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poisonlove · 2 months ago

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la maledizione degli Addams²

Pairing: wednesday Addams X reader

Wednesday had been avoiding you, deliberately ignoring the itch she felt every time you were near, focusing solely on her investigation. Though it pained her to avoid the deep connection with her soulmate, her determination to solve the mysteries surrounding her took precedence over any emotion. Her investigations had paid off: she had discovered a secret library that led her to the book with the missing page about Rowan (luckily after the Poe Cup), and she had followed her leads into the woods during Outreach Day, finding the lair of the monster and planning to visit it with Eugene.

But unfortunately Enid had dragged her to the Raven.

Wednesday had chosen to use Tyler as a scapegoat. The normal boy, attracted to her, represented a useful resource for her goals. She knew she could exploit his interest to focus on her investigations while distancing herself from Galpin.

But when she saw Eugene with his backpack ready for their excursion, a pressure tightened in her chest. The disappointment on Eugene’s face was palpable, an expression that struck Wednesday in an unexpected way.

"Don’t go into the woods," she told him, her black eyes fixed on him with an intensity that sent chills down his spine.

"We'll go after the party. Stay close" she added.

At the entrance to the ballroom, the itch she had felt grew more intense. Without thinking her eyes began to search for you among the crowd. There you were. A burning fire ignited inside her and in an involuntary gesture she clenched her jaw, producing a crack that revealed her growing frustration. The sight of Yoko, your dance partner, only fueled her irritation.

Damn curse.

The Addams curse that she had always considered both a blessing and a burden now amplified her feelings, making each moment even more painful.

The image of Y/N laughing and enjoying herself with Yoko struck her like a blow to the heart. A pang of pain spread through her chest as if her soul was being torn apart. Every smile from Y/N, every glance exchanged with Yoko felt like a mortal wound.

Wednesday found herself caught in a tearing conflict: on one side was her untamed nature pushing her to keep her distance; on the other an overwhelming desire to get closer, to reconnect with you even if it meant facing vulnerability.

Her gaze involuntarily shifted to Yoko.

The vampire with her charming smile and relaxed demeanor only amplified Wednesday's frustration.

"Damn it," she thought as her hands tightened around Tyler's arm. She wanted to run away but she knew she couldn’t. Her soulmate was there and despite everything, the urge to move closer was undeniable.

Yoko chuckled softly as she noticed how sparks were crackling around your body. You could control lightning. Likely due to the intensity of Wednesday’s gaze, Y/N turned away from Yoko and directed her eyes in Wednesday's direction. By some twist of fate, you were the only two girls in the entire school wearing black dresses at a party where white was the required attire.

Enid's figure suddenly appeared at the entrance, blocking Wednesday’s view of you.

Damn.

"Wednesday! Oh my God, you look amazing!" the blonde exclaimed, bubbling with excitement. Enid was wearing a beautiful white dress with a touch of purple makeup on her face.

Strange.

Wednesday’s gaze shifted to the girl’s date.

"Strange choice for your date," she murmured in a flat voice. Her eyes shot a cold glare at the mayor's son, the leader of the trio that had tried to attack her twice.

The boy shuddered.

"Oh... he came to make his ex jealous, and I wanted to make Ajax jealous," Enid said with a shrug.

Her eyes darted to Tyler.

"Tyler! Are you Wednesday's date?" she asked in surprise, her blue eyes studying her roommate with intensity. "Yeah," the normal boy scratched his head, clearly embarrassed.

"I’m going to get a drink," the curly-haired boy added, leaving her alone with Enid.

"You know, I thought you’d come with Y/N," the blonde said casually, "You two... I don’t know... have great chemistry," she added with a small smile.

A shiver ran down Wednesday’s spine at the mention of your name.

"It seems to me she's having fun with Yoko," Addams murmured with venom, her eyes scanning toward your figure.

Despite the discomfort that enveloped her Wednesday launched into the dance. Her movements were distinct, rigid yet fluid, her hands tracing sinuous precise gestures, her steps seemingly defying the rhythm of the music itself. But during one of those turns her hand accidentally brushed against another’s.

As soon as the fingers touched a jolt of energy shot through her body like thousands of electric shocks sliding across her skin, like invisible spiders crawling in her stomach leaving her paralyzed for a moment. Her breath caught in her throat and her head tilted back in an almost unnatural movement, her eyes wide open toward the ceiling.

A vision struck her with the force of lightning.

The world shattered around her, the party lights vanishing and transforming into blinding flashes. Screams and distant voices echoed in her ears overlapping in an indistinguishable chaos. Among the flashes she glimpsed Crackstone, his menacing figure looming like an impending shadow. Then, like a distorted image, a wedding: black dahlias, a black dress, hands united in an eternal bond all enveloped in a disturbing aura.

Wednesday's body was as rigid as a tightly drawn string, her hands stiff by her sides, every muscle tensed under her pale skin. Her face was twisted in an expression of pure terror as her breath came out in ragged gasps.

And then, everything faded.

The vision dissolved leaving her shaken and trembling, her head still thrown back. Slowly, she tilted forward again as her eyes refocused on the ballroom now again wrapped in the dim lights and chaotic movements of their schoolmates. But the sensation of disorientation persisted, like an echo of the vision that still throbbed in her temples.

She felt something warm on her shoulders and realized it was your hands, steady and sure, supporting her. You had moved closer during her moment of weakness, your Y/C eyes fixed on her with a mixture of concern and alarm. Your expression was tense, your breath quick.

The curse.

Her body seemed unresponsive for a moment, her legs still unsteady. She felt a strange, dark current flowing between the two of you, as if physical contact had been the catalyst for a force that had awakened within her.

"Are you okay? It looked like a vision," you asked, your voice filled with genuine concern. Your tone was low, meant only for her, as you tried to understand what had happened.

Wednesday took a deep breath trying to regain control over the turmoil inside her, but she clearly felt the effects of the curse coursing through her veins. An invisible tension tightened her chest, pulling her forward, almost as if she were compelled to move closer to you. She took a step forward closing the distance between you and her gaze locked determinedly onto yours.

"Yes... I was dancing with Tyler... then I had a vision," Wednesday said in a flat tone, her dark eyes tracing every detail of your face trying to grasp something she couldn’t quite understand.

"Tyler left," you responded, your voice breaking slightly as if admitting that truth cost you more than you wanted to show. Then you clenched your jaw, your expression hardening and in that moment Wednesday swore she saw a flash behind your irises, a reflection that seemed to conceal a storm.

A question crossed her mind like lightning: were you jealous?

Without thinking Wednesday’s hands moved sliding from your shoulders to encircle your neck. The skin beneath her fingers was warm and she felt a shiver that shook her from within like a fire igniting in her chest and consuming her from the inside. She felt... overwhelmed, as if the tide of sensations enveloping her was pulling her underwater leaving her breathless. Her heart pounded in a way she had never experienced before, a frantic and unfamiliar rhythm that muddled her thoughts.

The itch that had overwhelmed her before was gone.

Instead a heat consumed her and pushed her closer to you, as if the simple touch of her hands on your skin was the only thing keeping her upright.

Maybe it's because we touched? she thought for a moment, her mind tangled between logic and instinct searching for an explanation.

"Wednesday, I..." you began, your voice hesitant, almost fearful, as if you were afraid of the reaction you might provoke.

At the mention of her name on your lips Wednesday barely stifled a moan, a low sound escaping from her throat and echoing deeply in her chest. It was as if the sound of her name spoken by you held a different weight, an intensity that made her bones vibrate and burned inside her. Every fiber of her being sensed that this was different, that there was something strange and unstoppable between the two of you, a force she couldn’t fully understand but could not ignore.

"Cara mia" Wednesday whispered, her words almost too intimate, laced with a subtle darkness that sent a shiver through you. Her hands around your neck tightened pulling you closer with a determined hungry strength.

Your cheeks flushed red, a blush that Wednesday watched with hungry eyes.

For a moment the world around you seems to disappear, dissolving into the silence that exists only between the heavy breaths that bind you together. Her mind is overtaken by a primal desire and all she wants is to taste your lips, to feel the warmth of your mouth on hers. She realizes that she wants to consume you whole as if that were the only way to quell the fire burning inside her, as if that were the only way to make you hers.

For the first time she understands what drove her parents toward each other with such intensity. Why Gomez could never stay away from Morticia, why every gesture between them seemed to almost defy the rules of propriety with their passion. But that thought blends with something else, a deep disgust for herself, for how quickly she has yielded to this impulse abandoning her rigidity and her ideals just because of a single touch from you.

Just as this internal struggle rages, a cold drop hits your cheek followed by another that slides down your nose tracing a scarlet path. The sensation of something wet and viscous on your face breaks the moment and when you look up, a red rain begins to fall, like blood pouring from the ceiling, staining your faces and clothes.

Chaos erupts around you.

The other students begin to scream, pushing against each other in a desperate attempt to escape the ballroom. Bodies collide and stumble in a frantic rush, slipping on the floor now covered in blood. The lights flicker on and off in a pulsing rhythm amplifying the panic.

But you remain still, trapped under Wednesday's gaze, her lips curling into a wicked smile. The urge to run her tongue along your cheek to taste you mixed with the blood overwhelms her.

Suddenly a body crashes into her, shoving her violently to the side. Wednesday whirls around, muscles tense, fists clenched ready to retaliate against the intruder. But right in that moment her gaze goes lank and another vision seizes her, ragging her into a spiral of confused and painful images.

She sees red boots stepping on the ground, staining themselves with the dark red that flows like a river. And then a familiar face distorted by the pain caused by the beast's attack:

Eugene.

#jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x fem!reader #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x you #wednesday addams x you #jenna marie ortega #wednesday fanfic #wednesday imagine #raven #wednesday addams x female reader #wednesday addams

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letorip · 5 months ago

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Can you do headcanons about meeting/first date with Jenna’s characters?

meetings & first dates

very funny to think about, i really did have quite good fun writing this one. thank you as always to the anon who requested, i was happy to oblige. also this isn’t what i originally planned to put out but casual [iii] should be out soon so maybe this’ll fill the void. i'm also on holiday at the moment, so that's why i'm posting at a weird hour (5 am) my ass had a plane to catch

i think i cooked on the lorraine one, would y'all want that one too

wednesday addams

you meet her in jericho, working behind the counter of the hardware store your parents own, when she stomps inside in her rain soaked boots and down a random aisle without a word at you

when she comes back with a shovel, some duct tape, a taser, and some rope, you have to awkwardly joke that it looks like she's trying to kill something

she doesn't laugh at your joke, instead staring right back at you, and you feel yourself gulp

that's your first interaction, and you don't see her again for a few days, until she comes back to buy a box of nails, and then a week later, a bucket, and a few days after that, a plunger

you won't know it until later, but she didn't actually need the nails or the bucket, she just needed an excuse to go back to the hardware store and buy some stuff so she could get up close to you

after four or five trips of her buying the most odd, random shit, she works up the courage to actually start talking to you a bit more. after a few more trips after that, you ask her what the stuff is all for, and she lets you in on the creature in the woods killing the locals, and that she claims to have seen it

for what it's worth, you believe her immediately, about rowan and the hyde and crackstone, and you listen to her theorise, leaning on the counter until someone else comes in and asks you where the plywood is, and you have to actually go do your job. wednesday stares down the intruder, trying to smite them with her eyes, but you always give her an apologetic smile before you leave

she tells you later when you're better friends and she's confessing, but she thinks of you as an odd comfort and home that she never realised she desired, and being in the hardware store and having you smile at her gave her a single fluttering of that warmth

eventually she brings you on her investigations and her cold, dead heart is running a million miles an hour the entire time, but you have to hide how close you are to wednesday from your father, because of his passionate dislike of outcasts

wednesday comes to your back window and chucks rocks at the glass to get your attention, romeo and juliet style, so that you can sneak out

when you actually ask her out, it's before you've even kissed, and wednesday wordlessly nods yes with her mouth hanging open, before she grabs the collar of your jacket and messily kisses you for the first time

your first date is to a movie, and to a horror movie, to be more specific. you take her to get food at a local diner that's open 24 hours, super late at night, and though she makes a remark about how these restaurants were unhealthy and an indicator of what's wrong with america, she thoroughly enjoys her waffle and you even manage to get her to wear one of those silly diner hates for a moment. she doesn't admit it, but she likes making you laugh

the movie is an incredibly rough experience. you despise horror movies, but wednesday is left smiling at the screen as a man is ripped to shreds in front of your eyes

that is until she realises your discomfort, and she realises you only did this because you knew she would like it. the realisation literally blows her mind, and she watches your face contort in disgust and fear, before gently reaching over and hastily grabbing your hand

she doesn't say another word, struggling to process the new emotions until you're both done with the movie and walking home. you're ranting about how gross it was and how you would be having nightmares for weeks because of it, and then she reaches up to the back of your neck and pulls you down into another fiery kiss, right as it starts to rain

tara carpenter

you've known tara for years, since you're also from woodsboro. you went to the same elementary school and she’s known of you for a long, long time since you chased her around the playground with a lizard in your hands

tara's always liked you, and you've both always had some attraction to each other and magical chemistry, but there's always been something to keep you apart

tara's involvement with amber and then chad, and then your own girlfriends, it was never the right time for you both to explore whatever electricity you could feel between you, so you didn't until you were both well into your year at blackmore

you only really get close until you take the same film class as tara. tara takes it because she's a film major and you take it because you need the credit and it's the only option of a class that takes place after 8 in the morning

you sit right next to each other and for the whole semester, you two slowly grow closer and closer, poking each other and whispering stuff while the professor prattles on

she's the de facto film buff of the group, only rivalled by mindy, and so you go to her whenever you're working on a project, because you're definitely the type to watch stupid shit, and not the high-brow film stuff the class requires

it means you end up hanging out a lot, at the library, at the coffee shop, on the couch of her apartment. you both set up the '1 for 1' rule, in which she gets to show you a movie for ever movie you get to show her

and she shows you really annoyingly good stuff, while you make her watch utter garbage. neither of you admit it, but you end up liking some of the high-brow art she pushes and she ends up having fun with the stupid movies you show her

when she makes you watch the babadook, you make her watch hot tub time machine, when she makes you watch citizen kane, you make her watch bridesmaids, and when she makes you watch la la land, you make her watch zoolander. it's a mutual exchange of interests, and you both lean against each other when you watch them on the couch or on her bed

paddington absolutely makes tara carpenter cry, there, i said it, and you show it to her and hug her when she does

things are genuinely just so easy and perfect with you, and it's so natural in a way that is unnatural for tara, but in a good way. you're unlike anyone she's ever been with, and it's refreshing and new in a way that's so exciting when you both kiss during the movie before sunrise

that's why it's so funny when your first date goes absolutely awfully

it rains on you, while you both walk to the restaurant and neither of you brought an umbrella because it wasn't projected to rain. then the sushi place you're bringing her to completely forgets your reservation and you're both waiting 30 minutes to get a table, and to top matters off, you end up being allergic to a fish you try for the first time, and need to get taken in hospital

you're not even choking really, just broken out into hives and feeling lightheaded, and tara's in the ambulance with you on the way there, and you're both talking casually, like "how was your day?"

you both get there and realise tara forgot her phone at the restaurant, and whereas anyone else would be pissed and call it a terrible date and give up, you both are fucking laughing your heads off at how cartoonishly awful the date went, even though it's a hospital, and that probably isn't the right place to be laughing in

when you're released super late that night, you both end up just wandering around new york until the late hours of the morning, just talking and occasionally holding hands. tara mentions that it reminds her of la la land, and you kiss, and what would've been a deal-breaking, awful date for anyone else just becomes something you shared with each other, and brings you even more in love

reminds me of the song ant pile by dominic fike

lorraine day

you meet lorraine as the kid of the new corn farmer in town, after your grandfather gets too old to be able to maintain his land by himself. your father has to come back and take over, due to his declining health, and you first see each other when lorraine and her daddy come to say hello and talk business for cow feed

she spots you in the back, leaning on the fence next to the field with your arms crossed and your hat pulled low, and you're just watching her and her dad talking to yours with a frown

she's set on edge by your presence, even though you're not really part of the conversation. she has to stop herself when she realises she keeps looking over at you every couple seconds, and you're still just staring at her and her father in a way that isn't exactly friendly

your dad is a generally nice guy, and he gives her your name in a passing mention and graciously accepts the pie lorraine's momma made to bring to the new partners, but it overall isn't a great first impression, and she decides right there in her daddy's truck on the ride home that she doesn't like you very much

when you're brought up again, it's by her father a week or so later. he's mentioning how helpful you are around your grandfather's farm over dinner, saying how your grandfather is blessed to have someone so good-hearted, and lorraine can’t help but remember the look of you glowering against the fence at them and doubt how true that is

she still doesn't like you, when you actually talk for the first time. RJ is bringing her home after an incredibly awkward date and gets a flat, and just as it starts to rain, guess who spots her and decides to pull over in their rusty ass pickup truck with a weird look on your face that lorraine can't help but assume is smugness

your truck bed is full of tools and supplies for your grandfather's farm and you haven't got a spare on you, but you know there's one in the shed on your farm. there's only one seat open in your truck, and even though lorraine heavily hints to RJ that she doesn't want to go, she's volunteered, as RJ doesn't want to leave his van on the side of the road, even though there's not many people who would touch the piece of junk

you snort when he insinuates that lorraine wouldn't be strong enough to fend off anyone who would take the van, and even though she's equally as miffed by RJ's assumption she's a bit annoyed by you defending her

the ride home is incredibly tense and neither of you say much until you're pulling into your yard and you say, "for the record, i highly doubt he'll be fending anyone off either." it's funny and it almost makes her laugh until she remembers she decided she didn't like you and she has to get serious again, and tells you not to talk about her boyfriend that way, and you don't say anything for the rest of the time you're helping her

she sits in the truck watching you from the wing mirror as you roll the spare out from your shed and then hoist it into the truck bed, looking sweaty and muscles tensing with effort. even though you're kind of annoying, you're tanned and you're fit, and it's something she can't help but notice whenever she goes to your farm in search of her father, who sometimes comes over to buy corn for his cattle

you both naturally start to grow into something resembling a friendship. you'll shoot the shit when you're not working, leaning on the handle of a shovel half in the ground, and lorraine will walk over and just kind of talk to you for a while. she doesn't even really realise the annoyance has melted away until it smacks her in the face that she was really wrong about you

your first date isn't actually a date until it's over. lorraine is at a lake day with her friends when one shows up with you in tow. she didn't even realise you had friends, but you're there with them and you look damn good in your swim suit, and you actually start talking a little bit about leaving the big city for your grandfather

you're all having fun, swimming around and talking, and she sees you're pretty funny when you want to be. it's kind of jarring to see just how wrong she was about you, and you both end up dancing around to your friend playing guitar and singing along

you end up being her ride home, and though there's still an underlying tension in the air, this time your truck is full of laughter and you're both actually talking. about halfway through, you accidentally let it slip that you asked your friend if lorraine was going to be there, and though the tips of your ears are red and you're apologising, lorraine can't help but reach right over and kiss you, and suddenly everything feels right in the world

cairo sweet

you meet her on the first day of creative writing, as the new student at your school, and mr. miller's seating chart places you directly next to her. she stares at you a bit, as if unimpressed by your existence, and you stare right back at her, equally as unimpressed

though you're new, you quickly skyrocket to incredible academic success, and cairo is enraged to find that with the transfer of credits, you're now really the valedictorian, sweeping it from underneath her feet at the very end of her senior year

with that, she absolutely despises you and everything you stand for

you have to trade papers for peer grading and while you calmly grade it at first, when you see that yours is covered in marks and cairo is being absolutely brutal beyond belief, nitpicking every little punctuation mark and symbol she can, you get a bit annoyed and start doing the exact same thing to her

it's a giant game of one-upping the other, and you guys repeatedly mess with each other like a chess match of fucking each other over. neither of you will admit you find the other annoyingly magnetic and captivating, you instead resort to messing with each other's standings

you both are duking it out over each little test grade, as cairo desperately tries to regain her spot at number one and you attempt to fend her off and keep your place. she'll brag about her perfect score on the calculus exam, and then you'll clap back with your extra credit. you absolutely dominate her in maths and sciences but she has you beat in creative writing and histories

winnie is greatly amused by the whole ordeal, and keeps insisting to cairo that you both should get it over with and fuck already but she scoffs and claims to resent the implication. doesn't mean she hasn't thought about it, though

her involvement with mr. miller is something she's only doing to maintain her spot as mr. miller's favourite student. cairo has the writing skill to back it up and is incredibly gifted with the pen, but you ooze a certain charisma that makes the teachers around you all giant fans, and she would be lying if she didn't say she was worried you would pull mr. miller's recommendation letter with it, and steal it right out from under her. it's entirely possible for a teacher to write more than one recommendation letter, she just wants the satisfaction of being the first one to get it

when you're partnered up on a group writing project that needs to be done in pairs, cairo sees it as the perfect opportunity to gather intel on you. another thing she hates is how mysterious you are, and how not many people actually know that much about you, other than how pleasant you are

she insists it has to happen at your house, and though you try to argue, she insists it has to be the case. it surprises her, when she puts your address into her phone and she sees it's a small one bedroom apartment in a bad part of town, without air conditioning and with terrible plumbing, and that your father works three jobs to support you

she doesn't know what she expected, but that's definitely not it, with your ability to dress and intelligence. suddenly her arch nemesis gains a third dimension, and she understands just how hard you work

though you're guarded at first, you both actually slowly discover that you don't exactly mind the other that much. you still want to keep your spot and she desperately wants it for her own, but you say something silly and it makes her laugh- really laugh- for what feels like the first time in a long time

you work together on the project more and more, and suddenly she's enjoying your company and wanting you around. she's definitely a little bit disgusted by that at first, but it's something she can't deny

she asks you on your first date to a poetry reading on a saturday, and you're a bit confused since the group project is already over, but you decide to go anyways and you have a great time. you say something profound after one of the poems, and cairo's eyes just drop to your lips in a weird amazement

she's dragging you to the bathroom immediately before the next poem can even start, and i don't think i have to say what happens next, but it's messy and there's lipstick everywhere

your father snorts when you get home that night, and there's dark red lipstick smudged all over your lips and a bit down your neck, and you roll your eyes at him with a smile

#answered #letorip #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega imagine #cairo sweet x reader #tara carpenter x reader #wednesday addams x reader #lorraine day x reader

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ak319 · 3 months ago

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Yan Socialite brother x Fem G!P reader x Yan?Wife

➺Ezra Headcanon

As soon as Ezra was satisfied that your carriage had left the mansion safely, and after muttering a few prayers, he turned to Rowan, who immediately tensed in anticipation of the command to follow.

"Send invitations to all of my friends for a party. It will be held tomorrow evening at 7."

"But--milord, if I may ask, you've never thrown a party when the Lady of the house is away."

"Oh, Rowan, Rowan," Ezra's voice turned sharp as he stepped closer, his grip tightening on Rowan's face. "How could you even think it’s because my sister left that I’m hosting one, hm?" Rowan’s heart sank, panic rising as he feared he had offended his master. "N-no, no, I didn't mean it like that--"

"Oh, shush. I know exactly what you mean." Ezra's eyes narrowed as his grip loosened, but the cold edge in his voice remained. "But let it be clear, Rowan--this party isn't because my dear sister has gone on a trip. It's to celebrate her divorce."

Rowan’s face stayed tense, heart pounding in disbelief. A lavish party… because of the divorce? Of course, his master would. And it wasn’t as if your divorce had been a simple one, no, it unraveled painfully, each depressing knot pulled loose until it all fell apart. Your wife, Mabel, had suffered through two miscarriages--both of which, of course, were caused by Ezra. The relentless pressure and cruelty he'd put the poor woman through when you weren’t around like making her slip on the stairs--Rowan flinched, unwilling to relive that moment.

Afterward, Mabel had spiraled into such a deep depression that not even you could lift her out of it. Desperate, she finally asked for a divorce, which you granted. All because Ezra, in his twisted mind, deemed her nothing but a cheap whore, seducing his sister for money due to her lower-class background.

Rowan had conspired with his master throughout it all, so he wasn’t blameless. Yet, guilt still weighed heavy on him. Loyalty, after all, could blind a man just as easily as love.

"As you wish, master. I'll get straight to the arrangements."

Ezra sighed, clasping his hands together in front of him, a look of pure contentment spreading across his face as he basked in the sunlight, the gentle chirping of birds filling the air. Despite missing your presence and quietly worrying about your journey, he knew you needed this time away. You needed it to forget about that witch.

He prayed you wouldn’t return with another one.

༺𓆩❀𓆪༻

Time passed, and you slipped back into your usual routine after returning. Ezra, too, had finally found some peace. But, of course, his mother had to ruin things somehow. Out of nowhere, she brought up the topic of your marriage, prattling on about some suitor she had found--a girl from a "good family," Fiona Royce. Who the hell was that?

Ezra wasted no time investigating this supposed "catch." A good family, indeed. The eldest of three sisters, all of whom were well-bred. Fiona was smart, outgoing, and fashionable—qualities that, annoyingly, reminded Ezra of himself. But there was no way he was going to accept her. Not ever. In this estate, there was only room for one like him.

Without hesitation, he began spreading rumors about this so-called Fiona before you even had the chance to meet her. But Grace, sharp as ever, found out about her son's antics and scolded him harshly.

"You will not interfere in this matter, do you hear me?!" she snapped. "How can you spread such vile nonsense about someone’s daughter? The same could happen to yours one day. How would you feel then?!"

"Mother! I am not going to sit through another one of your lectures! (Y/N) just went through a divorce, and now you want to burden her with yet another problem?!"

"And I wonder what caused that."

Ezra folded his arms and scoffed, as if he had done nothing wrong, not a trace of regret on his face. "Gold diggers like her deserve exactly what she got."

"Well, news flash, Ezra--this marriage will happen. I can't stand to see my daughter in the state she's in, all alone. And just because her spoiled brother is too arrogant to accept it doesn’t mean it won’t. After (Y/N) gets married, I'll be finding your suitor too, so you can finally focus on your own life instead of meddling in your sister’s!"

"Mother, you can't do this! How-" Ezra’s voice was cut off as Grace stormed over, grabbing his shoulders firmly.

"Quiet. Enough of your tantrums, Ezra. Grow up. Learn to share--that's what I taught you, and what your father believed in. I swear, if you pull another one of your stunts, I will cut you off entirely. I won’t speak to you, nor will I see you again!"

His own mother, emotionally blackmailing him. Just… wow.

"You know what? Fine. Bring her here as your daughter-in-law. Let’s see what happens." Ezra's voice was laced with venom. "But mark my words--she’ll be just like the others."

With that, he slammed the door on his way out, leaving Grace standing there, wiping her tears. This was exactly why she had chosen Fiona. Only Fiona had the strength to tolerate Ezra, to stand toe-to-toe with him and still be a good wife to her daughter.

Grace composed herself before heading to your room, determined to ease your concerns about Fiona. She kept the truth hidden, though—about how Ezra had been the one to ruin Fiona’s reputation. She didn’t want to stir up unnecessary conflict between her children before the wedding.

༺𓆩❀𓆪༻

You met Fiona and were immediately drawn to her confident, sharp mind--not to mention her undeniable beauty. Her soft, golden hair seemed to glow in the sunlight as you both strolled through the gardens. Fiona wasted no time in trying to win you over. She needed to--she had wanted this for so long, ever since she first laid eyes on you at a party. Everything about you fascinated her, igniting a quiet obsession.

This was why her mother had subtly spoken to yours about Fiona being a potential suitor. Her parents, too, were impressed by their daughter’s choice and were eager to see it come to fruition.

The wedding soon took place, with Ezra maintaining his polite facade throughout the ceremony. But Fiona wasn’t fooled. She knew he was doing it all to stay in your good graces. Still, she wasn’t afraid. She had prepared for this moment, for the day she would become your wife and slowly capture your heart. She understood it would take time--after all, you were still likely weighed down by thoughts of your first marriage and the painful losses that came with it.

"How do I look?" Fiona asked, twirling slightly to show off her attire as you both prepared to leave for a dinner hosted by your business partner.

"Gorgeous, wife." You smiled, watching as she stepped closer, her fingers brushing your collar as she adjusted it.

"Is this the one Ezra gave you the other day?"

"Oh, no," she replied, smoothing the fabric. "I was going to wear that one, but I noticed the back was a bit torn, so I sent it off to be mended."

"Torn?" Your hands instinctively found her waist, pulling her gently toward you. "But Ezra is meticulous with his handiwork. How could that even happen?"

"No, he did a great job as always, perhaps the maid was too rough while washing it. But it's alright, darling." Fiona's voice was calm, but her resolve was unshakable. She wasn’t going to let Ezra control her life. What did he think? Showering her with gifts in front of you, trying to impress you with his false thoughtfulness, only to turn on her when you weren’t around? Not on her watch. She wasn’t Mabel--she wouldn’t crumble under his manipulation.

༺𓆩❀𓆪༻

"You know, since my sister isn't here, you should go back to your parents' house."

"Why is that, Brother Ezra?"

"Because your duty is to my sister, and she’s not here. It’s not like you’re contributing anything around here anyway." Ezra stood abruptly, pushing his chair back, but paused as he heard her voice behind him.

"I am not leaving."

"What did you just say?" Fiona rose gracefully and faced him with a determined look. "I said I am not leaving my wife's home. I am part of this family and this house, it's mine just as much as it is hers, and I will leave when I choose. In fact, I think (Y/N) would be quite upset if she returned to find her beautiful wife absent to welcome her."

She flashed a sharp, disdainful smile at him before turning on her heel and walking away, leaving Ezra dumbfounded. The audacity of this woman was infuriating. He knew he needed to take action before she became even more of a problem. But he had to be more calculated, she was not a meek lamb like Mabel.

So, before you returned, Ezra made an effort to apologize to Fiona, attempting to be as genuine as possible. Fiona remained wary, her suspicion of his motives not easily driven away.

When you returned, Ezra eagerly requested that you allow Fiona to work with him in his Clothing Workshop, praising her fashion sense. Fiona at first didn't want to work under him but this could be handy in way to win your sympathy if Ezra pulls another stunt and she also just wanted to please you , seeing how happy you were when he proposed this.

You agreed without hesitation, pleased to see them getting along. But your satisfaction turned to concern when Ezra erupted in tears and rage over half of his new line being destroyed by fire--on a night when Fiona had been working late.

After managing to calm Ezra and escort him to his room, you returned to your own, where you found Fiona sitting on the loveseat in the balcony.

"Are you here to scold me?" she asked, her voice trembling. "If you are, go ahead. I don’t mind. I don’t even care if you don’t trust me anymore because I’ve disappointed you... and even Ezra. I’ve caused a loss to this family--"

Before she could say more, you gently cupped her chin, guiding her gaze to meet yours. "Shh, don’t say that. I don’t want these beautiful eyes to be clouded with despair, love." You wiped away a tear, and she immediately sought comfort in your embrace.

"Ezra has always been a bit... sensitive and intense about his work," you said softly. "I think it might be best if you focus on managing the household instead."

Fiona looked up at you, her expression anxious. "Do you think I caused the fire?"

"No, no. I don’t think it was your fault. I’ve been informed that the fire started because of a faulty electrical wire," you reassured her. "Why would you put your own life at risk like that?"

Fiona’s relief was palpable. The truth was, she hadn’t caused the fire--Ezra’s sabotage was the real culprit. She could hardly believe she had managed to save herself in time. How low could Ezra sink?

"I just--worry for your safety," you continued softly. "After this, you two obviously can’t work together. So, please stay at home and manage the budget instead."

Fiona nodded, a flicker of triumph in her eyes. At least she had achieved something, despite the cost. 'Take that, Ezra. You won, but at what price?'

As time went on, you found yourself falling in love with Fiona, gradually healing from the trauma of your first marriage.

༺𓆩❀𓆪༻

"Where’s your ring, Fiona?"

Fiona looked at her hands in confusion and chuckled nervously. "Oh, it must be in the bathroom. I’ll be right back, love." She gave you a quick peck on the lips before hurrying to the shared room. To her dismay, despite turning the room upside down, she couldn’t find it. Panic set in--what would she say to you and your mother if she lost a family heirloom?

She suspected Ezra’s involvement. If he was behind this, he had made a grave mistake.

You were indeed pissed at her carelessness but eventually joined her in the search. Fiona managed to convince you that she might have left the ring at her parents' house during a recent visit to which you calmed down. It broke her heart as this was the first time she had seen you mad and it was because of her stupid mistake.

The next day, Fiona went to her parents' house first thing in the morning to look for the ring. Her hunch proved correct. She found it in the room of Obelia, her second sister, who had a known crush on Ezra.

"I-I’m sorry, sister," Obelia stammered, looking guilty. "Ezra’s servant brought the ring here and said it was just a harmless prank Ezra wanted to play on his sister-in-law. I didn’t realize it would cause such trouble."

"How many times have I told you to stay away from him? You should have informed me about this! Don’t you understand? HE’S TRYING TO DESTROY MY LIFE, MY RELATIONSHIP! HE EVEN TRIED TO KILL ME!" Fiona's mother stepped in, attempting to placate her daughter and offering apologies on Obelia’s behalf.

"W--why is it that you get to marry the person you choose, and I’m not allowed to have any say in who I like? Shouldn’t you be happy for me and arrange my marriage to him so we can be together? Maybe then he won’t harass you anymore!" Obelia’s own frustration now evident.

"Are you out of your mind? You want to marry that selfish bastard?! What kind of lies did Ezra tell you?"

"He didn’t lie, Fiona!"

"You know what? Fine. I’ll talk to Ms. Grace about Ezra’s marriage and see what happens. But listen to me, Obelia--don’t blame me for what happens to you if you choose to pursue this."

༺𓆩❀𓆪༻

To everyone’s surprise, Ezra agreed to the marriage, and preparations swiftly began. Fiona, however, was not taken aback. She saw through Ezra’s schemes--this was merely leverage to manipulate and threaten her using her own sister. 'If only you knew, Ezra, what I have in store for you.'

Almost a week after the wedding, tragedy struck when Obelia suffered a severe accident in her carriage, resulting in paralysis from the waist down. She was confined to bed, leaving everyone devastated. Ezra, however, was less concerned about her condition and more troubled by the prospect of being publicly labeled as having a handicapped wife.

“Something on your mind, Ezra?” Fiona’s voice cut through the silence, interrupting his contemplation in the gardens. Annoyed, Ezra turned to face her with a forced smile. “Just enjoying the scenery.”

“Hm. I’m also enjoying the view, but not here. Inside, watching my sister bedridden and helpless, unable to even manage something as simple as keeping track of a ring--now that’s truly satisfying,” Fiona retorted, her tone dripping with disdain.

“Wow, didn’t expect you to be so ruthless, sister-in-law. Nearly killing your sister over a ring? Tsk, tsk. How pathetic. Just what you'd expect from someone of your low class.”

“Call me whatever you want, Ezra. This is a warning--to show you how far I’m willing to go to stay by (Y/N)’s side. Obelia means nothing to me. I’ll fight anyone who tries to take her away.”

“I still don’t care, because guess what? She’s getting divorced. There’s no way I’m spending my life with... that.”

“Be my guest. But remember, Ezra, I’m just like you--willing to go to great lengths to protect what’s mine. And at the end of the day, there are some things only I can give (Y/N).” Fiona's words were laced with a cold certainty.

Ezra’s face flushed with rage as she leaned in closer, whispering in his ear.

“As in, you know... a child. You’re not that naive, are you? And believe me, (Y/N) really wants one. Really , really does. She tries every day.”

Ezra recoiled in disgust, his anger barely contained.

“Your parents clearly never taught you basic decency,” Ezra sneered, wiping his ear and glaring at Fiona with fierce determination. “I’d like to see you give birth to one first.”

“I’m not Mabel,” Fiona shot back, her voice cold and steady. “I’m not clumsy enough to fall or... reveal what happened on that ferry.” Ezra’s heart skipped a beat. Though he tried to mask his panic, Fiona saw through his facade.

“Oh, I’m aware of that incident. Anyone with a brain would be. But don’t worry, I won’t mention your name in connection with it. After all, you’re my wife’s brother, and I wouldn’t want her to face any humiliation or business losses because of you. So, let’s set aside this animosity and try to be... civil.”

“I won’t let you get away with this,” Ezra spat, swatting Fiona’s arm before storming off. To Fiona, now well-acquainted with Ezra’s manipulative tactics, it was clear he had assented in his own way, though he remained defiant. This was going to be an intriguing game from now on.

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covid-safer-hotties · 3 months ago

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by Rowan Walrath

Public and private funding is lacking, scrambling opportunities to develop treatments

In brief Long COVID is a difficult therapeutic area to work in. It’s a scientifically challenging condition, but perhaps more critically, few want to fund new treatments. Private investors, Big Pharma, and government agencies alike see long COVID as too risky as long as its underlying mechanisms are so poorly understood. This dynamic has hampered the few biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies trying to develop new medicines. The lack of funding has frustrated people with long COVID, who have few options available to them. And crucially, it has snarled research and development, cutting drug development short.

When COVID-19 hit, the biotechnology company Aim ImmunoTech was developing a drug for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, better known as ME/CFS. As more people came down with COVID-19, some began to describe lingering problems that sounded a lot like ME/CFS. In many cases, people who got sick simply never seemed to get better. In others, they recovered completely—or thought they had—only to be waylaid by new problems: fatigue that wouldn’t go away with any amount of rest, brain fog that got in the way of normal conversations, a sudden tendency toward dizziness and fainting, or all the above.

There was a clear overlap between the condition, which patients began calling long COVID, and ME/CFS. People with ME/CFS have a deep, debilitating fatigue. They cannot tolerate much, if any, exercise; walking up a slight incline can mean days of recovery. Those with the most severe cases are bedbound.

Aim’s leaders set out to test whether the company’s drug, Ampligen, which is approved for ME/CFS in Argentina but not yet in the US, might be a good fit for treating long COVID. They started with a tiny study, just 4 people. When most of those participants responded well, they scaled up to 80. While initial data were mixed, people taking Ampligen were generally able to walk farther in a 6 min walk test than those who took a placebo, indicating improvement in baseline fatigue. The company is now making plans for a follow-on study in long COVID.

Aim’s motivation for testing Ampligen in long COVID was twofold. Executives believed they could help people with the condition, given the significant overlap in symptoms with ME/CFS. But they also, plainly, thought there’d be money. They were wrong.

“When we first went out to do this study in long COVID, there was money from . . . RECOVER,” Aim scientific officer Chris McAleer says, referring to Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER), the National Institutes of Health’s $1.7 billion initiative to fund projects investigating causes of, and potential treatments for, long COVID. McAleer says Aim attempted to get RECOVER funds, “believing that we had a therapeutic for these individuals, and we get nothing.”

Instead of funding novel medicines like Ampligen, the NIH has directed most of its RECOVER resources to observational studies designed to learn more about the condition, not treat it. Only last year did the agency begin to fund clinical trials for long COVID treatments, and those investigate the repurposing of approved drugs. What RECOVER is not doing is funding new compounds.

RECOVER is the only federal funding mechanism aimed at long COVID research. Other initiatives, like the $5 billion Project NextGen and the $577 million Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, put grant money toward next-generation vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and antivirals for COVID-19. They stop short of testing those compounds as long COVID treatments.

Private funding is even harder to come by. Large pharmaceutical companies have mostly stayed away from the condition. (Some RECOVER trials are testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid, but a Pfizer spokesperson confirms that Pfizer is not sponsoring those studies.) Most investors have also avoided long COVID: a senior analyst on PitchBook’s biotech team, which tracks industry financing closely, says he isn’t aware of any investment in the space.

“What you need is innovation on this front that’s not driven by profit motive, but impact on global human health,” says Sumit Chanda, an immunologist and microbiologist at Scripps Research who coleads one of the AViDD centers. “We could have been filling in the gaps for things like long COVID, where pharma doesn’t see that there’s a billion-dollar market.”

The few biotech companies that are developing potential treatments for long COVID, including Aim, are usually funding those efforts out of their own balance sheets. Experts warn that such a pattern is not sustainable. At least four companies that were developing long COVID treatments have shut down because of an apparent lack of finances. Others are evaluating a shift away from long COVID.

“It is seen by the industry and by investors as a shot in the dark,” says Radu Pislariu, cofounder and CEO of Laurent Pharmaceuticals, a start-up that’s developing an antiviral and anti-inflammatory for long COVID. “What I know is that nobody wants to hear about COVID. When you say the name COVID, it’s bad . . ., but long COVID is not going anywhere, because COVID-19 is endemic. It will stay. At some point, everyone will realize that we have to do more for it.”

‘Time and patience and money’ Much of the hesitancy to make new medicines stems from the evasive nature of long COVID itself. The condition is multisystemic, affecting the brain, heart, endocrine network, immune system, reproductive organs, and gastrointestinal tract. While researchers are finding increasing evidence for some of the disease’s mechanisms, like viral persistence, immune dysregulation, and mitochondrial dysfunction, they might not uncover a one-size-fits-all treatment.

“Until we have a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of long COVID, I think physicians are doing the best they can with the information they have and the guidance that is available to them,” says Ian Simon, director of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. The research taking place now will eventually guide new therapeutic development, he says.

Meanwhile, time marches on.

By the end of 2023, more than 409 million people worldwide had long COVID, according to a recent review coauthored by two cofounders of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC) and several prominent long COVID researchers (Nat. Med. 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03173-6). Most of those 409 million contracted COVID-19 and then long COVID after vaccines and antivirals became available. That fact undercuts the notion that the condition results only from severe cases of COVID-19 contracted before those interventions existed. (Vaccination and treatment with antivirals do correlate with a lower incidence of long COVID but don’t prevent it outright.)

“There is that narrative that long COVID is over,” says Hannah Davis, cofounder of the PLRC and a coauthor of the review, who has had long COVID since 2020. “I think that’s fairly obviously not true.”

The few biotech companies that have taken matters into their own hands, like Aim, are often reduced to small study sizes with limited time frames because they can’t get outside funding.

InflammX Therapeutics, a Florida-based ophthalmology firm headed by former Bausch & Lomb executive Brian Levy, started testing an anti-inflammatory drug candidate called Xiflam after Levy’s daughter came down with long COVID. Xiflam is designed to close connexin 43 (Cx43) hemichannels when they become pathological. The hemichannels, which form in cell membranes, would otherwise allow intracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to escape and signal the NLRP3 inflammasome to crank up its activity, causing pain and inflammation.

InflammX originally conceived of Xiflam as a treatment for inflammation in various eye disorders, but after Levy familiarized himself with the literature on long COVID, he figured the compound might be useful for people like his daughter.

InflammX set up a small Phase 2a study at a site just outside Boston. The trial will enroll just 20 participants, including Levy’s daughter and InflammX’s chief operating and financial officer, David Pool, who also has long COVID. The study is set up such that participants don’t know if they’re taking Xiflam or a placebo.

Levy says the company tried to communicate with NIH RECOVER staff multiple times but never heard back. “We couldn’t wait,” he says.

Larger firms are similarly disconnected from US federal efforts. COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna appointed a vice president of long COVID last year. Bishoy Rizkalla now oversees a small team studying how the company’s messenger RNA shots could mitigate problems caused by new and latent viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. But Rizkalla says Moderna has no federally funded projects in long COVID.

Federal bureaucracy has slowed down research in other ways. When long COVID appeared, Tonix Pharmaceuticals was developing a possible drug called TNX-102 SL to treat fibromyalgia. The two conditions look similar: they’re painful, fatiguing, and multisystemic, and fibromyalgia can crop up after a viral infection.

But it wasn’t easy to design a study to test the compound in long COVID. Among other issues, the US Food and Drug Administration initially insisted that participants have a positive COVID-19 test confirmed by a laboratory, like a polymerase chain reaction test, to be included in the study. At-home diagnostics wouldn’t count.

“We spent a huge amount of money, and we couldn’t enroll people who had lab-confirmed COVID because no one was going to labs to confirm their COVID,” cofounder and CEO Seth Lederman says. “We just ran out of time and patience and money, frankly.”

Tonix had planned to enroll 450 participants. The company ultimately enrolled only 63. The study failed to meet its primary end point of reducing pain intensity, a result Lederman attributes to the smaller-than-expected sample size.

TNX-102 SL trended toward improvements in fatigue and other areas, like sleep quality and cognitive function, but Tonix is moving away from developing the compound as a long COVID treatment and focusing on developing it for fibromyalgia. If it’s approved, Lederman hopes that physicians will prescribe it to people who meet the clinical criteria for fibromyalgia regardless of whether their condition stems from COVID-19.

“I’m not saying we’re not going to do another study in long COVID, but for the short term, it’s deemphasized,” Lederman says.

Abandoned attempts Without more public or private investment, it’s unclear how research can proceed. The small corner of the private sector that has endeavored to take on long COVID is slowly becoming a graveyard.

Axcella Therapeutics made a big gamble in late 2022. The company pivoted from trying to treat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a liver disease, to addressing chronic fatigue in people with long COVID. In doing so, Axcella reoriented itself exclusively around long COVID, laying off most of its staff and abandoning other research activities. People in a 41-person Phase 2a trial of the drug candidate, AXA1125, showed improvement in fatigue scores based on a clinical questionnaire (eClinicalMedicine 2023, DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101946), but Axcella shut down before it could get its planned 300-person follow-on study up and running.

The fate of AXA1125 may be to gather dust. Axcella’s former executives have moved on to other pursuits. Erstwhile chief medical officer Margaret Koziel, once a champion of AXA1125, says by email that she is “not up to date on current research on long COVID.” Staff at the University of Oxford, which ran the Phase 2a study, were not able to procure information about the planned Phase 2b/3 trial. A spokesperson for Flagship Pioneering, the venture firm that founded Axcella in 2011, declined to comment to C&EN.

Other firms have met similar ends. Ampio Pharmaceuticals dissolved in August after completing only a Phase 1 study to evaluate an inhaled medication called Ampion in people with long COVID who have breathing issues. Biotech firm SolAeroMed shut down before even starting a trial of its bronchodilating medicine for people with long COVID. “Unfortunately we were unable to attract funding to support our clinical work for COVID,” CEO John Dennis says by email.

Another biotech company, Aerium Therapeutics, did manage to get just enough of its monoclonal antibody AER002 manufactured and in the hands of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, before it ended operations. The researchers are now testing AER002 in a Phase 2 trial with people with long COVID. Michael Peluso, an infectious disease clinician and researcher at UCSF and principal investigator of the trial, says that while AER002 may not advance without a company behind it, the study could be valuable for validating long COVID’s mechanisms of disease and providing a proof of concept for monoclonal antibody treatment more generally.

“[Aerium] put a lot of effort into making sure that the study would not be impacted,” Peluso says. “Regardless of the results of this study, doing a follow-up study now that we’ve kind of learned the mechanics of it with modern monoclonals would be really, really interesting.”

‘A squandered opportunity’ In 2022, the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) put about $577 million toward nine research centers that would discover and develop antivirals for various pathogens. Called the Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern, the centers were initially imagined as 5-year projects, enough time to ready multiple candidates for preclinical development. The NIH allocated money for the first 3 years and promised more funds to come later.

The prospect excited John Chodera, a computational chemist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a principal investigator at an AViDD center called the AI-Driven Structure-Enabled Antiviral Platform. Chodera figured that if his team were able to develop a potent antiviral for SARS-CoV-2, it could potentially be used to treat long COVID as well. A predominant theory is that reservoirs of hidden virus in the body cause ongoing symptoms.

But Chodera says NIAID told him and other AViDD investigators that establishing long COVID models was out of scope. And last year, Congress clawed back unspent COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, including the pool of money intended for the AViDD centers’ last 2 years. Lawmakers were supposed to come through with additional funding, Chodera says, but it never materialized. All nine AViDD centers will run out of money come May 2025.

“When we do start to understand what the molecular targets for long COVID are going to be, it’d be very easy to pivot and train our fire on those targets,” says Chanda from Scripps’s AViDD center. “The problem is that it took us probably 2 years to get everything up and going. If you cut the funding after 3 years, we basically have to dismantle it. We don’t have an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, look, this is what we’ve done. We can now take this and train our fire on X, Y, and Z.’ ”

Researchers at multiple AViDD centers confirm that the NIH has offered a 1-year, no-cost extension, but it doesn’t come with additional funds. They now find themselves in the same position as many academic labs: seeking grant money to keep their projects going.

Worse, they say, is that applying for other grants will likely mean splitting up research teams, thus undoing the network effect that these centers were supposed to provide.

“Now what we’ve got is a bunch of half bridges with nowhere to fund the continuation of that work,” says Nathaniel Moorman, cofounder and scientific adviser of the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative, which houses an AViDD center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“This was a squandered opportunity, not just for pandemic preparedness but to tackle these unmet needs that are being neglected by biotech and pharma,” Chanda says.

Viral persistence Ann Kwong has been here before. The virologist was among the first industry scientists trying to develop antivirals for hepatitis C virus (HCV) back in the 1990s. Kwong led an antiviral discovery team at the Schering-Plough Research Institute for 6 years. In 1997, Vertex Pharmaceuticals recruited her to lead its new virology group.

Kwong and her team at Vertex developed a number of antivirals for HCV, HIV, and influenza viruses; one was the HCV protease inhibitor telaprevir. She recalls that a major challenge for the HCV antivirals was that scientists didn’t know where in the body the virus was hiding. Kwong says she had to fight to develop an antiviral that targeted the liver since it hadn’t yet been confirmed that HCV primarily resides there. People with chronic hepatitis C would in many cases eventually develop liver failure or cancer, but they presented with other issues too, like brain fog, fatigue, and inflammation.

She sees the same dynamic playing out in long COVID.

“This reminds me of HIV days and HCV days,” Kwong says. “This idea that pharma doesn’t want to work on this because we don’t know things about SARS-CoV-2 and long COVID is bullshit.”

Since January, Kwong has been cooking up something new. She’s approaching long COVID the way she did chronic hepatitis C: treating it as a chronic infection, through a start-up called Persistence Bio. Persistence is still in stealth; its name reflects its mission to create antivirals that can reach hidden reservoirs of persistent SARS-CoV-2, which many researchers believe to be a cause of long COVID.

“Long COVID is really interesting because there’s so many different symptoms,” Kwong says. “As a virologist, I am not surprised, because it’s an amazing virus. It infects every tissue in your body. . . . All the autopsy studies show that it’s in your brain. It’s in your gut. It’s in your lungs. It’s in your heart. To me, all the different symptoms are indicative of where the virus has gone when it infected you.”

Kwong has experienced some of these symptoms firsthand. She contracted COVID-19 while flying home to Massachusetts from Germany in 2020. For about a year afterward, she’d get caught off guard by sudden bouts of fatigue, bending over to catch her breath as she walked around the horse farm where she lives, her legs aching. Those symptoms went away with time and luck, but another round of symptoms roared to life this spring, including what Kwong describes as “partial blackouts.”

Kwong hasn’t been formally diagnosed with long COVID, but she says she “strongly suspects” she has it. Others among Persistence’s team of about 25 also have the condition.

“Long COVID patients have been involved with the founding of our company, and we work closely with them and know how awful the condition can be,” Kwong says. “It is a big motivator for our team.”

Persistence is in the process of fundraising. Kwong says she’s in conversations with private investors, but she and her cofounders are hoping to get public funding too.

On Sept. 23, the NIH is convening a 3-day workshop to review what RECOVER has accomplished and plan the next phase of the initiative. Crucially, that phase will include additional clinical trials. RECOVER’s $1.7 billion in funding includes a recent award of $515 million over the next 4 years. It’s not out of the question that this time, industry players might be invited to the table. Tonix Pharmaceuticals’ Lederman and Aim ImmunoTech’s McAleer will both speak during the workshop.

The US Senate Committee on Appropriations explicitly directed the NIH during an Aug. 1 meeting to prioritize research to understand, diagnose, and treat long COVID. It also recommended that Congress put $1.5 billion toward the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which often partners with industry players. The committee instructed ARPA-H to invest in “high-risk, high-reward research . . . focused on drug trials, development of biomarkers, and research that includes long COVID associated conditions.” Also last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the Long COVID Research Moonshot Act, which would give the NIH $1 billion a year for a decade to treat and monitor patients.

It’s these kinds of mechanisms that might make a difference for long COVID drug development.

“What I’ve seen a lot is pharma being hesitant to get involved,” says Lisa McCorkell, a cofounder of the PLRC and a coauthor of the recent long COVID review. “Maybe they’ll invest if NIH also matches their investment or something like that. Having those public-private partnerships is really, at this stage, what will propel us forward.”

#mask up #covid #pandemic #wear a mask #covid 19 #public health #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #still coviding #wear a respirator #long covid #covid conscious #covid is not over #wear a fucking mask

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leiawritesstories · 2 years ago

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Summary: Aelin Galathynius had a hand in just about every illegal dealing in all of Terrasen. Weapons, drugs, organized crime, the black market, blackmail, assassination, coercion, bribery–you name it, she was almost definitely connected to it. The only problem? Nobody could prove it.

Rowan Whitethorn, fresh out of Terrasen’s elite special forces academy–known only as Doranelle for secrecy–was convinced he could unmask Aelin Galathynius. So convinced, in fact, that he’d managed to obtain special orders from his commander to do just that. The only problem? He had exactly three hundred and sixty-five days. If he couldn’t prove Aelin Galathynius guilty in one year’s time, he’d be booted down to corporal in disgrace.

Something neither Aelin nor Rowan could have expected, though, was each other. When their paths cross–and oh, their paths will cross–who will come out ahead?

CW: violence, swearing, crime, drugs, death, lots of illegal activities, NSFW (marked with **)

huge huge thank you to Chloe @house-of-galathynius and Maria @mariaofdoranelle for beta reading 🫶🫶🫶

Read on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue: Concrete Proof

I: January

II: February

III: March, Part 1 // March, Part 2

IV: April, Part 1** // April, Part 2**

V: May**

VI: June

VII: July

VIII: August

IX: September**

X: October, Part 1 // October, part 2

XI: November

XII: December

Epilogue: Until Proven Guilty

Artwork of Aelin scheming by @fauna-flora11

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changingvoicesstudy · 5 months ago

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Changing Voices

We are inviting transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer patients to participate in a research study titled “Changing Voices: Interview-Based Medical Education on Transgender Health.” This research study is investigating the healthcare experiences of transgender patients and the insights transgender patients have for their providers. There are no immediate benefits to this study, but your responses will be incorporated into a paper that can then be used in future medical education.

You can volunteer for this study if you are an English-speaking transgender, nonbinary, or genderqueer individual over the age of 18 who has visited a healthcare provider in the United States. Your participation will require you to participate in an hour-long interview about your experiences in healthcare. The interview will take place over the platforms Discord, Zoom, or Webex. We encourage you to forward this to other transgender patients who may want to participate!

If you are interested, please click the link below for consent information and enrollment and contact Eden Hakimian at [email protected], or direct message the original poster of this post.

This study has been approved by Rowan University’s IRB (Study #PRO-2024-60)

#transgender #trans healthcare #research

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missmonsters2 · 2 years ago

Text

—Just Last Lifetime | Two

Please do not copy, repost, or translate my work anywhere else.

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x Fem!Reader/OFC

Summary: Wednesday is determined to recreate the special moments of your relationship to revive your memories—to revive your feelings. But it becomes apparent that the same memories cannot be created twice.

Warnings: Heavy Angst. Heartbroken!Wednesday. DestinedToBeAlone!Wednesday. Amnesia. Flashbacks. Violent emotional outbursts.

PART ONE

Masterlist | Library Blog | AO3

Reminder there's no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Note: so this is it! The end...haha unless...👀 lol jk...unless ☝️

Count: 4.9k

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"We're going somewhere for our studies today."

You look curiously at Wednesday, clutching the straps of your backpack a little tighter at the sudden spring of information.

Wednesday pretends to not notice your anxiousness, turning to walk off and expecting you to follow. She pays attention to the footsteps behind her, satisfied that you trail along despite clearly being reluctant.

It's been easier to spend time with you lately, with Yoko being incredibly busy with her club activities, and Enid has been keeping herself busy on purpose to leave you with no choice but to spend time with Wednesday.

Wednesday doesn't think you particularly hate spending time with her. You're always cordial and friendly. You've thanked her multiple times for taking the time to help you catch up on your studies and assistance with your current assignments.

Just a few days ago, you gifted her 99% dark chocolate for all the help. Wednesday had been intrigued, thinking you recalled how she preferred the bitter taste. But the intrigue swiftly died when you informed her Enid let you know as you wanted to do something for her.

It didn't matter. It was the fact alone that you went out of your way to give Wednesday something she'd like that mattered.

"Where are we going?" You ask, your voice tinged with curiosity and wariness the further you walk past the school entrance, clearly leaving. "Are we actually studying?"

Wednesday's eyes peer to the corner of her eyes to look at you.

"You study too much."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Then.

"You spend too much time investigating, Wednesday."

Wednesday didn't even look up at you as she continued to pack her backpack for the day.

"I thought you were interested in coming along to find answers?" Wednesday's voice was dispassionate. There was a part of her that was tinged with annoyance that you constantly invited yourself along to her trips if you were just going to get sick of tagging along now.

"I very much am, but we've clearly hit a wall and I'm not particularly looking forward to walking around in circles in the forest today," you pursed your lip but then smiled. "Why don't we take a little bit of a break today? If you really want to, we can continue investigating tonight instead."

"You're willing to sneak out?" Wednesday raised her brow at you. She thought you were ridiculous for trying to bargain with her. The investigation was important, and Wednesday had no desire to lose any time.

She would investigate, and you were free to come along or not.

"I'll break any rule for you, Wednesday."

You said it in such a natural way, and Wednesday found that she was unable to reply right away. She looked back down at the ground for a moment, blinking before she looked back up at you.

"Where are we going?"

Wednesday had several ideas of where you might take her. There was the music hall, the planetarium, or even the garden. But what she hadn't expected was that you'd take her to the carnival.

"You didn't get to enjoy it, right?" You asked as you stepped out of the taxi, paying the driver cash. Wednesday didn't answer, but you knew the answer. "I mean, probably hard to enjoy since you were chasing the Hyde and almost died after Rowan did."

That was another one of the reasons why Wednesday didn't mind that you came along with her investigations. You were the only person who believed her when she said Rowan was dead, despite also being of the people who saw him in the aftermath.

When Wednesday asked why you believed her, you simply said she didn't come across as someone who would lie about it. So, if he was dead, he was dead.

"I suppose," Wednesday looked at the carnival before her. It was moderately busy for a weekend, and she wasn't particularly interested in doing any of these mundane activities.

"Alright," you clapped your hands, bringing Wednesday's attention to you. "We're on a mission today. I come here every year the carnival opens up to win the biggest prize, but my tickets were short since the carnival got cut short last time with the entire…situation."

"What are you trying to win?" Wednesday asked.

You grin at her, pointing far down the carnival with a specific booth. "That mini motorcycle."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"This is rigged," Wednesday seethed, glaring at the booth worker who was nervously sweating ever since she approached.

You laughed, grabbing Wednesday's attention and the relief of the worker. "I know, right? We're totally just losing money at this point."

It was a simple game. A gun with 9 rubber bullets and 10 balloons to pop, and you had to win 5 times in a row with no supernatural abilities to get enough tickets to win the motorcycle.

It was not impossible, Wednesday knew that, but the balloons were not close enough where she could get away with hitting two with one rubber bullet.

They've both spent $100 at this point and while Wednesday would get 9 of 10 balloons every time, you would hit one balloon before you missed every other shot, hitting the corner of the wooden target.

As often as you refilled, it was starting to wear a dent.

"You're terrible at this," Wednesday bluntly said, but you merely smiled and shrugged.

A bit of wind was picking up, making the balloons circle around in their spot. Wednesday spotted her opportunity and chance when two balloons circled close enough towards each other, barely grazing.

Wednesday timed it perfectly and shot her 9 bullets, using her last one to wait as they circled towards each other before shooting and getting them both.

"Oh," you grinned. "That was really impressive."

Wednesday didn't react to your praise, waiting for the worker to rotate the next round of balloons and repeating her actions while the wind continued.

So far, Wednesday has won 4 times in a row. She had to pause as the wind died down, but it was sure to come back in a few moments.

"What do you want if we both win?" You asked. "There's only one motorcycle, so you may have to settle for something else."

Wednesday snorted. "I'm not sure I should get my hopes up on getting anything." It was a dig at the fact you've been absolutely terrible with your shots.

"C'mon, Wednesday," you grinned. "Dream a little."

"I don't dream."

"Nightmare it up a little," you quickly rebuttal.

Wednesday sighed, looking at the prizes that hung and framed the booth. Outside of random useless knick knacks, there were just stuffed animals—which were also useless.

But Wednesday's eye caught on a large scorpion stuffed animal. She wasn't one for being sentimental, but this was as good as it would get.

"That," Wednesday pointed at the scorpion stuffed animal.

You looked at it, grinning as you knew the story behind it. "Sure thing."

The wind picked up again, and Wednesday took the opportunity to win the 5th time in a row. The booth worker, whom Wednesday also assumed was the owner, looked relieved and reluctant to hand over the mini-motorcycle.

"I don't want to stand here for hours," Wednesday deadpanned, having already spent 2 and a half hours winning this prize for you. You would be here for 2 and a half days at the rate you were going.

"We're just about finished," you told Wednesday, and she raises her brow, thinking you'd given up.

But you slap down another $20 bill, smirking. Wednesday looked to your side of the targets and noticed the small dent you've managed to create with the rubber bullets. She narrowed her eyes, wondering if that was your plan all along.

Wednesday gets her answer within minutes. Suddenly, you've turned into a master marksman, shooting every balloon precisely until you were down the last two side by side. You tilted your gun, aiming it at the target, where you created a dent in the side. When you shot the bullet, it shot inside the hole and bounced against the wood, flying out with just enough force to hit the two balloons from the side.

Wednesday furrowed her brows in disbelief.

It continued like that until you won 5 times in a row without pausing. The owner looked like he wanted to say something but merely rolled his eyes with a certain kind of fondness Wednesday was sure you earned over the years coming here.

"The tickets get you two of these," the owner said, handing you two large scorpion stuffed animals.

"Did you have fun?" you grinned at Wednesday.

"It was passable," Wednesday admits, unable to fully say that even mundane activities like carnival games were interesting if she was with you.

As you left the booth, you handed Wednesday the stuffed scorpions to hold while taking the mini motorcycle.

"Look," you said. "Now your scorpion has a little friend to keep them company, or a little girlfriend," you wriggled your brows at her while Wednesday sighed, not commenting back.

She looks at the motorcycle and then at you. "Do you even know how to operate this?"

You smiled at Wednesday. "Not at all."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Now.

The biggest prize of the carnival is still the mini motorcycle, as they don't change the award until next year. It seems they've stocked up since the last time the two of you were here.

Wednesday knows you already have one, but it wouldn't hurt to have another one.

You seem spirited to be at the carnival playing games, as it's obviously familiar to you.

They walk up to the same booth with the same owner, who clearly recognizes them.

"Oh, not again," he sighs. "You're going to run me out of business. Any chance I can talk you out of winning again?"

You look confused, but when you see the motorcycle as the prize, a moment of recognition dawns on your face from the one in the corner of your room. "I've already won this," you slowly say as a confirmation but not as a memory.

"Close," Wednesday drawls. "I won it."

You look confused as to why Wednesday would win the big prize for you, but before you question it, Wednesday speaks again. "It's time to repay the favor and win me one too."

You smile weakly as if the pressure is on, but you pick up the gun, studying the targets. The dent you created on the target was gone as the owner replaced it. You play a couple of rounds to get a feel of the game, while Wednesday puts little effort into her own game. It's unlikely there'd be wind again this time around. Even if Wednesday now knew the other method, it was something Wednesday hoped you would get on your own.

As time goes on, you're starting to get the idea of how to win. It's rather satisfying to watch you get to the same conclusion.

Wednesday takes her time achieving the same method as you. You're focused on your own game, not checking how Wednesday's faring.

You both created a dent relatively around the same time before shooting in sync, winning 5 times in a row.

The owner sighs, shaking his head and muttering about changing the rules about damaging the targets to win. Still, he hands you the motorcycle before asking what else you want.

"Uh," you hesitate, looking at the various prizes before you. Your eyes spot two stuffed animals that make you grin. "The bat and the wolf, please."

With the prizes in tow, the two of you leave the booth.

"What are you going to do with the mini motorcycle?" You ask.

"Teach you how to ride," Wednesday bluntly tells you.

You look surprised. "Oh," you chuckled weakly. "Right, I guess I probably told you I wouldn't know how to ride one."

Wednesday doesn't know what to say about your comment, so she veers off topic. "What are you going to do with the stuffed animals?" Wednesday internally sighs at the ridiculousness of the question. There are very limited things you can do with stuffed animals.

"I'm going to give them to Yoko and Enid," you smile.

"Right," Wednesday mutters, feeling something bitter rise in her throat but unable to identify it. Despite coming here and doing it correspondingly, none of this feels the same. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

You shrug your shoulders before nodding. "It's not bad to take a break from studying."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

The second time Wednesday takes you somewhere, you give her a confused smile.

"I'm pretty behind on my classes still," you gently point out, hinting that you're not up for another day of playing hooky, and Wednesday concedes with a nod.

"I'm aware. We aren't taking a break today," Wednesday clarifies, "we're merely studying in a different scenery."

The walk is silent as you follow Wednesday's lead. She takes you further down the river to an area you haven't explored before until you eventually reach a tall wisteria tree, probably the only one in Vermont, preserved with magic.

"Wow," you breathe in awe, "I didn't know we had one so near campus."

The gothic girl is lost in her thoughts as she settles near the base of the tree, grabbing the books from her backpack on autopilot.

You used to trail beside her, and now you always walk one step behind.

It's something Wednesday noticed as she took you around various parts of the school during your study sessions in an attempt to recreate the memories. She knows you're starting to find her odd, but Wednesday can't afford to tell you what she's really trying to do.

Wednesday's goal wasn't necessarily to make you remember everything by taking you to these places that hold special memories. If you never remember, that's okay. What Wednesday wants is to recreate the memories in hopes they'll lead the two of you down the same path it did the first time.

But instead of growing closer like you did the first time, it feels like you're pulling further away.

Even so, Wednesday can't stop trying.

"Um," you mumble as you search through your notebooks. "I was hoping we could pick up where we left off on ancient languages?"

Wednesday nods, and the two of you delve into the usual strict business of studying.

Everything is fine, and Wednesday is grading one of your practice sheets while you work on another. It's fine until she notices your trembling fingers. It's subtle as you were obviously trying to hide it, tightening your hands into fists and keeping them at your sides as you attentively look at the worksheet.

"I can't seem to understand the syntax—" you start to say but abruptly stop when Wednesday suddenly stands up, reaches up, and rips off a wisteria flower stock from the tree. She sits back down, reaching over and grabbing your wrist. The gentle squeezing of her hold prompts you to open your hand up, and Wednesday places wisteria stock into your hand.

The shaking stops, and Wednesday begins explaining the syntax to you without skipping a beat while you stare at her, stunned.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Then.

"Let's go to the wisteria tree," you were holding Wednesday's hand as you dragged her along. "Today is such a beautiful day, and your skin is way too fair—I mean pale—I mean pallor—to be out in the sun."

Wednesday merely gave you an unimpressed look.

"Once again, you're disrupting my investigations. At this rate, it will take me a lifetime to solve the murders going on here," Wednesday's tone was disgruntled. "It would tarnish not only my reputation but also my ego, and I will make sure you die a miserable death for doing so."

"Ignoring the fact that everyone on campus would totally be dead," you turned around and grinned, "We'd have spent a lifetime together—before you killed me, of course."

You didn't add anything else to your words, but Wednesday could catch the insinuations between the lines.

A lifetime together.

A lifetime with you.

The idea didn't displease Wednesday at all; if anything, the fact that it didn't was more disgruntling.

A large wisteria tree appeared, and the two of you easily settled in. Wednesday was grateful that she had an inkling she should bring a book today in her bag.

"I love this place," you sighed with happiness. "I can't believe you found this place, and I've never noticed it in the years I've been going here."

"It's colorful," Wednesday drawled in response. The flowers that grew were vibrant violet and lavender, something she thought was entirely putrid, but she knew you would love it.

Wednesday was about to say something else when she noticed your fingers were shaking.

"What's wrong with your hands?" Wednesday asked with narrowed eyes.

You looked down, finding you were shaking, before clenching your hands into fists. "It's nothing, it just happens sometimes."

"It's not nothing," Wednesday seethed, angered that you would dare lie to her face. "Why is it shaking? What's wrong?"

You looked like you were debating something for a long moment before you asked her. "Can you grab me one of the wisteria flower stocks?"

Wednesday narrows her eyes at your avoidance, but she gets up, pulls a flower stock off from one of the branches, and passes it to you as she sits down.

"Why does it shake like that?" Wednesday demanded again.

"It's my power," you answer softly, wrapping your fingers around the flower. Wednesday watched as the flower in your handle steadily withered and died. You were smiling at her, but your eyes had a distinct melancholy look.

"This happens when I don't use my powers enough or use them too much. Air is generally made up of a lot of different gases but too little or too much of one causes disruptions in my body because the equilibrium between the air outside and the air inside my body isn't stabilized," you shrugged, holding the withered wisteria flowers in your hands that no longer shook. "I try not to if I can, but plants are a cheat way for me to expel and absorb air to find the equilibrium."

"Why not? It's obviously the most efficient way to stop the shaking," Wednesday frowned.

You shrugged. "I don't think it's a good idea for people to realize there are drawbacks to my powers and how to fix them. It may start with plants, but people will eventually start fearing I can use people the same way."

"Can you?"

You quirked your lip in response, and Wednesday knew the answer.

"Besides," you sighed, dropping the dead wisteria stock with a regretful frown. "Some plants are really beautiful. It's a shame to kill them."

Wednesday looked up at the hanging flowers and scrunched her nose in disgust. "I encourage you to kill this offensively colorful tree."

"When it makes you so miserable? I can't deprive you of that."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Now.

The silence drags on too long, and your lack of response prompts Wednesday to look at you.

You're staring at her before Wednesday watches peer down at your hand, intensely in thought. There's a mix of disbelief and curiosity in your eyes, and Wednesday doesn't understand why.

This was normal.

"Wednesday," you call her name softly, making Wednesday's eyes nearly flutter at the sound. But the next words make her freeze. "Was I in love with you?"

It's something in the way you say it, curious and accepting. Something rushes into Wednesday's chest like a stampede, and she realizes it's hope.

Your tone doesn't suggest you remember anything, but Wednesday rationalizes that it's fine. While it would be ideal that you remember everything, it's not a condition Wednesday holds.

You’re biting your bottom lip, looking reluctant. The silence falls again and lingers until you speak up again, trying to be firm.

"Wednesday, I don't know you—at least not anymore. I don't know what I felt about you before the accident...but that's gone. I'm not going to feel it just because you bring me to places that mattered to us. I don't remember it and I don’t understand it."

Stop talking.

Wednesday wants you to stop talking. She closes her eyes, turning her head away as if that would stop her from hearing your words.

You don't take the hint.

"I don't feel that way about you anymore."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷†⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

It was fine—it was.

Wednesday spends the rest of her week doing various things. She writes, then she goes to the library; she briefly goes to the bee club until she can't stand Eugene's chattering and leaves. She goes on walks with Enid, who smartly avoids talking about you, and sometimes subjects herself to Xavier's monologuing and brooding in his art studio.

Wednesday fills the days with various activities while simultaneously avoiding areas you'd be in. It's not that she's afraid of seeing you, but simply that she doesn't want to.

This is fine.

The day has come to an end, and the sun has long gone from the sky. Wednesday decides to return to her room and play the cello before bed.

This is for the best.

Wednesday focuses her thoughts on her cello and what she'll play, and perhaps Thing will be there to turn the pages for her.

It is meant to be this way.

The room is dark when she enters, and Wednesday knows Enid is not around. There's a small feeling of relief that she doesn't need to face her roommate right now.

The silence in the room feels jilting in a way Wednesday's not used to. She used to be content in the quiet...until you. Then she grew used to your presence and soft chatter around this hour.

Wednesday clenches her fists.

Good riddance.

You were a mistake, and you did her a favor by cutting ties. This was something Wednesday should've done herself a long time ago.

Thing greets her on her bed, and she acknowledges him with a nod. She shreds off her backpack and changes out of her uniform before grabbing her cello and heading out onto the balcony.

The scuttling footsteps behind Wednesday tell her that Thing is quickly following.

"Bring me the new music sheet to play," Wednesday directs. She needs to play something different that would require her focus instead of her usual repertoire, which would allow her mind to drift.

Wednesday starts playing immediately, eyes focusing on the notes she's playing while Thing diligently flips the pages for her.

This is good.

This keeps her mind focused and sharp. Wednesday doesn't have time to think about anything else when she has to focus on what note she'll be playing next.

Despite the new piece, though, Wednesday's mind begins to drift. She has to make a conscious effort to keep her focus on the music sheet in front of her, but you pop up in her mind interspersedly.

"Wednesday, I don't know you—at least not anymore."

Her fingers falter, her cello emitting a jagged sound from her mistake. It's so unbelievably frustrating. She hasn't ever made a mistake while playing her cello since she first started learning it as a child. Years and years have gone by without a single mistake, and it was all ruined because of you.

You plague her like a disease that festers under her skin. Wednesday's done her best to ignore you for days now. She's been ignoring the sight of you, the talks of you, and everything down to the thought of you.

Yet, you were still there, underneath everything. You simmer like a slow boiling kettle until you can't be ignored anymore.

Wednesday closes her eyes frustratingly, willing you to leave her mind. She threatens her brain to erase the thought of you. It'd clearly be so much easier to forget you. After all, look how simply you live now without a memory of Wednesday.

But you don't go away. The memories remain with Wednesday, torturing her for what will likely be the rest of her life.

This was not a form of torture Wednesday ever thought she'd have to endure.

Wednesday opens her eyes and stands abruptly as she walks back inside. She didn't bother turning on the lights, and the only thing illuminating the room was the moonlight shining through the balcony.

"I don't feel that way about you anymore."

Wednesday clenches her jaw and tightens her grip on her cello.

How entirely damning.

Suddenly, a white-hot ball of rage forms in Wednesday's chest; everything she's been trying to push down for the last few days spills over. Emotions run a rampage inside her, unable to be controlled and ignored any longer.

Wednesday lifts her cello before violently smashing it into the floor, the body of it breaking in an uneven half, wood splitting into multiple pieces. The tailpiece cracks, and the strings snap, one of them into Wednesday's hand and cutting it.

The rage and adrenaline in her body don't allow the pain to register, even if she can see the blood.

How could you forget?

Wednesday begins destroying other parts of her side of the room—her bed, her clothes, her books. She pushes her wardrobe over and knocks over the chair at her desk, the loud banging ringing in her ears but not loud enough to cover the pain in her chest.

Thing scuttles back and forth in worry, but he cannot do anything to help his friend. He immediately leaves out the door with a mission.

How could you not want to fall in love with her again?

Wednesday pushes her typewriter off her desk—she thrashes everything off her desk. Her beloved typewriter crashes into the floor, the carriage breaking off along with other various parts. Keys pop off, making a ruckus on the floor as they hit it, but it doesn't bring any relief.

None of this is.

Wednesday pulls open the drawer, grabs out her manuscript, and looks at the last few pages she's written. Viper falls in love with someone who helps her with her investigations, and Wednesday has written up to the part where Viper begrudgingly accepts that fact she has feelings for this person and accepts their confession.

Wednesday has never gotten rid of any parts of her work all these years. Sure, she's done revisions and draft editing, but every scene down to its core idea has never been removed. Wednesday is a stern believer that every scene is meant to happen, and she cannot change the course of her writing when she looks back.

But Wednesday begins to shred multiple pages. She shreds page after page but doesn't know when to stop. Should she stop before Viper gets involved with this person?

Along with the anger settles in hollowness.

It's the realization that even if Wednesday destroys these pages, she can't really undo the fact that Viper has met someone and fallen in love with them.

How could you leave Wednesday to remember everything alone?

Wednesday hears the door open, but she doesn't turn around.

"Wednesday?" Enid's voice is soft and unsure, full of concern.

Wednesday doesn't answer.

Enid steps further into the room, shutting the door behind her as she looks around. The room is a mess with so many broken items on the floor, but her side remains untouched, nearly down to the tape they removed ages ago.

Enid is careful as she makes her way to Wednesday, the girl's shoulder tense with obvious rage. But even so, Enid knows her roommate would never hurt her. So, she places a hand on her roommate's shoulder when she's next to Wednesday.

"Wednesday—"

Wednesday is quick to whip around and look at Enid with violently accusing eyes. "This is your fault," Wednesday spits out. "I wouldn't be feeling this—this loneliness if you haven't been spurring lies to me about love." The tone is filled with disgust at the last word.

Wednesday has never expressed any ounce of emotion that would allow her to scream at someone, but she wants to scream at Enid and can't. Even if she wanted to, her throat feels so raw with something Wednesday can only detect is the urge to cry.

But even if Wednesday threatens her body to refrain from crying, the salty water spills from her eyes without permission. The spill and spill, even if Wednesday doesn't make a single sound.

Enid doesn't care if Wednesday punches, stabs, or even kills her—she pulls Wednesday into a bone-crushing hug. Her roommate resists at first, pushing against Enid, but it's useless against her werewolf strength. Enid holds on, even as Wednesday's pushing turns into desperate clinging.

Wednesday's tears are hot, and Enid knows logically tears are always hot, but she finds herself surprised they are. It's just another sign her roommate is all too human too.

"It's okay, Wednesday, I swear," Enid whispers, rubbing Wednesday's back in soothing circles, even caressing her messy braids.

There's no heaving or loud sobbing, as that would be too much for the somber girl. Even so, Enid can feel the tears soak her neck and dampen her shoulder.

"It's not," Wednesday's voice is so raw, as if the girl had been violently sobbing. She clutches at Enid's back, her eyes blankly staring at the mess she's made of her room. Everything is out of place or broken.

It shouldn't be Enid here, but the person Wednesday wants will never show up.

"I don't have anyone anymore."

#wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday addams imagine #wednesday addams x ofc #wednesday x ofc #wednesday addams #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega imagine #mm: my fics

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jawntwojawn · 16 days ago

Text

Manfred was always fascinated by jewelry, not a surprise considering how many Emmrich haves. These little pieces of gold intrigue him, some are memories, others are honors and a fair few are just pretty.

So when he meets Rook who uses even more jewelry than Emmrich he is enchanted by the shine.

Lord of Fortune shows their skill through gold, which is not only the ability to get it, it’s also to keep it was what Rook said.

Davrin commented something about peacocks but didn’t have the same impact as Rook's words.

So one day Rook suggests taking Manfred on a nice trip to Rivani. Maybe the skeleton can’t feel the sea breeze but sure he can listen to it and the power of the waves.

Emmrich accepts happy to spend time with his protege and his dearest. They spend a lovely time on the beach, Rook speaks about the city and how people welcome him even as a wanted slave. And obviously about some good adventures because he knows how to entertain his public.

Then when they are going back to the lighthouse Emmrich gets distracted by Rowan. So Manfred is free to investigate The Hall of Valor, people look at him with some surprise but no one says anything.

Not with Rook behind him at least.

A shopkeeper calls them, that he has a good stash for today but Rook only answers that his pockets are empty. Still, Manfred took his time to look through the things curious about what is common in Rivain.

Then he notices a little brooch of a skull with emeralds for eyes, just like him.

The shopkeeper looks at Rook and asks him if this is another of his children.

Rook doesn't answer but takes one of his rings and puts it on the table.

When the shopkeeper negated with his head Rook put another.

Then they leave with the brooch. Rook mumbles something about a scammer.

It's not until they are in the lighthouse that Manfred understands why Rook took his rings and he is not very happy about it.

Rook rings are memories of his adventures, when he shows them he tells about dangerous expeditions and mysterious dungeons. And now they are gone.

Manfred tries to explain his frustration to Rook and he answers with a simple It's just gold and doesn't have more value than another piece.

Rook explains that he has some sentimental pieces like a simple band that his kids gave him a long time ago.

And if Emmrich someday decides to give him a ring he is gonna be very protective of it and is gonna use it every day but for other things is not that important. Gold is pretty and makes him feel nice, but it's not irreplaceable.

Later on, Manfred gifts him the brooch and Rook promises to take good care of it.

Emmrich questions the idea of Rook paying for his gift but he assures him that it's not the first time.

#rook laidir #rook #manfred the skeleton #dragon age the veilguard #datv #emmrook #emmrich volkarin #emmrich x rook #lord of fortune rook #lord of fortune #when do you use commas in English

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theresattrpgforthat · 6 months ago

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Do you know of games where acquired 'detriments' (such as scars and traumas) give players unique benefits rather than being seen as strictly detrimental?

Preferably ones where its not just "Get a bonus when this causes a problem"

Theme: Helpful Detriments

Hello there, I had a question similar to this back in 2023, so I’m going to redirect you to my Curses recommendation post first, because there might be something there that fits what you’re looking for. Then we can top off that list with a few more!

When I think of this kind of thing, I think of three categories: horror, the paranormal, and cyberpunk.

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer.

External Containment Bureau is a game of paranormal investigation and bureaucracy using a lightweight, hackable version of the Forged in the Dark design framework. You play as trained agents of the External Containment Bureau, an organization tasked with the study, identification, and containment of paranormal phenomena.

The Bureau authorizes agents to make use of these phenomena to give yourself incredible powers (so long as the proper forms are in order). But take care: using paranormal energies inches you ever closer to joining the ranks of the paranormal yourself. Will you transcend humanity in the line of duty? Play to find out.

ECB gives your characters special paranormal powers during the course of play, and whenever you take enough resonance (ECB’s Stress mechanic) you mark another one. Your character can take up to 3 powers before things get tricky: mark enough resonance to get your 4th power and you are no longer a playable character - you get promoted, demoted, or transcend past mundane existence. If you were to hack this system, I think you could flavor these powers and abilities to make them feel more like curses - in fact, I think Congregation, by DM Rawlings, does something like this.

Urban Shadows, by Magpie Games.

The streets bleed shadows as the supernatural politics of the city threaten to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero—a savior for those who have never had enough—or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or give in for power?

The choice is yours.

In Urban Shadows, your characters are constantly wrestling with the opportunity to be really shitty people in exchange for Corruption. Each character has a special move that entices them, such as the Spectre’a move “witness a scene and do nothing” - which gives you corruption. Mark enough corruption, and you get more powerful - like the Spectre’s Telekinesis ability.

Of course, the more Corruption moves you have, the faster you take corruption, and once you’ve maxed out your Corruption limit - well, your character isn’t really a hero anymore, are they? (Which is why the GM gets control of them, and you make a new character.)

The link above is for the 1st edition. The 2nd Edition Quickstart is a teaser of what's coming soon.

Heart: The City Beneath, by Rowan, Rook & Decard.

Heart: The City Beneath is a complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.

It is a dungeon-crawling, story-forward tabletop RPG from the designers of Spire that focuses on what characters have to lose in pursuit of their dreams in the chaotic darkness beneath the world.

Heart is known for many things: its juicy setting, its utilization of the classic dungeon crawl, its body horror… but the horrifically gorgeous descriptions of the characters are what we’re here for. Watch your characters slowly hollow themselves out and give themselves over to whatever dark power has given them unique abilities. These characters will get more and more powerful… until they reach the final session, where everyone goes out in a big blazing, gory mess.

The Fallout system also gives the GM a chance to give characters interesting trauma and wounds, but they also could help generate interesting Beats that players want to work toward in order to level up. I think mechanically, this recommendation might have a loose connection to what you’re looking for, but thematically it might still be close.

Doll.Bod, by curatrix-ribston.

In a City of neon lights and shimmering pools of acid rain, the world ends a little each day. Hunger and sickness walk the streets like the ripper in the tales of old, taking those that the system casts aside.

There is a way out. When you've got nothing else, you can always mortgage your body. The corpos have use for an object's flesh, for those they can augment without having to care for those pesky regulations. They're just playing with dolls really.

Dolls that they send on the jobs you can't actually send your employees on. They're not comitting crimes, just making creative use of their property.

That's what you are now. Their property. Maybe, with time, you can be something else entirely.

Let’s talk about Doll.Bod.

You are really cool cyborgs, with really deadly abilities and useful skills. You each have special abilities like the Razor-grrl’s skin razors that can cut at the slightest touch, or the Seamful, whose blood can heal herself every time she gets hit. The catch is: you don’t have control of your body. Your body has been sold, and the corporation that bought it is using it as they please. In play, this is often represented by other players at the table making decisions for you about what your character does - with safety tools in place, of course.

Not only that, your own special abilities harm your character in certain ways - for instance, The Razor-grrl can’t engage in physical intimacy with anyone, because she’s likely to hurt them, while the Gargoyle can’t turn her eyes off - until they short out, that is.

Other Games I Talk About Ad Nauseum...

Apocalypse Keys has a Ruin track similar to that of Urban Shadows, giving your characters more and more powerful abilities that encourage their descent into monstrosity, constantly pushing them towards ending the world. It’s not necessarily a bad thing either - sometimes the more satisfying outcome is tearing down the whole organization and rebuilding anew.

Those of Us Who Know Better has superheroes whose power always comes at a cost. In one way, you could see this as a detriment with a bonus (having to do certain things to get access to special powers) although I acknowledge that it might be a bit of a stretch.

Numenera has a lot of random mutations that can happen to you if you choose to use the random tables at the back of Destiny, and the Rusthaven expansion has some other abilities that come with both benefits and setbacks.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #curses #horror #sometimes you need to get better in order to get worse

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