that size, getting access to people with the right know-how, and getting access to enough compute. 

Continued scaling of model size is inevitable, but we also can’t turn the entire earth’s surface into a planet sized supercomputer to train and serve LLMs for obvious reasons. To get this into control we have several knobs we can play with: better datasets, new model architectures, new training methods, better compilers, algorithmic improvements and exploitations, better computer architectures, and so on. If we do all that, there’s roughly three orders of magnitude of improvement to be found. That’s the best way out. 

You are a believer in first principles thinking, how does this mold your mindset for how you are running Lemurian Labs?

We definitely employ a lot of first principles thinking at Lemurian. I have always found conventional wisdom misleading because that knowledge was formed at a certain point in time when certain assumptions held, but things always change and you need to retest assumptions often, especially when living in such a fast paced world. 

I often find myself asking questions like “this seems like a really good idea, but why might this not work”, or “what needs to be true in order for this to work”, or “what do we know that are absolute truths and what are the assumptions we’re making and why?”, or “why do we believe this particular approach is the best way to solve this problem”. The goal is to invalidate and kill off ideas as quickly and cheaply as possible. We want to try and maximize the number of things we’re trying out at any given point in time. It’s about being obsessed with the problem that needs to be solved, and not being overly opinionated about what technology is best. Too many folks tend to overly focus on the technology and they end up misunderstanding customers’ problems and miss the transitions happening in the industry which could invalidate their approach resulting in their inability to adapt to the new state of the world.

But first principles thinking isn’t all that useful by itself. We tend to pair it with backcasting, which basically means imagining an ideal or desired future outcome and working backwards to identify the different steps or actions needed to realize it. This ensures we converge on a meaningful solution that is not only innovative but also grounded in reality. It doesn’t make sense to spend time coming up with the perfect solution only to realize it’s not feasible to build because of a variety of real world constraints such as resources, time, regulation, or building a seemingly perfect solution but later on finding out you’ve made it too hard for customers to adopt.

Every now and then we find ourselves in a situation where we need to make a decision but have no data, and in this scenario we employ minimum testable hypotheses which give us a signal as to whether or not something makes sense to pursue with the least amount of energy expenditure. 

All this combined is to give us agility, rapid iteration cycles to de-risk items quickly, and has helped us adjust strategies with high confidence, and make a lot of progress on very hard problems in a very short amount of time. 

Initially, you were focused on edge AI, what caused you to refocus and pivot to cloud computing?

We started with edge AI because at that time I was very focused on trying to solve a very particular problem that I had faced in trying to usher in a world of general purpose autonomous robotics. Autonomous robotics holds the promise of being the biggest platform shift in our collective history, and it seemed like we had everything needed to build a foundation model for robotics but we were missing the ideal inference chip with the right balance of throughput, latency, energy efficiency, and programmability to run said foundation model on.

I wasn’t thinking about the datacenter at this time because there were more than enough companies focusing there and I expected they would figure it out. We designed a really powerful architecture for this application space and were getting ready to tape it out, and then it became abundantly clear that the world had changed and the problem truly was in the datacenter. The rate at which LLMs were scaling and consuming compute far outstrips the pace of progress in computing, and when you factor in adoption it starts to paint a worrying picture. 

It felt like this is where we should be focusing our efforts, to bring down the energy cost of AI in datacenters as much as possible without imposing restrictions on where and how AI should evolve. And so, we got to work on solving this problem. 

Can you share the genesis story of Co-Founding Lemurian Labs?

The story starts in early 2018. I was working on training a foundation model for general purpose autonomy along with a model for generative multiphysics simulation to train the agent in and fine-tune it for different applications, and some other things to help scale into multi-agent environments. But very quickly I exhausted the amount of compute I had, and I estimated needing more than 20,000 V100 GPUs. I tried to raise enough to get access to the compute but the market wasn’t ready for that kind of scale just yet. It did however get me thinking about the deployment side of things and I sat down to calculate how much performance I would need for serving this model in the target environments and I realized there was no chip in existence that could get me there. 

A couple of years later, in 2020, I met up with Vassil – my eventual cofounder – to catch up and I shared the challenges I went through in building a foundation model for autonomy, and he suggested building an inference chip that could run the foundation model, and he shared that he had been thinking a lot about number formats and better representations would help in not only making neural networks retain accuracy at lower bit-widths but also in creating more powerful architectures. 

It was an intriguing idea but was way out of my wheelhouse. But it wouldn’t leave me, which drove me to spending months and months learning the intricacies of computer architecture, instruction sets, runtimes, compilers, and programming models. Eventually, building a semiconductor company started to make sense and I had formed a thesis around what the problem was and how to go about it. And, then towards the end of the year we started Lemurian. 

You’ve spoken previously about the need to tackle software first when building hardware, could you elaborate on your views of why the hardware problem is first and foremost a software problem?

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the software side of semiconductors is much harder than the hardware itself. Building a useful computer architecture for customers to use and get benefit from is a full stack problem, and if you don’t have that understanding and preparedness going in, you’ll end up with a beautiful looking architecture that is very performant and efficient, but totally unusable by developers, which is what is actually important. 

There are other benefits to taking a software first approach as well, of course, such as faster time to market. This is crucial in today’s fast moving world where being too bullish on an architecture or feature could mean you miss the market entirely. 

Not taking a software first view generally results in not having derisked the important things required for product adoption in the market, not being able to respond to changes in the market for example when workloads evolve in an unexpected way, and having underutilized hardware. All not great things. That’s a big reason why we care a lot about being software centric and why our view is that you can’t be a semiconductor company without really being a software company. 

Can you discuss your immediate software stack goals?

When we were designing our architecture and thinking about the forward looking roadmap and where the opportunities were to bring more performance and energy efficiency, it started becoming very clear that we were going to see a lot more heterogeneity which was going to create a lot of issues on software. And we don’t just need to be able to productively program heterogeneous architectures, we have to deal with them at datacenter scale, which is a challenge the likes of which we haven’t encountered before. 

This got us concerned because the last time we had to go through a major transition was when the industry moved from single-core to multi-core architectures, and at that time it took 10 years to get software working and people using it. We can’t afford to wait 10 years to figure out software for heterogeneity at scale, it has to be sorted out now. And so, we got to work on understanding the problem and what needs to exist in order for this software stack to exist. 

We are currently engaging with a lot of the leading semiconductor companies and hyperscalers/cloud service providers and will be releasing our software stack in the next 12 months. It is a unified programming model with a compiler and runtime capable of targeting any kind of architecture, and orchestrating work across clusters composed of different kinds of hardware, and is capable of scaling from a single node to a thousand node cluster for the highest possible performance.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Lemurian Labs.

[tonyatibbs]

Last attempt to sale house. Hopefully I'm able to just sale house and leave my personal private life out of the house selling process if not I'll just let the house go and live at a homeless camp while having an attorney resolve major civil, criminal, medical, real estate, family ect lawsuit... Im so damn sick and tired of being treated like complete fucking trash like a lab rat punching bag to be pass around within slavery... I should have never been treated the way I have been the whole 8years I bought my first house and to have family and should have been friends join is completely sick. I shouldn't be tied down in hell with reminder of the most disgusting sex crime ever done on purpose for the length of time in the amount of people who participated in such a terrible sick crime. Plus the amount of laws violated and broken but put together in supported by law enforcement with them abusing me for all of the sick hurtful crimes they and other commitments to me plus humor with the permanent mental damage they did to me on purpose. Abusing me with certain things on purpose to be as hurtful on purpose out of desperate needs trying to find a reason to send me somewhere to prevent criminal, lawsuit and unwanted lab rat. I'm sorry but what y'all did was really hurtful that's why you did it, but to the level y'all took it to knowing how I felt about my privacy y'all decided to violate my personal thoughts then broadcast it knowing I'm against nudity so you sexually abused me in every way possible plus set up my body to sexual abuse me after many requests asking them not to alter my body. Don't even use a single hair from my head in broadcast plus reached out to people I knew in allowed them to participate with refusing to stop and doing it in a way where you can't report it since cops set it up knowing I was already a victim of rape and assault. Plus taking over All internet and phone plus broadcasting and linking to a crazy amount sharing personal and private videos and personal information. You also took over all medical and broadcast that as well and denied me the right to know the truth. Y'all didn't just trespass and break in my house once y'all literally took over my house for over a year acting like it was yours and just straight out refuse to leave laughing in my face when asked to leave even after all the theft in harm that has came from it ( couple of suicidal attempts hospital visits) I have the right to try to get over the abuse that all of y'all took place in with removing Texas Privacy laws from me on y'all own. Never attempt to even get consent on anything since it was all done behind my back ( my body, house, personal accounts and my kids ect ) plus decided that the Judge rolling doesn't work best for everyone who sexually abused me in use me as a punching bag so they decided to give their self legal rights to overrule already enforced child custody agreement to again always benefits their needs like removing Texas Laws from me plus Civil Right amendments ect... Again y'all use your personal opinion that always favors y'all to make judgment going against multiple turn downs in the courtroom. The last thing I need is disrespect in all of that so please don't feel like you need to worry about my private life it's not y'all place mostly with the crimes y'all did and how y'all treated me for how evil y'all were to me. If y'all didn't give yourself so much special people privilege the normal protocol would be everyone that took place would not be able to be around me at all till resolved y'all wouldn't be given the opportunity to keep abusing me and rubbing your crime in my face. Texas has this protocol for a reason because the victim needs time to heal or it can be dangerous there's a reason for this process...

[icharchivist]

Very bad/dumb brainrot but. CagliostroxLucilius

Not entirely sure why my brain went here but it did. And while I don't seriously ship it, I kinda wonder.

Astrals, for whatever reason, promise this young, bright boy a new, better body if he submits himself to a few... tests. He agrees, again for whatever reason, and joins them (maybe the sister had to have died at this point? Who knows.)

Gets introduced to Lucilius as an apprentice, but the boy starts to very much Be Better than him, and they start to grumble their way to becoming Partners.

"I can make you a new body. Better. Look at Lucifer." Cag looks at Lucifer and laughs with haughtiness.

"I don't want your sloppy, egotistical sloppy seconds. I'll make my own body better." And he does. It completely eclipses Lucifer's body in one major factor. Only problem, in Lucilius' eyes is.

"Cuteness? All of this research, power to eliminate islands' worth of life, and you chose to use my ("our") research to beat my penultimate project in... cuteness?" The newly transferred Cagliostro twirls the specifically tailored clothing around, doing a cute pose and winking at Lucilius.

"Hee hee~ of course. I myself have all the power I need, and I can grab more with enough research. Now I can do it as my cutest possible~! Oh, and I'm a girl now. The next primal to misgender me is going to get certain parts re-arranged." A haughty expression replaces the cute look, at the very least reassuring Lucilius his companion hasn't gone mad... yet.

He chooses not to comment when Beelzebub later comes to give a report with a strained face, though he privately snorts when he begins demanding proper resistances to 'certain alchemical brats'.

Dunno. Just seems fun. Both made their own ideal bodies (though Lucifer had a personality) and seem to be reticent towards higher powers. Both are later betrayed and sealed in some way (which btw, how the hell did Lucilius come back from just being a head, wtf). And come back with a vengeance.

as a little headsup, i know you mostly referred as Cags this way to really mark that it's pre-transition but I think she should still be referred to by her actual pronouns. Like she didn't become a woman the moment she changed her body and all that.

I get what you meant though but DLKJFD At least i'm not really comfortable with that especially considering Cags has heavy dysphoria and looks very unkindly/with panic to her life pre-transition in this other body. I get that it's really to symbolize her past but we have the benefit of the full picture that we can give her that at least.

Either way back to the meat of the ask, i genuinely think interactions between Lucilius and Cagliostro would be hilarious and it's honestly such a shame in wmtsb they don't actually meet despite Cags being around. The fact Cags genuinely admires Lucilius's work while still going "though of course i'm still better <3" makes for such a funny dynamic and i wish it was explored more.

So the idea of them being friendrivals in the lab working together is pretty funny imo, esp with this whole "made a whole other body that correspond more to their actual ideals". And hey, Lucilius did end up in (well, on) Lucifer's body in the end so! Fitting!

And i feel like Lucilius would bear with Cagliostro because she is the only person in this place who can keep up with his own genius. Even Lucifer, for all his perfection, cannot be as fit for that. Lucilius and Cags would send each other opinions and ideas so much so that... Honestly i feel like Lucilius and Cags would have ended up taking God out together at this point. Maybe they had to never meet so they wouldn't be this heavily buffed.

As to whenever to read the dynamic as eventually queerplatonic, that would be a fun reading. Not sure i envy Cags for being a the other end of Belial's jealousy in there though.

So, idea with potential, definitely :3c

Take care!

[grandtheftautumn]

I fucking hate chemistry.

[storiesofsvu]

Fortuitous Reunion Ch 9

Rita Calhoun x reader Warnings: language, kidnapping, physical assault, very angry/overprotective Rita, hurt/comfort, angst, self defense. things get heavy.

While you were excited for the change of scenery, you were honestly much more excited about seeing your best friend again. It had been a few months by now, both of you busy with work and more that you hadn’t seen each other since Sophie’s last day at Mercy, only communicating through a small handful of texts. You practically bounded into the patient room, missing the cop posted outside the door, launching into a hug with her once you noticed the patient was unconscious.

“Oh my god! You’re finally here!” She greeted enthusiastically, “it was getting boring around here without you!”

“It’s good to see you too.” You laughed, reaching for the chart, “what’s this guy in for?”

“Multiple rapes and murders, I think I heard he kidnapped a cop?”

“I meant medically….but thanks for the heads up, I will not uncuff him when he tries to bribe me later.” You flipped through his chart as Sophie laughed.

“So….any new wedding plans I should know about? What’s the hot gossip?”

“Nothing wedding related,” you laughed, “but I do have some big news.” Sophie gasped dramatically,

“Oh my God! Did you guys change your mind on the kid front? Are you pregnant?!”

“No.” Your face scrunched, “do you think Rita would let me anywhere near a prison ward if I was pregnant?”

“Good point.” She nodded.

“I..found my birth Mom.”

“Oh?! What’s she like?”

“You actually already know her.”

“I do?”

“Olivia…”

“Captain Benson?” You nodded, “talk about a small world.”

“I know!” You moved from the foot of the bed as you checked the man’s vitals, beginning to draw some blood, “we’ve been hanging out on a pretty regular basis the past couple of months. She’s honestly incredible, so sweet, but also a major bad ass at the same time.”

“Safe to say you’re getting along then?”

“Enough that she’s giving me away at the wedding, yeah.”

“Y/n that’s incredible.”

“It’s like..everything’s kinda come full circle and fallen into place perfectly.” You smiled, “I couldn’t be happier.”

“I’m glad.”

“Okay.” You popped the top on the vial, “his vitals are fine. I’ll page cardio but I know they’re backed up right now so it might be a while.”

“It’s fine.” Sophie waved it off, “he’s not 911. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

“I’ll drop this off at the lab and do a round before I come back. Lunch on me?”

“Sounds perfect.” Sophie shot you a grin as you left the room. You were so thankful to have your best friend back in your daily life, as much as everything was falling into place in your personal life, your professional life always enjoyed a little bit of a shake up. You supposed that’s why you got into nursing, as much as it was a lot of paperwork or idly waiting for tradgedy to strike, there was a certain thrill element that gave you a rush, helped retain your interest to keep going to work every day.

It didn’t take long for you to find the lab, you managed to run into a cardiologist on the way and after running over the info they agreed it wasn’t a top priority, but to keep checking in just in case something went awry.

*

“Cap!” Carisi swung into Olivia’s office, a fire burning in his gut, the stiffness evident in his voice as he glanced up, realizing that Rita was sitting across from Olivia’s desk. “Sorry for interruptin’ but we have a problem.”

“What’s going on?”

“Lewis is gone.”

“What? How?”

“I dunno. He assaulted Sophie, left her tied up in the bathroom.” His voice was nearly a low growl as he admitted it, “they’re trying to track down Y/N right now.”

“What do you mean track her down?!” Rita turned in the chair, fully paying attention to the conversation, her heart already picking up in her chest, you weren’t one to just ditch the job.

“She was the last one in the room with the two of ‘em. Soph said she went to drop off labs and find someone from cardio. She also said…and I hate ta pry like this but they had a conversation about you bein’ Y/N’s birth mother in the room. They thought he was unconscious, but there’s a chance Lewis knows she’s your daughter.”

“Have you tried calling her?” Rita shot back, “page her! It’s a goddamn hospital!” Sonny nearly shrunk at the woman’s tone, it was already shifting into her courtroom voice, and despite his own raging emotions he wasn’t about to battle with hers. Thankfully they were saved by Liv’s phone going off,

“It’s her.” She stated before picking up, “sweetheart we’re on our way now. Stay with Sophie we’ll be there in twenty.” The dark chuckle on the other end of the phone made her blood run cold.

“Captain Benson…I had no idea you had such a pretty young thing for a daughter.” Lewis’ voice drawled through the line.

“You do not lay a hand on her!”

Rita’s head snapped toward the other woman, a warning glare already in her eyes as her jaw clenched, how the hell did this happen? Olivia heard a muffled cry from the other side of the phone before Lewis spoke again, this time his voice a little distant as he directed his comment to you.

“I thought I told you to be quiet.” Oliva jumped at the sound of something colliding with your head and then Lewis was back on the line with her, “I couldn’t get you, guess I’ll have to settle for the next best thing. I wonder if she’s as fiesty as you were. What do you think? Will she put up as much of a fight?”

“Lewis!”- the line went dead.

“Find them now.” Rita practically growled toward Benson, who held up a warning hand.

“Rita..”

“No. Three years…three fucking years I have kept her out of this kind of world, and completely safe! She was fine! She was totally out of harms way for three years! Three months knowing that you’re her Mom and she gets abducted?!”

“She’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that. Goddammit Olivia! This is William Lewis we’re talking about! He managed to kidnap, torture and nearly rape and kill you! You’re a cop! You’re trained with guns, how to de-escalate high stress situations, how to fight! She doesn’t know any of that! Whatever the fuck happens to her is on you, I hope you realize that.”

“Counsellor…” Carisi warned gently. The shouting match in the office had brought attention of the rest of the squad, awkwardly hovering in the open doorway behind Carisi.

“No. She is my world. And I refuse to lose her. So you are going to walk out that door and you are going to do your fucking jobs and find her before he can lay a finger on her. Do I make myself clear?”

Olivia dropped her head into her hands, trying to hold it together while also trying to clear her head enough to make a game plan. Rita was right, Lewis was a force to be reckoned with. Her mind flashed back to the memories she’d tried so hard to keep buried down, the horrible emotional and physical pain brought on by those three days that she still had to live with every day. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone, especially her daughter, you’d done nothing to deserve this, simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong (hypothetical) last name. Taking a deep breath she wiped the stray tear, turning to her team.

“Carisi, go with Rollins to Bellevue. Get Sophie’s statement, get a bolo out on her car. Put a squad car on her and get one on Lucy and Noah. Rollins can follow the bolo, but you’re there as a boyfriend, not a cop. Understood?” He gave a tight nod, turning to his partner, “Fin, Amaro, track Y/N’s phone, even if he’s tossed it it’ll give us an idea of what direction they’re heading in. Start checking traffic cams and toll booths for any hint of Lewis. We have a slight advantage here, we know how he works.”

“We also know he probably wants to be found.” Rollins cut in, all eyes shot to her and she shrugged towards the Captain, “he wants you. He wants your attention, he just happens to have the best leverage he can get.”

“And what!?” Rita shot, “Y/n just becomes collateral damage?”

“It won’t come to that.” Olivia replied, “Rollins is right. Let’s get eyes on that beach house from last time. Go!” With that last urgency, the squad scattered, and fast. Liv turned back to the one woman left in her office, “Rita…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I could promise you that she won’t be hurt but…”

“Just get her back to me. Please.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Tears flooded into Rita’s eyes, her previous anger burnt off, replaced with absolute terror of what this monster was capable of. If he could do as much damage to Benson as she’d seen, she didn’t even want to think about how you were going to come out of this…if you were going to at all.

*

A sudden burning against your abdomen wrenched you out of your unconscious state, a scream muffled by the duct tape over your lips.

“There she is.” The man chuckled, tossing the car’s cigarette lighter back to the front seat, “I thought I mighta’ hit you too hard princess.” You squirmed away as he traced down the side of your face with a stolen scalpel, “I’m gonna take this tape off now. If you so much as think about making a noise you’re dead you hear me?” He cocked an eye brow and you nodded, “good girl.” He stashed the scalpel into the front pocket of your scrub top, “we’ll save that for later.”

You gasped for air the second the tape was off, your head still throbbing from the earlier hit you’d taken. Lewis tugged you out of the back seat of the car, you stumbled on your feet, having been shoved into such an uncomfortable angle for so long. You appeared to be at an off the beaten track gas station, he’d parked around back, a curve of trees hiding you from view from the highway. There was a second car parked nearby, you didn’t miss the trail of blood leading from it to the trunk of Sophie’s, trembling at the thought. Lewis chuckled as he quickly led you to the backseat of the stolen one.

“You’re much more compliant than Captain Benson was. It’s a shame she didn’t tell me she had a daughter…you’re much more my type.”

“Wh-“ you were cut off suddenly by another piece of tape sealing your lips shut. What did Liv have to do with this? Your brain scrambled as he roughly shoved you into the backseat, it suddenly became very clear when you remembered Sophie’s words to you earlier that afternoon. Multiple rapes and murders….a kidnapped cop. That cop had to be Olivia. You felt your eyes burn with tears, a shaky breath trying to escape you as you did your best not to think of what this man had in store for you. You half watched him pop the trunk, not liking the sound of the low whistle and laughter coming from that direction as he viewed its contents. You jolted when he reappeared in the doorway,

“These are gonna be much more fun, don’t ya think princess?” In his hand was a small collection of what looked like hunting or fishing knives. You specifically cringed at the serrated blade of one of them, not wanting to have any idea of what it felt like. He tossed all but one into the passanger seat, “shall we try this one out first?”

You instinctively jerked when his bony hand enclosed around your ankle, you were tempted to try and kick his face but you knew that wouldn’t do much good considering your position, your hands were bound, and he had a weapon in his hands, you wouldn’t make it far. The knife slipped under the leg of your pants, his hand swiftly moving upwards as it sliced through the fabric, he twisted it at the end, slicing into your thigh. The tears burning in your eyes began to slip through the cracks, streaking your face as the blood slowly leaked onto the torn fabric of your pants.

“Yeah…these’ll work much better.” Lewis laughed,  slamming the back door shut before he moved to the drivers seat. “You’re such a good playmate princess.” Even just his gaze made you squirm, there had been no doubt in your mind that this man was a fucking monster earlier, but you were praying that somewhere down the road, he would fuck up, preferably sooner rather than later.

*

Back at the precinct Rita’s hands were shaking in her lap. In hindsight maybe that fourth cup of coffee wasn’t a good idea after all. It’s not like she was having trouble staying alert right now, her brain was shooting all of the horrible thoughts it could at her about what was potentially happening to you right now. She remembered hearing about his last case, the damage he’d done to so many people, Olivia included. While the other woman had never opened up about it to her, she knew her injuries had been bad, and she knew that Lewis enjoyed torturing his victims. For the sake of your sanity, there was a part of her that wished he would accidentally fuck up, killing you instantly. At least then she would know you hadn’t suffered too much.

They’d found your phone on the side of the road where Lewis had ditched it after calling Liv, it wasn’t far from the hospital, but gave them a general idea that he might be heading South, though that didn’t make much sense. It was close enough to the Williamsburg Bridge that he could have potentially trapped himself on the peninsula and they began flooding the zone with uni’s.

Sophie’s car turned up at an isolated gas station fourty five minutes later. There was blood and hair in the backseat, and worst of all, a dead body in the trunk. They managed to thankfully ID him, and put a bolo out on all and any vehicles he owned the squad knew time was of the essence and they were slowly running out as the sun sank over the city.

Olivia glanced across the squad room, through the door to her office, as worried as she was about you, she knew Rita was absolutely terrified, and she couldn’t blame her. While Rita may not have been privy to exactly how dirty Lewis liked to play, that was still the love of her life being held captive with some psychopath. The one she’d waited so long to find, the one who made her incredibly soft, loving, the complete opposite of the woman she was on the outside. Now as Olivia watched her wipe away a fresh set of tears, hunched over on the couch, she saw a completely different woman. One that was utterly broken, scared, one who probably cared more about you than she did about herself. She was merely a shell of her other powerful, and warm woman that she used to be. Olivia couldn’t let that be the woman that Rita became, she had to get you back, not for herself, but for your true love. She would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that you walked down that damn aisle, even if she had to sacrifice herself to make it happen. It was what you and Rita deserved.

Rita’s head tilted slightly as her phone buzzed, she’d been screening her calls, obviously more involved with finding you, even if all she was doing was sitting in Liv’s office crying over the thought of never seeing you again. This notification piqued her interest, grabbing the phone, practically stumbling to the doorway.

“Liv!” Olivia’s head swiveled back to Rita, brows furrowed as she jogged over to Rita.

“What?”

“They’re in the Hamptons.”

“What? How do you know?” Rita flipped the phone, an image of Lewis practically dragging you in the back door of a beach house.

“Security notifications come straight to my phone, you need to call the local p.d now! Call them off, if he hears sirens, I’m worried….” She took a shaky breath, “I’m worried what he’ll do.”

Rita quickly rattled off the address as Liv got everyone caught up, her hand already dialing the local police to not engage, that they had this handled and were on their way. Rita knew there was no way this was just an off chance, sure, Lewis liked the idea of the abandoned beach town, no one would be around since the weather had started to chill. But there was no way in hell he randomly picked her Hamptons house. There was some part of you that was still semi conscious enough to get him to agree to going there. She was now more thankful than ever that she’d had the cameras set up last year, she wasn’t even sure if you knew about them, maybe you’d just been trying to get somewhere familiar, somewhere you could pretend what was happening wasn’t as bad as it was.

*

When you came to for the third time that day, you groaned, your entire fucking body ached, littered with little cuts and burns. Somewhere along the way you remembered that you’d read somewhere that the more you fight back, the more likely they were to just give up and let you go without finishing the job.

As it turned out, that was not the case that applied here.

You’d taken quite the beating once inside the house, you were certain a couple of ribs were broken, and you could feel even more bruising beginning to form underneath your skin. You’d be feeling these injuries for a while, if you made it out of here. Basically the only thing keeping you going at this point was Rita, you had to hold on for her, you couldn’t possibly leave her alone in this horrible version of the world.

You tried to move your body, remembering when you did that he had your wrists individually duct taped to the spires in the headboard. You’d been cautiously wriggling against them since he bound you, thankful that the heat was for some reason turned on in the house, even the slightest bit of sweat could help melt some of the glue on your skin.

“Awe…you’re awake princess.” He sneered as he re-entered the room, “ready for round two?”

“Please…no…” your voice was hoarse, tears budding in the corners of your eyes. The gash on your leg had steadily been leaking for hours, you felt completely exhausted, you weren’t sure how much more fight you had left in you. He chuckled darkly again, you shrieked as he tore what was left of your pants off right before he wrenched at your body, flipping you onto your stomach. The yelp started out from the pain of your shoulders moving in ways they probably shouldn’t, but grew louder at the sudden stabbing in your chest.

“You can scream all you want out here…no one’s gonna hear you.”

You practically sobbed into the pillow, feeling the bed dip with his weight, the clinking of his belt buckle. He traced one of the hunting knives up the inside of your leg, too distracted with playing with his prey that he didn’t notice you wriggling against the duct tape. You realized what was stabbing you in the chest. He’d swiped your ID badge back at the hospital, but your brain thankfully remembered the scalpel he had stashed in your pocket, clearly forgetting about it once he discovered the bigger knives. You knew that the tape on your left wrist was loosened, with enough force, you’d probably be able to get out, even if it meant breaking your wrist in the process. The cold blade of the knife was suddenly at your lower back, pressing in slightly right as it dipped into the waistband of your underwear, a muffled cry escaped your lips.

A car door slammed outside, pulling Lewis’ attention and while it may only be brief, and he may have the larger knife, you had a much better knowledge of human anatomy. Using all of your lasting energy, you ripped your hand from the loose tape (a scream ripping from your lips at the pain), grabbing the scalpel as you did your best to roll over under his weight. One deep swipe to his carotid and you ducked under your free arm, doing the best you could to keep his now dead weight, and gushing blood off your face.

You jumped when you heard a loud crash from the direction of the front door, your heart rate slightly coming back to earth when you heard Olivia’s voice shouting through the house.

“Get the fuck off her!” She didn’t realize he was already dead, a sob escaping your lips bringing her attention back to you as she shoved his body off you. “Honey…it’s okay…it’s okay. I’m gonna need you to put that down, okay?” Your eyes moved to your trembling hand, not even realizing you were still holding a weapon, you dropped it instantly as if it was burning into your skin.

“Rita?” You choked out.

“She’s here, she’s outside sweetheart.” You could hear other members of the squad sweeping the rest of the house as Liv did her best to calm you down. She swiftly used the knife to free you of your other bond, your un-injured hand cradling your broken one. “There’s EMT’s outside, we need to get you checked out.” Your gaze dropped to your body, littered in marks, your scrub top soaked with Lewis’ blood, your shredded pants lay next to the bed.

“Bottom drawer.” You murmured. Olivia suddenly remembered that this was Rita’s house, you were bound to know where things were.

Swiftly moving through the room she had you in a fresh pair of pyjama pants quickly, taking a moment to hold you to her. Breathing out a sigh of relief that they’d gotten to you before Lewis had hit his limit, and that you’d done a pretty decent job protecting yourself. You did have some of that Benson blood in you after all.

Once you were down the porch steps your eyes were searching for Rita, finding her near the ambulance. She let out a strangled cry at the sight of you, part of it relieved that you were still alive, the other half of her absolutely disintegrating at how much blood you were covered in. She pushed past the barrier of cops as you half jogged toward her, ignoring the pain of your leg.

The instant you were in her arms you broke, buried against her coat while the sobs heaved through your body, the pain in your ribs making you cry even harder. You’d done your best to stay strong for far too long, you’d put it all into fighting back, into saving as much of your dignity that you could. Now, wrapped in Rita’s embrace you were finally able to let it all come crashing out. You could feel her own tears dropping against your skin, her body shaking with breaths as she held you.

“Lewis?” She asked over the top of your head to Liv.

“Dead.”

“I didn’t hear a shot.”

“She slit his throat.” Liv gestured toward you, Rita pulled the slightest bit away, glancing down at your face.

“Am..am I in trouble?” You asked through your cries.

“No honey, absolutely not.” Even with Olivia’s response, Rita’s grip on you tightened as the other woman stepped forward, as if she was going to attempt to cuff you then and there. You winced at the pain, a grunt coming from your throat.

“Come on darling, they need to look at you.” She softly kissed the top of your head, her voice quiet enough for only you to hear, a prominent shake it in as she directed you towards the ambulance. “Did he rape you?” You took a shaky breath, your words nearly lost against her body.

“Just…just his hand..” you shuddered, thankful you’d been so out of it by that point from blood loss and a very likely concussion that you barely acknowledged or remembered it. Rita’s grip tightened around you again, she was happy he hadn’t managed to complete his task but god only knew if you hadn’t killed him she would be walking right back into that house and doing it herself.

She guided you to the paramedics as Liv came jogging back out with a tshirt from the house, letting you rid yourself of the blood soaked one. It relieved Rita to see that so much of the blood wasn’t yours, but her eyes dragged over the other small marks littering your body. There was no way in hell she was leaving your side for a very long time.

An I.V was promptly hooked up to give you some pain killers and fluids while the paramedic started asking you a few questions, you were half in an out at this point, exhaustion wearing on you more than you could’ve imagined. You knew you mentioned your leg, that it needed to be stitched, and you were aware of Rita’s hand curled in yours, the other softly brushing hair from your face. You knew you were finally safe, that your love was back by your side, your subconscious finally encouraging you to rest for a bit.

[fatefulfaerie]

Out In The Open

A happy birthday to Court! I hope you like it!

Zelda hated her lab partner.

At first she was fine with his apparent lack of effort. She was doing all the work, but that meant the work was being done correctly. After a while, however, she saw the sandy-haired young man as quite the leech. After all, he was getting A’s in Chem lab only because he was copying her paper. He wasn’t learning anything, and it bothered Zelda immensely. Sure she was a Chemistry major and he was undeclared, but he should still care more than he does. Why come to college if you aren’t ready to learn as much as you can? Why not apply yourself?

He sat across the room from her in the lecture portion of the class, so only him and Hylia knew how he was doing there. Perhaps he was failing. Zelda almost felt bad about that until…

“Would you like to try it?” She asked every week, holding a beaker or a pipette or a tong or prepping a bunsen burner or whatever the task was for that week.

“Nah,” he would say. “You go ahead.”

The day was March 3rd when Zelda decided to say something about it. They had just finished their lab on Boyle’s Law and she knew that he didn’t have class afterwards because she would always see him walk towards the dorms while she walked to the library.

“Hey!” She said – not quite yelling but talking loud enough so that he heard – chasing him down the hallway, he stopped and turned.

“Can I talk to you about something?” Zelda said. “Maybe over a cup of coffee?”

“Uh,” Link’s mouth hung agape like an idiot, as if he’d just been asked out. “Y-yeah.”

“Are you free now?” Zelda asked, aligning her gaze. She had never before met her eyes to his, and thus never noticed what a pretty shade of blue they were. But that was irrelevant, and she pushed those thoughts to the side.

They came back however, when she sat down across from him at the coffee shop. Like teardrops of aquamarine they shone blue and bright. From a purely scientific perspective, of course, they were an uncanny resemblance to the Brazilian variety of aquamarine. And mathematically, the rest of him was attractive as well, his cheekbones, his brow, his nose, his lips, his toned muscles, his lean physique, his perfect proportions. Mathematically, of course. She ignored her observations.

“I’ve been meaning to bring this up for quite a while now,” Zelda said, her hand around her latte-filled mug. She meant to add ‘and it’s nothing personal’ when Link chimed a:

“I have too, actually.”

“You have?!” Zelda said with a sigh. “Oh, that’s such a relief. I didn’t think you cared.”

“Of course I care,” Link replied. “I don’t know how anyone couldn’t.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Zelda asked, taking a sip. It warmed her chest. Link hesitated.

“Well, I mean you can’t really blame me,” Link said. “It’s hard to admit to someone you have feelings for them, especially when you were always so focused on the lab.”

Zelda had choked on her coffee when Link said the word ‘feelings’, and now she was red and coughing at the misunderstanding, slightly tearing up, all of her body’s knee-jerk reactions to coughing up coffee mid-swallow.

“A-are you okay?” Link asked as the coughing fit neared its close. A couple more coughs and Zelda said with a strained voice:

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Link inquired with a raised brow.

“No, I…” Zelda said. “Did…” She winced. She’d never been a heartbreaker before. “Did you think this was a date?”

Link froze. His expression fell and he paled.

“Is it not?” He asked timidly.

“Oh geez,” Zelda asked. “I asked you here to talk about chem lab. I’m really sorry if-”

“N-no it’s fine,” Link stammered. “Really. I’m the one who misunderstood. What about chem lab?”

He was obviously trying to change the subject and Zelda let him. Later was the time to tell him that she also had certain feelings for him, even though they were only scientific…mathematical…physical? She had trouble finding the words. She didn’t really know him. Her attraction was epidermal, superficial, like a freckle on the skin, like the nails embedded into the fingers via cuticle tissue. She shook off her train of thought. The first time she had a genuine crush on a guy and she was trying to diagnose it.

“It’s nothing personal,” she said, continuing the conversation the way she had rehearsed it. “But you don’t really participate. You seem like a good guy but you’re kind of lacking as a lab partner. Is there anything I can do to help? I mean it doesn’t seem like you’re really learning anything.”

“Oh, right,” Link said, looking down. Somehow this felt worse than telling him this wasn’t intended to be a date. Perhaps she could have clarified that this could be a date, but what was done was done. Her social skills were not good enough for this. Not only was he not date-worthy but he was a terrible lab partner? And all this was coming from his crush? Goddesses, she was terrible at this.

“Look, I–”

“You’re right,” Link interrupted. “And I’m sorry, it’s just…and it’s no excuse really but you’re like really smart and stuff and I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of you by accidentally burning down the school or something.”

“I don’t think embarrassing yourself is the most concerning part of that scenario.”

“I do have a tutor for the lecture part,” Link explained further. “I think your concern is really sweet. I’m just not very coordinated when it comes to all the little glass things.”

“Beakers?” Zelda suggested.

“No, the other ones.”

“Test tubes?”

Link looked confused.

“Okay there’s a lot of breakable stuff involved,” Link said. “And toxic things and all that. My point is that I’m no good with it. You are. It was easier to sit back and let you do you. And all the equations and stoichiometry stuff, you do it in half the time I do.”

Zelda couldn’t help but blush.

“Would it help if I slowed down?” Zelda said. “Really explained why I’m doing what I’m doing?”

Link nodded.

“Yeah, that could work,” Link said, before chuckling. “You must think I’m so stupid.”

Zelda reached out and grabbed his hand. His breath got caught in his throat.

“I don’t,” she insisted genuinely. “And you shouldn’t either. Chemistry is hard. Heck, school is hard. There’s no shame in needing help. I go to the writing center in the library every day at 10 am to get help with my essays.”

Link braved a smile.

“I’d offer my help but I don’t want to impose,” Link said, bashfully and ashamed. Zelda took his hand properly and he let out a soft gasp.

“I would love your help,” she said. “I also wouldn’t mind going on a proper date with you.”

Link shook his head.

“I don’t want a pity date.”

“It’s not a pity date,” Zelda said. “I think you’re cute, and I'd like to get to know you better.”

Zelda smiled, and didn’t quite stop until late that night, the burgeoning scientist coming to one undebatable conclusion.

Zelda loved her lab partner.

[random2908]

When talking about new techs, I think TRL (technology readiness level) should be more widely known. Some of the numbers are a bit ambiguous, or very specific to certain types of technologies, so I'm going to group them a bit.

Basically:

TRL 1-3 means it's still being done in a university lab. TRL 1 is just an idea, and TRL 2 is an experiment.

TRL 3 is where you have a reliably working lab experiment that has a path to being turned into a technology. TRL 3 is about where you can apply for start-up funding. In my field (quantum tech), it takes anywhere from 2-20 years to get from TRL 1 to TRL 3, depending on how complicated the subsystems need to be.

TRL 4 means you're working on a prototype.

TRL 5 means you have a prototype. This is where most projects die--either failing to reach a working TRL 5 prototype, or failing to pass TRL 5 by getting it to work outside the lab. Getting from TRL 3 to TRL 5 usually takes about 2-5 years in quantum tech.

TRL 6-7 means you've tested your prototype outside the lab. TRL 4-7 are iterative. TRL 7 is where people start offering things for sale (sometimes TRL 5, but that can be a disaster). Getting from TRL 5 to TRL 7 may only a few months to a year. But iterating TRL 4-7 until you're ready for TRL 8 takes 2-5 years.

TRL 8 means fully tested by the developer and ready for sale. At this point, most quantum tech start-ups are at least 10 years old, sometimes older, although I've heard of some simpler magnetometers getting here in like 5 years. (Note that for software start-ups, 5 years is usually considered by investors to be a hard deadline for "succeed or die," with success meaning reaching TRL 8. Quantum tech, being a hardware tech, is much slower.)

TRL 9 means successfully used by customers.

Many types of quantum sensors and quantum computers are at a TRL point where you could arguably describe them as a technology rather than just as science; I'd say that's TRL 5, but you aren't going to hear about TRL 5s most of the time, because they're often proprietary.

TRL 7 is about where people try to sell things, but they're really expensive and prone to breaking, and only customers who are already experts can really use them; TRL 9 is where it's an actual salable product.

There are a lot of second-gen quantum tech products already out there!

There are obviously a lot of TRL 9 atomic clocks on the market and have been for decades.

There are a few TRL 9 (I think?? actually I'm not sure) and several TRL 7 quantum magnetometers on the market.

There's at least one company that makes a TRL 6ish quantum electrometer/comms receiver, maybe it's TRL 7 by now, but I don't think it's for sale.

This quantum navigation device in the OP obviously TRL 7 but, checking the website of the quantum tech company that actually makes it (not Boeing lol), I don't think it's for sale. I think a few companies have TRL 5 quantum nav devices; and one company is at some mix of TRL 4/6 where they've tested subcomponents in the field but they haven't ever built a complete prototype; but this is the only TRL 7 to my knowledge. No company currently sells a quantum nav system.

I think at least four or five companies have quantum gravimeters at a TRL 5-7 level; I know at least one is available for sale and at least two are not, but I don't have a full accounting.

There are a few quantum computers for sale that are debatably at a TRL 7 level. A friend of mine who used to work at a major quantum computing company said their computer was really TRL 3. This is why a lot of quantum computing companies will sell computation time on their machines, rather than the actual machines. (Because you can't actually take them out of the labs where they were built, or allow them to be run by a non-expert.) This is its own discussion--there's a bit of an inverse correlation between how fraudulent the TRL level is and how fraudulent the product is in quantum computing.

Apropos nothing... Everyone always talking about quantum computing and quantum information as the big second-generation* quantum-tech applications. (Someday I will get into what I think about quantum computing.) But there's a whole world of quantum sensing out there that's way more successful, starting with atomic clocks, which are already an established second-gen quantum technology.

Here's a recent result in quantum sensing:

* First-generation quantum tech is things that rely on the quantum nature of materials. The whole semi-conductor industry, and lasers, are the primary examples. Second-generation quantum tech is technology that relies on quantum control: the active building and control of quantum systems. By far the earliest example, and the most commercially advanced, is quantum clocks. But there are other types of quantum sensors on the market (mainly quantum magnetometers).