#restrictive convenant

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy July 11th Update, Wolfmania, Our Biggest Update Yet!

This update was delayed by about one week, but I think everyone will find that this was well worth it, as this has been our most significant update ever to the rulebook and general content of Eureka. Where do I even begin?

Maybe I’ll start with the best part. For a limited time, this update is FREE! You can grab a PDF from the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club Discord server from now (July 11th 2024) until the next book club round starts! (Which will probably be about a month.)

Here’s just a few of the highlights for this update, you’ll find the full changelog below.

Major cleanup and copy-editing is underway again finally, and we managed to eliminate 42 pages of unnecessary blank space and extraneous text, as well as rewording and reorganizing many rules sections to make them clearer and easier to read. You now only have to read 20 pages before the first mention of how to roll dice, rather than 70.

Ten new character traits.

A PC’s Wealth stat now has a much greater effect on them in more areas of gameplay.

A ton of new art assets.

A bunch of massive improvements to combat that make it flow smoother with fewer interruptions, some of these improvements will be discussed in detail in their own post.

Repurposed Chapter 7 into being a chapter dedicated to GMing and homebrew.

Huge cleanups to the supernatural chapter.

Some changes to monsters overall to make them more modular and less restrictive in character creation.

Two new playable “supernatural” “creatures.”

Two new mage traits as well. (Which also double as two new spells for the witch)

The weaknesses of a vampire are now a bit more subjective and modular. For instance, in character creation you can trade off a greater sensitivity to garlic for a more potent sense of smell, or a lesser sensitivity to garlic for a weaker sense of smell. Vampires are now also explicitly thematically tied to religion, religious trauma, and religious horror.

Wolfmania! The wolfman monster now has different transformation options during character creation. You now choose your wolfman PC’s partial wolf transformation and full wolf transformation, with four options for each. There are some major narrative trade-offs for different combinations but I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

Then, there is "The Eye of Neptune." "The Eye of Neptune" is a Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure module that has languished in an unfinished state for like six months, but we finally got it like 99% complete. The only thing missing are the maps and the artwork, which it is fully playable without.

Man has built a city of steel and black blood atop the endless abyss. It is a beating heart bound together with labyrinthian pipe veins. Hundreds of miles away from civilization, it stands in the midst of the Gulf of Mexico with naught but empty horizons around it. Within is a vast structure of winding halls, grinding machinery, and thousands upon thousands of small parts working to achieve a grand design. It is the Offshore Oil Rig Neptune, and it was once run by 200 workers. Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has fallen to more or less a dozen. These last vestiges of life in the rig spread themselves thin and work their hands to the bone to keep the massive beast running. In the midst of this overwhelming isolation, two members of the already shorthanded crew are unaccounted for, Seth Barlowe and Lukas Ward. The installation manager, Noah, has convened a meeting to try to find out what happened to him. With the crew already severely shorthanded and tensions running high, a mysterious disappearance is the last thing anyone needs. 

You can get a copy of The Eye of Neptune, as well as another adventure module, several stories, and continuous monthly rulebook updates from our Patreon for only $5/month!

Now here's the full changelog! I'm mercifully putting it under a Read More because it's our longest one yet!

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 47.

CHAPTER 1

Better clarified how Heat increases.

Minor edit to Role of the Narrator.

Changed the name of Chapter 1 to “Core Gameplay Rules”

Minor tweak/clarification to what happens with a 7-9 on a Heat roll.

Instead of +1 Heat when the villain is in league with the police, Heat now simply does not decrease for the duration of the adventure. 

Heat rolls are now made whenever an investigator’s Heat increases by 3 or more within a single scene, rather than being made on multiples of 3 Heat.

Added another entry to the list of how Heat can increase

How much Heat an investigator starts the adventure with is now based on their Wealth stat.

Minor sentence reworks

Added a more detailed story of A.N.I.M. and Eureka’s history to the foreword

Moved Verisimilitude section out of Foreword down below Inspirations 

Moved “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” to Chapter 3 above Grievous Wounds

Moved the “Monsters” section of the foreword to Chapter 8

Better clarified starting Heat

Lots of copy-editing and minor twinning, additions, and tweaks

Fixed the Quick Term definition for Truth being inaccurate.

Moved a bunch of sections from Chapter 1 to Chapter 7, including Heat

CHAPTER 2

Fixed the Believer Snoop accidentally being put with the Woo-Woo trait

Tweaked the None of My Business Trait

Changed Traits section to “Mundane Trait List”

Changed the amount of Penetrative HP for Not Finished Yet trait to 13 instead of 10

Added holster to item list.

Found out bump stocks are no-longer illegal 

Added “It’s for a Book” trait 

Added “Moneybags” trait

Added “The Ascot” trait 

Added “Gang Way!” trait 

Added “Dangerprone Damsel” trait

Added “Master of Disguise” Trait.

Added “Ninja” Trait

Added “Quick Draw” trait

Edited the Food Budget item to be more clear

Changed it so that guns no-longer come with bullets, these must be bought separately

Changed having +2 Wealth to “middle class” and +3 Wealth to “upper middle class,” to better describe how the Wealth skill actually influences the game

The formula for calculating WP is now 3D6+6+[Wealthx2]

Increased the WP price for certain items to reflect the above change

Added “Frugal” trait 

Added “Kleptomaniac” trait

Added art of example investigator Nick Morgan

Moved a bunch of sections from Chapter 2 to Chapter 7

Moved some stuff about investigators losing items to Chapter 7

Moved some stuff about homebrewing traits into Chapter 7

Changed the name of Chapter 2 to “How to Make an Investigator” because now all the NPC stuff is moved to Chapter 7

Better clarified skills

Changed the heading “Additional Traits” to “Choosing More Than Three Traits”

CHAPTER 3

Added clarification that sometimes it does matter whether a weapon is a blunt weapon, a piercing weapon, or a cutting weapon, and we trust players to be able to intuit what types of weapons are what.

Made animal teeth and animal claws separate entries on the weapon list

Better clarified when Speed needs to be calculated and when it doesn't

Explained what a node map is

Removed the rules for doing turn order based on Reflexes rolls, and finally made it so that Epicenter Initiative works with firearms combat.

Added rules for equipping weapons during combat

You now add Acceleration bonus to Athletics rolls for characters moving long distances in theater of the mind combat. Need to go around and remove the special speeds for various supernatural characters. 

Added a section that explains why so many pages is dedicated to combat despite this game being an investigation game primarily

Added art of some small knives

Put “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” to this chapter instead of the Foreword

CHAPTER 4

Added some art to the gun information list 

Made Fully Automatic Fire have a hard limit of 12 bullets per attack. 

Added Quick Cycling rule, allowing characters with a +2 or more in Firearms to fire Two-round Bursts with Single-Action and Repeating firearms.

CHAPTER 5

Added rule for ride-by attacks to basic melee attack

Better clarified Escape

Attempts to disarm a character now have bonuses or penalties based on the difference between the Athletics skill of the two characters involved, similar to how Escape attempts work. 

CHAPTER 6

Clarified that Acceleration is not affected by Composure

Tiny tweak to how chases are described

Better clarified when Speed needs to be calculated and when it doesn't

CHAPTER 7

Added “How We Play Eureka” section explaining which optional rules we personally do and don't prefer

Changed the name of Chapter 7 to “Advanced Narration and Homebrewing”

Added a ton of stuff from other chapters to Chapter 7 to make it a general chapter for Narrators as well as help with game/module design and homebrewing. It is currently a little bit of a mess but is at least serviceable until we get to the point where we can fully copy-edit it.

CHAPTER 8

Minor vampire tweaks

Made it so that that the vampire sensitivity to certain scents is more codified and now causes composure rolls, and now works more like their compulsion to count things in that the placement of the weakness on their tiers of fear determines how much of a bonus they have to Senses checks involving smell and taste. 

Adjusted Even Monsters are Afraid of Something section to reflect the above changes 

Added more mechanics for how NPC vampires interact mechanically with weaknesses. 

Better clarified the full moon roll for wolfmen. It is now just 1D12+1. 

Better codified superhuman strength as a rule.

Gave the math for handling consistent HP across alternate supernatural forms its own section.

Completely redid the wolfman wolf forms. Now during character creation players can choose one of four options for each of the wolfman’s wolf forms, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Up to 16 possible combinations! Wolfmania!

Improved the werewolf trait to fit with the updates to wolfman

Adjusted wolf manifestation of vampire to fit with new wolfman rules. 

Better clarified vampire claws

Added Supernatural Bonuses and Investigation Rolls section

Tweaked wolfman involuntary transformation so that the form they rampage in is still random even if they are already in a wolf form when the rampage starts

Changed stats of vampire’s bat manifestation

Better clarified vampire sunlight and silver weakness mechanics

Totally revamped vampire’s monstrous beast manifestation 

Redid the Superhuman Speed mage trait, made it a lot better 

Improved the Stealth bonus of the Invisibility mage trait

Improved Stealth bonuses of thing from beyond.

Added a “Purpose” mechanic to living dolls, which is what the doll in question was built to do. When they act towards this purpose, they get +1 to rolls, and when they fail or otherwise ignore their purpose, they may lose Composure. 

Updated Even Monsters are Afraid of Something section to reflect the above

Made it so wolfmen lose 2 Composure from skipping a meal instead of 1.

Clarified that the thing from beyond does not need to stay in human shape the entire time they are digesting a human victim. 

Clarified the possibility of escaping from a monstrous supernatural beast’s stomach for both the giant wolfman forms and the monstrous vampire manifestation. 

Clarified Telekinesis trait

Added “Manifest Weaponry” Mage Trait

Added “Incredible Strength” Mage Trait

Added ability for an investigator to be a talking dog.

Changed “wannabe monster hunter” to just “monster hunter” and added a new sidebar

Rewriting large chunks of the first half of chapter 8, redefining each type of supernatural investigator, and adding a fourth category of investigator. Work in progress

Monster investigators now only require 18 investigation points instead of 21. 

Removed “Is this a monster or a mage” section. This is no-longer needed now that these categories are more clearly defined. 

Removed blood sacrifice from the witch’s true nature and just committed to making it be about cannibalism and about using magic–any of their magic–for petty and/or entirely selfish reasons. 

Gave witches a proper weakness

Changed the name of the witch to Fairytale Witch

Moved Alternative Witch into the misc. category

Removed large chunks of chapter 8 that were either no-longer needed or had become so outdated as to be contradictory to other rules

Vampires now gain 1 additional point of Composure for every 5 Morale or Composure damage they do to their victim during an attack, to better codify how they feed on human suffering as much as the literal blood they drink.

Added the “Monsters” section of the Foreword to this chapter instead

Changed the name of the Thing From Beyond’s “Shapeshifter” trait to “Imposter Syndrome”

Moved some stuff about homebrewing traits into Chapter 7

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[probablyasocialecologist]

While maintaining that “for some, the best outcome will be transition,” it nevertheless effectively recommended that the N.H.S. abandon the guidelines embraced by major mainstream medical associations and restrict the use of medications that have been offered for decades to adolescents across the globe with vanishingly few negative side effects or regrets. The reason, the report says, is that these treatments are insufficiently supported by reliable, long-term evidence. Then, remarkably, the report recommends treatments — psychological treatment and medications for depression and anxiety — that have even less proof behind them in helping children (or adults) with gender dysphoria, though they may help with other mental health issues, and many children with dysphoria already get these treatments. And for all its insistence of evidence, the report is peppered with mere speculation about the potential causes of gender dysphoria: pornography and the phenomenon of social contagion are invoked, with zero credible evidence to support them. It is a strange document. Social conservatives welcomed the report. But it has also been heralded in some liberal quarters in Britain, where even the Labour Party has supported its conclusions, and around the world as a model of open-minded rationalism, of well-intentioned — progressive, even — unbiased scientific inquiry attempting to provide information in young people’s best interests. This, they declare, is what following the science and the evidence looks like. But is it? In an effort to evaluate the Cass report’s findings and recommendations, I spent the months since it was released poring over the document, researching the history of transgender medicine and interviewing experts in gender-affirming care as well as epidemiologists and research scientists about the role of scientific evidence in determining care standards. What I have come to realize is that this report, for all its claims of impartiality, is fundamentally a subjective, political document.

[...]

A great deal of the media coverage of gender-affirming care in the West has painted a picture of huge numbers of children, some of them suffering from profound mental illness, rushed into medical transition, practically force-fed puberty blockers and hormones, then fast-tracked to surgery once they turned 18, based on unproven treatment and perhaps bogus science. But the report itself not only fails to show any evidence of significant regret among patients or other forms of harm; its own data also contradicts the notion of rushed transition. Of the more than 3,300 medical records examined as part of the review, about a quarter of children and adolescents were referred to an endocrinologist, which suggests a significant screening process. Indeed, on average, patients had more than a half dozen consultations before being referred. If anything, the evidence suggests a lack of care bordering on neglect, which is not surprising considering that millions of people are on waiting lists for treatment of all kinds by Britain’s crumbling health system. One of the most common pieces of feedback was that young people lingered on waiting lists, sometimes for years. A number of participants in focus groups convened for the purpose of the report said they felt that they had to “prove” to clinicians that they were transgender.

[...]

At one point the report posits that because a child has never had the experience of growing up in their assigned sex, they would have no way to know whether they might regret transition. “They may have had a different outcome without medical intervention and would not have needed to take lifelong hormones,” the report says, referring to children assigned female at birth. It is hard to know what to make of a statement like that. A person gets only one life; waiting to see how it works out isn’t really an option. To a queer woman like me, this is an ominous echo of something many of us have heard many times in our lives: Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet. The wish — whether expressed by a parent, a teacher, a therapist or a suitor — is a wish for a child not to be queer. It is hard to find a satisfying explanation for these kinds of conjectures and conclusions in the report other than this one: Many people find transgender people at best unsettling and possibly deluded or mentally ill, or at worst immoral and unnatural. They appear to believe it would be better not to be trans. As much as Cass’s report insists that all lives — trans lives, cis lives, nonbinary lives — have equal value, taken in full it seems to have a clear, paramount goal: making living life in the sex you are assigned at birth as attractive and likely as possible. Whether Cass wants to acknowledge it or not, that is a value judgment: It is better to learn to live with your assigned sex than try to change it. If this is what Cass personally believes is right, fair enough. It can charitably be called a cultural, political or religious belief. But it is not a medical or scientific judgment.

13 Aug 2024 | Link

[zvaigzdelasas]

Among the points listed in the agreement were "cancelling all the recent decisions and procedures against banks by both sides and refraining in the future from any similar decisions or procedures", as well as "resuming Yemenia Airways’ flights between Sanaa and Jordan and increasing the number of flights to three daily flights, and operating flights to Cairo and India daily or as needed."[...]

Two other facets of Monday's agreement involved convening meetings "to address the administrative, technical, and financial challenges faced by" Yemenia, which has seen its operations severely reduced as a result of the ongoing conflict and a Saudi-backed land and air siege.

It also involves "initiating the convening of meetings to discuss all economic and humanitarian issues based on the roadmap”.

The government-controlled central bank in May banned transactions with six banks in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa for failing to abide by an order to relocate to Aden, which is under the control of the Saudi-backed government.

The Houthis said the move was a disguised attempt by the United States and Saudi Arabia to exert financial pressure on the Houthi banking system, which uses different bank notes with different exchange rates.

In response, they banned any dealings with 13 banks in Aden, preventing people in Houthi-held areas from getting remittances through them or withdrawing and depositing money.

23 Jul 24

[partisan-by-default]

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would reclassify two drugs used for reproductive health as controlled substances, which would place further restrictions on their access.

The proposal mirrors a law in Louisiana that went into effect Oct. 1 that treats mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances in state law. While the drugs are used in medication abortions, they have other applications such as treating life-threatening hemorrhaging.  

Texas state Rep.-elect Pat Curry, a Republican from Waco, has filed legislation, House Bill 1339,  that is comparable to the Louisiana law. Some health care providers have criticized Louisiana’s measure over its stricter storage and documentation requirements. Physicians have said the additional steps could place patients’ lives at risk.

Both Louisiana and Texas have strict abortion bans in place. Both states bar the procedure in almost all instances.

The Texas Legislature convenes for its next lawmaking session Jan. 14. 

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed the new law, Act 246, in May, despite 270 doctors signing a letter against it. Mifepristone and misoprostol have been pulled off obstetric hemorrhage carts in hospitals and are now stored in passcode-protected cabinets outside of labor and delivery rooms.

[lbulldesigns]

THE WORLD RESPONDS

As the conflict within Demacia continues, the rest of the world make preparations for the onslaught of those exiled and refugees lucky and unlucky enough to have left before King Jarvans IV ordered to lockdown Demacias borders, preventing anyone from entering or exiting the country without clearance.

As promised by Councillor Cecil C. Heimendinger, the Council of Piltover has convened to draw up plans to house those wishing to escape to Piltover to start anew; however, there have been rumors surfacing about restrictions being implemented for any mage amongst the exodus of misplaced Demacian civilians. Although there has been no definitive proof to these rumors, it is best to remember that Councillor Heimendinger is known to speak up against the use of the arcane and has expressed caution to Zaun on more than one occasion about our "unchecked" arcane practices.

Zaun on its part is in full swing, preparing for our new residents. Construction has already begun, with Slimeline Construction taking the lead on the majority of the housing project. After our Ruling Goddess Janna declared that Zaun shall be a sanctuary for those from Demacia, like it was with the ancient Shurimans who founded our fine nation.

The Arcane Guild has also started preparations for the misplaced mages amongst the exodus, by organizing information nights on what to expect from the incoming citizens.

"Fear of the Arcane has been a 101 course for Demacians since birth, what we proudly accept as a part of ourselves has been painted as an evil and immoral thing for every Demacian. We hope to undo some of the lifetime shame and demonization of those who have been persecuted where they live; we understand how colossal a task that will be, but the first step to healing is acceptance of yourself" stated Zeri Lecy, a representative of the Zaun's Arcane Guild.

The various temples around Zaun have taken a page from the Arcan Guild book and have also made preparations to welcome those magically inclined and their families, Janna's Temple has begun preparations for the increase in students both Mage and regular and charity drives have been in full swing to provide for those with nothing to their name.

The Songbird of Zaun herself has announced her intentions to hold a concert to raise awareness about the situation within Demacia, and has invited all musical artists both professional and starting out to come and try out for the concerts line up.

"We hope to have the concert in full swing as the refugees arrive, they will be downtrodden, scared, and more than likely feeling hopeless. My hope is that this concert not just be a way to bring awareness, but also a way to uplift spirits and show the beauty of their new home through our songs and possibly strengthen their own songs in the process." Says Seraphine Euphonious, a.k.a The Songbird of Song, an Empath Mage who can hear the souls of others as a beautiful song.

Many of the refugees are expected to arrive via Bilgewater ships, which will be picking up passengers from the coasts of Noxus and Freljord. Surprisingly both nations have granted access to the ships, with Freljord being an ally to Demacia and Noxus being renowned for its dislike for their "righteous" neighbor (Demacia).

A representative from Bilgewater has spoken up and made it clear however that they have not been given permission from Demacia itself to pick up anyone from their coasts, but will keep a respectable distance on standby.

Whilst Freljord has stated that they will remain allies to Demacia, it has also slammed King Jarvan IV decision and actions towards his magical population; and have stated that they have sent a representative from the Arbormark to meet with the king of Demacia to advise better actions and solutions going forth, that will be more fairer and just towards everyone.

Noxus on the other hand, and unsurprisingly, has slammed Demacia for its actions and accused King Jarvan IV of hypocrisy considering his close relationship with his Draconian consultant; Jericho Swain, in his announcement to strengthen Noxus' borders and have its army on standby, has called King Jarvan IV an "unfit ruler, who was unprepared for the responsibility before him and has treated his position as if he were a child playing make-believe".

News from Ionia and Shurima, both magic-driven countries, has protests shouting out for justice for the mages of Demacia and reports of both nations preparing their own armies have been circulating, both nations have reached out to Demacia to negotiate the return of their own citizens (both mage and otherwise) within its borders but Demacia has stood firm in not returning those imprisoned.

There has been no news from Bandle, Ixtal, Targon, and the Shadow Isle. But the Zaun Herald is keeping its ear to the ground and will report when the first rumble is heard.

[mogai-sunflowers]

MOGAI BHM- Day 12!

happy BHM! today i’m going to be talking about queer culture during the Harlem Renaissance!

Queer Culture During the Harlem Renaissance-

[Image ID: A black-and-white photograph of Gladys Bentley, a Black woman. In the photograph, she’s standing at the gate to a bar, wearing an all-white tuxedo- white dress pants, a white undershirt, and a white tuxedo jacket with coattails, as well as a white top hat. She’s carrying a magician’s cane/wand. End ID.]

The Harlem Renaissance was not just a movement that challenged racist norms. It was absolutely a movement of Black pride, but it was also in many ways a movement of Black queer pride. The queer history of the Harlem Renaissance has largely been erased from the world-at-wide’s perception of the Harlem Renaissance, but it was, according to Black professor Henry Louis Gates, “surely as gay as it was Black”.

Because of the fact that the Harlem Renaissance was based on the idea of liberating Black people from restrictive white social standards, sexuality and gender were challenged during this time period. Challenging sexual and gender norms became another outlet of Black liberation- allowing Black queer people to express their racial liberation through a means of sexual liberation.

The Harlem Renaissance came at a time when people were rebelling against Prohibition- so speakeasies became increasingly common. At these speakeasies, performances were held, and the musical nightlife of the Harlem Renaissance that developed in these speakeasies led to the development of Harlem’s queer nightlife- including drag balls.

Called “Spectacles In Color” by Langston Hughes, and commonly referred to as “fairy balls”, Harlem’s queer drag balls were huge extravaganzas. They consisted of both drag kings and drag queens, dressed to the nines, and there were contests for the most lavish costumes and performances. These balls were an explicit, unapologetic celebration of queer identity, and they also involved prizes for winners. A queer Black woman, A’Lelia Walker hosted queer parties and performances at her ‘Dark Tower’ building. Rent parties, cabarets, and other venues also hosted popular opportunities for queer people to convene and grow connections together.

It was also common for some performers to do drag as they performed at nightlife hotspots. Men dressed in long, lavish gowns, and women in tuxedos, and partied and performed together with background dancers also in drag. Perhaps the most famous of these drag performers was Gladys Bentley, a popular blues singer who often performed in full tuxedos. She sang many songs about her female lovers and relationships, and her shows featured drag performers. 

Two other huge blues stars during the Harlem Renaissance were Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith- both of whom frequently and openly sang about their same-sex relationships. Ma Rainey, called “the Mother of Blues”, was arrested once for hosting a lesbian party in her home. In the 1930s, popular Blues singer Lucille Bogan made the song “B.D Woman’s Blues”, in which she sang “comin’ a time, B.D. women they ain’t going to need no men.” Short for ‘bulldager’ and ‘bulldyke’, ‘B.D’ is a Black slang for butch lesbian, and is just one example of the very racialized language of queer identity during this time. As described by queer Black woman Jeanne Flash Gray, a Harlem resident, “we were still Bulldaggers and Faggots… only whites were lesbians and homosexuals.”

Queer culture during the Harlem Renaissance was not at all limited to music and drag balls/performances- it made its way throughout prominent literature during the period. Richard Bruce Nugent, an openly gay Black author from the time period, became famous for many works including his “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade”, which was about a bisexual Black teenager and depicted bisexuality. He described himself saying "You see, I am a homosexual. I have never been in what they call 'the closet'. It has never occurred to me that [my sexuality] was anything to be ashamed of, and it never occurred to me that it was anybody's business but mine." Mae Crowdery, a Black bisexual writer, wrote bisexual poetry in “We Lift Our Voices”. Other key authors from the time period, including Langston Hughes himself and Claude McKay, were, though not very openly, queer.

Wallace Thurman was a Black author who challenged the way racism and queerphobia intersected for Black queer men- he saw the hypermasculinization of Black men, the way Black masculinity was sexualized and dehumanized- and challenged it, expressing his own form of masculinity through his literary work. Though he never came out or disclosed his personal sexuality or gender, he is noted for nonetheless challenging their norms.

The history of the Harlem Renaissance is undeniably queer- Black queer people were the heartbeat of the Renaissance, and they built queer history in that era and beyond.

Summary-

Many, many of the prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance were queer- Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Gladys Bentley, and many, many more

Embracing diversity of sexuality and gender became a way to become racially liberated, as shown through popular drag balls, called ‘fairy balls’, that frequented the Harlem Renaissance

Blues singers were a huge part of queer culture during the Harlem Renaissance- many of them were sapphic/lesbian, sang frequently and passionately about their lesbian relationships, and performed in drag

Queer literature during the Harlem Renaissance explored the relationships between race, gender, and sexual identity

Black and queer history are inherently intertwined, especially in the Harlem Renaissance

Tagging @intersexfairy​ @metalheadsforblacklivesmatter​ @neopronouns​ @benshapirosgaylover​ @cistematicchaos​ 

Sources-

https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/harlem-renaissance-black-queer-history 

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Collected_Works_of_Langston_Hughes/SsgPcfpjhBcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22spectacles+in+color%22+langston+hughes&pg=PA208&printsec=frontcover

https://time.com/6104381/lgbtq-history-harlem-renaissance/ 

https://onlineexhibits.library.yale.edu/s/we-are-everywhere/page/the-queer-harlem-renaissance

https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/theme/the-harlem-renaissance/

https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/black-and-queer-in-the-harlem-renaissance

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1140&context=historical-perspectives

[hazel-of-sodor]

Day 11-Sodor Blues

Day 11-Fauna

Other Stories

Other Days

“Welcome back to Preservation and Conservation. Today we are in for a special treat, the Sodor Blue. The sheep on the island of Sodor, off the coast of Barrow in Furness, are a unique breed.”

“Screw off you wooly…”

Henry continued over the mogul’s yelling, “As cattle were rare in the island until the later half of the 18th century, the people of the island relied upon their flocks of sheep for their meat, milk, and wool. Their careful breeding resulted in the Sudrian Blue.”

“Off of the line, you worthless walking rugs!” James swore.

“With the establishment of harbors, and later rail lines on the Island beginning in the mid-1800s, the island began exporting the wool and meat to mainland Britain and Ireland.”

“Move!”

“The meat quickly became prized for its savory flavor, and the wool for its strength, but with the construction of railways and harbors,much of Sodor’s natural wetlands and marshes were drained. This provided pastures fit for cattle, and the breed began to dwindle as competition from the cattle farms threatened the traditional farmers of Sodor’s hills.”

“I assured you, there's no lack of the wooly devils!”

“Relief would come from an unexpected source. Sodor's canal network.”

“Then throw them in it! They're fat enough to float.”

“Established in the 1700s, Sodor's canal network ran through the southern reaches of the island, branching off of and connecting the rivers of Els, Reagh, Maura, Hawin Ab, Hawin Croka and the River Hoo. The main form of transportation in the Southern region of the island prior to the introduction of the railways, the Canals were, and are seen as a cornerstone of Sudrian culture and identity.”

“Did you just sneeze on my paint?! You miserable walking rag! I shoul…”

“Many Sudrians made their livings on the canals, transporting slate, wools, mutton, fish, and more from the coastal cities to the farms inland and back.”

“They’ll have more wool and mutton than they can carry if these sheep don't get out of my way!”

“In a glimpse of the future of Britain's canal network, many lived on their boats, spending their lives crossing the island slowly, taking days or weeks to complete a circuit of the network.”

“That's still a far sight faster than these…”

“They were then understandably dismayed, when large amounts of cow dung were washed into the canals with each rain, which given Sodor's placement within the British Islands, was a far too common occurrence.”

“…Ew.” James scrunched his nose in disgust.

“In 1873 the Canals approached the Sudrian Council with their complaints toward the cattle farms. And in August of that year the council convened to hear the case. The men chosen to represent the canals focused their arguments on the effects of the dung being swept into the canal and flowing downstream toward the coastal towns. Affecting the air and drinking water for not only those who lived on, but along the canals and rivers. The farm owners, largely businessmen from the mainland, argued the canals were obsolete and would soon be replaced by the railways anyway.”

“I see businessmen haven't changed since then,” James muttered, wheeshing away a sheep who was getting too close.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, the council sided with the canals, and banned the farms from grazing their cattle within a mile of the canals and rivers of the island, restricting the cattle farms to small pockets across the island. Most of the cattlemen left the island, some abandoning their herds on the island. Some of the former sheep farmers came together, and formed dairy farms with the abandoned herds. The abandoned fields along the canals and rivers soon were filled with villages and towns as Sodor’s population boomed with the arrival of industry. The sheep farms grew once more as Sodor turned back to them for meat and wool.”

“...if you bite my buffers I will bump you.”

“Time went on and the world changed around them, leading to the sheep getting into trouble. Sheep are highly intelligent animals…”

“Are they??”

“...and are highly prone to escaping their pens. In the old days, this merely meant finding their way into the next field or forest. Today it means causing havoc for the local roads and railways.”

“You don't say.”

“Nonetheless the escapes are largely harmless, if frustrating, and life for the Sodor Blue has changed little since the inception of the breed.”

“MOVE!!”

[ausetkmt]

July 31, 1866 - The New Orleans Massacre

The New Orleans Massacre of 1866 occurred on July 30 when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black Freedmen was attacked by a mob of white rioters. The violence erupted outside the Mechanics Institute, where a reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention was taking place.

According to official reports, 38 people were killed and 146 wounded, with 34 dead and 119 wounded being Black Freedmen.

Unofficial estimates suggest even higher casualties. The perpetrators included ex-Confederates, white supremacists, and members of the New Orleans Police Force.

This tragic event expressed deep-rooted conflicts in Louisiana’s social structure and catalyzed support for the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Act, which aimed to change social arrangements in the South

As the United States approaches what are bound to be particularly contentious November midterm elections, profound questions regarding the might and meaning of the vote in American society are seemingly everywhere. Battles over voter ID laws and felon disfranchisement, lawsuits that seek to overturn gerrymandered districts, and allegations of voter fraud and election tampering by foreign powers all demonstrate that arguments about who gets to vote and whether votes are fairly counted are central to the electoral process.

Such struggles are nothing new. Today marks the 152nd anniversary of one of the deadliest attacks on voting rights activists in American history. In New Orleans on July 30, 1866, a white mob, led by police and firemen, massacred delegates and spectators at a state constitutional convention convened to guarantee voting rights to African American men. The attack left over forty African Americans dead, over 150 wounded, and a nation reeling.

In 1864, Union forces had almost entirely liberated Louisiana from Confederate control, and the state’s all-white electorate had drafted and ratified a new state constitution that acknowledged the abolition of slavery. Still, the document sanctioned restrictions on African American civil and political rights, and in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Louisiana voters, many of whom were Confederate veterans, returned numerous Confederate officials to state and federal offices under the banner of a Democratic Party that openly proclaimed to be in favor of white supremacy. “We hold this to be a Government of white people,” the platform of the state party maintained, “made and to be perpetuated for the exclusive benefit of the white race.” Indeed, the platform announced, “people of African descent cannot be considered as citizens of the United States.” It came as no surprise that the state legislature promptly passed discriminatory laws known as Black Codes that targeted the formerly enslaved, nor that the mayor of New Orleans, former Confederate John T. Monroe, instructed city policemen to single out the formerly enslaved for arrest.

Frustrated by this ongoing racial discrimination and the resumption of Confederate rule, in 1866 leading African American suffrage activists convinced a handful of white former delegates to Louisiana’s 1864 Constitutional Convention to reconvene the convention in New Orleans, and to draft a state constitutional amendment enfranchising African American men. Their plan relied upon a technicality, namely that the motion to adjourn the 1864 Convention had contained a provision authorizing it to reconvene to pass amendments at any later date.

Supporters of universal male suffrage argued that without African American political participation, former Confederates would continue passing racially discriminatory legislation, recreating slavery in all but name. “Liberty is but a word as long as taxation, elections, and the whole political machinery are confined in the hands of an inimical race,” warned Oscar Dunn, a formerly enslaved leader among suffrage activists in the city. Activists also recognized that the vote bore profound symbolic significance. In a world where women could not vote and political participation signified manhood and status, exclusion from the polls was both emasculating and humiliating. African American men demanded “political rights,” argued black Union army veteran and future Louisiana Governor P.B.S. Pinchback, but they also demanded “to become men.”

The vote was no less meaningful to embittered Confederate army veterans, who already felt emasculated by military defeat and saw the prospect of African American enfranchisement as an amplification of that emasculation. State Democratic officials declared the reconvening of the Constitutional Convention illegal. When judicial challenges to the reconvening failed, Mayor Monroe, the police chief, and former Confederate officers secretly resolved to annihilate the convention delegates instead. They covertly enlisted hundreds of Confederate army veterans as emergency police officers, and police and fire stations received orders to prepare for a showdown on July 30, 1866.

On the morning of the convention, a jubilant parade of African American suffrage supporters carried a large American flag and followed a marching band through the streets towards the hall where the convention delegates were assembling. The marchers’ elation shifted towards apprehension as crowds of hostile onlookers began to gather. A fight broke out. Distant pistol fire cracked.

Inside the hall, the chairman called the convention to order. Realizing that they lacked a quorum, the delegates agreed to reconvene in one hour. But as delegates and spectators drifted towards the doorway as the beleaguered parade arrived, the city’s fire bell rang twelve tolls, the traditional code for summoning residents to defend the city against imminent enemy attack. As the bell fell silent, police, firemen, and white civilians surrounded the parade and the hall.

Then they opened fire.

Lucien Jean Pierre Capla, a freeborn storekeeper and Union army veteran, had brought his teenage son Alfred to witness the historic assembly. They watched rioters slaughter marchers kneeling in surrender, and mutilate their bodies. “I saw the people fall like flies,” Capla later recalled. “They shot them, and when they done that, they tramped upon them, and mashed their heads with their boots, and shot them after they were down.” Father seized son and tried to flee, but the mob tore the pair apart. Lucien Capla suffered a fractured skull and a gunshot wound; Alfred received four bullets, three knife wounds, and the obliteration of his right eye. Police threw both in jail, but both survived.

Inside the hall, Dr. A.P. Dostie, a white dentist and leading convention delegate, tried to calm the trapped delegates and spectators. “The flag will protect us!” Dostie cried from the podium. Then a bullet pierced his arm. The rioters entered the hall, firing indiscriminately. Two policemen dragged Dostie to the city’s main thoroughfare, where the mob took turns striking, clubbing, and shooting him.  As Dostie lay dying, police flung his body into a cart, parading him before the cheering crowds.

When federal troops finally arrived hours later, the floor was sticky with blood. Three white delegates and more than forty African American supporters lay dead.  Another 150 lay wounded. Only one white Democrat had been killed, by a policeman’s stray bullet.

Yet the attack backfired. News of the brutality swept the nation and horrified the North, galvanizing northern white support for African American political and civil rights. Republicans swept the 1866 Congressional elections. In 1867, Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act, placing the South under federal military control and calling for new constitutional conventions in which African American men could vote for delegates.  Federal officials removed Mayor Monroe and other former Confederate officials from office. Louisiana’s new legislature dissolved the New Orleans’ police department and replaced it with a racially integrated force.

In November 1867, under the protection of federal troops, an interracial coalition of white, freeborn, and formerly enslaved political operatives convened another state constitutional convention in New Orleans. Delegates included survivors of the 1866 massacre. The assembly wrote one of the most radically advanced constitutions in the nation’s history. The document, which remained in force for just over a decade, guaranteed equal justice before the law, equal political and civil rights for men, and universal access to public transportation and public accommodations. It also mandated the creation of a state funded and racially integrated public education system.

Both perpetrators and victims of the 1866 Massacre recognized that the vote formed the basis of the nation’s political fabric. Yet in fighting to stamp out African American political participation, the 1866 rioters had inadvertently helped usher in a democratic revolution, the likes of which Louisiana would not see again for another century.

[lovelylusts]

cloud nine // csb // 11 - bathroom bitch

summary: a group of friends form on nsfw twitter, and hijinks ensue. but when jisu starts catching feelings for soobin after filming with him, she has to grapple with her feelings while assuring her close bond with him doesn’t die.

general warnings: choi soobin x oc (moon jisu), smau, smut, fluff, angst, crack, the rest of txt is here too, aespa is also here just bc they serve, no relationships or events in this story reflect real ships and are just for the story, this is a pro sex-work story obv, lowkey probably gonna be filthy as hell considering it’s a sex work au, vague relationships lmao, she/they oc because i’m projecting, genderfluid yeonjun agenda, oc has a not-so-secret thing for soobin’s hands, they use fake names on twt :)

chapter warnings: short but sweet, sorry for no update i’ve been busy :(, dom-ish!soobin, sub-ish!oc, chapter named after bathroom bitch by holychild :), mentions of drugs (weed + alcohol), who would have guessed that they are in fact fucking in a bathroom, quickie, idk if this counts as exhibitionism or just not giving a fuck, fingering (f receiving), unprotected vaginal sex (plz don’t do this), premature orgasm? kinda?, brief mention of virginity/inexperience, but obv neither of them are virgins, biting, brief mention of blood but there’s no actual bleeding, very brief blowjob where soobin finishes in jisu’s mouth

word count: 2.5k

series masterlist // general masterlist

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jisu wasn’t quite sure how she found herself here, sat on the counter in aeri’s bathroom with her hands in soobin’s hair, his teeth grazing her neck as he rapidly pumped his fingers in and out of her soaking cunt, but she certainly wasn’t complaining.

the two-bedroom apartment reeked of junk food, beer, and weed as the group of ten crowded into the living room of beomgyu and aeri’s shared home, staring intently at the screen while yizhuo, kai, beomgyu, and minjeong partook in what the group had decided was the most intense game of mario kart they had ever seen - even if they did notice the two who had subtly snuck off, they had far more important things to worry about.

it was innocent at first, both of them happening to go to the kitchen at the same time to grab a beverage from the refrigerator. they were still so nervous around each other, even after everything they had done together, but they would never talk about it with each other. the sex was just part of the business aspect of their relationship, right?

soobin wasn’t quite sure what was causing the feeling to rush over him - maybe it was because the last time they were alone together, he had been writhing in white hot pleasure beneath her - but he felt needy. he felt guilty for wanting her like that at a time like this, when their entire group of friends was finally convened in person for the first time.

jisu hadn’t thought about it the entire evening, simply just happy to finally be able to spend time with everybody, but stepping into the kitchen at the same time as him shifted the atmosphere drastically. she felt like a high schooler alone with her crush, butterflies beginning to take flight in her stomach looking, her chest feeling slightly restricted as she became hyper-aware of both of their actions. she wasn’t sure why she cared so much, considering not only the current circumstances but also that she and soobin had been together plenty of times without her feeling this distressed - but she ignored it, tucking the feelings away and instead reaching for the handle of the refrigerator.

soobin couldn’t take it anymore, grabbing the outreached hand and using it to quickly turn her and press her against the cold stainless steel of the appliance, smirking down at her as he noticed her dilated doe eyes staring deep into his own with surprise, and the small hairs that covered her body standing straight - he couldn’t see it, but it made him aware of the chill that had ran down her spine. a sense of urgency from his arousal spread through his body, urging him to lean forward and press his lips against hers, both of them quickly melted into each other, and the acknowledgment of their friends in the other room fading as they held onto each other, the intensity of their kisses leading to reddened, puffy lips upon pulling away from each other.

they couldn’t contain it anymore, jisu using the moment of separation to catch their breath to pull him out of the kitchen and down the hallway, not caring who saw them, and dragging him into the first open room - giselle’s bathroom. her bathroom was neat for the most part, the majority of her makeup and toiletries stored on shelves and in organizers, save for some stray pieces that she had used earlier in the day. it was no matter of importance, though, as she heard the click of the lock before feeling herself being lifted onto the counter, soobin standing between her spread legs and grabbing onto her waist.

“i’m sorry, i just needed you so bad,” he muttered between kisses, his hands roaming her body until he pushed her shirt over her chest, the fabric bunched above her breasts while he leaned down to softly suck pale bruises onto the flesh peaking above the beige fabric of the cups of her bra. “i just wanna make you feel good.”

“i-i’m not complaining,” jisu said as a gasp, breathless at the way his mouth felt against her skin. she was subconsciously bucking her hips, needy beyond her own belief as she felt his hardness pressing against her through her joggers. “need you so bad.”

his hands trailed down to the waistband of her joggers, tugging at the elastic to signal that he wanted to take them off, pulling them down her legs after she lifted her hips to aid him, and letting them settle on the floor. he examined the situation before him, jisu’s spread legs revealing a large wet spot on her grey underwear, her slick arousal seeping through the thin fabric. he brought his right hand to her thigh, trailing his fingers against her pale flesh as he tilted his head down to capture her in a messy kiss, teeth colliding as she brought her hands to his chest, her touch furthering the hardening of his cock in his sweatpants.

“soobin,” she gasped, her words staggering as she tried to catch her breath after pulling away from him, “please touch me. i need you.” her skin practically felt like it was on fire, the feeling of his touch making her feel borderline feverish.

he chuckled at her neediness, though he felt it too, bringing his hand towards her center and running his thumb over the patch of arousal on her underwear. she jerked at the touch, trying to stay quiet so as to not alert the others, even if they did already know what was going on, which was more than likely. he watched, smirking to himself, as she brought her hand towards her mouth, her teeth capturing the cloth of the loose long sleeve shirt she was wearing, attempting to muffle her sweet sounds - he loved hearing her moan for him, it was one of his favorite sounds, but this would have to suffice considering all of their friends were just down the hallway.

he removed his hand momentarily to grab at the waistband of her panties, pulling them down slightly until she realized what he was asking of her and lifting her hips so he could pull them down. he smiled to himself like a kid in a candy store as she repositioned herself, her arousal glistening in the warm lighting of the bathroom, evidence that her heat was calling for him to just fill up her tight pussy until she was on the verge of tears. with dark eyes, he gazed down at her, front teeth pressing into the rim of his bottom lip as he teased her entrance, her wetness coating his fingers.

“god,” he groaned to himself. “you’re so fucking wet for me.” his long fingers slipped into her heat with ease, though he still found himself in awe as the walls of her tight cunt constricted around him. his middle and ring finger curved into her sweet spot so sweetly, his thumb lightly grazing her sensitive clit, her sounds strained as she tried to keep herself grounded enough to keep it to herself and not have the others hear. he brought his lip towards her jaw, pressing wet kisses and lightly biting at her smooth, pale skin. “you like that, hm?”

jisu squeaked a bit as an affirmative, her teeth hanging onto the fabric of her sleeves so hard that her jaw could have started to ache at any given moment. her eyes were squeezed shut, too scared too look at the man in front of her, for no particular reason, but perhaps because she was too overwhelmed with the sensation between her legs. she was a little embarrassed, becoming aware of how close she truly was to reaching her climax - after all, he wasn’t holding back. his fingers were rapidly plowing into her, the circles his thumb made around her clit becoming rougher and more focused. but she wasn’t sure it was enough. she was starting to come to terms with the fact that once she had a taste of soobin - of being torn apart by him - she would never be able to get enough.

“soobin,” she said, her voice high-pitched and breathy, and strained due to her struggle to keep her voice down. “please fuck me. need your cock.”

he had been hard since they were alone in the kitchen, wanting - no, needing to feel her tight walls around him. but there was one problem. “i-i want to,” he started softly, his voice husky and laced with lust. “but i didn’t bring anything.”

“just cum in my mouth, please, i just really need to feel you,” she pleaded with him. her core felt like it had been set ablaze, and his fingers, even though she could never stop appreciating them, weren’t satisfying her.

soobin didn’t even take a second to ponder it, immediately reaching down to pull his sweatpants and boxers down to his mid-thigh, his hard length springing out, tip blushing and beginning to leak small droplets of precum. holding her thighs open to his liking, he ran his tip against her heat, coating the sensitive flesh with her arousal, before slowly pushing his hips forward until they met her own, groaning as he bottomed out, her warm, wet walls enveloping him and overtaking his senses. he was so filled with desire for her that he didn’t give her any time to adjust to the intrusion, instead immediately beginning to piston his hips at a moderate pace, clearly too needy to show any patience.

“god, you feel so fucking good,” he said in a whisper, gritting his teeth so as to not let out any loud sounds, looking down to watch as his cock dragged in and out of her soaking heat, her arousal leaving a glistening sheen on his blushing flesh. her walls hugged his member so nicely, the feeling of her around him almost too much to bear - it was the first time he had felt her raw like this, and now that he was getting a taste of it, he wasn’t sure if he could ever go back. he was already feeling so fucked-out, he couldn’t even think straight enough to remind himself that she wasn’t his in the first place. this would probably be the only time this would happen.

jisu had her head buried in his neck, her lips attached to his neck to muffle her whines and her nails digging into the soft fabric of his shirt as the pleasure coursed through her body, the stretch of his cock in her tight cunt something she could never get used to. maybe it was just the idea of nothing being between them like there usually was, maybe it was that all of their friends were just down the hallway and they were in somebody else’s bathroom, but she felt different this time. she felt more sensitive, already on the verge of an orgasm, way quicker than usual, and judging by the squelching sound coming from between her legs, she wasn’t sure she had ever been this aroused in her life.

“i-i think i’m already close,” soobin confessed, his face heating up with embarrassment. obviously, he was far from a virgin, but the sensation of her pussy around him, with nothing between them, was overwhelming him and he could already feel his orgasm rapidly approaching. he suddenly felt like he was years younger, inexperienced again, as he was embarrassingly close to finishing so early on into the affair.

“m-me too,” she said. it made her felt better that he was in the same boat she was. maybe it was for the best, too, because the longer they were away, the more time the others had to ponder their teasing comments and other forms of making the pair feel embarrassed for their actions. “please, wanna cum around you.”

he brought his fingers back to her clit, quickly rubbing harsh circles on the sensitive nub as the pace of his hips suddenly became bruising. it took everything in him to hold off his own orgasm as he worked diligently to bring jisu to her own first, his breath becoming more and more shallow as he felt her walls begin to lightly contract. he watched her body as she was beginning to reach her peak, her stomach caving with heavy breaths and her thighs shaking against the white marble of the countertop.

jisu was seeing stars, her orgasm, even with such little stimulation in comparison with her other times with soobin, hitting her hard. she bit down on his clothes shoulder to hide her cries (only to later realize that she was lucky she didn’t draw blood) as her body shook against him. he fucked her through her high, impressed by his own willpower as he still had managed to keep himself from cumming. he pulled out, slowly stroking himself so as to not lose momentum while allowing her time to recover, though that wasn’t necessary because, with shaky legs, she still managed to slide off of the countertop and kneel down in front of him, taking over by shoving his hand away and wrapping her lips around him, bobbing her head at a faster pace than he had been.

it only took mere seconds before he reached his own climax, clapping his hand over his mouth and moaning against it as ropes of cum filling her mouth. as he had done with her, she worked him through his orgasm until his hips were twitching and he was signaling for her to stop, too out of breath to use his words.

they sat in silence for a bit, both of their bodies being hit with the aftermath of the intense quickie, before they began moving to clean up and put their clothes back on, both nervously awaiting the reactions of their friends.

“th-thank you,” he said to her. “i really needed that.”

she smiled and giggled, always finding it so adorable how quickly his attitude would change from so domineering and serious to sweet and mildly shy in the minutes after they finished. “any time.”

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“you guys cleaned up after yourselves, right?” aeri asked in a jokingly threatening tone as the two walked down the short hallway into the living room. all eyes were on the pair as they reentered the room, giggles being let out as they both quickly turned tomato red at her comment.

neither one of them wanted to say anything, instead just awkwardly returning to where they were previously seated on the floor together, avoiding looking at the others, beside yeonjun and kai, who speaks first after they sit.

“so you allow them to fuck in your bathroom, but when i suggest we do some group bonding, y-”

a baby blue throw pillow collides with the messy tuft of blond on the crown of his head.

“i didn’t let them. besides, they know if they ever do it again, i’ll make sure neither of them have sex with anyone ever again,” aeri grunts. both jisu and soobin slowly, almost comically, turn their heads to look at the girl who returned their gaze with a piercing glare. “are we clear?”

almost too scared, they just nodded, before turning their attention back to the screen that was displaying the loading screen of mario party, silently agreeing to never do that again.

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[profeyandere]

𝐆𝐀𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐋 ─── ☾ 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘

ʟɪɴᴋꜱ ↪ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ↪ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴏᴍᴇɴꜱ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ↪ ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ

ᴀ��ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏꜱ ↪ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2.9ᴋ ↪ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ᴀʀᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇʟ ɢᴀʙʀɪᴇʟ / ᴊɪᴍ x ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ↪ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: ꜱᴘᴏɪʟᴇʀꜱ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ 2

English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistake and if you can help me improve it, I will greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy it :D

"You can't put the supreme archangel on me because you're going for a walk around Edinburgh!"

Your strong and powerful voice echoed between the enormous and high walls of Aziraphale's bookstore, feeling how a wave of heat ran through your body from the tips of your fingers to the highest hair that decorated your head and settled intermittently on it, causing your face to turn a heavy reddish tone as if that were a sign that you were literally about to explode. It was a strange sensation. You weren't even able to describe it in words, but you knew for sure that it couldn't be good, much less because your face had turned that powerful redness that caught the attention of the angel and the demon who had given you convened at the well-known bookstore in the Soho neighborhood. The idea that you were a 'known' demon to both entities did not make you friends, nor did it make you have a close relationship, much less because of what you really were, and that made you an enemy for at least one of them; With the demon, you had forged nothing more than a relationship of respect, but the angels had always been faithful enemies of your kind and you had to avoid as much as possible showing any type of affection or respect for those of their kind. Perhaps you had known Crowley and Aziraphale for longer than you would care to admit, if you also wanted to count the few years you had been working in Heaven with them before the revolution against the Creator occurred, but while you had been in Hell acting like the demon you were, you had lost any kind of contact with the angel and restricted that belonging to the demon because you considered it quite inappropriate to have a close relationship with anyone of your own species, even if they were nice enough to know even your deepest secrets.

"Please, my dear, this is truly important," Aziraphale said, being the brave one who had dared to take the floor after making sure how your aura, completely distorted by the anger you felt, became clearer to him again. Maybe you wouldn't be full of love, demons couldn't feel that in themselves according to earthly gossip, but at least it wasn't something so bad that you were going to explode. "Take care of Gabriel, of Jim, for a couple of days. It won't be long, and before you know it, we'll be here, and you can go back to your routine demonic tasks."

Your flashing yellowish, golden eyes stopped on the chubby figure of the angel, slowly raising your lower lip while a growl emerged from the back of your throat and came out as a soft sigh that was lost in the air. It was obvious how irritable and sensitive you were at that moment as if at any second you could attack them or yell at them in such a way that you would attract the attention of any living being that was inhabiting the face of the Earth.

"Will I also have to babysit the Inspector Constable who has been looking out the window since I entered the bookstore and has followed me here like an abandoned puppy, or will I only have to cover the basic needs of the big guy who is upstairs?" You asked, uncrossing your arms as a heavy sigh escaped between your lips, trying to calm the nerves that both beings had made you. "Furthermore, I cannot perceive him correctly. How am I supposed to take care of him when I can't see him well or my memories are blurred when there's something about him? I didn't even know he was in front of me when I came to tell you about Lord Beelzebub's order."

"Don't worry, my adorable demon, because we have changed a couple of things about the little miracle to make it easier for you to recognize him," Crowley intervened, placing his large hands on your shoulders, squeezing them playfully before gently patting your back to encourage you. "Remember that this is because the little angel has heard some nonsense coming from Gabriel's mouth and has assumed that it has to do with his memory fading."

"It's a clue," the white-haired man stressed as he raised his voice a little more to point out with more force the reason for his early departure from London. "It may seem stupid, but he's been singing that little song all morning, and thanks to my landlord I've discovered that there's a place in Edinburgh that has problems with their jukebox. It seems that, regardless of the song chosen, it always changes to the same one that Gabriel was singing."

You couldn't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow.

"It's not the best clue, but it's something," the redhead murmured, sighing and removing his hands from you, returning to stand next to his friend. "So, we leave you in charge of Gabriel and the bookstore."

"Indeed, prevent people from buying my books, and I will compensate you in some way in the future," the one with blue eyes agreed, making you frown slightly at his words. "Please be very patient with him. He doesn't remember anything."

"I already had patience once in Heaven, I don't promise to be so stupid as to continue being so while I'm on the side of Hell," you murmured, ignoring Aziraphale's look of fear and Crowley's small, amused smile. "Have your adopted child come down, and I'll see what I can do with him."

And what a surprise you were when you finally met up with the missing man shortly after the dynamic duo left the store, who was now Jim, which was short for James, which in turn was short for Gabriel, according to what he said. His appearance was so similar to the one you remembered and, at the same time, so different from the one you had seen him in as if you somehow knew that in front of you was the egocentric and cold supreme archangel who had so often teased you while you were working in Heaven and scolded you as he found you at some point during your stay on Earth, but at the same time you felt like you were inhabiting the library with a completely different person than the one you knew; It was all too strange, you simply didn't have words to explain that. A small beginning of beard had begun to appear on his profiled face, now slightly wider due to the slight weight he had gained in recent days thanks to the large amount of hot chocolate he had been drinking thanks to his repeated requests to Aziraphale since he had tasted that sweet drink, while his clothing was completely opposite to what he had once worn. Now, he seemed homely, a man full of peace and a good angel.

When you saw him, you almost hit him. This happened because you thought he was an evil double twin or something similar, mainly because he was completely identical to his angelic version except for the violet glow in his eyes, which he had not shown even though Aziraphale and Crowley had mentioned that in very moments punctually he seemed to come to his senses when he remembered events in biblical history in which he had been forced to intervene in one way or another; It was as if God communicated with both the angel and the demon through him. Going back to the same point you had mentioned before: Gabriel and Jim seemed to be the same person, only he had no memories of what he once was, and that meant that you now had to take care of a grown man who simply didn't understand how the world, gravity or electricity worked. You didn't understand much about both things either, you had not been in charge of the creation of the planets, and neither had it been in your mind to create the power plants and the distribution of it throughout the houses.

Although your first interactions were quite awkward, Jim made sure of something that he wasn't too happy about, even if it took him a whole day to realize it.

"Why do she keeps avoiding me? If we already know each other."

His voice, low and soft, echoed between the walls of his small room and, although Jim knew that he was with you in that huge store and that it was very unlikely that you would not hear him, he did not understand the reason why you had avoided him so much. It was as if you were afraid of someone or you were seeing a ghost. For him there was no other alternative. Although Aziraphale and Crowley reacted in a similar way upon meeting him, with surprise and slight fear, your gaze on him was different. He could tell by the dull glow in your eyes and your restless fingers that drummed on any nearby surface, as if you had the intention of saying something to him every time you were in the same room. He had seen you before, and not only did he sense it because he had literally done it before, the same day Mr. Fell's friends arrived at the store, but he recognized you from something before. He had seen you before, he had recognized you from somewhere else, and he had had a warm feeling that spread through his chest every time his blue eyes turned towards you as if a wave of sweetness and warmth settled inside him in a very different way than the way hot chocolate did and subsequently exploded in his belly; It was too strange to explain, but he really liked being around you because of the way you made him feel, even if you didn't do anything in particular to make him feel like his body was about to explode into fifty different pieces.

It was such a warm feeling, so nice, that he wanted to have it all day.

Determined to find you and face his thoughts and feelings once and for all, he stood up from the bed with a slight start, twisting his entire body and moving to sit up and finally stand up, ignoring the fact that the sheets that had been around him as he was lying down and fell to the floor with a thud muffled by the carpet. He walked around the upper floor as if the bookstore had been his since he bought it, as if he somehow knew it like the back of his hand and recognized every corner and every step he had to take to avoid knocking over any of the stacks of books that had been piling up as the days went by while Aziraphale and Crowley had been away from London. To his gratifying surprise, a soft, barely perceptible melody seemed to bathe the tent. A male voice overshadowed by a more angelic, sweeter, and more wonderful one caused his heart to jump inside his chest, so he did not take long to walk with impetus and speed towards the place from which said sound came. He knew it was you, deep in his heart he knew it was you. And sure enough, there you were, he hadn't made a mistake. You were sitting in Aziraphale's old chair while one of the books he had been organizing in the morning rested softly in your hands while the time melody coming from the record player made him smile softly knowing that this was the song he had been singing that same day unconsciously.

"Is that the disk that Mr. Fell took this morning?"

The sudden sound of Gabriel's voice made you come to your senses, causing the music on the record to quickly stop and you to close the book in your hands tightly, slowly diverting your golden gaze towards his barely perceptible bluish one. The darkness enveloped him. You could barely make out his masculine features, but you knew that he was there, in that dark corner, watching you. You swallowed hard for an answer, but simply grunted and then gently placed the book on the desk in Aziraphale's office, glancing sideways at the man who had taken a couple of steps for you to see, being as stealthy as the angel had mentioned. He had started thinking about putting a rattle on Jim or something similar so he wouldn't be scared, but you just needed that heavenly and playful sound to be able to disappear from Gabriel's sight as soon as possible; you had no need to see him because of the various feelings he evoked in you and the memories that resurfaced after so many years.

"Mr. Fell took one of the many records that Maggie has," you commented, seeing how his expression changed to one of confusion that deep down caused a feeling of tenderness to appear in you, mainly because she had tilted her head as if a confused puppy would be treated. "Maggie is a woman who has a record store next door. I asked her for a copy so I could listen to it."

"Great, I like it," he murmured before approaching the gramophone to try to find out why nothing was heard if the device was still working. "Why doesn't it sound? Is it broken?"

Your sparkling gaze lingered on his tall, broad Gabriel's body, lingering on the breadth of his shoulders and the scoop of his back, without specifically answering his question. Those had been some of the few words that you had exchanged with him and, although you had noticed his constant need to be close to you to be able to talk or simply be in the same space as you, you were always looking for a way to get out of it, whether it was leaving the bookstore for coffee or hiding in the record store, even transforming into the little bat that your demonic form allowed you and keeping yourself out of his sight by hiding in the darkest and most remote places of the bookstore; It wasn't the best way to act, especially having an amnesiac in your care, but you didn't want to suffer more pain from being around him. Jim, or Gabriel, turned to look at you, and, again, that warm and pleasant feeling settled in his chest. He didn't know what you were doing to him with that look, but he liked it.

"It's not broken. I've just removed the sound," you said before snapping your fingers, and the soft bells that were heard from the song began to flood the room again, causing a smile full of fascination to appear on the man's lips again. "You should be sleeping, Jim."

"I couldn't sleep," he indicated, walking slowly towards the sofa that was in front of the chair you were sitting on, letting himself fall heavily on the furniture before leaning forward slightly and staring at you as if trying to figure out what you were thinking. Thanks to the light of the moon, the stars, and the street lamps, he could see your expression full of confusion and slight irritation. "Why do you avoid me so much? Mr. Fell looks after me, Mr. Anthony looks after me, but you avoid me. Why?" “

I think Crowley does anything but worry about you,” you murmured in slight confusion at his statement. You really didn't expect him to confuse something as different as care and protection from hatred and irritation.

"Why do you avoid me so much? I just want you to answer that question for me."

His tone of voice seemed to be louder and more desperate than before, surprising you for it. For a second, you almost thought that Jim was truly Gabriel, as if from one moment to the next he had completely recovered his memory, but seeing his blue eyes only made you see that he was not there; Whatever Jim was, he wasn't Gabriel.

"Because you're just like someone I knew," you began, swallowing without really believing that you were willing to confess everything to him. "He was the dumbest, most self-centered, and ruthless being he could have ever met, but deep down, he was loving, tender, and caring."

Jim stared at you while you talked about that person he reminded you so much of. The soft smile that rested on your face while you talked about that man, whom you insulted every few seconds but then flattered as if he were the most beautiful creature in the entire galaxy, caused a smile to also settle on his face. He noticed how your shoulders loosened and relaxed as you talked about him, about Gabriel, about how you had met in a place very far from London, where for minutes it seemed only you existed in the immensity of the universe, observing with fascination the stars while others around you saw your close relationship as something disastrous that no creature beyond humans could feel; You described him with so much zeal, with so much affection, that he felt jealous deep down in his heart. "And does this song remind you of him?" Jim asked as he gently tilted his head, watching as you nodded gently and stretched your long legs towards him.

"I like it a lot. I think it is ideal for you."

“Yes,” you stated softly. "Every day, it's a gettin' closer."

"Going faster than a roller coaster," he continued, following the rhythm of the song as it resonated, gently extending his legs on the carpet to touch your completely black shoe with his slipper.

« And a love like yours would surely come their way, » thought an adorable fly fluttering gently above your heads.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Bullard at Vox:

Last week, hundreds of United Methodist Church (UMC) delegates from around the world sat down to vote on whether or not to reverse a longstanding ban on the ordination of LGBTQ clergy. The decision would also determine whether or not to strike a rule that prohibited clergy from presiding over “homosexual unions.” The room was uncharacteristically hushed as delegates logged their votes. They’d gathered to participate in a quadrennial General Conference, where an elected group of clergy and laypeople review and edit the rules and social stances of the church on a variety of subjects. When the results were announced, the room erupted in loud sobs and cheering. With this vote — and several others — over 50 years of church law, doctrine, and social stances aimed at restricting the full inclusion of LGBTQ methodists were reversed. In a dramatic deviation from the staid (remarkably congressional) proceedings, the Methodists began to sing. Church historian Ashley Boggan told Today, Explained’s Noel King that the UMC’s schism should matter to Methodists and non-Methodists alike. “If you look at Methodist history within the United States, it’s a great lens for looking at American history,” she said.

How did we get here?

For the last five years, the United Methodist Church has been fighting over its stance on LGBTQ members. In a one-off special session in 2019, the UMC had voted to tighten its prohibitions on LGBTQ members — a decision that nearly half of all UMC congregations across the country went on to publicly reject in the following years. So, in 2022, a splinter denomination was born: the Global Methodist Church. Traditionalist congregations had seen the writing on the wall: Change was coming, and they didn’t want to be part of it. Conservative churches began leaving the denomination in droves, and by the time the General Conference convened this year, a quarter of US congregations had jumped ship. It was this newly slimmed-down UMC that voted to reverse the church’s anti-LGBTQ positions earlier this month.

This Vox article on the United Methodist Church’s recent split over LGBTQ+ issues represents the microcosm of America.

[mariacallous]

The US is widely seen as the global leader in artificial intelligence, thanks to companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta. But the US government says it needs help from other nations to manage the risks posed by AI technology.

At an international summit on AI Safety in Seoul on Tuesday, the US delivered a message from Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announcing that a global network of AI safety institutes spanning the US, UK, Japan, Canada, and other allies will collaborate to contain the technology’s risks. She also urged other countries to join up.

“Recent advances in AI carry exciting, life-changing potential for our society, but only if we do the hard work to mitigate the very real dangers,” Secretary Raimondo said in a statement released ahead of the announcement. “It is paramount that we get this right and that we do so in concert with our partners around the world to ensure the rules of the road on AI are written by societies that uphold human rights, safety, and trust.”

The US government has previously said advances in AI create national security risks, including the potential to automate or accelerate the development of bioweapons or to enable more damaging cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.

One challenge for the US, alluded to in Raimondo’s statement, is that some national governments may not be eager to fall in line with its approach to AI. She said the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Singapore, and the European AI Office would work together as the founding members of a “global network of AI safety institutes.”

The Commerce Department declined to comment on whether China had been invited to join the new AI safety network. Fears that China will use advanced AI to empower its military or threaten the US led first the Trump administration and now the Biden administration to roll out a series of restrictions on Chinese access to key technology.

The US and China have at least opened a line of communication. A meeting between President Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping in November saw the two superpowers agree to hold talks on AI risks and safety. Representatives from the nations met in Switzerland last week to hold the first round of discussions.

The Commerce Department said that representatives of the new global AI safety network’s members will meet in San Francisco later this year. A blueprint issued by the agency says that the network will work together to develop and agree upon methodologies and tools for evaluating AI models and ways to mitigate the risks of AI. “We hope to help develop the science and practices that underpin future arrangements for international AI governance,” the document says. A commerce department spokesperson said that the network would help nations tap into talent, experiment more quickly, and agree on AI standards.

The Seoul summit on AI safety this week is cohosted by the UK government, which convened the first major international meeting on the topic last November. That summit culminated in more than 28 countries including the US, members of the EU, and China signing a declaration warning that artificial intelligence is advancing with such speed and uncertainty that it could cause “serious, even catastrophic, harm.”

Amid rapid deployment of generative AI systems like ChatGPT last year, some prominent researchers and tech leaders began to speak more loudly about the potential for AI algorithms to become difficult to control and perhaps even a threat to humanity. Talk of the most far-off threats has since faded, but policymakers around the world are concerned about more immediate problems, such as the potential for generative AI tools like ChatGPT to spread disinformation and interfere with elections. In January, some voters in New Hampshire received robocalls using an AI-generated fake of Joe Biden’s voice.

Last October, President Biden issued a wide-ranging executive order to address the potential and pitfalls of fast-moving leaps in AI most evident with the startling abilities of ChatGPT. The Commerce Department was ordered to work on a number of initiatives to develop AI safety standards and also to develop a plan for global “engagement on promoting and developing AI standards.”

Biden’s executive order also required the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is part of the Commerce Department, to establish a US AI Safety Institute to systematically test AI models to understand how they could be misused and how they might behave.

[the-eternal-quest-for-balance]

James O'Keefe Launches Countersuit Against Project Veritas, Alleges Defamation, Breach of Contract

"Yet, in a bewildering turn of events, the very institution O'Keefe had nurtured from its inception turned against him."

By: The Post Millennial 

"James O'Keefe of OMG has launched a countersuit against Project Veritas, a company he founded and helmed until February 2023. Project Veritas sued their founder in May of that year, and now, O'Keefe is bringing his own claims against the group. O'Keefe was put on leave, at first for two weeks and then indefinitely, which he has said was an attempt to force his resignation, and he later offered that.

In the countersuit obtained by The Post Millennial, O'Keefe accuses the Project Veritas Board of materially breaching the employment agreement when he was stripped of his position, compensation, and ability to do his work, "which proximately and directly damaged" him. O'Keefe offers a counterclaim of defamation, alleging that the "Board members acted negligently, at minimum, in regards to the truth or falsity of their statements."

Tweets from Board members are included in the documentation, showing remarks and assertions they had made publicly about O'Keefe during the course of the dispute and the suit brought by Project Veritas against O'Keefe. These include calling O'Keefe a "sociopathic liar," stating that "everyone who ever worked for/with him feels exactly the same on this point." O'Keefe was called "evil" and accused of "criminality" in these public tweets from Project Veritas Board member Matthew Tyrmand. Further, private facts were published by Board members, the case reads. "Project Veritas published personal and private communications of an intimate nature, by providing them to wrongdoers for that express purpose, including but not limited to the Twitter Account 'James O’Keefe The Panty Thief.' In doing so, PV published matters concerning O’Keefe’s private life," the suit reads.

"The disclosure of O’Keefe’s private messages was a gross violation of O’Keefe’s privacy and highly offensive to a reasonable person," the suit reads. Additional claims include the intentional infliction of emotional distress, that "Plaintiffs intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress on O’Keefe by deliberately humiliating him in front of the PV staff to create an unbearably hostile work environment and force O’Keefe to resign." Other breaches are also alleged. The suit also gives a glimpse into the background of the case, and O'Keefe's account of what happened during the period of time when he left the company. The document lays out a timeline of events that led to the removal of O'Keefe and the demise of Project Veritas.

It all began, the suit states, in early February 2023 when O'Keefe was confronted by the company's CFO over a pricey helicopter trip. O'Keefe, who had used helicopters before with no issue, fired the CFO, Tom O'Hara. The board, comprised of O'Keefe, Matthew Tyrmand, and John Garvey convened an emergency meeting, during which Tyrmand proposed adding more people to that board. O'Keefe objected, but they were added anyway. Additional people were added to the meeting.

"Ahead of the meeting, Tyrmand had lined up cherry-picked disgruntled current and former employee 'observers' to attend by phone and speak. Other employees, previously happy in their positions, were invited to attend and listen," the suit reads. Grievances were read into the record, along with transgressions by O'Keefe. The board reinstated the fired CFO, put O'Keefe on leave, removed his ability to hire or fire people for 180 days, took his credit card, and restricted his access to the company's "proprietary information."

As O'Keefe was on leave, the board determined that he had engaged in "serial misspending." Shortly thereafter, a letter of employee complaints was issued. O'Keefe's leave went from two weeks paid leave to indefinite unpaid leave in what the suit alleges was an attempt to "force O'Keefe's voluntary resignation." O'Keefe said he could resign or the board could, and when the board did not, he tendered his resignation from the company he founded in 2011. He was replaced at the helm by the woman he founded it with. Those with Project Veritas maintained that O'Keefe was not ousted.

"Over a matter of a few days," the suit reads in the introduction, "a Board — ironically, dedicated to truth and transparency— engaged in a calculated ambush of its founder, stripping him of authority and publicly humiliating him in front of the very team he had assembled. This was not a measured response to legitimate concerns, but a premeditated coup that ignored years of successful leadership and the unique value O'Keefe brought to the organization."

"The Board's actions," it continues, "cloaked in the language of corporate governance, revealed a profound and willfully obtuse misunderstanding of what made Project Veritas special. They failed to grasp that O'Keefe was not merely an employee, but the beating heart of an organization that thrived on his vision, his connections, and his public persona. In their myopic focus on alleged expense reports and management styles, they lost sight of the forest for the trees, jeopardizing the very mission they were sworn to uphold."

"These counterclaims are not merely about contractual disputes or corporate governance," the suit goes on to say. "They are about the willful destruction of a unique institution in American journalism. They are about a small group of individuals who, entrusted with safeguarding a vital public watchdog, instead chose to put it down. The Board's actions have not only harmed James O'Keefe personally but have deprived the public of a crucial voice at a time when investigative journalism is needed more than ever."

[capybaracorn]

UN says acute malnutrition spreading fast among children in Gaza

Israel says it will send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after Hamas presented a new truce proposal.

(16 Mar 2024)

The main United Nations aid agency operating in Gaza has said that acute malnutrition was accelerating in the north of the Palestinian enclave as Israel prepared to send a delegation to Qatar for new truce talks on a hostage deal with Hamas.

On Saturday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said one in three children under the age of two in northern Gaza are now acutely malnourished, putting more pressure on Israel over the looming famine.

“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza,” UNRWA said in a social media post.

On Friday, Israel said it would send a delegation to Qatar for more talks with mediators after Hamas presented a new proposal for a ceasefire with an exchange of hostages and prisoners.

A source familiar with the talks told the Reuters news agency that the delegation will be led by the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to convene the security cabinet to discuss the proposal before the talks start.

Netanyahu’s office has said the Hamas offer was still based on “unrealistic demands”.

Repeated efforts failed to secure a ceasefire before the holy month of Ramadan, which started a week ago, with Israel saying it plans to launch a new offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, starting a two-day visit to the region, voiced concerns about an assault on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering, saying there was a danger it would result “in many terrible civilian casualties”.

On Friday, Netanyahu’s office said he had approved an attack plan on Rafah and that the civilian population would be evacuated.

It gave no timeframe, and there was no immediate evidence of extra preparations on the ground.

[See embedded video]

Humanitarian crisis

Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed at least 31,553 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the strip.

The assault has also devastated the enclave, forcing nearly all the inhabitants from their homes, leaving much of the territory in rubble and triggering a massive hunger crisis.

“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza,” UNRWA said in a social media post. Hospitals in Gaza have reported some children dying of malnutrition and dehydration.

Western countries have called on Israel to do more to allow in aid, with the UN saying it faced “overwhelming obstacles” including crossing closures, onerous vetting, restrictions on movement and unrest inside Gaza.

A first delivery into Gaza by the World Central Kitchen, pioneering a new sea route via Cyprus, arrived on Friday and was off-loaded, the charity said.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said a second cargo of food aid was ready to depart by sea from Cyprus on Saturday, while the United States and Jordan said they carried out an airdrop of humanitarian aid.

Humanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a cargo ship in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

[elysia-of-the-shore]

Angels See Everything.

Elysia is probably the only one of her friends who cares to explore the temple beyond their little hallways that they call home. While she can’t walk for too long without wearing herself out, swimming comes much easier to her, allowing her to traverse the structure’s myriad waterways and gardens with relative ease.

Such wanderings also gave her time to think. Time to think of how kind the people around her had been. To think on the nightmares that haunted her night after night, the gunshots that would ring out in her head the moment she thought she could get some rest. She shakes her head to clear it, pushing a stray bit of kelp out of her way. Nobody’s been back here yet, seeing as her companions tended to stay out of her wing of the temple. Maybe they were put off by her distant personality and social ineptitude, who knows.

Elysia surfaces in a room she definitely hasn’t seen before, slowly lifting herself onto “shore”. She strides past a garden full of white lilies, smiling a bit at them. These lilies are everywhere in her wing, and she isn’t sure what they’re doing there, but they’re pretty and sweet-smelling enough that she doesn’t mind. She approaches the back of the columned, open-air courtyard. The sun streaming through the “roof” keeps her typical problem with feeling much too cold at bay for the time being.

Before her is a low, ivory-colored marble pedestal with a little pond inlaid into it, the size of a stage. The pool is shallow and clear, the surface speckled with pink and white water lilies. It doesn’t look too different than the other, much deeper pools and canals throughout the place. In the center of the small pond is a second pedestal, with a hand mirror sitting on it. Elysia gracefully dives into the water despite her oft-restrictive dress, swimming mermaid-style towards the center of the pool. She emerges on the smaller pedestal, lifting herself onto it to examine the mirror. The person staring back at her looks a bit like her, but something is…different. Elysia slowly wraps her hand around the mirror, picking it up and examining the woman with her face. A voice rings out in her head.

“Are you ready to know the truth?”

She flinches, but her hold on the mirror’s handle stays firm.

“Do you want to see?”

She has a feeling that she can’t say no.

“Are you ready to be an real angel, Evangeline?”

“No, n-no, I’m not an-“

Elysia Evangeline screams, feeling something in her tear itself apart and put itself back together again. She feels her sight warp for a moment, before everything violently forces itself back to normal. She blinks a few times, trying to regather her thoughts. The ivory mirror stays in her hands, a rune on the back glowing softly. Evangeline recognizes it as the symbol for Venus. She clutches the mirror to her heart as her breathing slows back to normal. She runs back out of the lush courtyard, diving into the water, swimming and swimming until she can’t anymore, until she reaches the main room where she and her friends usually convene. She tentatively looks at a few of them, peeking out just above the water’s surface.

She looks at Callista, and a gunshot rings out in her head, desperation filling her lungs. She looks at Mercury, and feels like she’s half dead from blood loss. She looks at Blaze, and is crushed by grief and anger. And then she looks at Lumiel- no, no, she…she can’t stand it for long, it’s too painful. She sees and hears and knows things that she hates, that she can’t understand, flashes of a world before this one, a world where she knew her own name. Elysia sinks below the waters and sobs, holding the mirror and the woman with her face close.

Ability gained: SIGHT

[angstyaches]

hii could we please get a sick ryan because she ate something stupid (thinking about the time she stole nancys cookies heheh) with nancy as the caretaker? i miss them sm :)🍄

You also requested something Ryan-centric for this post, quite a while ago, so I've combined the two.

Word Count: 4,400+

CW (PLEASE READ): species-based food intolerance, nausea, vomiting, bad self-talk, behaviour which could be interpreted as harmful to the self so please proceed with caution and be gentle with yourselves 🖤

___

“I feel my gratitude must, once again, be expressed,” Ryan said, distracting herself with words while her knife pressed down on her stack of green leaves, tomato slices, chicken, and dressing. This chaotic arrangement had somehow cost more than an entire cow used to cost in the equivalent currency. She supposed she remained indoors far too often, if culture shock could still manage to creep up on her out of nowhere.

Her lunch companion raised her eyebrows as she chewed. She had ordered clam chowder and bread, much to Ryan’s quiet and resigned dismay. Exposure to the smells of food were a challenge for her senses to begin with, but it was a special kind of hell when seafood became involved. To make things worse, she had clams and prawns and whatever else was hauled in off the coast of Portrush had once delighted her beyond reason.

To be sickened by something once loved brought an especially bittersweet tang to her mouth. She could almost hear the crashing waves, the tinkle of little Silas’s laughter –

“For… what?” Mrs. Waters pondered innocently.

“For… inviting me to convene with you over your afternoon meal,” Ryan clarified, giving a slight shake of her head. She would have to limit the extent of her olfactory indulgences as much as possible. “I understand that your schedule must come with an abundance of restrictions –”

The trickle of discomfort in Mrs. Waters’ eyes made Ryan’s words halt on her tongue. She was being too formal. She knew that. Well, she hadn’t known that. But she knew that now.

Or perhaps it was the way Ryan’s jaw threatened to rebel against her every time she lifted the fork to her mouth, her tongue becoming awash with acrid saliva. The way she chewed as though she could somehow stop the food from touching the surfaces inside her mouth. Like a fool.

Like an utter fool.

“It was really no bother at all,” Mrs. Waters assured Ryan, eyeing her bowl of soup as she carefully lifted a spoonful towards her lips. Ryan wasn’t sure if the woman was of a generally nervous disposition, or if it was Ryan, specifically, who was making her nervous. “To be honest, I was a bit anxious to meet you. My Charlie is basically working for you right now.”

“I see,” Ryan said, poking at a chunk of tomato with her fork. It wept a sickly pink juice under the pressure of the tine. She wasn’t sure she was satisfied with the idea that the young Mr. Waters was working for her; she had thought that allowing him to continuing living on the property had been a generous gesture, not a job offer.

Indeed, he would be keeping an eye on the structural integrity of the building and preventing the odd build-up of dust and grime, but didn’t most mortals perform these duties within their dwellings –?

“Not – not that I was afraid you were some kind of weirdo or anything!” Mrs. Waters exclaimed.

“Ah.”

Half a second later, Mrs. Water’s gave a nervous chuckle, which told Ryan that she should be chuckling too, and certainly shouldn’t have given a deadpan, one-word answer. To avoid having to make up for it now, she loaded her mouth full of vinegared leaves, the texture and flavours lost in a sea of tingling, unpleasant numbness between her jaws.

The sensation came on so fast that it felt like a spike had been driven down through the top of her head, its point grating at the base of her tongue. The intensity shocked her somewhat, which was a good thing; if not for the shock, she might have started in her seat and instantly spewed her food back out onto the table.

As things stood, her jaw had clenched and her lips had mashed up tightly together.

“So, you’re looking to move out to the countryside?” Mrs. Waters asked.

Ryan’s eyes were somehow dry, yet also stinging with tears.

She made a show of puffing out her cheeks and pointing towards her closed lips to buy herself more time to chew. More time to… suffer through chewing. Every cell in her body wanted to spray the wet, slippery greens as far as they would go. Her inherently liquid diet didn’t often require her jaws or her back teeth to do much work, beyond the initial slicing into the flesh of a live pray, of course. It was oddly tedious and repetitive work.

Not to mention her guts were practically revolting in protest already. Before she’d turned immortal – more immortal than most other immortals, in fact – Ryan had lived through more diseases than many creatures who still roamed the earth, and she didn’t appreciate the reminder of what sickness could feel like.

But none of that mattered. The current situation called for her to be sociable. There was no room for anything else.

The story was that she was planning to move to the countryside with her partner, who suffered from a rare lung disease and would benefit from a fresher kind of air than the stuff readily available in the suburbs. They were planning on adopting two rescue dogs, and as soon as they were settled in, Ryan planned to take back up her long-lost hobby of painting portraits of animals in Colonial-style dress. This last detail had been Ryan’s own contribution to the charade, and Nancy had raised an eyebrow at it.

The more seemingly innocuous drivel included, the more convincing the fabrication, Ryan had assured her wife, and when it seemed as though Nancy had been about to protest, Ryan had done what she generally did when Nancy was about to protest. She’d kissed her on the mouth.

She couldn’t quite tell Mrs. Waters the truth, that the house her son resided in was plagued by the densest swarm of demons the world over, or that her son himself was possessed by a demon, or that Ryan was monitoring him for fear he’d caught the attention of the most dangerous immortal on the planet.

These were simply not appropriate lunchtime topics of discussion.

“Well… that’s exciting,” Mrs. Waters smiled. She smiled more with the left side of her mouth than the right. “Can I ask why? Are you just… looking for a change, or is there a job…?”

Ryan’s lips trembled, and she wanted to smack them to make them behave. Her lungs gulped in air, despite her efforts to refrain from excessive breathing, as she swallowed the foul mouthful. It gurgled in her throat, her internal muscles twitching and spasming as it was forced down, into a stomach that felt how she imagined Felix’s did when he had to watch a creature being slaughtered.

With a disdainful curl to her lip, Ryan certainly hoped she didn’t look the way Felix did when he had to watch an animal being slaughtered.

Below the table, her stomach burbled.

She pressed a poised finger to her lips, stifled an indigestive burp, and nodded in response to Ingrid’s question. “Well, my partner, you see, has a rather uncommon lung condition…”

___

Ryan sat in her car long for an excessive amount of time after arriving home. The shadows that had descended as the garage door closed behind her had felt like a blanket encircling her shoulders, shrouding her from the prying eyes of the world. The sensation disgusted her. Ryan never had need for blankets or warmth or self-pity.

And as soon as her defences went down, they went down. Hard. The cogs in her brain began to analyse every moment of the interaction, criticise every facial expression, pick apart every selected word, twist at every hum of agreement.

Even the fact that she was sitting in her car, emotionally paralysed, told her that she, herself, needed improvement. If spending the afternoon with a human person could take this much of a toll on her, then she was in dire need of… practice. Exposure. She had once attended Lions Club meetings and taken painting lessons; perhaps it was time to explore those options again. Spend some time with beings other than witches and vampires and… others.

Ryan rested a hand against her abdomen as she pressed her spine into the car seat, feeling a rather violent tension pushing against the buttons of her crisp white shirt. Her stomach was bubbling and squelching away, as though it thought its sluggish efforts would achieve anything close to digestion.

She used the heel of her hand to knead the space beneath her ribs where her meagre meal sat like a thick slime. The wretched organ might as well have been a dried-up clay pot, for all the good it was doing her.

And yet, no matter how many strategies and recalculations spun through her brain, she couldn’t see how she could have excused herself entirely from eating. She could have implied that she was on a diet, or taking medications that limited her mealtime options, but she couldn’t see Mrs. Waters reacting well to either of those. Well, why on earth did you agree to a meeting over lunch? She would have been too polite to say this, but Ryan knew she would have been thinking it. She was thinking it herself.

Thinking about Shayne, Ryan wondered if Mrs. Waters would have felt guilt for eating her lunch if Ryan hadn’t also ordered something. If she’d learned anything from her latest protégé, it was that mortals had the fascinating ability to feel guilt over the most inevitable of their human needs.

Luckily, Ryan was not a human.

And she had things to do.

She drew her shoulders back, released the tension in her stomach - the result was an even tighter press against the buttons of her shirt, but she could ignore it - and opened the car door.

___

As she entered her study after a slow ascent of the stairs, Ryan’s stomach was snarling like a small animal attempting to assert its dominance. She gritted her teeth and bore down on her abdomen with her knuckles. If anything in there wanted out, it should… well, it should make haste. While she usually preferred to shut the door to the upstairs hallway, Ryan left it ajar today, so that she could make a brisk exit to the bathroom when the time came.

Grrrlllrrrgghh.

Ryan listened to the distressed gurgling with a muted sense of contempt. If her stomach was so unhappy with its contents, why hadn’t she thrown up already? She didn’t have all day to wait around for it to happen. Two hundred years, and two transformations later, and it seemed her earthly form was still not without its flaws.

So concerned was she with her despondent gut that she wasn’t even aware that the thrum of Nancy’s footsteps had taken a route from the bedroom to the study, and the soft knock on the doorframe made her heart jump into her raw, delicate throat.

Nancy poked her head around the door with a soft, almost slow-motion swish of her ponytail. “Oh, you’re home!”

“Nothing gets past you, does it, my love?”

“Oh, enough of that,” Nancy tsked, tugging on Ryan’s hand and pulling her about to plant a kiss on her lips.

Ryan softened a little, overcome with relief that she wasn’t married to another vampire. Despite her fantastical abilities, Nancy’s senses – the five main ones, that is – were as dull as the average mortal’s. She wouldn’t detect the scent of salad on Ryan’s breath, so long as Ryan didn’t exhale near her. Therefore, it was a very chaste, brief kiss that they shared.

“How did it… Ryan?” Nancy gasped as she stood back, holding a hand to her mouth as though to quiet herself. “Why do you look like death warmed over?”

Ryan curled her lip as she stalked over to her desk. She thumped the documents onto the wood. “I did not think this was news to you, Nan, but it did. Two hundred years ago, to be precise.”

“Sweetheart, I meant that you –”

“Yes, yes, thank you, love. Incidentally, you also look radiant this evening,” Ryan murmured. As she slumped into her chair, her stomach gave yet another obnoxious, unproductive grumble. She cleared her throat and gazed across at Nancy.

“Sorry, Ry,” Nancy said, cheeks reddening. Then she swept her hands down the front of her skirts, with an air of starting on a clean slate, as she planted herself in the plush armchair that sat to the side of Ryan’s desk. “How did everything go?”

“Fine.”

“Everything signed?”

“Of course.”

“Wonderful,” Nancy smiled, with a distinct lack of the excitement she’d had at every other point of this endeavour. “What was Charlie’s mum like?”

“Mrs. Waters,” Ryan rather snapped,“was akin to a pleasant, yet overall remarkably ordinary, individual.”

Nancy let out a gentle scoff, once again brushing her hands over her skirts. “Well, don’t overwhelm me with details.”

“I do not know what more to tell you. Except that… I am…” Ryan’s eyes widened as she trailed off. She’d been trailing off an awful lot today, even though it was a habit that irked her in others.

But a tingling, numbing wetness began to fill her mouth at an alarming rate, worse even than when she’d been taking bites of the salad that was prickling at the base of her oesophagus. The air felt like hot soup against her skin, in her lungs.

Why, why couldn’t Nancy have been occupied elsewhere? Now Ryan was obliged to share her discomfort, or continue her silence and risk giving her wife an untimely fright. “I believe I am… ‘bout to experience… emesis.”

Nancy blinked. “You –?”

Ryan’s eyes were wrenched back so hard in her skull that they ached, and her back arched forward so hard that she felt like a doll being pulled by the hair. The wheels of her desk chair rattled as she trundled out of range of anything particularly porous… Her stomach muscles clenched so hard that Ryan – in a moment of hyperbolic weakness – thought that her internal organs might come up through her nose –

And yet, while her senses braced themselves for the wet, clattering sound of stomach contents hitting the tiled floor, nothing came. Ryan swayed between emotional relief and dismay at being denied the physical relief.

“Oh, sweetheart, come,” Nancy murmured, and then her delicate, warm hands were guiding Ryan’s shoulders up and out of the desk chair. “I knew something was off about you. Did you eat?”

“I may have… ingested… a few mouthfuls of leafy matter.”

“A salad?” Nancy could neither have looked nor sounded more horrified if Ryan had hinted towards having had a stick of plutonium for lunch.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“A refusal to ingest would have resulted in…” Ryan slapped a hand to her stomach – silly as it sounded, her instinct seemed to be to try to physically suppress the spread of pain through her insides. “… Suspicion or discomfort.”

Nancy’s lower lip dropped down silently, but Ryan knew her wife well enough to guess what her thoughts were; how can someone with so much wisdom and experience be so stupid?

Thankfully, dear, sweet Nancy spared her the actual voicing of the thought.

“How… How was it?”

Amidst holding down her gorge, and fighting the urge to slump to the floor and take Nancy with her, Ryan managed to muster up a look of derision. She cast it lengthways as she hobbled from the study with her hands clasped on Nancy’s shoulders. Nancy looked back at her with a gormless grimace.

“Right. Never mind.”

___

“It. Refuses. To. Emerge,” Ryan moaned into the toilet bowl.

"Sweetheart," Nancy murmured distractedly.

Ryan flung a hand up in the air, then clapped it against her thigh in a display of finality. “It will never emerge! I shall now persist with rotting vegetation in my tract for the remainder of my existence.”

Nancy gave a light-hearted click of her tongue. “This,” she hummed, “coming from the woman who refuses to give up on a single other person on earth.”

Ryan attempted to spit the sour taste from her mouth, but her excessive saliva had dried up, leaving her with nothing but a tacky residue that clung to her cheeks like cells held together with collagen. If she’d had more spit, maybe the foul contents of her stomach would have slipped up and out of her by now, instead of sticking to her insides like leeches.

“What makes you the one and only hopeless case on this entire planet, hmm?” Nancy’s eyebrows quirked as she focused on something she’d arranged in her lap, nestled in the folds of her skirt. “What makes you so special?”

Ryan sank back from the toilet, though couldn’t quite get her head to remain straight without supporting it against the side of the bowl. She rubbed miserably at her gut; the chances of producing a physiological benefit were low, but she couldn’t fight the instinct to try. Her mood shifted once she’d realised that her wife was concocting something; not hopeful, but lured back from the brink by scientific intrigue.

Her weary eyes skimmed over a couple of ingredients that Nancy had used to throw together potions over the years, though Ryan had never seen them in this combination before. From her knowledge of Nancy’s works, it seemed to her that the result of this project would be rather… well, explosive would be a word for it.

“An elixir,” Ryan murmured, “to induce emesis?”

“Mmhmm,” Nancy’s voice pulsed in her throat, as though parting her lips to answer would have been too much of a distraction.

Disappointment clouded Ryan’s curiosity, rendering it difficult not to sink into the pains in her stomach, not to feel them so completely that everything else dimmed once again. “It will not be effective on me.”

“What if I told you I have added one very special ingredient,” Nancy said, raising one sardonic eyebrow, “for one very special lady?”

“I would remind you,” Ryan muttered, “that I am not merely a special ‘lady’, but an organism of unnatural qualities, including a resistance to the potency of –”

“In that case, you would have nothing to lose, isn’t that correct, my love?”

Ryan snatched the vial with what was probably excessive force and knocked back the liquid. Something stirred in her memory as she gulped, as though her taste buds had somewhat drifted out of slumber, just for a nanosecond. Mostly, she enjoyed how cool the fluid was as it snaked down her burning throat and carved its steady way down towards her stomach.

“It,” she spat, mouth dry as she lowered the vial, “will be ineffective.”

Nancy wore a patient smile almost as well as she wore a sweetheart neckline. More impressively, even, for Ryan knew that Nancy’s reserves of patience did not run as deep as their boys, or her students, thought. That patient smile was a thing of fine craftsmanship.

“If so,” she said softly, “I apologise. But wasn’t it worth a shot?”

Ryan had to turn her face away to avoid the humbling light of Nancy’s well-fought-for optimism. Her stomach rumbled in acknowledgment of its latest arrival, confirmed even further by a vibration through Ryan’s hand. “I suppose so.”

Nancy stretched her arms above her head, tilting her folded knees to keep her equipment and ingredients from rolling over the tiled floor. “Whew. I for one am mighty tired of this floor, Ry. Mind if we move you to the bed with a bucket instead?”

___

Bed and bucket proved a mundane combination to an immortal woman with work on the brain and an immovable lump in her stomach.

Ryan lay slumped on her side, face right at the edge of the bed so that she could keep an eye on her designated bucket, for so long that the sun set behind the curtains. About six kilometres away, a cricket began to shriek, adding itself to the din of the city. The world moved on, progressed, thrived, while Ryan lay overwhelmed with nausea, unable to digest or eject the offending food.

And yet her stomach continued to grumble its discomfort.

Nancy had stayed awake with her, fondling her hair in a way that reminded Ryan just vaguely of being fussed over by her mother. She wasn’t certain if the memory was welcome or not, and tried to let it wash over her like the tide. Nancy had also massaged Ryan’s back for a while which, whilst failing to dislodge the knots in her stomach, had done wonders for the tension in her muscles.

Gghhhhrrrlllgghh.

“Ssshh,” Ryan hissed, pressing her knuckles harshly against her stomach muscles. The pressure evidently would offer no help in inducing vomiting, but there was nothing to say a little aggression wouldn’t discourage the infuriating noises that continued to –

“Ry,” Nancy chided, closing her fingers around Ryan’s fist and guiding it halfway across the bed. She pressed Ryan's wrist into the top sheet, far away from where it could do any more persuading. “Please don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“It is wearing on my nerves like –”

“I don’t care.” Nancy’s tone prodded at the fog of nausea and rage, and Ryan caught glimpse of herself through her wife’s eyes. “You’re wearing on mine with this nonsense. You’ve put your body through an ordeal already today, and now is the time to let it recover in whatever way it needs. Isn't that the wise thing to do?"

She exhaled noisily through her nose – was that a snort of amusement? – as Ryan’s stomach gurgled and bubbled a few inches from her elbow. Ryan’s brain flared with annoyance, which she quickly threw some reins on.

“Perhaps.”

“There is no ‘perhaps’,” Nancy said. “But you’re already suffering enough bodily, so I won’t put you through the mental torture of admitting that I'm right."

Ryan hummed in appreciation. Nancy didn't let up on her hand, so Ryan eventually turned her palm upwards so that their fingers could interlock. She almost found herself drifting off to sleep when she realised Nancy had shifted and slipped her hand away. Ryan felt her tug a wisp of Ryan's silvery-blonde hair back from her face, heard her wife holding her breath in a way that invited conversation.

“Yes?” Ryan had slurred before Nancy had even spoken.

“Will you try taking a second dose?”

It took Ryan longer than she was proud to admit to realise that Nancy was talking about the elixir she’d concocted earlier. If she thought about it hard enough, Ryan was sure that she could still feel the cool, slightly sticky medicine sitting alongside the offending mush in the pit of her stomach. Not making anything worse, but certainly not improving anything.

Ryan grunted. “I do not think it will –”

“Let me rephrase,” Nancy interrupted. “I have a second dose for you, and I strongly suggest you take it.”

With an even more aggressive grunt, Ryan hauled herself into a somewhat-upright position. It would be easier to take the useless potion than to incite further argument. She winced as the sudden movement made it feel as though her intestines were poised to crack inside of her.

“Give it to me,” she deadpanned, but Nancy was already un-stoppering the vial for her. Ryan slurped it back, fueled by nothing but the assuredness that this was not going to work, and was astonished to find herself licking her lips as soon as she’d swallowed. Even more bizarre, she found herself anticipating the smooth sensation of the medicine coursing down her throat, cooling and almost pleasant in its –

It stuck. It stuck, like a rock in the centre of her chest.

Ryan swallowed again, her posture turning rigid. She was only vaguely aware of Nancy’s hand coming up to rest on her waist.

A bubble of pressure slipped into the back of Ryan’s throat, and her stomach muscles jolted, resulting in a high-pitched exclamation and a thunderous, sloshing gurgle.

And then a belch.

A deep one, one that she felt reverberate under her lower left rib. The moment had a faint gloss of eureka to it, like she’d made a world-changing discovery, but at its core was a pit of dread, like she’d made a world-ending discovery.

She shuddered, torn halfway between turning towards the edge of the bed and turning to face her wife in disbelief.

“What… what’d you –?”

"Don't worry about it, cookie."

"But..."

In her desperate curiosity, Ryan almost choked on a mouthful of vomit. She would have ejected it all over the bedroom floor, had Nancy not laid gentle hands on the sides of her head and directed the spray downwards. There was a conveniently-placed bucket beside the bed, primed to catch and contain her vomit.

The bulk of it, at least.

As the retch had lost momentum, a small wave of thick slime had dripped from Ryan’s lower lip, hitting the floorboards between the bed and the bucket with a weighty thwop.

“Wonderful,” Ryan choked out, swiping her chin with the back of her hand. She barely had time to consider where she was going to wipe said hand when her guts gave another powerful lurch.

This time, a delicate hand slipped across the bed and tugged the rim of the bucket closer to Ryan’s side of the mattress. Nancy’s chest and stomach brushed softly against Ryan’s back.

“Great job,” Nancy murmured softly.

Ryan would have scoffed, if she’d been able to catch her breath. Great job? Great job suffering through the consequences of a bad decision? Great job smearing the hardwood with her gastric juices? She was not a child; even a child shouldn’t have been praised for anything she was doing.

Ryan cried out instinctively as she gagged again, the hollow ring of her voice echoing loudly inside the metal bucket over the gushing and splashing. She felt Nancy’s hands move to her shoulders, fingers lightly massaging the tumultuous muscles there.

"Oh," Ryan sighed as soon as she could get a word in between heaves. The mechanical harmony of clenching muscles and ejected fluids was almost as comforting as her wife's touch. After all, what could be more reassuring than the knowledge that one's body is working as it should?

"Better?" Nancy whispered, using her pinky to fish a pale curl away from the edge of Ryan's mouth.

Ryan hung her head over the side of the mattress, slack-jawed, unwilling to close her mouth and risk inhibiting further substance elimination. Nancy shifted her hands as though to hold her in place, and although she wasn't, Ryan found she was rather enjoying the illusion.

"Yes," she slurred, though she knew her ordeal was far from over. "Ineffably so."