#op you GET it on such a molecular level

[spidey-bie]

Same anon that sent the kit ask but I honest to god cannot think of a good question rn so: what's your fave piece of Ansi lore that you've written so far but haven't shared? If you can't (or don't want to) choose one piece then top 3 would be awesome!

I love these asks btw they get me thinking about development and my character design. So thank you.

I have a couple things for you.

First off Ansi canonically gets hoes in her world. Not really lore but moreso a fun fact. She needs stuff and she don't got money. So she flirts with the staff at different stores/restaurants. It's really funny because he never gives them his real name either. So she has men and women of all kinds occasionally calling out to her when she goes places.

Now for lore. One of his powers is system coding. I'm still workshopping how it works but any system that has electricity running through it can be rewired/coded/manipulated by Ansi as long as she's in close contact with it. Yes that does mean she can rewire humans on the molecular level. Yes that does mean she can manipulate the electricity her body produces. Her powers are pretty much a mix of Particle Manipulation and Electrokinesis. This isn't even all her powers either lol.

Yes I made my OC op but I countered it by making her mentally ill. It's the Mob Psycho 100 effect.

That is all for now. I gotta keep y'all coming back for more.

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver's Powers not being unique to him kinda makes sense because Silver doesn't think of himself as special and is canonically considered a loser at this point.

I personally would say it's mostly the IDW comics that wildly oscillate between the amount of respect they give Silver. They give me the feeling that they simply just can't make up their mind on who or what they want Silver to be, which I would say is because the end goal of the plot is entirely driving the bus here, not the characters and their actions. So that means in the comics, Silver is either a bumbling idiot who needs to be hand-held by the more powerful smarter OCs while nearly getting wiped out by one random Egg Pawn in a flashback, or someone hella OP and serious whose powers while Super can clear an entire planet of a virus that changes its victims on a molecular level. And I think Silver has absolutely amazing moments in IDW! I love the issue where he and Sonic take the six Chaos Emeralds and make a mad dash for Zavok to get the seventh one, where Silver is a crucial component and shown off as his powerful self. And also during his fight with Zor he's no-nonsense, clear about what he stands for, and even shown as unforgiving to an extent. That is definitely why I find it so unfortunate that these moments are counteracted by Silver either being innocent uwu bapy boi, or just being written as incompetent because that's what the plot needs him to be to get to what it wants to achieve.

But that is just the comics. Forces painted Silver a lot more respectably in my opinion (e.g. shown as being capable of making a stand against Infinite, who's been callously murdering people in the streets beforehand with nothing they could do to fight back having the slightest effect), and TSR did too if you ignore the trash talk scene (e.g. Silver being the first to learn of Eggman and Dodon Pa's plans, and keeping an eye on things with help from his friends). Furthermore, the Sonic Channel stories and information about Silver give a much more respectable view of the character, that leans far more towards his positive sides: his straightforwardness, kindness, desire for justice, willingness for peace, reliability, the fact people feel endeared to him, etc etc. Simultaneously, they are not afraid to mention that Silver can take things too far, and can be put on the wrong track at times. Generally, those stories thus paint him as someone serious and incredibly strong (e.g. able to stop the Eclipse Canon beam with a shield of PK) while still being naive and having slight tunnel vision (e.g. not understanding why he was not taken seriously when he told the Soleannan officials about the bridge collapsing, which he knew because he came from the future). It's... better than what the comic is giving us, in my personal opinion; it's at least more enjoyable if you like Silver's personality from the actual games. So I do not at all agree with the idea he's "canonically a loser" currently. It just depends on what media you look into, and how that media treats the character in regards to what Silver's actual personality is like.

[ddelline]

You encouraged people to ask away when it comes to your JJK fic, and I'm taking the invitation to ask if you've got a 5k essay about the way Gojo perceives the world with Six Eyes? Also any more thoughts on how jujutsu society functions, especially now that it's fallen apart? So much of your fic has me curious (I mean this as such a compliment, I want to live in the world you're building)

omggg my first ask. this feels like a special day ngl (I'm serious lol this made me happy). also crying in the club at the last sentence, thank u so much, I can't believe I get to talk at length about making up a bunch of headcanon shit it's been my dream since I started writing fic 🥺❤️‍🩹

ok enough of that, let's talk jjk *cue inhaling seagull meme* cut be here bc this really did become a f*king novel

so, the six eyes + gojō seeing through them is something I haven't put much (of my own) thought(s) into: gege has, for once, explained a phenomena we encounter in-verse quite well, lol. the six eyes are, as explained by gege, "eyes that can see cursed energy extremely clearly; even when covering his eyes, it's like he has high definition infrared vision" (fanbook pg 43, for the curious). since most living things generate CE (tōdō in yūji + tōdō v hanami; one notable exception being plants (hanami in the same fight)), that means seeing all CE traces/active output at all times. extrapolating from this, then, is being able to comprehend also surroundings made up of 'dead CE space', such as buildings and whatnot, since living organisms outputting CE move in/around/above them, etc. furthermore, the amount of information uptake + processing that 6E + limitless gives is insane; we know that the 6E allows satoru to see CE extremely clearly, which one would assume amounts to sight, ergo being able to make sense of something's shape through processing a cursory amount of information in the way we do when we see things as humans. but the 6E supplies information on a molecular level: as satoru explains in ch76, he's not just automatically sorting objects by CE amount at that point, but also by mass, shape, and speed; something he did manually before, implying that said information, now processed, digested, and understood per auto, is: 1) density x 2) volume = mass; 3) shape (speaks for itself); 4) speed = distance/time I think (lmao I'm not good at math), the latter of which also require a sophisticated level of processing + understanding of the object itself. the more I get into this the more I stray from the topic, I think. sry lol, I wasn't joking about that 5k essay. I also have ADD, in case that wasn't blatantly obvious through how incoherent this probs is.

ANYWAY, I think seeing w/o glasses/blindfold is basically like if you turn your 5k retina powerbook/sophisticated media editing computer up to max in both intensity and contrast (like a post-ironic ugly meme), AND THEN you add being abso-fucking-lutely bombarded with information, on top of this. it's like seeing a thing so clearly it's not even seeing that thing anymore. however, satoru's most likely so able to sort through and process information, that it sorts itself out: a very brief scene in S1E20 did give us somewhat of a look through his pov (veil is down and he's looking at yūji), and it's vaguely normal looking, save for the bright blue flame of CE bursting out from yūji. (by comparison, limitless is explained as a normal brain having all of that above subatomic comprehension thrust upon you an infinite amount of times, all at the same time, which makes you process things infinite times, making you seem as though you're comprehending things infinitely slowly.)

QUESTION NR 2 lmao my god this is already so long. this is something I've thought about A Lot. on the one hand I imagine, since it's highly unlikely that a US breach of jp borders in a large scale military op would go unnoticed - esp considering that a lot of people seem to live vaguely standard lives in as well as around the culling game barriers - that it'd cause global mass panic. it's stated that it's out there (source is some or several manga chapters I can't remember off the top of my head), as in out there out there, which ofc means all the world's top leaders gathering at a bunch of useless symposiums to talk crisis management, military intervention, and whatnot. on the other hand - and this is me talking as a EU citizen - I'd also imagine that a lot of the world would attempt to erect literal and figurative walls around japan, and leave it to its devices; the EU is useless in the EU; they're extremely unlikely to march in to what is essentially an apocalyptic warzone in which outcome can't be predicted, like at all. a bunch of industries are sure to topple, and the world economy is in fucking shambles, I imagine (and we're also kind of supposed to imagine, since the culling games open to a panicked jp government talking about plummeting stock + evacuating citizens). there'll be a lot of talking around it, but I think in the end, since sorcery/jujutsu is nearly strictly confined to jp land (w the exception of some diasporic tribes, as seen in the movie + prequel manga), I'd think much of the world is trying to contain it to japan, take what defensive measures they can, and just wait it out. all supply + import/export routes are most likely cut off by now, and most of Important People evacuated to allies, soooo. zombie apocalypse!world state impending, is what I sort of imagine. considering all of shibuya is fucking dead by dec 24th, this seems marginally supported canonically as well. well ok, not all of the above, but somewhat, anyway.

EDIT + ADD TO QUESTION 2 bc in my excitement I actually did not read this properly at all, lmao OTL ok so on jujutsu society: I'm still a lil hazy on exactly when it's implied that power couple okkotsu & inumaki massacred the jujutsu council; whether it's closer to shibuya or to the culling games/satoru's unboxing, it's likely to have either the one or the other effect. however, I think that it kind of is as I broached in adsr 6: jujutsu society has declared a state of martial law; it's kind of "you should follow protocol as usual", but also "we technically can't force you to do that bc anything you do, if tried in a court of law, will just default to "I did what I had to under martial law yr honor". I think it's interesting to think about curses actually being fucking invisible, like completely, to normal people; there's not much point, really, to jujutsu sorcerers or curse users suddenly being super obvious with what they're doing; it's not like normal people can comprehend it, anyway. there's bound to be a ton more 'unexplained' property destruction, lol, but also, that's already likely to happen with normal people out and about in a city that's been abandoned by its authorities and government. I think there'll be a bunch of frenetically working techies + scientists who'll work around the clock at supplying foreign military with the capabilities to see curses, so that people with time are able to see curses as well. what that means for jujutsu society... well, they'll have to survive sukuna/kenjaku/satoru/culling game mayhem first. I could imagine a bunch of new gen sorcerers reaching across the aisle to attempt to broker something with 'normal' society though, since it is out there, and they'll have to adapt to that. that said, bc of the above 'curses are invisible anyway, so what's the point' I also think that a lot of sorcerers (not curse users) kind of feel honor/duty bound to keep doing exactly what they're doing, which is protecting the general populace from curses: this should mean that they'll likely continue working as covertly as possible, since mass panic = likely to lead to outbreak of mass curses, when you consider curses = negative emotions experienced by many in specific spaces

THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK, I'm sincerely sorry to have subjected u to this much of my brain, lol. EVEN MORESO NOW (ffs lol). if you (+possible others) made it this far holy shit. I hope u got something out of it. thx u for coming to my TED talk, I'm sad to report it's likely to be more of them

[1eos]

that post that was like a parody or cardi’s verse in wap it went like “taeyong: i can’t rap. sm don’t let me sing. but let me tell you i got this ring”, that other post you just reblogged about leo dancing like he’s got laffy taffy elmer’s glue pussy, the post about music being so good you wanna give it head and make it squirt, that time you (or adrian i do not remember) said [redacted] raps like he got rocks in his jowls, the post where you said leo had a diamond platinum black topaz turquoise extra strength titanium graphene kevlar vest boron nirtride ulta-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene grade level pussy dripped face card, the post where you said ‘piano man op no. 9 is my gynecologist’, this post, honestly i’m probably missing dozens more 😔💖💖💖💖💖💖

HHJAJNANANANNANnnnNNNN THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. WHEN DID I SAY PIANO MAN IS MY GYNECOLOGISTJAMMAMAMA. i love getting peer review omg

[bestworstcase]

@arendelle-citizen

But what if with everything running on dust that just turns in whatever and Grimm's corpses desolving there's no law of conservation of mass on Remnant? Like all the other chemistry works the same but because of like at least 4 magic systems being part of normal life and science no one can reasonably expect that disassembling stuff into molecules won't negate it's mass.

I too like the idea of Penny just not being that smart at physics, but on Remnant a common scroll probably breaks all kinds of laws of physics we take for granted.

so like i mentioned in the op, no one is watching rwby for the realistic physics and as far as applying science to fantasy fiction goes i’m less concerned with realism per se than enriching my enjoyment of the text, bc i like worldbuilding on this granular level. its fun

so

as a rule of thumb when conjuration occurs in a fantasy setting i tend to default to assuming that EITHER the mass is not being created per se but summoned or constructed from existing matter OR magic is such an energetic system that the principle of mass conservation doesn’t hold. (tangential but, one concept i’ve been kicking around wrt ice dust specifically, for fanfic purposes, is that it might “conjure” ice by ripping water vapor out of the air and flash-freezing it—so ice dust would also be a potent desiccant that strips moisture out of things, including you if you’re not careful enough or disciplined enough when you work with it. weiss can have permanent chapped lips and hands and need eye drops, as a treat)

that said, things like grimm dissolving after death and the roseblance as penny described it *don’t* violate the mass conservation principle. if you take a big thing and disassemble it into a million tiny constituent pieces you still have the same mass (less a minuscule amount of mass lost through release of the energy that held those constituent pieces together, strictly speaking, but good enough for government work.) mass conservation means you can’t create or destroy mass, which critically is not synonymous with matter; vaporizing a grimm is akin to vaporizing an ice cube and ruby disassembling herself at the molecular level is akin to disassembling a lego structure.

(one thing that interests me endlessly abt grimm disintegrating after death is that they are explicitly not just poofing out of existence: they crumble into particles and emit plumes of thick, visible smoke. is that a pollutant. does it eventually precipitate back down as ichor to form new spawning grounds. what happens if it seeps into the groundwater. <- invented an entire branch of science based on this idea for fic purposes)

likewise scrolls and computing generally—aside from the obvious factor of running on a type of energy that Isn’t Real—don’t strike me as particularly fantastical in comparison to a smartphone or a computer. (indeed in a lot of ways i think real technology is a lot MORE advanced and whacky than remnant’s scrolls: sure they have rigid force fields, but we have computer chips intricately etched at microscopic scale with photolithography and that’s not even getting into all the wild shit like ion traps we’ve invented to make quantum computing happen. at the end of the day hard-light seems to be basically equivalent to an LCD screen with really high strength.)

so while there’s obv a lot of wiggle room introduced by the factor of there being at least three distinct magic systems stacked on top of each other, i think there IS a relatively solid basis for assuming that physics on remnant is approximately similar to physics in the real world and therefore yeah a cloud of molecules is going to experience random walk and thus not be especially fast. (<- when salem travels this way she does so at a fairly moderate pace, much more sedate than ruby’s blitzes. also the issue with particles re: speed isn’t that they have mass per se, it’s not abt “negating” mass, it’s that they bang into each other and want to careen off in random directions. this is why particle beam weapons have such huge inefficiencies, particles DO move extremely super fast but in really erratic and uncontrollable ways bc they’re playing bumper cars with a gazillion other extremely fast-moving particles.)

Being honest, I thought Penny was just bullshitting because SHE couldn't figure out what Ruby was doing either, but her technological aspects allowed her to figure out what Ruby's semblance was to an extent, and she basically just made up the rest based on what she thought the nearest thing to Ruby's ability was.

Basically, smart robot girl tries to impress her friend with vaguely correct sounding technobabble, that has a kernel of truth in it but not entirely the correct solution.

yeah pretty much. hard to say how much we’re supposed to take what penny says as accurate vs the “penny is a whip-smart child soldier, not a physicist, and Molecules Have Mass” reading and i don’t think it’s all that important either way, in the grand scheme. i just double down on the probability manipulation/bullshit macroscopic matter wave angle every time i see a roseblance theory that makes me roll my eyes abdbjsvk

[mantra4ia]

NBC Debris, episodes 1-9: overview of high hopes and adjusted expectations

*Mild spoilers ahead*

I'm rooting for this show guys, really I am. The premise and the two main characters / actors are interesting, or at least try very hard to be. But this series has been slow off the ground despite my excitement during preseason teasers and here's why, in my view.

Pros:

An intercontinental alliance gives room / potential for some interesting spy craft, I just wish it was slightly more artful, less heavy handed.

Alien debris having potential to do good things is also a fantastic promise to expand on. George Jones talked about some terraforming level stuff (whether it goes right or wrong is another story), let's see more of that. Are tech giants fighting over the intellectual property rights to debris-based advances? How are money and favor between industry and the government changing hands (apart from a very literal briefcase full of cash on the black market when we first meet Influx)? How do different pieces of debris interact with one another, maybe it changes some of their properties in unpredictable ways.

Bryan and Finola have good amorphous lead chemistry. We aren't being force-fed where it is going to go, but we know it's a compelling relationship where they're both relying on each other to get through challenging emotional hurdles (marine special ops, family tragedy). And we see them together, riffing off each other from the beginning, and it works as both a personal and professional partnership.

Strongest debris-scifi-based episode was definitely 1x04 "In Universe" with the chlorine- respiration-based biome. To me it's the best of the season so far.

Strongest character episode so far is maybe 1x09 "Do You Know Icarus?" or 1x06 "Supernova"

Cons:

Episodic structure hampers the ramp of tension building. You don't get big payoff because you get short plot points. Yes there's the recurring "ball of light" and Influx references, but those are more phantom thread teasers than a long game of steadily developing insights.

No fully developed villain or antagonist to make the stakes seem tangible and priorities urgent or simmering: is it Influx, Maddox, Ferris, casually mentioned foreign government espionage, the guy who played Michael on The Vampire Diaries? I don't know, and worst of all nor do I really care because I don't feel their immenent threat or ideological purpose. I am more worried about the debris body count, but debris is a problem / quandary, not a viable adversary at this point. We've got a multi-front conflict, and 45 minutes with underwhelming writing complexity to try and meet the task. It's a struggle.

The ABCD action-based plot. I have to do this sequence in order to beat this level. Where's the character building?

Speaking of which, while I like Bryan and Finola's dynamic opposite each other, I can't say the same about their development as individual characters. Their depth and relationship to others has so far been terrible due to superficial telegraphing which tells us rather than a writing structure that shows us why we're supposed to care about them, their lives, or their relationships to others, like Finola and DeDe and George as a family unit, or Bryan and Maddox. Seeing an old family video of sisters dancing to a favorite song does nothing for me when I haven't seen them interact on anything more than a long distance phone call. Can we maybe get a flashback of them at George's memorial so that we can get a sense of how devastated the family was or see the consequences of DeDe's substance abuse habit as a crutch during an emotionally chaotic time in her life? No. We get hearsay. Maddox is supposedly so worthy of Bryan's trust, pulled him from the brink of a dark emotional abyss (1x07), but we get no sense of that bond off the clock like Bryan checking in on Maddox's family, or any sort of personal connection. Just a cold professional relationship with a few one liners.

Telegraphing to ambiguity ratio: certain things the audience gets explained to us, like alternate universes visible in the molecular imperfections of glass or how they damaged George's hippocampus and impaired his memory (like they're just throwing out words to sound sci-fi impressive), and yet some basic details that would help build this world lore and make it believable are left up to off-screen imagination? Come on now, we all know the season one is for world building. Hop to it! Debris falls from the sky, worldwide, and you're telling me no one knows about it and it doesn't impact public life / culture in any way, it doesn't make the news cycle, nothing? You're an Orbital agent, and you're able to fly around in laboratory equipped jets and land in whichever airspace you please, and no one bats an eye? Terrorists are using debris against civilians, and we don't see government restrictions, curfew, lockdowns, etc, we don't get any minor glimpses into ramifications on ordinary life? No, because the focus is always trained on our "field agents" but not the playing field. It's mundane, small stuff questions that keep us grounded, which is a refreshing and needed balance in sci-fi, but apart from a conversation about stale Peeps I don't see attention to daily details of life as we know it.

We are literally told in the pilot by a title card (talk about expedient) that "three years ago images were captured of a wrecked alien spacecraft moving through the solar system" and for 6 months debris has been falling. Has it smashed through any cities causing panic? How is it spun by the media, or how is Orbital keeping it out of public attention? Is there a political power struggle over research access, and what do those higher up agency meetings look like? Where and how is the recovered debris being cataloged and stored when it is not used in active research? Who has clearance to it, what is that clearance called/what does it entail, which government retains agency of debris pieces, or does that depend on where Orbital recovers it? This is like first-five-episode-arc lore building and we are nine hit or miss episodes into the season! I need this show to level up if it's taking the route of being clever and cerebral, which it appears to aim at by focusing on the scientific part of sci-fi. If it's goal is to be a small scale, partner ride along weekly mystery with heavy synthetic sound cues, then it needs to pick a tone that takes itself less seriously.

The dialogue is so lackluster and expository. Please get some of the writer's room to focus on making it sharper, quicker, smarter.

The science of debris: George Jones, as some genius mind behind Orbital tech, isn't believable. We don't get to see any part of his professional life in Orbital in the three year lead up to when we meet our characters, he doesn't even have any dialogue when Finola first finds him captive. We have "science-aesthetic" scribbles on a chalkboard and Finola's word that George is a workaholic research savant. It doesn't ring true and by extension some of the "rules" of this Orbital technology seem murky (not as in we learn alongside the characters, but as in the concept seems under developed). George's biggest contribution thus far is a levity critique of Bryan's driving speed. At this point he's a plot device to further Fin's journey, as is DeDe. That's base.

Lack of interest in supporting ensemble: why should I care about Maddox's family crisis, or DeDe's addiction or George's suicide after he was shut out of his own research at Orbital, etc? Again this ties back to previous points of show don't tell, and build a world, maybe use some flashbacks. Make it personal — why is George's research (apart from a generalized better world) so singularly important to him that it breaks his family, what compelled Brian to transition from military service to Orbital? How are different factions within Orbital — like the research team and the field agents — getting along, who's at the very bottom of the barrel or on the very top of the hierarchy?

I want this show to succeed, but I don't get a clear read on what genre they want to be or more importantly what the characters want. Please increase the focus on dialogue, get the basics of want-obstacle-action done right, and then the debris and the conflict it creates can have a bigger impact.

[missfinefeather]

MissFinfeather Reading List #1

Welp, since I haven’t been getting liveblogging done, how about I just talk about what I’ve been reading!

Just been, a really avid Light Novel and Manga reader as of late, it’s been ridiculous.

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for my Retirement (Light Novel)

Standing as a testament that Light Novels have gone full Alternian with their titles!

You know, I’m actually quite partial to isekai’s including an OP female protagonist. It’s about a girl who gains the ability to travel between our world an a fantasy world, decides to save up money to live comfortably in both.

Funnily enough, the series is most fun when she deviates from the intended goal of the title. One of my favorite parts is when she (SPOILERS) hires a group of modern mercenaries to fight an invading army. The part where she sends a dragon off crying fucking kills me. xD

But my most favorite part is when she becomes a Viscount and gain control of a domain. I love how she runs a blog in the run world about how to best run her land, and everyone just thinks it’s a really complex ARG, I love it xD

The main character, OMG is she ruthless! I’ve been reading Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear too much because I was not prepared for how, at ease she was at killing. I dunno, just interesting how authors tackle that in a case to case basis. I’ve been on the fence about letting my characters kill for a long time...

I Shall Survive Using Potions (Light Novel)

Same author as the last one. Got ourselves another murder fiend xD

That said, protag is waaaaay more OP in this one! It’s about a girl who ask for the power to create any potion she wants with any effect she wants. Well, this gives he a fucking lot of leeway! Like, she uses her unique set of powers in such ingenious ways that effectively turn her into a fucking GOD!

Like for example (SPOILERS!) she’s allow to put potions into whatever container she chooses. At one point, she actually makes a legendary blade that literally uses vibration to cut at a molecular level. How did she do it? Well, the sword is a potion container! The potion is being stored in the hilt!

The sheer creativity is what drew me to the series. xD

The only downside is the protag, might be straight? I’m not sure. Marrying a dude is a goal of her’s but... I dunno.

Laid Back Camp (Manga)

Ahhhhhh!!! Camp gays are the best!

The two photoed above have the cutest dynamic! And it comes off as so very gay and I love it!

Also, it’s very much laid back and chill, which I needed last week!

I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 years and Maxed Out My Level (Light Novel and Manga)

Probably the gayest book on my list xD

Title pretty much describes it! It’s about a girl who kills slimes for 300 years and becomes the most powerful woman in the world because of it.

It just hits so many boxes for me!

OP female isekai? Check!

Mom energy? CHECK! She raising two kids by the end of the first book ^^

Gay? Oh so TOTALLY CHECK! Multiple girls clearly have the hots fro Azusa, and it already feels like there might be a thing between her and the dragon apprentice!

Hot main character? CHECK! The manga has been KILLING ME!

Yeah, just checks off a lot of boxes for me ^^

So I’m a Spider, So What? (Manga)

I’m still early on, but this series really doesn’t shy away from what’s horrifying about spiders 0.0;

Like it gets pretty damn dark pretty quick. Like it makes it pretty clear that this isn’t going to be a light hearted story. Like (SPOILERS) how she has to eat one of her dead siblings just to keep from starving to death. You know, that kind of thing.

The skill leveling up reminded me a lot of Bofuri for some reason...

Anyways, I’ll talk more about this one as I continue!

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (Web Novel)

While my bear addiction has died down considerably (because I’ve literally already read everything,) I still eagerly await for the Web Novel to update every Saturday (Sunday in Japan time.) Then after reading, I’ve got to gush to Roxy about what I’ve read. Seriously, that girl has endless patience for my addiction. Like, she had to sit through that solid month or so of me talking nothing but bears. How she hasn’t dumped me is a mystery...

The most current story has to do with Fina participating in a Dismantling competition. Basically, monsters in this world need to be butchered for parts and Fina has been Yuna’s dismantler from the start. Well, she’s gotten so proficient at it, she got invited to perform her abilities for a crowd! So yeah, a good portion of the arc is pumping her up for that considering Fina has low self esteem issues.

Though, the arc took a break for a while there to follow a substory where Yuna fucking fights a giant spider.

Because this is Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear. It’s a Slice-of-Life, the action comes secondary.

There was a cute moment where Yuna comes home from killing the spider to Fina and family preparing dinner, and it’s played off like a husband coming home from work and it’s really really cute xD

Fina and Yuna have what I’m going to define as a “ platonic romance.” There’s no drive to kiss or, do romance-y stuff (thankfully.) They do however, want to spend their lives together and probably get married. Like, to the point that Fina wants to move in with Yuna when she’s old enough to move out from her parent’s place.

It’s cute but not like, super serious, which is welcome in my book considering the circumstances of their relationship.

Also, I’m dying for a huge status quo change in the story. Just like, either Yuna unlocks new game changing power, or circumstances change in her arrangement. Guild Master Sanya set it up so Yuna can just, promote herself to B-rank at any point, which would be a big deal if she ever had the motivation to advance her career. I’m considering this a Chekov’s Gun just waiting to go off.

---------------

That’s not everything I read. I also started Elma’s Office Lady Diary, and Puella Magic Homura Tamura, but I haven’t gotten far enough into those to really comment on them. Maybe I’ll bring them up if there’s every a next time?

There may never be a next time..

[monster-bcrn]

Share a few headcanons about Grundy’s physical prowess and whatever you feel like sharing! I don’t know much about him

YEAAAAAAAH! Now it’s a party! >:D

Okay okay, so DC has a TON of characters that can be considered bruisers. Mammoth, Amygdala, Blockbuster, Bane, Brickwall......the list is as endless as the number of ice-based villains.

Now Grundy is a bit different. He’s the progenitor of ALL these guys. He was there decades before Bane, before Mammoth......before anyone, really. So not only was he the original bruiser, but thanks to him we have the Incredible Hulks in Marvel.

What’s interesting is that Grundy isn’t just strong. Bane is strong.....Grundy is BEYOND strong. If he was a mutant, he’d be an omega-level (he makes the Juggernaut look like a wuss), he easily carries 100+ metric tons and has carried entire MOUNTAINS on his back.

And he keeps getting stronger. However, it takes him much longer to do so because he gains strength with each regeneration. So in that regard he’s more like Broly the Legendary Super-Saiyan in that he grows stronger the more times he gets the crap beaten out of him.

Another thing that happens is that Grundy grows bigger the more times he dies. A good example of this is in Arkham City. In Arkham City, Grundy was horrifically tortured, mutilated and murdered every. single. day. for upwards of 50 years.

In that huge stretch of time, he went from being around the size and overall look of the Justice League animated Grundy....

To this:

(Photo from Action Figure Barbecue.)

The Solomon Grundy BAF on the right is about 9 inches tall. The DC Direct Arkham City Solomon Grundy is 13 inches tall.

Now, scaling that upwards......Grundy is over 13 feet tall (in the mobile games he honestly looks about 15-20 feet tall) in Arkham City, when he was about 9 feet tall before decades of hyper-experimentation and butchery.

Boy grew so big his pants are about to fall off.

Grundy’s regeneration is some of the most potent in the DC universe. Even the SUN couldn’t destroy him. He came back even after Bizarro disintegrated him to the MOLECULAR level by throwing him into the heart of the sun itself.

He came back. As long as life, death, decay and renewal exists, so does Grundy. One major reason why he’s so OP is because he’s a necessary part of the world’s balance. He’s an avatar and champion of the Grey, i.e. the fungal life and decomposers. He spreads decay only to allow regeneration, and is Swamp Thing’s “brother” (he was originally going to be a Swampthing, but Grundy failed the requirements, so the Grey basically took an embryonic Grundy and became his surrogate mother, developing him into what he is today.)

Grundy has all these cool abilities and all (Hell, he literally used Solar Beam and could manipulate solar energy at one point. He was a freaking Venusaur years before Venusaur was a thing....) but his life sucks. It’s horrible. He’s in constant pain, constantly exhausted from struggling to keep his zombie instincts to tear people apart subdued......

He’s harassed CONSTANTLY by heroes, even when he just wants to be left alone, and it’s become a sort of ‘right of passage’ to kill him to earn your stripes as a hero. He can’t really die so it doesn’t count. Problem is is that Grundy remembers EVERYTHING done to him. So every time he’s essentially murdered, the more maddened and distrustful he gets. He doesn’t trust heroes AT ALL and WILL put on a resting bitch face if he has to even STAND close to a hero.

He HATES them with a burning passion because all they do is hurt him. The only time a hero ever gave him a real chance in the comics was with the heroine Jade. Jade was the daughter of Grundy’s arch-nemesis Alan Scott the original Green Lantern and he adored her.

He was even a hero (well....antihero) for a time with Infinity Inc. He was grumpy, a pain in the neck,constantly getting into trouble by wandering around and bumping into LA traffic (as a lifelong Los Angelian myself......our traffic freaking stinks), but he was loyal, sweet and just a huge puppy.

Until he was manipulated into attacking his friends by a villainess named Marci Cooper aka Harlequin. His friendship was destroyed and he NEVER trusted a hero ever again.

The villains manipulated him and treated him like property, but they said kind words and fed him, so he just assumed they cared about him. They never did (only the Injustice Society guys cared about him, but the team was shortlived and Grundy was left all alone again.)

Grundy is a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Endless years of torture reduced him mentally to basically a child (the rare times he snaps out of it he shows genuine fear of being sucked right back), and is easily manipulated with promises of companionship.

Thankfully there are SOME writers lately who have made heroes treat him better and have shown him to be less of a villain and more of a neutral character just wanting to find his way in the world.

(I can literally go on and on but my goodness I’m tired. XD There’s A LOT about Grundy that I’ve left out, like his relationship with Alan Scott and how horrifically TOXIC it is, his family that he lost, his bromance with Bizarro that DC keeps crapping on lately, how he became a hero in Dark Knights: Death Metal and even has a variation that is basically himself cosplaying as Bats. XD

I might do another post about that later when I’m not tired. XD)

[kob131]

RWBY V8 E3 Thoughts

-Yeah that tube ride would be rather rough.

- That delivery from Blake is...kind off off from her.

- That’s...uh, Nora doesn’t yell her justifications.

- That Penny direction thing was weird. Nice visuals though

- An elevator? I guess it does show the unease of the military grunts though...

- Nora what the hell?

- Central Command huh? Give it to Ironwood: good way to keep out intruders.

- ... Okay that explanation of Ruby’s semblance doesn’t make sense (i.e. Ruby breaks herself down on a molecular level to move fast). Even ignoring how a key component of Ruby’s fighting is using her semblance to create velocity (which I would assume would be KILLED at the reconstruction step, In Volume 3 Episode 8 Ruby was KICKED out of the air by Mercury which shouldn’t be possible if Ruby moved like that.

- How would Ruby know that? Even as it still doesn’t really make sense.

- Yeah, I don’t think Watts is sympathetic at all here. He’s still being sarcastic, he shows no remorse or worry under Ironwood and even his voice acting is working against that.

-Good on Ironwood for making sure an alert was sounded. Also no, the ‘lethal force’ thing is still not enough to make him look evil.

-There’s a lot of unnecessary humor in this episode. Like, you could cut the food and drink joke down to just having the coffee being spilled and splashing the guy and get a similar if not better result.

- Oh it can’t be THAT bad, Ruby uses her semblance all the time!

- Nora, don’t get any ideas.

- Ready for wha-HOLY SHIT!

- Also apparently Penny doesn’t like doing this. Huh.

- Nice little moment from Weiss.

- The whole Nora talk is...weird. Like, she lists off the combat positives of the other group but...excludes Ren because of how he is acting? That isn’t really how the show normally does things, it’d be more like she lists them off and trails on the mention of Ren.

Then we awkwardly cut to her talking about their relationship and how she grew up with him to Blake of all people saying that she needs to discover herself (not even relating it back to her own relationship with Adam). At least Nora’s “I don’t really know who I am” ties into her always being attached to Ren but...this is really off.

- No Penny, you SHOULDN’T be on Amity. It’s YOUR choice.

- “We all need to do somethings...we’d rather not.”

*Meets the Ace Ops again*

Yeah, RWBY is not subtle.

- Weiss stop being cocky.

- Ruby, you REALLY need to be quiet here.

-Nice one, Ace Ops. Divide and conquer.

-Neat animation here and tactics from the Ace Ops.

- “4 Vs. 1? Cowards.” ... This episode is REALLY off.

- “But penny’s the Winter Maiden, she’ll be fine”

Uh Ruby? Cinder beat a more experienced Maiden 3 vs 1. Penny’s screwed.

- What did Penny flash? Pure energy?

- Yeah... should have done that sooner Marrow. Or had you beaten around more.

- Nora, what are you-

-... The fuck? Holy shit Nora.

- Watts, what’s in your head?

- They PULLED out Penny’s sword? ... Why didn’t the Bullheads in Episode 1 do that?

- So Penny conducts electricity huh?

- Penny, stay. It’s your damn choice.

- ...Watts is a well known hacker, he has access to the best tech in the world, he KNEW Pietro (I think) so he’d probably know how he codes-

... Fuck.

- This episode is REALLY off. Like, the characters felt more like their fandom stereotypes and it felt closer to ‘modern’ storytelling than the more classical style RWBY takes. What’s going on-

‘Written by Kiseri Burkhart’

.. Who wrote Episode 1? ... Kerry and Kiseri? And Episode 2? ... Miles?

Yeah...maybe watch Kiseri when on her own. This episode was...off.

[celine-song]

this ask is totally umprompted but can I have some davenzi fic recs pleas

oh look a totally random ask that i definitely didn’t beg for in any way!

Fingerspitzengefühl by dejame

one of the earlier ones. david stays behind to check up on matteo after a party but it’s not canon-compliant because they actually do kiss (spoiler alert sdkjnvsvf). it’s everything we’ve said about david and matteo just understanding each other on like a molecular level

whatever we are made of also by dejame

OKAY LISTEN. this is like… everything i’ve ever wanted in druck fanfiction. enemies to friends to lovers. david’s pov. pot brownies. love. capital L. ugh read this pleathe

everything by aholynight but that’s, you know. a given.

i wasn’t going to put it under the cut because you know, im PROMOTING THINGS YOU HAVE TO LOOK but this got too long so i guess i have to

It’s You by shipsandglitter

au where david and matteo were just friends ™ for a very long time and matteo is an idiot (that part is not au of course)

noticing by winchysteria

another au (are you seeing a pattern?) where david and matteo are set up for a blind date by their friends and matteo freaks out

what happens when you sneeze? by fakelamb

this is just. matteo being a dumbass about david’s septum piercing. it’s so cute oh my god

Show your love, make a meme by marsali

this is pre-reunion in ep7 and it’s matteo trying to show david he’s still into him through memes. very in character as you can tell.

Kaleidoscope by marsali

fucking!!! oh my god!!! soulmate au where every time matteo gets on a bus it’s a different (future) month and he sees glimpses of himself with david before he even meets him it’s… incredible

(and babe) my hands are free by bruisingknees

idk how to describe it without making it sound weird but it’s good i promise just go for it

If my life is in shambles (why do I feel so good?) by bruisingknees

college au where david is Very Popular and the boy squad kinda assume he’s a fuckboy but he keeps flirting with matteo and it’s cute and awkward and ikea pencils really do suck (there’s a sequel to this too)

you make my earthquake by civilians

first of all the title is from a tyler the creator song and they listen to it in the fic while getting high so you know it’s good. second of all, it’s an alternative first kiss and it’s cute and cheesy, all good things.

breaking my heart (in all the right ways) by noorakardemmomesaetre

it’s a coffee shop au, what more do you want

my best person by eldee

supportive! boyfriends! matteo is a depressed mess and david is there for him every step of the way

the run and go by giraffingallday

this is like… the funniest thing i’ve ever read. OP is a mastermind. imagine writing that well while high. anyway matteo hits david with his car and david is very flirty and there’s no burn at all they just go for it. also, hands.

alone with you by myticanlegends

david is in a relatively famous indie band with laura and matteo is whipped

Capture by bri_ness

this has just started but im already into it because matteo is relatable as fuck and it’s really well written. matteo is an editor at a digital company and david is a… youtuber i guess and matteo has a fat crush on him as usual

every doubt we had is coming undone by strangetowns

i cried. like, actually physically teared up, which i very rarely do at works of fiction, so uh. proceed with caution i guess. this is a slightly alternative version of what could’ve happened after david came out to matteo.

phew i think that’s it enjoy

[mcatmemoranda]

I thought of a mnemonic for prucalopride: Prue Halliwell was prideful. There were originally 3 Charmed ones and then after Prue died, it turned out that there were 4 Charmed ones. Prucalopride agonizes 5-HT4 receptor.

Question answer explanations from the lecture:

Prokinetic agents, drugs for the treatment of diarrhea and constipation, and for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.

Metoclopramide, is a dopamine D2 receptor antagonist. It also has 5-HT4 agonist and weak 5-HT3 receptor antagonist activity. Metoclopramide treats gastroparesis.

Akathisia, Parkinsonism, and tardive dyskinesia are effects of metoclopramide’s effect on D2 receptors.

11 year old is given erythromycin, which stimulates motilin receptors in the duodenum and jejunum to stimulate gut motility. It helps get rid of bezoars (hair balls).

Any drugs that increase 5HT combined with metoclopramide--> serotonin syndrome. Domperidone is available outside the U.S. Cholinomimetics stimulate gut motility (that’s what ACh does in the gut) at level of muscarinic receptors.

OTC antidiarrheal for traveler’s diarrhea is a mu opioid receptor (MOR) agonist/kappa opioid receptor (KOR) agonist, and delta opioid receptor (DOR) antagonist. Activating the mu receptors--> constipation, so it’s used to treat diarrhea. Opioids decrease gut motility. Cholestyramine reduces cholesterol; is also used for IBS/CD. Cl- channel activator is a prostaglandin analog (Lubiprostone). Mu Opioid Receptor and Kappa Opioid Receptor agonist, DOR antagonist is Eluxadoline. Alosetron, ondansetron = 5-HT3 receptors antagonists; used for IBS-diarrhea predominant; alosetron has greater affinity than ondansetron for 5-HT3 receptor.

Bismuth subsalicylate = Pepto Bismol! Has antisecretory, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory effects. Ciprofloxacin absorption is reduced when given with an antacid and divalent cations (antibiotics get chelated by divalent cations). Ciprofloxacin has serious adverse effects. Traveler’s diarrhea is self-limited.

A 4 y/o on a cruise gets non-bloody diarrhea and fever. It’s viral. She should get Pedialyte oral rehydration solution. We don’t give salicylates to children. Loperamide can cause dehydration. Dehydrated kids have variable response to loperamide.

Anti-diarrheal drug (diphenoxylate) is formulated with atropine, which discourages abuse. Diphenoxylate is a mu receptor agonist (this is how it stops diarrhea), and at high concentrations can affect the CNS. Loperamide crosses BBB at high doses--> abuse of the drug. The pt takes desipramine (TCA) once daily for IBS. Amitriptyline is also used to treat IBS.

Woman with lethargy, N/V, muscle weakness, cramps, copious odorless watery tea-colored diarrhea; she has an increased serum VIP. She has a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. I think the tumor is secreting too many hormones, which are causing the diarrhea. We can give octreotide to inhibit this. She is given a drug for the diarrhea. The drug mimics the action of somatostatin. It inhibits serotonin release, secretion of gastrin, VIP, insulin, glucagon, secretin, motilin. So yes, the drug is octreotide.

Diphenoxylate requires a prescription. High doses cause CNS effects. Loperamide is a p-glycoprotein substrate; can cross BBB if p-GP is malfunctioning. High doses of loperamide--> QT prolongation.

Psyllium, methylcellulose, polycarbophil calcium soak up water, treat diarrhea. Cholestyramine is a resin; bile acids stick to it; treats diarrhea due to bile acids staying in the gut. Octreotide is a probiotic that is an analog of somatostatin.

4 y/o is soiling her panties 2-3 times a week. It happens when she is upset. Child has poor appetite; doesn’t eat fruits/veggies. She has functional constipation. Doctor recommends a non-Rx osmotic laxative that’s safe in peds; has long-chain polyglycols that draw water into the lumen. It’s given 1x a day. The laxative is polyethylene glycol (PEG 3350; aka Miralax). “3350” is its molecular weight.

LBP, muscle cramps, dehydration, high BP, arrhythmia, lethargy. He’s been self-treating with oral osmotic laxative. He’s on lisinopril and HCTZ. He has increased serum creatinine/modest proteinuria. Renal biopsy reveals acute tubular injury with abundant tubular and interstitial deposits of calcium phosphate crystals. This is drug-induced acute phosphate nephropathy. Sodium phosphates can cause this. Sodium phosphate is not recommended anymore. It causes transient hyperphosphatemia; calcium precipitates with phosphate--> renal calcium phosphate crystals. Risk factors for this adverse effect include dehydration (and the pt is on HCTZ, which can cause dehydration). PEG in isotonic solution is used for bowel prep now instead of sodium phosphates.

Pt with hepatic cirrhosis due to EtOH; lethargic/confused, asterixis. He has hepatic encephalopathy (due to too much ammonia; can treat with lactulose). Synthetic disaccharide = osmotic laxative (it’s lactulose). The drug is used to acidify the colon to reduce absorption of ammonium ion. Lactulose is hydrolyzed by gut bacteria to FAs--> acidic environment. Ammonia produced by bacteria becomes ammonium, which stays in the lumen. Ammonia in the blood may be drawn into the gut as well.

Pt is treated for drug-induced constipation that’s unresponsive to conventional laxatives with a quaternary ammonium derivative of naltrexone (it’s probably methylnaltrexone). An advantage of the drug is that it does not induce opioid withdrawal symptoms. This is because the methyl group keeps it in the periphery (not the brain). The drug stays in the periphery and acts on peripheral mu opioid receptors. It treats opioid-induced constipation. Naltrexone is a MOR antagonist. It relieves constipation caused by the opioids taken for chronic pain/cancer pain.

Therapeutic indication of alvimopan = post-op ileus; it’s used short-term, in hospital only, and you can’t get more than 15 doses. This is because pts treated with alvimopan in clinical trials had more MIs than controls.

People with renal impairment can accumulate Mg2+--> magnesium toxicity. Sorbitol = osmotic laxative Polyethylene glycol (PEG) = MiraLAX Glycerin suppositories = hygroscopic (pulls water into itself). Irritants/stimulants = senna and bisacodyl; cause more fluid to be secreted into the lumen. Naloxegol and naldemedine work the same way as methylnaltrexone, but they have adverse effects if CYP3A4 is inhibited.

Constipation; no resolution with bulk laxatives, glycerin. She has idiopathic chronic constipation. The drug activates guanylate cyclase-c on intestinal epithelium--> increased cGMP--> stimulation of chloride and bicarbonate secretion--> increased fluid in intestinal lumen. This drug can cause severe diarrhea. Linaclotide = guanylate cyclase 2C agonist.

Tegaserod is a 5-HT4 receptor agonist; associated with MI. Alosetron = 5-HT3 receptor antagonist; can cause ischemic colitis. Sodium phosphates--> acute phosphate nephropathy. Eluxadoline can cause pancreatitis; it’s a MOR agonist, KOR agonist, and DOR antagonist.

Diarrhea predominant IBS. The drug is an agonist for MOR and KOR. It’s antagonist for DOR. It’s Eluxadoline, which is contraindicated in those with hx of cholecystectomy.

Chronic idiopathic constipation; prucalopride interacts with 5-HT4 receptors. It’s a 5-HT4 receptor agonist. It promotes cholinergic/noradrenergic/noncholinergic neurotransmission by the enteric neurons--> stimulation of peristaltic reflex...

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

Royal, pt. 6 (T’Challa)

Summary: Freya and T’Challa get a moment alone.

Warnings: none

Word count: 1540

Watching them walk away was one thing, throwing people off their trail was another. My wounds weren't really cooperating with me either. I walk like my limbs don’t really belong to me and each step feels more like a negotiation rather than an order. Everything hurts now. Every damn thing. I took some pleasure in knowing they were okay, but I was in dire need of some rest. As the adrenaline stopped, allowing me to come down from the rush, the pain seemed to be amplified. It was intense enough to make me take in shaky, shallow breaths as anything more than that resulted in misery. I was far too prideful to admit I needed help, so I went back to that conference room and sat on a chair, trying to find some inner peace and do some healing. Water manipulation came in handy for numerous things if you knew how to wield it correctly, healing was one of those things. It was slow, but I needed to do it.

People aren't really aware how powerful it is, water. It seems like a weak element to some, but I consider it to be stronger than fire. For starters, water is everywhere, in each and every single thing in this world, even out of this world. Using it against people was easy, especially if you take in mind that people are about 75% pure water.

In order to heal, I didn't need an extra source of water..I had it on the inside already. Healing with water was a more delicate, refined process of repairing and regenerating damaged cells on a molecular level.

„Your friends won't get far.“ A strong accent in the voice made me stiffen.

„I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about.“ I say nonchalantly.

„I think you do.“ T'Challa responds, taking a seat next to me.

„You are mistaken.“ I reply and a silence settles in.

„You don't look good.“ He breaks the silence and I turn to him.

„Ouch. You didn't have to hurt me that way!“ I say sarcastically, placing a hand over my chest like I was deeply offended.

„Oh, I didn't mean it like that. You look beautiful. I meant, you look hurt.“ T'Challa blurts out, his steely face mask disappearing, letting that young man I've met only a few days ago make a reappearance. It was nice to see him nervous.

„So..You think I'm beautiful?“ I question, my eyebrow raised, a smirk playing on my lips.

„I think you're stunning, but that doesn't matter.“ T'Challa's mask was back, his eyes turned a little darker and any evidence of a smile was erased.

„Why'd you save me?“ I pulled my own cold mask on and decided to play his game.

„Although wrong, your actions were honorable.“ He says, boring his eyes into mine.

„Right. No ulterior motives?“ I purse my lips and lean back into the chair, crossing my arms over my chest.

„How about you answer some questions?“ He turned the game back on me and I was a willing player.

„Shoot.“

„You're enhanced, correct?“ He asks, his eyes focused on every move I make.

„Not exactly. I'm not like those Maximoff twins. I was born this way.“ I reply.

„From what I gathered, you can manipulate water?“

„You're correct!“ I say, not amused by the way this conversation was going.

„Tell me about it.“ It felt like he ordered me and I didn't like that one bit.

„Look buddy, you may be the king of Wakanda, but“ I was cut off by Tony, Natasha and Ross entering. I looked at T'Challa who was already getting up and leaving the room.

„I don't suppose you have any idea where they are?“ Ross looks to me, expecting me to blow the whistle. Has he not read my file? I'm not a mall cop!

„Nope!“

„We will. GSG-9's got the borders covered. Recon's flying 24/7. They'll get a hit. We'll handle it.“ Tony pipes in with an attempt to reassure the secretary.

„You don't get it, Stark. It's not yours to handle. It's clear you can't be objective. I'm putting Special Ops on this.“ Ross interjects and I jump up from my chair.

„NO! They shoot first and ask questions later! Are you willing to kill Captain America?“ Every time he opened his mouth I got angrier. He felt empowered to micromanage every little aspect of our lives, every damn thing done his damn way, just because we signed the Accords.

„What happens when the shooting starts? What, do you kill Steve Rogers?“ Natasha backed me up and I sent an appreciative nod her way.

„If we're provoked. Barnes would've been eliminated in Romania if it wasn't for Rogers. There are dead people who would be alive now. Feel free to check my math.“ My face was red with suppressed rage, knuckles became white from clenching my fists too hard, and I gritted my teeth in an effort to remain silent, hunching slightly so it exuded an animosity that was like acid - burning, slicing, potent. Thing is, no matter how big the fire is on the inside, it only comes out as ice. The room temperature dropped significantly and I knew I'd snap if he didn't stop talking soon.

„All due respect, you're not going to solve this with boys in bullets, Ross. You gotta let us bring them in.“ Tony tried reasoning. It was a better option, but I still wasn't convinced.

„How would that end any differently from the last time?“ Ross asked all high and mighty and the glass table froze into solid ice. His eyes switched to me and that act of the man in charge seemed to crumble, piece by piece.

„Because this time, I won't be wearing loafers and a silk shirt. 72 hours, guaranteed.“ Tony offers with a hopeful look on his face.

„36 hours. Barnes. Rogers. Wilson.“ Ross shivered and ran out of the room.

„Thank you, sir.“ Tony rubs his hand on his chest and slumps, exhaling. „My left arm is numb, is that normal?“ He questions and I roll my eyes at him.

„Ice princess, stop it. I'm saving your man's ass here. I am the reason why he might get out of this alive. Are you in or are you out?“ Every word Tony said stung, only fueling the fire that burned inside of me.

„I'm in.“ I reply through gritted teeth, forgetting to correct him on the term 'your man'.

„You might want to stop freezing the room. You know, before we all die of frostbite.“ He remarks.

„I kinda hoped it would freeze your overinflated ego, so I could chip it off, but hey, I had to try!“ I stick my tongue out and purse my lips.

„You alright?“ Nat pats him on the shoulder.

„Always. 36 hours, jeez.“ He exclaims.

„We're seriously understaffed.“ She says with a small sigh.

„Oh, yeah. It'd be great if we had a Hulk right about now. Any shot?“ Tony remarks.

„No. You really think he'd be on our side?“ She questions and I huff.

„No.“ Tony and I answer simultaneously.

„I have an idea.“ Nat says and I look at her, cocking an eyebrow.

„Me too. Where's yours?“ Tony says, almost excited.

„Downstairs. Where's yours?“ She asks and Tony smiles slightly.

„I'm not liking that smile on your face Stark! I'm gonna go with Nat on this one.“ I wink at her and head for the door.

„Meet me by the elevator in 15.“ I tell her and leave.

I had one thing I needed to get done. I might have lied when I said I had no idea where the guys were. We made a rendezvous point, just in case of separation. I was watched like a hawk at this point, but I knew someone who wasn't. I hated the idea of letting her do this, but I had no choice.

„Sharon. A word please.“ I say politely and she scurries over.

„Need something, Agent Frost?“ She questions.

„I need you to be honest with me. Did you give Steve the info on Barnes' location?“ I question and she looks around alarmed, to make sure no one was listening in.

„Yes.“ Sharon replies and I nod.

„Willing to help him out again?“ I inquire and she nods in confirmation. God, I hated this!

„Take the shield, the wings and this car.“ I pull out a key and give it to her.

„This is the address. Give them my best and warn them of the 36 hour window please?“ I ask, but we both knew this was more of an order.

„I will.“ She says, excitement in her voice. Ugh, I wanted to bash her head into a wall repeatedly, but I needed to keep my cool. Steve wasn't mine, she had every right to go for it now.

„Oh, Sharon! Make sure you're not followed.“ I tell her as she nods again before walking away.

I hurry to the elevator and find Nat already tapping her foot.

„I know. I'm two minutes late!“ I say as she points to her watch.

„Losing your touch, are we agent?“ She teases.

„Ugh. What's your plan, anyways?“ I ask and she smirks.

„You'll see.“

[ulfwolf]

Cellular Galaxy -- Musing 194

We are walking   skyscrapers With a trillion   tenants

The heart knows how to be and does, on its own, the liver does its thing—unerringly, the kidneys know what to do with poisons, T-cells recognize an invading virus and know what to do to defend the locals.

And all the other cells, from tip to toe, they know what to do. Our body is a galaxy of little selves, just doing their jobs—mostly very well (sometimes a little too enthusiastically, and we sometimes call them cancers). The lungs, the oxygen-carrying blood, and flashing synapses—all well-drilled experts, all just doing their jobs.

Seems to me that we don’t muse on these facts too often, or as often as we should; of course, it is hard to remain perpetually impressed. But we should be: perpetually impressed. There is not a single thing or fact, body-wise, that is not bordering on the miraculous.

And we walk this thing around, sit or lay this thing down, put it to sleep and brush its teeth. Walking skyscrapers, they are we.

I don’t know the first thing about the emotional lives of our tenants, but sometimes I wonder if the emotions we (as landlords) feel—that percolate all the way up into what we think of as our consciousness—are not the conglomerated feelings of a certain floor or apartment of cells. Pain surely behaves that well. Perhaps fear too, then. And happiness. And, perhaps love, even.

If you have ever meditated into the still peace called Samadhi, you’ve most likely experienced this: suddenly, apropos of absolutely nothing tangible or point-to-able, a though bubble rises: I had one the other day that said, “Yes, but how much does it cost?” In Swedish, no less.

Sitting in zazen we are not supposed to feed (which we do by chasing) these thoughts, we’re just to let them rise and then fade away into the still nowhere where thoughts go to retire and die, but this was a little beyond the pale in my books and I was really curious: what on earth sparked this one? Whence did it develop and take flight?

I have done this on occasion, just as an experiment, collar one of these thoughts and demand that it reveals its genitor. And more often than not I can chase down the whole tree of bifurcations and associations to the father thoughts of them all and see, yes, that makes sense, I did nurse that notion for a second or two, no wonder it spawned this chain.

But with this altogether odd Swedish question, there was no progenitor. It, as I said apropos absolutely nothing else, just took to the sky. Out the window of one of the skyscraper apartments. I, me writing this, did not think that thought. That thought thought that thought. That hundred and twelfth floor apartment for some undiscernible reason pieced that thought together and opened the window. Cellular wonder?

I don’t know.

But if the T-cell, who really is a miracle all of its own, knows how to do and does its job so splendidly, couldn’t an apartment of cells simply dream something up to ask in Swedish?

T-cells (and their fellow B-cells), by the way, warrant a brief sidebar—as follows:

When the body is invaded by bacteria, a virus or parasites (yes, let’s call them invaders), our immune system rings the alarm bells, setting off a chain reaction of defensive cellular activity. White blood cells and other innate immune cells are alerted and deployed to attack the invading pathogen. Most of the time, this first line of defense does the job, and the invader is destroyed. But sometimes, when the body needs a more sophisticated attack, it turns to its T-cells and fellow B-cells. These cells are what we might call the special ops of the immune system—a line of defense that has learned (and remembers) and uses past invader behaviors and interactions to recognize specific foreign threats and attack them specifically when they reappear (knowing from the last time what worked the best—how best to deal with the bastards).

The immune system as a whole consists of two separate armies: innate cells and acquired cells.

Innate immune cells are the body's first line of defense. They are always on standby and ready to go; therefore, they quickly mobilize and respond to foreign cells to fight infection, battle a virus or defend the body against bacteria.

Our acquired army, on the other hand, consists of T-cells and B-cells that spring to action when invading organisms slip through that first line. These cells take longer to deploy, however, because their skillsets evolve from learned experiences, but once formed (and properly armed) they live longer than innate cells and can sustain a drawn-out battle to victory.

As I mentioned above, adaptive immune cells remember foreign invaders from their previous encounter(s) and know how best to fight them off the next time they enter the body. This, of course, is the how vaccines work—using a small, harmless amount of protein from a disease to allow the immune system to recognize that protein and how best to fight it were the pathogen to invade the body at a later date.

T-cells actually come in two flavors: Helpers and Killers. Helper T-cells—having encountered and identified the invader—stimulate and then brief B-cells on the invader specifics. Armed with the relevant intelligence the B-cells now produce Y-shaped proteins called antibodies, which are specific to each pathogen and which can lock onto the surface of an invading cell and so mark it for destruction by, you guessed it, the Killer T-cells.

While the Killer T-cell goes on the offensive to wipe out all marked targets, it also deploys messenger molecules to send chemical instructions to the rest of the immune system to ramp up its response—you know, just in case.

Messenger molecules. This is cellular communication on a molecular level. And if that isn’t miraculous.

End of sidebar.

If something this complex and incredible goes on without our having a single clue, or being even vaguely involved (will-wise) you cannot tell me that a bunch of cells cannot put their cell-heads together and ask questions in Swedish—if for no other reason than to unnerve (or amaze) me.

Land lording it over such an incredible collection of tenants, to what extent am I, the ego, the me, the body-owner, responsible for my tenantry’s welfare?

Say foodwise: shall I assume that they know best and let the body have whatever it clamors for, or shall I assume that as a collective, they are as clueless about overall well-being as I am regarding the molecular specifics.

Of course, when we talk about food and related desires, personal sensual preferences enter the picture as well. As in: The craving for butter pecan ice cream is mine, and mine alone, not the T-cell’s, or the liver’s, or the kidneys’, I am pretty sure about that. So, were I to indulge, I might catch millions of unsuspecting cells unaware through my indulgence and that now have to rapidly adapt to this gigantic influx of sugar and dairy just to, in essence, stay alive (ride out the storm); and they might have to put up quite a fight, depending on how much, and for how long this sugary excess lasts.

They’ll get even with you by staging amazing headaches.

I must assume that I, collectively as it were, know better, and knowing better, and as a landlord, I believe my responsibility is to provide as safe and nourishing environment as possible for all my tenants. I think they will pay me back in kind.

::

P.S. If you like what you’ve read here and would like to contribute to the creative motion, as it were, you can do so via PayPal: here.

[ahkaraii]

Hello! I just found your blog and I am really sad I didn't found it earlier. I love your drawings and your 5 days comic is amazing. It is nice someone touch upon more realistic way shinobi must work on im order to function. I just want to ask something; How will Kakashi became a chunin in your manga? I mean he graduates at 5 became chunin at 6 but somehow fights Gai at final round who graduated at 7 and became chunin at 11?(Kishi why? ;') And can Gai use ninjutsu and genjutsu? He can in canon.

 So I’m thinking Kakashi gets a field promotion to chunin at age 6 due to  ~circumstances~ and later, once the whole acute war thing dies down to an acceptable level, he takes the formal chunin exam (though whether it’s in konoha proper or in a neighboring ally country to ~strengthen bonds~ I am unsure as of this moment).

If I want to coincide with canon’s bizarre time-frickery re: everyone somehow taking the exam together, then I could have Kakashi be 9, Rin+Obito 11 (they fail), and Gai would be 10 (he fails despite defeating obito; he makes chunin on his second try at 11 years). I actually personally headcanon that Obito never made chunin, and Rin was chunin for maximum a couple of years before dying at 14.

As for Gai not having an elemental affinity -- you can totally not have one and still use ninjutsu! I had Rin state she didn’t have one either as a nod to this, but maybe I’ll make it more explicit later on in the comic. Having an elemental affinity simply means you’re biologically predisposed to having an easier time using that kind of chakra. This is why I think Sasuke had such a hard time with the Great Fireball as a kid, despite eventually being able to perform it -- he has Lightning affinity, while his brother likely had Fire affinity. Now that I think on it, it’d be cute(?)/ironic if he got his Lightning from his dad Fugaku, which would have made him quite suited to having studied under Sakumo (who also has lightning affinity).

And yeah, Gai can definitely do ninjutsu -- I actually headcanon his body produces massive amounts of chakra, it’s just that his chakra “exit points” are tiny. (contrasting Lee who simply cannot because his body does not produce much chakra at all -- he has to have some because he can open the “gates” which are like, explicitly chakra gates??? apparently?? lmao, but he just produces a negligible amount of chakra / his exit points are nonexistent). It’s how I make sense of Gai’s insane indestructibility: the chakra inside his body repairs him despite the massive crushing abuse he puts it under, and it’s also how I mentally make sense of why his supposedly ninjutsu-free taijutsu manifests chakra-looking animal figures in canon, haha. I love the rule of cool as much as the next guy but I also like making sense of the cool by grounding it in some plausible foundation hehe

((If I ever get around to it, I have a mental AU where Orochimaru scoops Gai up for one of his ROOT experiments and succeeds in modifying his exit points, giving Gai the possibility of becoming even more OP than he is in canon. Just -- hhhk! IMAGINE. ROOT Gai is such a twisted notion, I’m all over it. And yes, I would intend there to be eventual Kakagai (and Kakayama and then a ROOT sandwich ot3) because I am a multishipper that cannot be stopped *evil laughter*))

AHEM! Yeah, it’s actually tougher than I make it look to juggle art and medicine, but I pretty much don’t have a social life so I draw every second of free time I have XDDD;; (Don’t be like me, kids, lmao.)

Molecular biology and genetics are FASCINATING and I commend you for studying them!! Stay awesome!

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Scientists Seek Covid Treatment Answers in Cheap, Older Drugs

Could a decades-old antidepressant be a secret weapon against covid? A few scientists think so, after two small studies showed that fluvoxamine, typically prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder, prevented serious illness in all participants who took the pills soon after developing symptoms.

This story also ran on San Francisco Chronicle. It can be republished for free.

It’s an exciting notion: A $10, two-week course of this drug could reduce death and hospitalizations. The drug could be used to fight ongoing outbreaks in the United States and would be a particular godsend for lower-income countries that may have to wait years for vaccines against the virus. But fluvoxamine, as well as other old drugs showing potential against covid, face hurdles to full evaluations.

Drug companies have no incentive to spend millions to test new uses for cheap, off-patent drugs. Chances are slim that any drug, even one showing promise in early trials, would provide a major benefit. And early enthusiasm for covid treatments that later flopped has “made people gun-shy,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California.

In particular, former President Donald Trump’s premature promotion of hydroxychloroquine likely stymied efforts to find other generic cures. The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use of the malaria drug in March, then revoked the authorization less than three months later after evidence showed it was more likely to harm than help patients.

“We doctors who want to use evidence-based medicine feel somewhat burned by the hydroxychloroquine experience and really want to see good studies before we actually jump on the bandwagon,” said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

And that poses a Catch-22. Until recently, the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, has shown little interest in studies of repurposed drugs. Without big money, it’s hard to do the research needed to show whether existing treatments could work against covid.

As a result, efforts to repurpose drugs have fallen to philanthropists, some in the Bay Area. “We’re missing out on public health benefits of the drugs we already have because we’re relying almost entirely on capitalism and private industry to make advances,” said Elaine Lissner, founder of the San Francisco-based Parsemus Foundation, which is supporting covid research on fluvoxamine and other low-cost oral drugs.

Repurposing is a long shot, yet compared to creating drugs and vaccines, the approach has clear advantages during a fast-moving pandemic. “If it works and it’s on the shelf, you don’t have any development time,” said Dr. Lisa Danzig, a specialist in infectious diseases who consults with companies, investors, government and philanthropies. One of the best treatments in the covid arsenal — the common steroid dexamethasone — is a repurposed drug. But it is recommended only for hospitalized patients who are seriously ill.

Danzig was “very excited” last April by news that a team led by University of California-San Francisco researchers had identified 69 possible drugs that, when used early on, could counteract infections with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid. “I’m thinking, if we can rapidly test some of these in clinical trials, we can have answers by October.”

Yet these studies struggled to get off the ground. Solid covid trials of early treatments are particularly hard to pull off. Patients often must enroll within days of noticing symptoms. And without a national research infrastructure, “it’s hard to get anyone’s attention to participate in a trial or refer to it,” said Dr. Eric Lenze, a psychiatrist at Washington University in St. Louis who teamed with his colleague Dr. Angela Reiersen last year to conduct a trial of fluvoxamine in newly infected covid patients with mild symptoms.

Participants in that early study logged symptoms on a website while taking fluvoxamine or placebo tablets that were mailed to their homes. Fluvoxamine, sold under the brand name Luvox, is one of the oldest drugs in the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. It is prescribed for major depression in many countries and was approved by the FDA in 1994 to treat OCD.

The results of the trial, published in November in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that none of the 80 fluvoxamine-treated patients became seriously ill, while six of 72 patients who took placebo pills worsened and required hospitalization.

Last month, another journal published results of a real-world study that echoed the JAMA results: Among 113 horse racetrack workers who were offered fluvoxamine after contracting covid during a Bay Area outbreak, none of the 65 patients who chose to take the drug got sicker, whereas six of 48 people who declined the drug wound up hospitalized, and one died.

The evidence for fluvoxamine — which includes cell and animal data showing that the drug blocks harmful inflammation through a molecular pathway different from the way it treats depression or OCD — puts it “among the more promising non-proven therapies,” Sax said. He is waiting for more definitive results from an ongoing national trial being conducted by the Washington University team. “Based on years of watching therapeutic trials in infectious disease,” Sax said, “a lot of these things turn out to be busts.”

Smaller studies are more likely to overestimate a drug’s effects, said Elizabeth Ogburn, a biostatistician at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Experiences with several experimental treatments illustrate this word of caution. Earlier in the pandemic, some doctors jumped on early lab data and started treating people with convalescent plasma — blood donated by recovered patients. Enthusiasm for plasma, however, has waned somewhat as the pandemic eased and larger studies suggested it did not improve survival in hospitalized patients.

Research on the gout drug colchicine caused similar whiplash. A news release in January claimed the drug reduced covid deaths by 44%, but once the full data was released, enthusiasm cooled, said Dr. David Boulware, a physician-scientist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who led several hydroxychloroquine trials that helped disprove that drug’s value in fighting covid.

“It’s tough to weed through what’s real and what’s not,” he said.

With NIH showing little interest in generics, private funders have seized an opportunity. Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch launched the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund last spring to support research on promising outpatient drugs.

Kirsch’s fund helped finance the published fluvoxamine trial and coordinated fundraising for most of the $2 million needed for the current nationwide study. But his zeal gave some the impression that Kirsch was hyping the drug. Newspapers have rejected his op-eds, Facebook took down his posts, and Medium removed Kirsch’s story titled “The Fast, Easy, Safe, Simple, Low-Cost Solution to COVID That Works 100% of the Time That Nobody Wants to Talk About,” and closed his account.

Claims about a drug’s efficacy and safety can be made only after authorization of the product by the FDA for its intended use, said Danzig, who serves as a volunteer medical adviser for Kirsch’s fund. These rules “are not widely known to people in the tech world.”

Agency-level guidelines are slow to change, and for good reason, Boulware said. “If something’s a guideline, and you’re not doing it, that starts to become medical malpractice.”

In the case of fluvoxamine, though, Boulware finds the data promising and hopes the larger trial can be completed quickly. “If this was the first drug that came along and there wasn’t the hydroxychloroquine experience, people would view it very differently,” he said.

Earlier this month, CityHealth Urgent Care, which has two Bay Area clinics and a national telehealth program, began making fluvoxamine available to high-risk covid patients.

Besides the fluvoxamine study, other drug repurposing trials are enrolling U.S. patients, including an NIH trial comparing monoclonal antibodies, inhalable beta interferon and camostat, and separate trials evaluating the diabetes drug metformin or vitamin D for covid treatment or prevention. Plans are underway for additional trials supported by a public-private partnership. And a multi-site, placebo-controlled trial coordinated by McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, is comparing fluvoxamine, metformin and an antiparasitic agent, ivermectin, in patients with mild covid.

“I think we’re going to get some answers,” said Dr. Vikas Sukhatme, dean of the Emory School of Medicine. “It just would have been nice to get them sooner.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

Scientists Seek Covid Treatment Answers in Cheap, Older Drugs published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[kprciffdw]

Ratchet and Kim Possible Chronicles: The Solonian Revolution-Part 9

They began their exploration of the underwater base. Shortly after they begin their travels, they ran into Skidd. Kim: "Hey, you're one of those guys we saw back on the Phoenix." Ratchet: "Skidd, what are you doing here?" Skidd: "My code-name is "Shadow-Dude." Remember it well, dudes and dudette." Kim: "Uh…OK?" Ron: "So, what's happenin'?" Skidd: "Well, black-ops are my es-speciality. I figured you guys could use my help." Kim: "Thanks, but no thanks, we can handle things ourselves." Skidd: "Alright, I'll just take my Hacker and go back to the ship. Ron: "Whoa, hold on a sec., another cool alien device? How does it work?" Kim: "Ron." Ron: "What? He has a really cool looking piece of alien tech. I'd like to see how that thing is used." Ratchet: "Ron, you may have a point but I don't think…" Ron: "Roger that, Shadow-Dude, you can stay if you would show off that cool device, right, guys?"

Kim and Ratchet exchanged looks of discontent with each other. Skidd waited in anticipation for their answer. Ratchet: "(sigh) Alright, you can come with us." Skidd: "Awesome! This is gonna be sick!"

He rushed off as the rest of the group stood by for a bit. Ron: "You know, that guy is awesome!" Ratchet: "Ron, you can be infuriating from just trying to understand you sometimes." Kim: "Well, so far, he seems a lot more helpful than Qwark, that's for sure. At least he was able to come all the way here to help us out." Ratchet: "Yeah, but…(sigh) you…have a good point there, Kim."

They went off after him. As they continued on, they found that Skidd was, in fact, very helpful. The entire place was filled with gross-looking mucus-like creatures called Ameboids. The group saw those creatures in the latest vid-comic they received. Kim: "Ew, these things look even more gross than in that vid-comic." Ratchet: "Hm…it did mention that these things were manufactured by Dr. Nefarious. This would have to be his base." Clank: "Ron, you do not seem revolted or even frightened by these creatures in any way." Ratchet: "Don't tell me; it's because they aren't monkeys, right?" Ron: "Yep, that's exactly right." Ratchet: "(grunt) Ron! Seriously!?" Kim: "Good thing Qwark didn't pair up Ron with that one-eyed monkey; that's probably the only thing that he didn't do wrong." Ratchet: "Heh! You would be right about that, Kim."

They kept going until they reached the last chamber of the facility. Skidd was spooked very easily by the sound of an unknown voice. He ran towards a nearby warp pad and dove on to it, warping out of the room. The group recognized the mysterious voice as a shady person they encountered during their previous adventure. They made their way towards a submarine near them and drove it to another part of the underwater base.

As soon as they arrived, Clank spotted an air duct nearby. Clank: "There is the ventilation shaft." Kim: "So, this is where you need to part ways from us and get started on your part of this mission." Clank: "That is correct, Ms. Possible." Ratchet: "OK, while you do that, we'll work on getting through this place with the help of Wade's holographic Tyhrranoid."

Kim pulled out the Kimmunicator. Kim: "Wade?" Wade: "I'm on it, Kim."

With a few clicks of the keyboard, a holographic image of a Tyhrranoid appeared before them. Clank: "Best of luck, you guys."

Clank crawled through the ventilation shaft and got on working his part of the area. He managed to meet up with the monkey a little after arriving.

Elsewhere, Ratchet, Kim and Ron worked with Wade's Tyhrranoid hologram to navigate through their section of the facility. Clank did the same with his section; both sides were also able to work together at least once.

It took a while, but the group was able to reach the last chamber, which appeared to be Dr. Nefarious' office. Ratchet walked up to the office chair while holding out his wrench as it faced away from him. As he got close to it, it quickly turned around, revealing that Clank was sitting on it. Clank: "(giggle) What took you guys so long?" Kim: "Clank? What are you doing here?" Ratchet: "Weren't you supposed to meet us back at the ship like we had planned?" Clank: "I thought I would stay to lend a hand." Ron: "Did you manage to get rid of the monkey after getting here?" Clank: "Do not worry, Ron, the monkey has left the facility after I have finished working with it." Ron: "Oh, thank goodness." Kim: "Well, if you would like to help out, you could search through this entire office with us."

Ratchet looked to his side and noticed something. Ratchet: "Hey, what's this?"

He walked up to a shelf containing hundreds of CD cases of Clank's show. Ratchet: "Huh, guys, take a look at this."

He pulled one of the cases off the shelf. Ratchet: "It's the complete Secret Agent Clank holovid set."

Kim walked up to the shelf and looked at it. Kim: "Hm…it does look as though he has a lot of them." Ratchet: "Hey, Clank, this guy is your biggest fan." Clank: "That is rather disturbing." Ron: "Disturbing? The creep factor is at a major high level here." Rufus: "Whoa…creep factor!" Kim: "Did you manage to find anything on the computer, Clank?" Clank: "Yes, I have downloaded an encrypted star map. Perhaps we can have Al decode it." Ratchet: "Good idea." Kim: "Wade would also like to look into it." Ratchet: "Great! Let's get back to the Phoenix."

They make their way to a nearby sewage drop and jumped in.

After a very long fall, they wound up within the sewage system of the entire facility. After taking a dip through the nasty green sewer water, they soon ran into Lilo and Stitch again. Ratchet: "Lilo? Stitch? What are you guys doing here?" Lilo: "Oh, it's you guys. We're still on the lookout for that experiment we were searching for earlier. It eluded us on that jungle planet and we managed to track it here." Ron: "In here of all places?" Lilo: "Yeah…I was just as shocked and appalled as all of you." Stitch: "Iky! Blech!" Ratchet: "Heh, no surprise there. So, your elusive experiment ended up here, huh?" Kim: "By the way, you haven't told us what this experiment was. Can you tell us what it is?" Lilo: "Certainly. It's Experiment 597, it can generate high-quality gemstones effortlessly" Stitch: "Hm? Ita mitay!"

They looked over and noticed something within the tunnels. They rushed over immediately, they noticed right away that there were massive amounts of crystals which was nearly obstructing the tunnel. Ron: "Whoa, just look at these crystals!"

Rufus popped out of Ron's pocket and noticed this too. Rufus: "Whoa���" Clank: "I would believe this is your experiment's doing, is it not, Miss Lilo?" Lilo: "I would think so, too, Clank. No! This is undoubtedly the work of Experiment 597! Stitch?"

Stitch sniffed around for a bit. Stitch: "Ih! Cousin!" Ratchet: "It's still here, isn't it?" Lilo: "I would think so. Stitch, can you find it?"

Stitch sniffed around a bit more. Stitch: "This way!"

Stitch rushed off as the other followed after him.

They kept on going until Stitch stopped and growled out at something. The others stopped to notice what it was. Lilo: "Aha! We finally found you! You won't get away this time, Experiment 597!"

The experiment tried producing more crystal to elude them but Ratchet managed to smash through them with the use of his wrench. They kept on the chase and with some strategic teamwork, they were able to apprehend and contain it. Lilo: "Alright! We finally got you, Experiment 597!" Stitch: "Yeah! Chika! Kaboonboon!" Ratchet: "Great, you finally caught your experiment, but now we have another problem."

They looked outward and noticed the tunnels were nearly covered in crystals. Ratchet: "This entire place is nearly coated in crystals." Stitch: "Crabba no pugy." Lilo: "Guess we have a huge mess to clean up. Let's get to it, Stitch." Stitch: "(sigh) OK, they could be worth a lot." Lilo: "I was thinking the same thing." Kim: "You guys wouldn't mind if we help out, would you?" Lilo: "Not at all. The more the merrier." Ratchet: "OK, let's do it."

And with that, they got started on clearing out the entire sewer. It was a lot of work and very time consuming at that, but they were able to clear out the sewer of all the crystals. Lilo: "Phew, that sure took a lot of time and effort, but we did it. Mahalo again for helping us out." Ron: "No problem. We're always happy to help you guys out." Clank: "(giggle) Well put, Ron." Ratchet: "So, any ideas on whether or not these crystals are worth anything?" Lilo: "Not a clue. Stitch?"

Stitch grabbed one of the crystals, tossed it into his mouth and started chomping on it. He then made a shocked grimace then spat it out afterwards. Stitch: "Yuck! Naga value!" Lilo: "What? They're completely worthless!?" Kim: "Well, that's anticlimactic." Clank: "Not necessarily."

He grabbed another one of the crystals and observed it very closely. Clank: "Although less than insufficient in monetary value, the molecular structure of these crystals are unfamiliar to me. Quite fascinating, indeed."

The Kimmunicator went off again. Kim pulled it out. Wade: "I also find them to be very interesting. If you wouldn't mind, I would also like to have you guys send me all of those crystals so that I can examine them more closely."

Wade's vendor reappeared. Kim: "Sure, Wade, you can have them. They're useless to the rest of us."

The entire group placed all of the crystals into the vendor, they were all transported to him immediately. Kim: "There, that should be all of them. Let us know if you need anything else from us." Wade: "Same to you."

Kim put the Kimmunicator away. Ratchet: "Come on, let's get out of this place, I don't want to stay here another minute." Kim: "Me neither, I need a shower after falling into that disgusting sewer water." Lilo: "We better get going. Jumba and Pleakley are probably worried sick about us. It was great seeing you again." Ratchet: "Yeah, same here. See you later." Lilo: "OK, bye." Stitch: "Bye."

The group separated from Lilo and Stitch as they left the sewer and made their way back to their ship. They exited the underwater base and flew back to the Phoenix.