#residual disease

[marsupials-of-mars]

Yall aren't ready for the fact I kinned Bill cipher even harder when I was high last night (This has happened before when high, and i otherwise have terrible roleplay skills and do not kin in any way).

A way in which I felt co-concious and like I was actually going insane. To the point he told my girlfriend "this bitch with the body's gonna come out of this thinking I'm fictional and they were just high, but I'm HERE. it's ME."

To the point of him explaining to my girlfriend that this is part of his punishment. That he can only posses high fandom-diseased people because they have an easier time "breaking the seal between what's fiction and what's real". And that means he will never be taken seriously. And that he's being put in the most cringe possible scenario as some sick psychological torture. And that he's so much more than the silly mascot he is in this reality but we can't SEE that CAN WE?!

These are all things he said. And guess what, it's cringe as hell and all fiction. So that prophecy was fulfilled, I suppose.

[joellesolo]

Okay, well, I guess my appointment went as well as it could? I'm going to start lithium and latuda tonight after dinner, and, we'll see how they go? Wish me luck?

Lithium is brand new to me. I actually was not aware it was a bipolar medication until last night when I stumbled across a reddit post doing some meds research frantically (and google calling it the "gold standard treatment for bipolar," the "best mood stabilizer for mania," the "first drug of choice" for mania," etc. was also surprising) because I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder nearly fifteen years ago and I have never had a psychiatrist say, hey, let's try lithium! I just assumed (wrongly) it was an antidepressant or something else, that wasn't meant for me... but, yeah. There we go?

And, latuda, I was actually on for several years, and for the last couple of days I was going NUTS (well, you know what I mean) trying to figure out why I had stopped taking it in the first place, because I remember being stable and happy (or, as happy as I get, anyway) for a LONG time; did my insurance stop covering it? Did I develop weird side effects? Was that when we got married and started trying for Peanut and you can't get pregnant on it? I couldn't remember and, it was super fucking frustrating.

Luckily for me, my psychiatrist takes good notes, so when I asked, he immediately pulled it up and goes, "let's see, latuda... oh, yeah! You developed oculogyric crises so we had to stop it," and it was like, OH DUH. Instant recall. But I was apparently on the highest dose when that started happening, so, we're just going to take it slow and low, and... I'm just crossing my fingers and realllly hoping it doesn't start again because those crises were really fucking miserable 😭

But you know what else is miserable? A WEEKS LONG MANIC EPISODE WHERE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'LL NEVER CALM DOWN AGAIN 😫🥴😭

(Fuck, I just wanted to write a QUICK UPDATE and then fucking lie down and this has already taken SIXTEEN FUCKING MINUTES SO FAR because I keep getting distracted and opening new tabs 😭😭😭)

The worst part is that although the lithium is supposedly 'fast-acting,' it doesn't kick in for five. fucking. days.

So I get to continue feeling like this for another five. FUCKING. DAYS.

IT'S ALREADY BEEN THIRTEEN DAYS OF THIS SHIT. COME ONNNN 😣

Alright, I'm going to lie down. Attempt to, anyway... I know no resting will be happening, but hopefully I'll be horizontal while I'm on my phone??

Oh, and, if anyone has any meal ideas for me, I have to take the latuda with 350 calories every night (I forgot about that part til I googled it and I'm on several meds that suppress my appetite so it's going to be super tough), I would appreciate any input! Michael is the cook of the family, because of my chronic fatigue, and my diet is, well... I'm lactose intolerant, and on a no/low-residue diet because of the Crohn's (meaning not a lot of fiber allowed (no fruits or vegetables for me)), so, I usually just have either nothing for dinner, or a grilled tuna or turkey sandwich or some soup, or just pastaroni (which, yes, contains dairy, I know, I pay for it); idk, dinners are hard for us because the girls are such picky eaters.... we used to meal plan and make actual dinners and stuff but the last year we've been not doing well at all just in general so now it's just nutella or tuna sandwiches or dino buddies or pastaroni or ramen. (Yeah. I know. Please don't judge us, we are literally doing our best 😭)

Fuck. It's been another ten minutes just for the rest of that. OKAY I'M GOING TO GET OFF THE COMPUTER AND LIE DOWN, I SWEAR! (now watch me type up like, ten minutes worth of tags... ugghhhh 😫)

[geraskier]

horrendous stomachache this morning that lasted for hours and hours. skin on my stomach and lower back feels incredibly sensitive still. im assuming i must have accidentally ingested gluten but i have no clue *how*. usually the gluten pain starts pretty soon after i eat it so i can tell what it was. i ate a bunch of corn chips before i went to bed last night, but those have never bothered me like this before, and i didn't wake up from the pain until 7ish. i had some progresso soups yesterday but neither of them had gluten according to the ingredients lists. (aside from that i had fruit, yogurt, etc. im really careful about what i eat and i don't normally eat "new" food items, meaning i stick to safe brands and flavors of things.)

still don't feel quite right.

[thebibliosphere]

I got hit with a moderately severe migraine on Friday (not sure if it was caused by the acupuncture on Thursday, but the acupuncture sure changed the shape of the migraine) and instead of forcing myself to “bounce back” the following day I spent all day yesterday mostly resting in between non taxing chores, and y’know what? I feel much better.

Shocker, I know.

Usually, after losing a whole day to being in bed with pain, there is the temptation to “make up” for it the next day by doing all the things I couldn’t while the migraine was happening (part of this is residual adrenaline from being in pain for 20+ hours). In my mind, it was a “fuck you” to the disease that took away my productivity.

This year I’m trying to reframe it.

Because in doing so I’m not saying fuck you to the disease. I’m just fucking myself over. So instead I’m no longer fighting. I’m resting.

In 2025 I am abandoning the concept of ‘productivity’ and replacing it with progress. And that progress includes the wellness I create for myself by resting.

2024 took me out at the knees. It was awful and debilitating. I am not obligated to bounce back from that. I do not have anything to make up for. I owe myself rest and care and compassion.

And I’m going to do my best to finally internalize that.

[pinkcadillaccas]

I feel like the younger generation of queers have failed to learn the most important lesson from the AIDS crisis which is that barely 30 years ago major world governments were willing to let us die en masse because of their homophobia and racism and not enough has changed since then to guarantee they wouldn't do it again given the chance

[vanilleandclove]

how to disappear; jack abbot x f!trauma surgeon!reader

pittsburgh is roughly 58 square miles, large hospitals in metropolitans are usually 1.2 million square feet. only making ptmc extremely confining with a certain trauma surgeon and senior attending physician in the emergency room especially during hostility.

warnings: emotionally constipated adults, language, talks of children and marriage, semi-medical accuracies (i have several immediate family members in the medical field, this is basically in my regular lexicon), gore adjacent, mentions of past sex, age gap: reader is 30-33, jack is 47-49. word count: 4.1k notes: mdni. call me disorganized, my oc fic is on HOLD, until further notice :3. this is part one of two (?) ask/requests are open!

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“I thought you were working day shift?” Parker asked, your eyes blinked roughly as they adjusted to the bright light of the patient’s board, “What’re you doing stuck down here?”.

“They requested for me to have a change of schedule to be on-call, couldn’t say no to the generous pay raise” you responded, cocking your head slightly to meet eyes with Parker, “Plus night shift always gets the most carnage”.

“You’re sick, you know that?” Parker chuckled, fist meeting your shoulder playfully before she walked off. 

Clipping on your hospital ID was muscle memory, both Heather and Robby referred to as “overworker’s disease”, you saw it as being stuck in the place for several years at a time.

You needed a vacation, sweaty hot sex, vodka, or weed; or maybe just all of those in that order. Your eyes were glossed over from the eyedrops you have administered before leaving Jack’s house, they did good to conceal the hours of crying and bloodshot eyes. 

But Bridget saw through that puffiness and reoccurring sniffle that matched the pout of your lips, she knew you well like you were her own daughter. She knew your breathing patterns were shallow and uneven, the eyebags that became a more pigmented purple, the constant fiddling of your rings. 

She knew you needed a break, a break in bed where you could cry it out and come back renewed with extra hours of sleep and extra takeout. 

“Honey, are you okay?” Bridget inquired, taking off her glasses and tucking them in her scrub undershirt, “You seem out of it”.

Your eyes darted towards her and all you could give her was a nod as you became tight lipped, worried that if you unclench your jaw for a second you’d break. Nevertheless, Bridget smiled and rested her hand on yours, knowing all too well what happened to you. 

What Bridget saw was your hair blown out but tucked up a tortoiseshell claw clip for it to be out of your way. She saw manicured short french tip nails, residue of black eyeliner in your waterline, hints of matte red lipstick that must have been taken off in a rush as it made your lips look as if they were bleeding. She saw gold bracelets of all different textures and patterns, rings stacked beautifully and meticulously, necklaces that would accentuate cleavage with the right dress, diamond earrings that twinkled when moving under the LED lights. 

She saw a woman who had just got stood up. 

“Good evening everybody”.

And she just stumbled upon the reason. 

You closed your eyes and sighed under your breath. 

Luckily being a different specialty department, you weren’t required to be given the gist of speeches by the physicians and nurses. Some may say it due to surgeons being “above”, you say it’s because of different structures in departments- you can learn just as much during rounds in the emergency room as you would post-op, if not, you’ll learn more. Therefore you were able to walk off into the bathroom.

You enjoyed your job, you were grateful for your job that led you to places you never thought you would be. You were grateful for the smiles, the laughter, the songs the patient requested to be played during surgery, the parents or loved ones that would hug you tight, and yes, the gore and carnage. 

You were also grateful that it led you to Abbot. 23, you were fresh out of an internship in Massachusetts, then you wanted a change of scenery. By 26, frequent hookups at your respective places were a casual way to start, end, and continue a week; just in time for your residency to finish and your fellowship to be fast-tracked due your rotations in the emergency department and competency exams. Hookups turned to dating by your 27th birthday, months later, Jack’s house was basically yours too. Now, you’re the attending who’s trying her hardest to hold it all in because a man decided no more to the most constant thing in your chaotic life- in a chaotic profession. 

You had put on a silk dress that flowed perfectly enough to accentuate your curves, you wore lingerie, black heels, and smelt fucking amazing. You shaved, you wore your expensive lotion you could only justify using on special occasions, you wore jewelry you’ve collected over the years and that Jack had given you. You went the whole 9 yards and more. 

“Okay so what is it?” you asked, sighing in defeat and barefooted in the living room, “You don’t want to go out, don’t want to talk about something you know I care about. Fuck Jack, you don’t even look at me when you know this is important”. 

“Sorry I didn’t know dinner reservations were imperative to having a conversation with you” Jack scoffed, stressed and unnerved, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Jesus christ just forget about dinner!” you raised your voice, your throat began to slowly burn, “I don’t care about dinner Jack. I care about being appreciated from my boyfriend when I put on a fucking dress and heels. I care about you walking into that door every morning and kissing me. I care about having sex and ordering fucking pizza” you ranted, your time was almost up as it crept closer to your shift.

“Do you want kids?” he blurted.

“What?”.

“Do. you. want kids?”.

You blinked in confusion, swallowing whatever you had planned to say and again to collect what he had just proposed. “I would like to have kids but with my job and yours, that seems unlikely. I don’t mind not having them”. 

“There was a positive test in the trash two weeks ago that you didn’t think to tell me about” he cleared his throat. 

Your brows furrowed, “It was a false positive, Heather did a work up with full labs for me” you looked to the ground not noting that it would’ve also been nice for him to know both of those things. “If a pregnancy test is sending you to avoid me like the plague; we have a bigger issue here Jack”. 

“It would’ve been nice to know that you were afraid you were pregnant that you told Collins before me”. 

“Do you think I’m punishing you for withholding information that was irrelevant to me after a day?” you were shocked almost, still confused at the hostility, “I wasn’t afraid of being pregnant, I was afraid of false hope”.

“I don’t want kids, that’s just not something I see in my future”.

“Our future” your voice began to crack more and more. Kids weren’t a dealbreaker by any means, the way Jack worded it to be something exclusionary in regards to you is what broke you. “I need you to tell me if this is what’s causing you fucking hurt me”. 

“It’s not- I just think we have a misconstrued view on the future of this” he pointed to both of you back and forth. 

“Jack forget about the sheer possibility of kids, why are you being distant?” you took a step closer as he took a step back, the action only shattering your heart more, the tears began to flow as you straightened your back, “What about marriage?”.

“Same as kids”.

You nodded, looking away from him, “I’m not going to change your opinions about either of those, I’m not going to try”. You inhaled before a sob erupted from your throat, “I have to be able to want those things without feeling like you’re going to walk away. God, you never once spoke about this before so why now? Why all of the sudden vows and kids are a dealbreaker when- if I remember this correctly- the past year you’ve been asking for baby names and what rings I would like? Was it just for show? Was I just for show?”.

“Of course you weren't,” he sighed yet again, his eyes piercing yours, “You’re you, I guarantee you’ll find someone else who wants both of those”. 

“I don’t want someone else Jack” you whispered, one tone louder and you’ll be a wreck in front of him. 

Silence creeped over the room and nothing but the shudder of your breath filled the room, “I guess this isn’t working” his own voice cracked as if his mind betrayed his actions. With that, years of your heart shattered.

“I guess not”. 

Jack was the same guy who held your legs as they rested on his during football games. The guy who tied the strings of dresses and kissed your shoulder, who stared in awe while you did your makeup, baked and cooked with you, danced to his best effort with you. Watched ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘House of the Dragon’ with you every sunday without fail, not shy of commentary. 

He would fix your hair after sex, clean you up in the en-suite with warm water, would make your toes curl around his waist as an orgasm washed over you, would coax another orgasm out of you. He would massage your clit, knew exactly where your g-spot sat, made your breath hitch and your eyes roll back. He never pressured, only asked a near sixty times if you were okay and comfortable. He would never degrade you even if asked, the most he’d do would be spitting in your mouth and lightly choking you. Wasn’t shy about having his dog tags pulled or you wearing them, loved the twinkle in your eye every time his cock grazed the right spot. The man was a dog. If you forgot an undershirt under your scrubs, his cock would strain from the veins coating your breasts, the slightest graze would send him on a frenzy when you’d get home if both of you were up for it, loved the lingerie just as much as he loved you in pajamas and a worn out shirt from college. 

The same guy that would squeeze the back of your neck to relieve your worries, text you mid-shift about your wedgie and would fix said wedgie in passing, would wash your hair and body. Would watch every movie and TV show with a thousand questions, stare idly at you during every get-together as you mingled on your own with Heather. Every Fourth of July he spent with you, he was at ease, not jumpy or had his heart racing- you thanked therapy, he thanked you. 

He’d stand in front of you and be the same guy during company basketball and baseball games that coached you on the sidelines, guided your arm, gave you water. You wanted to marry him, your parents always said when you do get married, it should be with someone like him if not him. You wanted rings, his and her matching towels, garter tosses and to take off his suit in the same night. He knew that, hell the whole emergency department was well aware of your dream wedding that changed every now and then.

Now you stand there beneath yourself because that is all gone on a random Wednesday. Didn’t wait for the weekend for it to settle, for hell to freeze over. While you went crazy thinking the worst, you had a job to do, and it was barely August. 

Luckily, new staff and medical students were reserved for day shift, meaning you were secretly praying for both Robby and Collins sake. 

“We have a male MVC victim, 10 minutes out, Abbot wanted you on standby” Parker opened the bathroom door only to be greeted with your meltdown, “You okay? Want water or coffee?”.

You shook your head only for her to fully allow herself in, “You and I both know the way you’re crying is going to lead you to dehydrate” she continued, “What happened?”.

“We broke up” you responded, curt and without remorse, “I don’t want to talk about it”.

“Okay, but just know you can always go home”. 

“He’s home”.

You spent two minutes in there trying to gain your composure, worried that the MVC wouldn’t get the most accurate and resourceful amount of care with you like this. Splashing water against your face before exiting and being greeted with the beaming emergency department lights. 

You checked up on three different patients, smiling and asking if they were comfortable and okay with waiting just in case the MVC took up more time than usual. As you left the last, the MVC arrived and both you and Abbot occupied opposite sides of the gurney. 

The EMTs were able to stabilize him as much as they could, “Breath sounds are good so far a little too crackly but acceptable, there’s rigidity in his abdomen I need an chest scan to confirm bruising- I’ll call they always fast track me” you told Jack as you approached the trauma room, grabbing the phone as he took over, “Hey it’s Doctor L/n, I need a chest CT for a MVC victim, his abdomen is rigid and slightly distended with crackly breathing. No- I need you to take me up now, we’re already in a trauma room- okay, thank you see you there”. 

Turning back to Jack, evening out the creases in your navy scrubs, “They’ll take him now, I’ll take him up” you whispered, grabbing a hold of the gurney from the bottom, “Can you open the doors?” you asked, “Get Walsh for me too, if it’s something with his abdomen I shouldn’t do exploratory”. 

“You don’t only do exploratory surgery Y/n” Jack posed the statement as if you were undermining yourself for Walsh to be the scalpel junkie this shift.

“I know, Walsh is still learning the ways of being an attending, if anything I’m making sure she’s equipped to be in my stead when I’m not here” you argued back only for the MVC victim to regain his consciousness, “I know what I’m doing Doctor Abbot”.

“This morning it was babe, by the afternoon it was Jack, now it’s Doctor Abbot?” he queried, as if the whole ‘I guess this isn’t working’ bit was a skit. 

“Last time I checked this wasn’t-“ you looked down to the gurney to see a conscious man with a smile on his face, “Good evening sir, I’m Doctor L/n, you’re at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, I will be taking you up to CT now” you feigned a smile and eyed Jack, he knew that look.

The ‘we’ll talk about it later’ look. 

“You’re in good hands sir” Jack waved off. 

The elevator ride was calming, the tension in the trauma was thick enough to cut with a knife. You learned his name was Raymond Orser, he had a wife and a daughter, served a couple tours in the military, his sister lived in Pittsburgh while he lived in Philly. 

“So, what was the deal between you and salt and pepper?” Raymond asked, his breathing less labored as you both exited out of the elevator.

“Salt and pepper? Doctor Abbot?”.

“Or babe whichever you prefer” Raymomd joked, “Must’ve been a tough fight, my wife and I were the poster board for marital arguments about silly things- one time after my daughter was born we argued about the way the cereal box closed”. 

“He’s not my husband Mr. Orser, technically he’s just a colleague” you told him. Eyeing around you to see who was there, “We dated for 6 years today, it’s our anniversary, was supposed to wine and dine him before our shift but…”.

“Ah. You know, I’m only 39. I’ve spent a great deal of it loving my wife before I had even met her." You made a face that exuded confusion, “I know you’re looking at me crazy, but you just know. When’d you meet Doctor Abbot?”.

“When I was 23, about to be 24, he was also relatively new; he beat me by 3 years. Didn’t start dating until I was 27 and he was 41” you confessed, “What about you huh? How old is your daughter?”.

“She’s seven, had her after I got discharged. My wife and I had a shotgun wedding, very intimate”.

“Okay, we are just about to go into CT, I’ll be on the imaging side, you’re going to feel a little fluid in your IV, it’s to highlight and pinpoint what’s going on internally. I need to know if there’s any metal on you like jewelry below or above the waistline”.

“No, just my wedding ring”.

“That’s fine, this arm is going to stay up away from the imaging zone for the ‘highlighting fluid’, you’re going to feel a bit warm throughout your body, completely normal. If you feel nauseated it’s also pretty normal, we keep a wastebasket on standby so no worries” you clarified, giving him a smile before handing him off to the nurses. 

Going into the radiology room, both the radiologist and technician glanced over to you, “Good evening” you greeted, “His abdomen was rigid and slightly distended, did Foreman tell either of you?”.

They both nodded, putting on their glasses and administering the contrast fluid. “Any plans for the morning L/n? You and Abbot are celebrating your anniversary today, no?” Jackie the radiologist asked, her hand not leaving the mouse and her eyes leaving the desktop.

You shuddered under your breath, inhaling deeply, “Yeah, might just stay in today”.

As the scans progressed one thing became clearer, there was a bleed in Raymond’s organs, non-septic, but still worrisome. You immediately grabbed the intercom mic, “Okay Ray, the nurses are going to get you settled back downstairs for a work up, I’ll go over your scans with Doctor Abbot”.

Turning to the left you grabbed the phone on the desk and dialed for the emergency department, “Hi Bridget, I’m sending Orser down, the MVC victim. He has a rib fracture that's causing internal bleeding, a tension pneumo but his breathing sounds were clear- lightly shallow” you cleared your throat, “Tell Abbot to do a finger thoracostomy, I’ll meet him down there”.

Afterwards you phoned the surgical wing, “Good evening, I need an OR available on standby, I have a MVC victim with a tension pneumothorax and internal bleeding”.

Some days cardio and general hogged the ORs, trauma and the emergency department always had an OR prepped in the morning shifts. Gloria liked to boast about her surgical teams, how each specialty had their own set OR.

Heading down to the emergency room, it was less chaotic on the surface- the waiting room said otherwise. Every room was filled minus the trauma rooms, the hallway had spillover, and curtains were drawn. You decided to take your leave to peds, being greeted with a little girl with a rattling cough.

“Good evening, I’m Doctor L/n, who is this princess?” you greeted, snapping on your gloves.

“Your scrubs are different” the girl mentioned mid cough.

“Sorry, this is Amanda, she’s been having this ugly cough for two weeks, she woke up choking on phlegm” a woman spoke up, “I’m her aunt, her mom’s on her way”.

“Ah okay, well, Amanda, my scrubs are different because I’m a surgeon here. Don’t worry, you’re not a surgical case, I just help down here” you clarified, putting your stethoscope on her chest, “Did she cough up phlegm, if so what color?”.

“It was brown, though in the car she had a cough attack and I swear I saw red”. 

“Any history of asthma? Was she around any strong fumes?” you asked, “Amanda can you give me two big inhales and exhales?” you requested, putting your stethoscope on the girl’s back. As she inhaled and exhaled, all you heard was rattling.

“My sister- her mom has asthma, nothing too serious, she self carries though. Mandy got sick last week, her fever was moderate but she sweated a lot of it off during her sleep”. 

You nodded, putting your stethoscope back around your neck, “I’m going to order a chest x-ray, from the sounds of it, Mandy here has acute bronchitis, probably from a viral infection that went unnoticed” you smiled to them both, “Is she allergic to paracetamol or ibuprofen?”.

“No, just soy”.

“Perfect, due to her age, I’ll prescribe extra strength Tylenol and an albuterol inhaler, two puffs about 5 seconds apart when needed to stabilize your lungs sweetie” you told her aunt, walking out to tell Bridget for an x-ray on Amanda. 

“Abbot’s asking for you in south 14” Bridget said as you walked off, all you gave was a nod.

Opening the door and being met with a scene you would not have guessed to stumble upon out of the confines of your home. “Bridget said you wanted to see me?”.

“I’m not a prideful man” he sighed, you moved closer to the hospital bed he sat on, his prosthetic beside him, he was rubbing a cream on his stump- it smelt like eucalyptus. Jack never complained of phantom limb pain, though his hip would hurt every now and then. “But I do know that I am self-conscious”.

You remained silent, allowing Jack to speak. You did most of the talking earlier, now, it’s his turn. “I don’t know if I’ll be a good dad, weddings require some level of dancing that I just can’t put aside that difference to give to you- and I want to, I can’t shake that feeling” he sucked in a deep breath, “There are days where I have coax myself off the ledge, today being one of them”.

“Jack I-” you sighed in disbelief, “I don’t care about those things- ever- you’re not taking away anything by us not having kids or not getting married-”.

“You want those things”.

“There was a point in my life where I wanted you, one thing I know for certain, I never regretted it. Though I would’ve regretted not doing anything, you gave me the best sex of my life” you joked lightly, “If loving you and being with you means I don’t get a wedding or kids, then I’m okay with that. Though, you would be one hell of dilf”.

He chuckled at the comment, “Shit, I’d be in my 60s by the time the kid was in high school”. 

“Still my sexy man” you commented, “I love you okay? But we have a job to get to and a vet who is keen on you”.

“Orser?” Jack questioned as he stood up with your assistance, popping his prosthetic back into place. You nodded, giving him a longing look, “I can’t kiss you- wouldn’t be able to stop”.

“Yeah yeah, happy anniversary cowboy” you smiled, feeling your phone vibrate with a page to the OR, “Shit, emergency surgery”.

“I love you cowgirl” Jack spoke up as you ran off. It was already 4:30 in the morning, the heat kept piling up. 

The surgery was needed for a thoracotomy on a 67 year old who took a fall down her stairs which caused a cardiac tamponade, it took 2 hours and 40 minutes to repair, drain and control her hemorrhage. Caught early, it took less time than usual. You reeked of pungent acid with a hint of metal from the blood, afraid it was stuck in your hair.

Luckily your shift was over 10 minutes ago, you gathered your things and looked around for Jack, being greeted with Heather and Frank.

“Dana, have you seen Jack? Good morning to you all” you stretched, looking around to see no sight of Jack or Robby.

“Up on the roof with Robby”.

“Jesus, the midlife crisis twins” Frank joked under his breath, only to be met with the dirty looks of you and Heather.

“When he comes down tell him I’m in the truck” you sighed, tapping on the desk before letting your hair down from the clip that has held up your hair through blood and way too many body fluids.

dividers by @cafekitsune

[indigo-mermaid16]

Divisional charts / vargas in Vedic astrology

So your D1 (Rasi chart) is the main vibe—like your full-life blueprint. It’s the base, the OG chart where your personality, life path, and major events all show up.

D2 (Hora) is the money mood—how you earn, spend, your wealth game, and material comfort.

D3 (Drekkana)? That’s your sibling tea and also your courage, hustle energy, and support from people.

D4 (Chaturthamsha) shows property, land, real estate flex, and emotional stability.

D5 (Panchamamsha) is the fame clout—how likely you are to shine or be recognized for your talents.

D7 (Saptamsha) is your babies and creation chart—shows kids, fertility, and creative birthing energy.

D8 (Ashtamsha) is all about transformation, death-rebirth cycles, deep trauma, and sudden events.

D9 (Navamsa) is the soul connection chart—hella important. It shows how your destiny unfolds over time, especially post 30, your spouse, inner potential, and marriage.

D10 (Dasamsa) is your career chart—it shows your professional juice, ambition, and social contribution.

D12 (Dwadashamsha) is the parental code—how your parents shaped your inner wiring.

D16 (Shodasamsha)? That’s your ride or die—your comfort, luxuries, and vehicles.

D20 (Vimsamsa) is your spiritual download—your connection to higher vibes, religion, dharma.

D24 (Siddhamsha) is the education glow-up—formal learning, intelligence, and academic success.

D27 (Bhamsha) reveals your inner fight mode—your strength, weaknesses, resilience, and health stamina.

D30 (Trimsamsa) is the karma and mess chart—hidden enemies, diseases, vices, and mental shadows.

D40 (Khavedamsha) and D45 (Akshavedamsha) go deeper into blessings, curses, ancestral karma, inner DNA vibes.

And finally, D60 (Shastiamsa) is like your past life Netflix—shows what karmas you dragged from your last life and how they haunt or help you now. It's like spiritual cheat codes.

• • •

D1 (Rasi chart) = Your main life story, general everything.

D2 (Hora) = Money mood, wealth, eating good.

D3 (Drekkana) = Siblings, courage, how bold you are.

D4 (Chaturthamsha) = Property, real estate, inner security feels.

D5 (Panchamamsha) = Fame, recognition, how main-character you become.

D7 (Saptamsha) = Kids, fertility, creative babies (like projects too).

D8 (Ashtamsha) = Secrets, death-rebirth energy, psychic stuff hidden under trauma.

D9 (Navamsa) = Marriage, soul growth, how your destiny blossoms.

D10 (Dasamsa) = Career flex, professional world, your hustle energy.

D12 (Dwadashamsha) = Parents impact, how they programmed your brain.

D16 (Shodasamsha) = Vehicles, luxuries, comfort level.

D20 (Vimsamsa) = SPIRITUAL POWERS, PSYCHIC GIFTS, GOD CONNECTION. (This is THE ONE)

D24 (Siddhamsha) = Education success, academic nerd flex.

D27 (Bhamsha) = Inner strength vs weaknesses, your battle energy.

D30 (Trimsamsa) = Hidden enemies, mental health, deep karmic f**kery.

D40 (Khavedamsha) = Family karma, ancestral blessings or curses.

D45 (Akshavedamsha) = Inner divine energy, like how holy or ratchet you are insides.

D60 (Shastiamsa) = Past life dump, deep karma residue, your old soul baggage.

[inbabylontheywept]

Realizing in hindsight that the only reason I was so skeptical about your camp story is that being covered in a combination of crusty, sticky pink residue and rotten fish oil for days on end while sleeping on a wooden floor in the Arizona heat sounded like such unbearable sensory agony that I wanted to convince myself it was fake, because I didn't want to believe that anybody had genuinely been through that. I'd have walked out of that place with a rucksack of pink ooze and either find my way back to civilization or become crispy pink buzzard chow after day 2.

Like, legitimately, I think about my reaction to that post a lot. The imagery was so deeply unpleasant that I was desperately scrambling to convince myself it wasn't true like I'd just found out my spouse was a serial killer. There was no torture, no death, no hunger or disease, just a bunch of sweaty guys being covered in sticky fruit-flavored slime, subjected to unpleasant smells, and sleeping blanketless on the floor. And you can't even smell! You were spared a good third of it! Yet your experience still horrified me worse than any war story, medieval torture device or horror movie for reasons I cannot hope to fathom.

idk, I've had this ask stewing in my head for months, but I keep forgetting to actually write and send it. In my heart of hearts, I knew your story was perfectly plausible. I was just grasping at straws, praying for you to admit that no, nobody has ever showered in off-brand Gatorade and then not slept for 3 days while being expected to attend uni lectures. It's all untrue, a ruse, a trick, and such things could never happen outside of the cruelest depths of hell. Santa Claus is real, teachers live in the school, babies are delivered by storks, and the pink sauce incident never happened.

My mom pulls me into a warm hug after I scrape my knee. The plastic egg I found under the couch opens to reveal a piece of chocolate. A dollar magically appears under the pillow where I'd put my tooth. All is well. I am safe. The universe is kind, and whoever's running it loves me.

It's a sunny August day and I'm holding a popsicle on the swingset. I'm using my plastic dinosaurs to act out an improvised battle between good guys and bad guys as I sit on the carpeted floor. I'm playing Fossil Fighters on my dinged-up Nintendo DS in the plush brown armchair by the window.

I add the carrot nose to my snowman. Candy plops into my Halloween bag. The speaker on the classroom wall announces that school's out for summer, and we all bound out the door with wild glee, free at last.

Panting, wheezing, I drag my battered form back into the cobbled-together wreckage of my innocence, only one arm remaining with which to drag myself, blood and intestines trailing behind me as the storm rages overhead, washing my entrails downstream. I huddle underneath what remains of my once-pristine shelter from the cold and wet, pulling the shards back together as best I can as the wind howls angrily, hatefully. It's no use. It's broken. It's gone. It cannot be repaired. My innocence will never return to me. The rain seeps through the cracks and lands upon my face.

The rain is pink, I realize, and I cry.

First off: I haven’t actually been on the receiving end of this before and I have to say, it's an almost literally gripping experience. I felt this rat for the last three paragraphs.

Incredibly well done. Second: If you just didnt' want to believe, that's fine, I barely have room in me for medium fries - a grudge would just pour out the top, too much tea for my cup. But you don't have to like, gaslight yourself into thinking the story is totally normal and believable (I always stretch my stories out a little) or beat yourself up over it for months. I meant it when I said we're good, you and I. It still makes me happy to see a comment or a like or, rarely, a question like this from you.

If it's just something that pops into your mind every now and again, I dunno, don't sweat it. I'd hate to give you a complex. Did I mention that I loved that writing for this? Incredible experience.

[ihazyourkitty]

I really try to avoid fact checking people in public comment sections on the internet, but sadly this time I couldn't resist.

There was a reel on Facebook explaining the "sad" reason why cetaceans in human care often receive ice. It's because they're given "dead fish" you see, and these frozen thawed fish contain less moisture than the live fish they eat in the wild, so the ice helps prevent dehydration.

First of all, this is half true. The other half is that many cetaceans just love getting ice.

Supplemental hydration can also include gelatin and squid. The latter two are not unique to cetaceans btw. Squid and specially formulated gelatin based foods are also used in many fish diets in part to provide additional moisture. They also count as enrichment, depending on the context.

In any event, this creator thinks it's sad... that caretakers are providing their dolphins additional hydration? What, does he also think it's sad that they get vitamins? Reptile keepers regularly dust their animals' food with calcium to make sure they don't get metabolic bone disease. Is that also sad? These things are standard zoological practices, not signs of neglect. Wouldn't it be sadder if they didn't do that?

(Reason #423 why framing matters).

"But it's not natural!"

Neither is running on a treadmill, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you. Also, I'm pretty sure ICE is one of the most natural things you could use....

"Well why can't they just give them live fish!?"

Because the logistics of sustaining a live colony for such a purpose would be an expensive nightmare. Do you know how many pounds of fish these animals need to eat in a day? Using them as an occasional form of enrichment might be feasible, but on the regular? Just. No! Tell me you don't know how fish care works without telling me you don't know how fish care works!

It's cruel to the fish, for the same reason that it's cruel to feed snakes live food (assuming they aren't picky eaters). Fish are not just props, they are live animals that can experience stress and pain!

Freezing the fish helps keep it safe to eat.

"Why not just release them back into the wild?"

Because that would also be cruel since they wouldn't know how to survive. Next question.

"How do they get dehydrated when they live in water!?"

Oh man. Oh man oh man.

Cetaceans get most of their hydration from their diet. A quick google search indicted that they can drink some salt water, though I don't know how true that is, and to be clear, their kidneys are likely much more efficient at filtering out salt than ours (someone who knows more about this, please feel free to correct me). Regardless, most of their hydration comes from their food. Lack of food leads to dehydration, both in captivity and in the wild.

But there was one guy who said that dolphins in captivity can't drink the water because it's chlorinated. This is not true. The residual amounts of chlorine left after their water passes through filtration is no higher than what is in your tap water.

(Btw, this is another reason why live fish aren't typically used, because you don't house fish in systems that use chlorine, even in small amounts).

When I pointed this out to the guy, his response was that "most of their diet contains water from the exact same source."

To his credit, he did back down when I pointed out that this was wrong. But come my friends! As a fish person, let me explain to you why this is not correct!

Fish blood chemistry is not the same as the ambient water around them. They would not be able to maintain homeostasis otherwise. You see, their gills and kidneys help them osmoregulate.

Freshwater fish blood contains more salts than the surrounding freshwater, which means the via osmosis, water will enter the body, and unless they can compensate for this, the fish will swell up like a balloon, lose necessary salts, and basically drown. So what do they do? Their kidneys produce large amounts of dilute urine get rid of this extra water. Meanwhile, chloride cells in their gills take up ions from the water to transport into their blood.

Saltwater fish, however, have the opposite problem. Their blood has less salts than the surrounding water, so they need to get rid of extra salt. How? Well, they actually do drink the saltwater, and then their kidneys help filter out the extra salt. They basically produce very concentrated urine. But the kidneys cannot do this alone, so the chloride cells in their gills also help by basically working in reverse. They move extra ions out of the blood.

Elasmobranchs, crustaceans, mollusks and other marine mammals that may also make up some cetacean diets will have their own methods of osmoregulation.

All of this is to say, no, eating saltwater animals does not mean you're literally consuming ocean water, as these organisms have specific mechanisms for filtering out the excess salts.

This is, btw, why you can't just put a freshwater fish in saltwater or vice versa. They will die. Nor is this unique to fish, most organisms adapted for one environment don't thrive in the other.* Case in point: we cannot drink salt water, because our kidneys cannot handle that.

But some animals can! Take the salmon for instance. They hatch in freshwater environments, then move to saltwater, and then back when spawning season comes. How do they do this? Well, there are specific environmental/developmental triggers that cause their bodies to start osmoregulating in reverse. This does not happen instantaneously, however. They need time to adjust. They will migrate to brackish water, and allow their bodies a few days to adjust before continuing.

Some species of fish have higher tolerances for wider ranges of salinity/total dissolved solids (TDS) than others. Fluctuating these levels can actually trigger spawning in some species too! Discus, for instance, can be maintained in relatively harder freshwater than what they'd experience in the wild. But for breeding purposes, it's recommended to use softer water with lower a TDS. Given that discus can be more finicky, however, any of these adjustments should be made gradually.

On the other hand, there might be another species where a more sudden change is beneficial. Tropical fish native to floodplains that will experience sudden onsets of flooding from the rainy season, for instance, may need precisely that sudden rush of freshwater with lower pH and TDS to trigger spawning. Even if spawning isn't the end goal, simulating these seasonal fluctuations can be a very effective form of naturalistic enrichment!

....Oh dear, I went on a very nerdy tangent, because SCIENCE!!!! Enjoy.

*this can actually be taken advantage of in certain treatment contexts! Saltwater aquarists will sometimes do what is called a "freshwater dip", where the saltwater fish is very briefly immersed in freshwater to help rid them of harmful external parasites or bacteria. Usually, it's used when fish are first brought into quarantine. It's not 100% effective on its own, but it's one of the many tools in an aquarist's arsenal. Oh! This can also be used on sea turtles in some rescue situations! Again... SCIENCE!!! >:D

[inkeyjay]

Content warning: Blood, Gore, body horror

Diseased Relicary

Weird autopsies

An mild ailment corroded the streets of Arca two decades ago. The fevers were believed to be contracted throught the ingestion of contaminated fish and water. The vercals, renown healers, rose to power to ensure it wouldnt erradicate the city, but it ended making it worse. Health potions administered by Saint Trina's order were only capable of stopping the synthoms for a few days, and then they returned and so on. Anger festered in the streets, as only a few were able to afford such care and any attempts to replicate or look for a cure outside the order were crushed just as the poison filled vials between the teeths of their perpretators.

Queen Consuelo Vercal herself got the infection, but she endured years, for the monarch had the saints beside her. As the queen stood proudly on Arca Altus tall towers, the city withered at her feet. And another disease took the city: rebellion.

Only when the queen stepped down and took off the crown, as a final act of martydom, the plague was expelled from the city's lungs. The Nerón family then swore to legislate towards peace so the city could recover, not just from the epidemy, but also from the deep wounds that divided it.

The disease is now known as the Saltpeter fevers, due to its origin in the salty waters of the estuary, and the white residue pilling around the mouths of the ill. Just a few medics and forensic were able to see where it came from.

[2346khith]

‏Hello, I am Raneen from Gaza with my three children, Mohammed Rami and Julia 🇵🇸🍉. We have fled from one place to another, living in constant fear amidst severe shortages of food and medicine, hoping only to survive this brutal war. Please help me save my children from hunger and diseases. My daughter Julia suffers from severe chest allergies and the smells and residues of smoke have made things worse. She needs treatment and to live in a clean environment. We are suffering a lot. You can support my campaign by donating whatever you can or by sharing my posts to reach others who can help us survive the war to safety and peace. You are helping lives. Every donation makes a difference in our very difficult lives.🍉🙏🏻

For those who see this please, visit their blog and reblog their blog’s posts so they  get more attention and if you have the money to spare please donate.

Also I apologize, but I do not have the ability to donate to you. Trust me if I had the ability I would but I don't and I can't. I have no bank account or credit card to transfer money to and no job to gain any money. Every time I ask my parents to help they shut me down so this is the only way to help you. Please forgive me.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Who Broke the Internet? Part II

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PITTSBURGH on in THURSDAY (May 15) at WHITE WHALE BOOKS, and in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. More tour dates (London, Manchester) here.

"Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" is my new podcast for CBC about the enshittogenic policy decisions that gave rise to enshittification. Episode two just dropped: "ctrl-ctrl-ctrl":

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16145640-ctrl-ctrl-ctrl

The thesis of the show is straightforward: the internet wasn't killed by ideological failings like "greed," nor by economic concepts like "network effects," nor by some cyclic force of history that drives towards "re-intermediation." Rather, all of these things were able to conquer the open, wild, creative internet because of policies that meant that companies that yielded to greed were able to harness network effects in order to re-intermediate the internet.

My enshittification work starts with the symptoms of enshittification, the procession of pathological changes we can observe as platform users and sellers. Stage one: platforms are good to their end users while locking them in. Stage two: platforms worsen things for those captive users in order to tempt in business customers – who they also lock in. Stage three: platforms squeeze those locked-in business customers (publishers, advertisers, performers, workers, drivers, etc), and leave behind only the smallest atoms of value that are needed to keep users and customers stuck to the system. All the value except for this mingy residue is funneled to shareholders and executives, and the system becomes a pile of shit.

This pattern is immediately recognizable as the one we've all experienced and continue to experience, from eBay taking away your right to sue when you're ripped off:

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-user-agreement-may-2025-arbitration/

Or Duolingo replacing human language instructors with AI, even though by definition language learners are not capable of identifying and correcting errors in AI-generated language instruction (if you knew more about a language than the AI, you wouldn't need Duolingo):

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-crisis-is-here-now

I could cite examples all day long, from companies as central as Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

To smarthome niche products like Sonos:

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/sonos-ceo-patrick-spence-steps-down-after-app-update-debacle-2025-01-13/

To professional tools like Photoshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

To medical implants like artificial eyes:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/12/unsafe-at-any-speed/#this-is-literally-your-brain-on-capitalism

To the entire nursing profession:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point

To the cars on our streets:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

And the gig workers who drive them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

There is clearly an epidemic – a pandemic – of enshittification, and cataloging the symptoms is important to tracking the spread of the disease. But if we're going to do something to stem the tide, we need to identify the contagion. What caused enshittification to take root, what allows it to spread, and who was patient zero?

That's where "Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" comes in:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor

At root, "enshittification" is a story about constraints – not the bad things that platforms are doing now, but rather, the forces that stopped them from doing those things before. There are four of those constraints:

I. Competition: When we stopped enforcing antitrust law, we let companies buy their competitors ("It is better to buy than to compete" -M. Zuckerberg). That insulated companies from market-based punishments for enshittification, because a handful of large companies can enshittify in lockstep, matching each other antifeature for antifeature. You can't shop your way out of a monopoly.

II. Regulation: The collapse of tech into "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four" (-T. Eastman) allowed the Big Tech cartel to collude to capture its regulators. Tech companies don't have to worry about governments stepping in to punish them for enshittificatory tactics, because the government is on Big Tech's side.

III. Labor: When tech workers were scarce and companies competed fiercely for their labor, they were able to resist demands to enshittify the products they created and cared about. But "I fight for the user," only works if you have power over your boss, and scarcity-derived power is brittle, crumbling as soon as labor supply catches up with demand (this is why tech bosses are so excited to repeat the story that AI can replace programmers – whether or not it's true, it is an effective way to gut scarcity-driven tech worker power). Without unions, tech worker power vanished.

IV. Interoperability: The same digital flexibility that lets tech companies pull the enshittifying bait-and-switch whereby prices, recommendations, and costs are constantly changing cuts both ways. Digital toolsmiths have always thwarted enshittification with ad- and tracker-blockers, alternative clients, scrapers, etc. In a world of infinitely flexible computers, every 10' high pile of shit summons a hacker with an 11' ladder.

This week's episode of "Who Broke the Internet?" focuses on those IP laws, specifically, the legislative history of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law whose Section 1201 bans any kind of disenshittifying mods and hacks.

We open the episode with Dmitry Skylarov being arrested at Def Con in 2001, after he gave a presentation explaining how he defeated the DRM on Adobe ebooks, so that ebook owners could move their books between devices and open them with different readers. Skylarov was a young father of two, a computer scientist, who found himself in the FBI's clutches, facing a lengthy prison sentence for telling an American audience that Adobe's product was defective, and explaining how to exploit its defects to let them read their own books.

Skylarov was the first person charged with a felony under DMCA 1201, and while the fact of his arrest shocked technically minded people at the time, it was hardly a surprise to anyone familiar with DMCA 1201. This was a law acting exactly as intended.

DMCA 1201 has its origins in the mid-1990s, when Al Gore was put in charge of the National Information Infrastructure program to demilitarize the internet and open it for civilian use (AKA the "Information Superhighway"). Gore came into conflict with Bruce Lehman, Bill Clinton's IP Czar, who proposed a long list of far-ranging, highly restrictive rules for the new internet, including an "anticircumvention" rule that would ban tampering with digital locks.

This was a pretty obscure and technical debate, but some people immediately grasped its significance. Pam Samuelson, the eminent Berkeley copyright scholar, raised the alarm, rallying a diverse coalition against Lehman's proposal. They won – Gore rejected Lehman's ideas and sent him packing. But Lehman didn't give up easily – he flew straight to Geneva, where he arm-twisted the UN's World Property Organization into passing two "internet treaties" that were virtually identical to the proposals that Gore had rejected. Then, Lehman went back to the USA and insisted that Congress had to overrule Gore and live up to its international obligations by adopting his law. As Lehman said – on some archival tape we were lucky to recover – he did "an end-run around Congress."

Lehman had been warned, in eye-watering detail, about the way that his rule protecting digital locks would turn into a system of private laws. Once a device was computerized, all a manufacturer needed to do was wrap it in a digital lock, and in that instant, it would become a literal felony of use that digital device in ways the manufacturer didn't like. It didn't matter if you were legally entitled to do something, like taking your car to an independent mechanic, refilling your ink cartridge, blocking tracking on Instagram, or reading your Kindle books on a Kobo device. The fact that tampering with digital locks was a crime, combined with the fact that you had to get around a digital lock to do these things, made these things illegal.

Lehman knew that this would happen. The fact that his law led – in just a few short years – to a computer scientist being locked up by the FBI for disclosing defects in a widely used consumer product, was absolutely foreseeable at the time Lehman was doing his Geneva two-step and "doing an end-run around Congress."

The point is that there were always greedy bosses, and since the turn of the century, they'd had the ability to use digital tools to enshittify their services. What changed wasn't the greed – it was the law. When Bruce Lehman disarmed every computer user, he rendered us helpless against the predatory instincts of anyone with a digital product or service, at a moment when everything was being digitized.

This week's episode recovers some of the lost history, an act I find very liberating. It's easy to feel like you're a prisoner of destiny, whose life is being shaped by vast, impersonal forces. But the enshittificatory torments of the modern digital age are the result of specific choices, made by named people, in living memory. Knowing who did this to us, and what they did, is the first step to undoing it.

In next week's episode, we'll tell you about the economic theories that created the "five giant websites filled with screenshots of the other four." We'll tell you who foisted those policies on us, and show you the bright line from them to the dominance of companies like Amazon. And we'll set up the conclusion, where we'll tell you how we'll wipe out the legacies of these monsters of history and kill the enshitternet.

Get "Understood: Who Broke the Internet?" in whatever enshittified app you get your podcasts on (or on Antennapod, which is pretty great). Here's the RSS:

https://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/nakedemperor.xml

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry

[covid-safer-hotties]

Cloaked similarity between HIV-1 and SARS-CoV suggests an anti-SARS strategy - Published Sept 21, 2003

Yes, you are reading that date right

Never let them tell you "we didn't know the risk." They knew. They just ignored all epidemiological best practices. For corporate profit.

Abstract Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a febrile respiratory illness. The disease has been etiologically linked to a novel coronavirus that has been named the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), whose genome was recently sequenced. Since it is a member of the Coronaviridae, its spike protein (S2) is believed to play a central role in viral entry by facilitating fusion between the viral and host cell membranes. The protein responsible for viral-induced membrane fusion of HIV-1 (gp41) differs in length, and has no sequence homology with S2. Results Sequence analysis reveals that the two viral proteins share the sequence motifs that construct their active conformation. These include (1) an N-terminal leucine/isoleucine zipper-like sequence, and (2) a C-terminal heptad repeat located upstream of (3) an aromatic residue-rich region juxtaposed to the (4) transmembrane segment. Conclusions This study points to a similar mode of action for the two viral proteins, suggesting that anti-viral strategy that targets the viral-induced membrane fusion step can be adopted from HIV-1 to SARS-CoV. Recently the FDA approved Enfuvirtide, a synthetic peptide corresponding to the C-terminal heptad repeat of HIV-1 gp41, as an anti-AIDS agent. Enfuvirtide and C34, another anti HIV-1 peptide, exert their inhibitory activity by binding to a leucine/isoleucine zipper-like sequence in gp41, thus inhibiting a conformational change of gp41 required for its activation. We suggest that peptides corresponding to the C-terminal heptad repeat of the S2 protein may serve as inhibitors for SARS-CoV entry.