#oh look an update

[the-heart-of-leo]

Dr. Nicky Di Genova is hired by Merrick Pharmaceuticals to head their new Genetics Lab.

Nicky wasn’t sure what to expect but it definitely wasn’t the kidnapping, torture, captivity, and exploitation of an immortal being.

(AU where Nicky is the doctor working for Merrick where Joe is captured and brought in.)

Chapter Summary:  A reunion of sorts

Excerpt:

There was blood on the woman’s shirt.

The room was a storm of activity as the mercenaries dragged their prisoners in. Nicky could hear Merrick’s voice screaming for answers, could hear Joe yelling and struggling even as the two people being brought in did nothing.

The blond man’s head was down, muttering to himself in French, but the woman was all but snarling at everyone around her, despite the blood on her shirt.

The fresh blood. Fresh and bleeding...

“She’s hurt!” he added his voice to the cacophony, pulling at the straps holding him down. “She’s bleeding out!”

“I can fucking see that!” Merrick turned to glare back at him, his teeth bared.

“Let me go!” Nicky said, going still now that he had the man’s attention. He didn’t need Merrick to think he was going to fight. There was enough of that going on now. “I’m a doctor! I’ve worked emergencies before.”

Merrick scoffed but he didn’t turn away.

“I can help her. She’s hurt.” He looked over as the woman and the man were all but thrown into their chairs. “And she’s not supposed to be, right? She’d supposed to be like J— like him,” he nodded toward Joe who was now watching the exchange. He wasn’t fighting anymore but there was no hiding the fire in his eyes. “I can help her.”

Merrick’s stared down at him, cold and hard. He could see the wheels turning in the man’s head. One of his immortals was no longer immortal. How? Why?

Softly, Nicky said, “If she dies, you’ll never know.”

Read Here on AO3

[zemkzone]

That Rare Arctic Thunderstorm: Ch19 (on AO3)

Happy Flash Vanishes in Crisis Day, one and all!!!

FULL FIC LINK HERE

“Okay, one last time, just so we’re clear.”

Cisco rubbed his sweaty hands over the front of his overshirt, nodding at Harry outside the room in the basement sublevel where both the breach and Grodd were kept. The ARGUS guards had herded the maintenance staff to the upper floors and were supposed to keep the rest of the facility safe while Team ColdFlash handled the meta-gorilla. What members of Team ColdFlash could be spared to deal with him, that was.

“Caitlin’s keeping an eye on Grodd’s vitals,” Cisco recited, straightening up. “While you help me direct the breach to the right place.” He reached into his hoodie pocket for the experimental glasses he and the Earth-2 scientist had been working on in spurts for the last few weeks. “I still think this is a really bad idea.”

“We don’t have any other choice,” Caitlin said quietly. Her shoulders were stiff and she hugged a tablet to her chest tight. “Everyone else is still helping Barry and Len evacuate and secure Iron Heights. Ronnie’s manning the Waystation alone. Well, with Constantine.”

“If that Brit can be taught how to type on a keyboard, that is,” Harry commented disapprovingly. “That spellwork of his was fascinating, but the rest of his skills seem to have peaked in the previous century.”

“Hartley shouldn’t have thrown him into our comms system like that.” Cisco made a face. “It’s not exactly beginner-friendly.”

“Neither is this.” Caitlin pressed the door panel button and they stepped into the room as one cautious unit. “Don’t forget, we have to be non-threatening and calm the whole time. If Grodd wakes up, we have to project that we’re here to help, not hurt him.”

“Hopefully, it’ll be enough to convince him not to scramble our brains.” Cisco laughed nervously. “That and seeing someone who looks like the Doctor Wells he knew.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Harry said drily. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The room hadn’t changed since Cisco had last seen it, minus the armed ARGUS guards. On the platform right in front of the large, glowing breach, Grodd lay on a low, oversized metal table with reinforced steel wrist and ankle cuffs. He had a collar too. Several monitor wires were hooked up to him, along with a thick-tubed IV drip. Cisco recalled Caitlin and Shawna protesting the sedative dosage ARGUS had been using on Grodd, but he couldn’t blame the paramilitary organization. He still couldn’t get over how the gorilla in front of him was a lot bigger and meaner-looking than the one that he’d known before the particle accelerator explosion. The slow rise and fall of his broad, barrel-like chest made Cisco’s heart jackrabbit even faster.

“Testing! Hello, can you guys hear me?” Cecile’s voice was barely a whisper on the comms piece in Cisco’s ear. The district attorney was monitoring them from Professor Stein’s office, since Drs. McGee and Quale had to pretend nothing was wrong in front of the board.

“You can talk a lot louder than that,” Cisco told her, holding onto the railing as he climbed the short flight of steps onto the platform.

“Alerting Barry and Len has to be our last resort,” Caitlin added. “They have to know we can handle things without them too.”

READ THE REST OF THE CHAPTER HERE

[maivalkov]

Chapter 69

[stuckinamok]

Chapter 36, It's Scary Being Scared of my huntlow fic, Imminently Intertwined, is now posted!

coffee never expected but always appreciated >> link to my ko-fi!

Summary of chapter:

Hunter and Willow do their best to keep the kids calm about the whole "oh no we're back on the boiling isles with no way home" situation. Chiara reveals a secret she had been keeping. It's still raining.

[brin-bellway]

#UGH #this is an ATTACK and we (Tumblr) kind of deserve it #pretty sure 'pilorum' is 'hairs' (gen. pl. of pilus) instead of 'spears' (pilum) but this way is funnier #and either one would be 'pilorum' anyway so WHO CAN SAY (comparativelysuperlative)

Salvete, Gaius Iuli'us Caesar sum et pilorum album quam nivem habeo et aureos, sed interdum virides lauros et imperium Romanum construxi et eius eram quasi primus Caesar (sic merui nomen meum) et multi indicant mihi me Marcus Crassus similem esse (si non scitis Marcus Crassus, vobis opus est pecunia). Brutus non est filius meus quod est bonum nam ET TU, MI FILI???!?. Iamia sum sed dentes albos et rectos habeo. Pallidam cutem habeo. Etiam, maga sum magicum ludum, nomine Pigverruca, visitans quod desinam (ego sum MMCXIV), veni, vidi, vici. Classicus sum (si vos id non suspexistis) et multas togas emptas in Basilica Iulia habeo. Ratio amo et bellum Gallicum gero. Veluti, hodie omnia Gallia occupata. Omnia Gallia? Certe! Non est vicus parvus inter Aquarium, Babaorum, Laudanum et Brevisbonum. Ambulabam foris Pigverruca. Ninxit et pluvit et Gallia divisa erat in partes tres, quod me fecit felix. Marcus Porcius Cato me observavit. Digitum medium illo monstravi.

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[egophiliac]

(almost) four years in, and I finally had time to draw something for the anniversary! woo! 🎉🎉🎉

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

FYI artists and writers: some info regarding tumblr's new "third-party sharing" (aka selling your content to OpenAI and Midjourney)

You may have already seen the post by @staff regarding third-party sharing and how to opt out. You may have also already seen various news articles discussing the matter.

But here's a little further clarity re some questions I had, and you may too. Caveat: Not all of this is on official tumblr pages, so it's possible things may change.

(1) "I heard they already have access to my data and it doesn't really matter if I opt out"

From the 404 article:

A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”

So please, go click that opt-out button.

(2) Some future user: "I've been away from tumblr for months, and I just heard about all this. I didn't opt out before, so does it make a difference anymore?"

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?” Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.”

It should make a difference! Go click that button.

(3) "I opted out, but my art posts have been reblogged by so many people, and I don't know if they all opted out. What does that mean for my stuff?"

This answer is actually on the support page for the toggle:

This option will prevent your blog's content, even when reblogged, from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models.

And some further clarification by the COO and a product manager:

zingring: A couple people from work have reached out to let me know that yes, it applies to reblogs of "don't scrape" content. If you opt out, your content is opted out, even in reblog form. cyle: yep, for reblogs, we're taking it so far as "if anybody in the reblog trail has opted out, all of the content in that reblog will be opted out", when a reblog could be scraped/shared.

So not only your reblogged posts, but anyone who contributed in a reblog (such as posts where someone has been inspired to draw fanart of the OP) will presumably be protected by your opt-out. (A good reason to opt out even if you yourself are not a creator.)

Furthermore, if you the OP were offline and didn't know about the opt-out, if someone contributed to a reblog and they are opted out, then your original work is also protected. (Which makes it very tempting to contribute "scrapeable content" now whenever I reblog from an abandoned/disused blog...)

(4) "What about deleted blogs? They can't opt out!"

I was told by someone (not official) that he read "deleted blogs are all opted-out by default". However, he didn't recall the source, and I can't find it, so I can't guarantee that info. If I get more details - like if/when tumblr puts up that FAQ as reported in the 404 article - I will add it here as soon as I can.

Edit, tumblr has updated their help page for the option to opt-out of third-party sharing! It now states:

The content which will not be shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models, includes: • Posts and reblogs of posts from blogs who have enabled the "Prevent third-party sharing" option. • Posts and reblogs of posts from deleted blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from password-protected blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from explicit blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from suspended/deactivated blogs. • Private posts. • Drafts. • Messages. • Asks and submissions which have not been publicly posted. • Post+ subscriber-only posts. • Explicit posts.

So no need to worry about your old deleted blogs that still have reblogs floating around. *\o/*

But for your existing blogs, please use the opt out option. And a reminder of how to opt out, under the cut:

The opt-out toggle is in Blog Settings, and please note you need to do it for each one of your blogs / sideblogs.

On dashboard, the toggle is at https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/blogname [replace "blogname" as applicable] down by Visibility:

For mobile, you need the most recent update of the app. (Android version 33.4.1.100, iOs version 33.4.) Then go to your blog tab (the little person icon), and then the gear icon for Settings, then click Visibility.

Again, if you have a sideblog, go back to the blog tab, switch to it, and go to settings again. Repeat as necessary.

If you do not have access to the newest version of the app for whatever reason, you can also log into tumblr in your mobile browser. Same URL as per desktop above, same location.

Note you do not need to change settings in both desktop and the app, just one is fine.

I hope this helps!

[brin-bellway]

(my tags on my previous reblog of this:)

#(some other quotes from that Twitter thread to contextualise it:) #(''If it’s not real I’m not even mad‚ #killing a melon with a sword and writing a code to tell a fun story is an incredible way to spend lockdown'') #(''For context btw I have already sent this guy my nudes like‚ months ago. I’ve said we can meet up. #None of this is a ploy to get in my pants and holy shit if it was it’d be the wildest possible way of doing so'') #(''People are rediscovering this and keep retweeting it so I feel like doing another update‚ #the guy who was receiving/executing the melons is now my boyfriend. #We've been together about 6 months now and our conversations are still this weird about 50% of the time.'') #(though really you should read the whole thread) #(including watching the videos with sound on) #(half the thread is age-restricted for some reason‚ but if you have objections to Twitter) #((and who doesn't)) #(you can--I just accidentally discovered--get around that by reading it through Nitter) #(that's https://nitter.hu/TrinCyboid/status/1356496649460322304 or the Nitter instance of your choice) #(also these people are apparently doing a podcast where they watch seasons of 24 in real time and I may have to check it out)

Update: I have now listened to the first season of “24 Bauer Party People”, and it is *very* funny.

Hi this thread is making me insane.

[cokoweee]

CURSE YOU 10 IMAGE LIMIT ARARARARSRARARARARAR

Anyways blah blah sumthin sumthin cringe k bye bye I probably forgot something here

<===—===>

[potatobugz]

objects loving objects baby!!!!

[suntails]

echo

[bulbabutt]

Raphaella Meets His Match

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7

getting on the same page

[wildglitch]

Captain Marvel Prompt, GO!

The JL are having trouble with some magic users causing issues, so they call some magic users including Captain Marvel to deal with it. They end up having a bit of troubel so Cap calls in the best person to help. His brother obviously.

The JL had no idea he worked with other people and have no clue what their relationship is, but they're welcoming. Meanwhile Freddy is having the time of his life finally getting to know the JL and getting to work with them. This is his first anything with them and first imprssions matter.

Flash forwards, they manage to find their base. Its some casino like thing that anyone is invited to. They are about to go in when they are to that the buliding has some sort of power nullifier. So while it dosent take away their powers completly, they can't deppend on them and the supers are basically regular people with a very small boost that is barely noticable.

No problem right? They can still fight just fine with out them. And its not like they are taking their wepons away. It will be fine.

Billy: *Looks at his flying brother*...

Freddy: *Staring at his legs in despair*...

B/F: Fuck-

Cue Billy and Freddy derailing the mission for 30 mins as they break into a near by Walmart looking for anything and everything that can work as a crutch for Freddy while they yell at eachother, the universe, and Walmart for not having easy accese aids for disabeld people. All of this happening by a very confused JL that just stand awkwardly at the side not really understanding whats happening.

So much for first impressions

They get it eventually and help him find a par that fit. The mission is a succses and Billy and Freddy manage to stop the magic thing. Freddy is super embarrases about how his first mission went, the JL are impressed with his inteligence and ability to hold his own, and Batman is making a new protical for any and every dissability that their members could have, be it visibal or not.

(Billy is just super proud of his brother, and is still begging for his forgivness for breaking his crutches by using them as a wepon again)

[madspeed]

riku your pasta riku the sauce is burning riku the stove ri (sketches based on @candyriku's fic, you can read it here!!)

[moon-lords-lower-body]

Get his ass Red, Get his Ass !!