#the unluckiest robot of them all

[hms-no-fun]

Sarah, Do you hate Rose Lalonde? Not in like the heavy malicious way people associate with Andrew and his relationship with hussie but like, as a fan of godfeels for probably the wrong reasons (my autistic ass really likes the way you approach the character and also me when someone writes Dirk and doesn’t make him a irredeemable piece of shit and a active creep) something that’s stuck out to me reading your tumblr and thinking back on the story is that rose is, to me at least, one of the most unluckiest characters in godfeels, both from a writing and in character perspective,m.

she’s the first to display the kid’s transphobia and thereby the first to get reality checked by June (which, to be fair to both June as a character and your reason for that scene in your godfeels video, she deserved) and therefor the first forced to learn the lesson of “you can move on and continue being friends with people but still not forgive them for the shit they put you through” (which I will admit I might be wrong on) and I’m pretty sure the first one to die when June does the whole kill everyone (or at least everyone that’s considered gods) on earth c thing, and besides that, unless I’ve misremembered something, besides the first chapter of divergence syndrome, she doesn’t really do much until she gives her final message to kanaya and well, the shit all goes down.

I’m not a big big fan of rose Lalonde, but it just feels like there’s something like, there, like there’s something about rose that you’ve never agreed with, and thinking back on it I don’t hate it, but it feels like sometimes rose is a means to a end, which is what all characters are but I mean like, a means means to a end, “how do Segway into the beta kids transphobia of June” through Rose’s constant biased Psychoanalysis failing her in the worse way possible, “How to keep epigone in after Dirk’s absolute asskicking” possessing her corpse, “how to finally get Gerald’s halo out of the story” get her dead, “how do I pronounce death to all endgame ships” kill the lesser used part of the pair, it just, feels like there’s something there, not something outright malicious, but something just, there, like the reverse of the hussie Vriska stuff, creator’s Chew toy stuff.

I apologize for the rudeness this ask may give off, I do truely love godfeels and read up to date anything about it that gets released, this just has been negging the back of my mind for so long.

spoilers for godfeels 3 here but i guess that ship's kinda sailed if you read the question lmao

i don't hate Rose at all! i mean i think freudians are all cranks and it really bugs me how much mid-century and contemporary marxist theory is couched in freudian/jungian/lacanian bullshit, but that's not really got anything to do with Rose lmao. i can't say that i hate any of the characters in godfeels the way andrew seemed to hate, say, Jake English (though there *are* homestuck characters i dislike and wouldn't enjoy writing, which is why they're not in the fic). i'm of the mind that every character sucks in their own unique ways and that's precisely what makes fiction fun to read. that Rose doesn't have a ton of direct agency in the narrative just comes down to, in part, this being a story focused primarily on June. that i didn't really understand how to write Rose in gf1-2 certainly doesn't help. but it's also related to how i interpret her role as a Seer of Light.

her role in gf3 onwards is defined by the Epilogues, where she either needed to transfer her consciousness to a robot body that could contain her ultimate self before her physical body died, or otherwise exist in a universe untethered from canon where connection to her ultimate self is irrelevant. she's had visions of, presumably, a great deal of the events of chapter 8, and i think understood that VV's whole gambit (whether or not she knew it was VV specifically playing this game) was to split the difference between Candy and Meat by disconnecting from Homestuck canon while still maintaining existential relevance in the shadow of some other story.

a lot of the best narrative premonitions/prophecies, especially in Homestuck, use them for dramatic irony-- that is, by trying to avoid a projected future, you only end up creating it. classic macbeth shit. if there's anyone in this story who viscerally understands that vicious narratological cycle, it's Rose Lalonde. so rather than pushing back, warning her friends, trying to rally the troops, she instead accepts that her universe's survival requires sacrifice, namely Major Character Death.

in this way, her so-called suicide wind is an echo of Dirk's own suicide in Candy, albeit towards existentially opposite purposes. and in that sense it's an equally selfish act, because who knows! maybe they *could* have done something substantial to prepare for Epigone's coming if Rose had bothered to warn anyone! but such is the passive nihilism of our beloved Seer, whose death could never be anything less than a dramatic tragedy. this was, in fact, an exercise in absolute agency-- Rose chose to accept her fate rather than fight back against it, perhaps even vibed with how poetic it was to be decapitated by her own beloved wife.

all of this is very relevant to the future of godfeels-- i didn't put her at the center of a load-bearing polycule just to have her death be meaningless. :)

[alias-sam]

Pierced by a Golden Soul

Chapter 4. Know Your Enemy Part 1

Platonic Jojo's x Reader

Summary: Fate is a bizarre concept with countless more bizarre implications. In life sometimes such extraordinary events happen that the only reasoning left must be fate. The tragedies that constantly befall the Joestar bloodline for example may be the unluckiest series of cards drawn in human history, or perhaps the work of a greater power. There is no way to tell for sure. Had Dio Brando or Jonathan Joestar moved slightly on a divergent path the world itself would be left very different. The fate or luck of the noble Joestar bloodline has led to destruction of evil likes of the Pillar Men and DIO. This story is of a similar caliber to that of the other Joestars (as I am sure you are familiar with them). This is a story of lost souls, compassion, hope, and above all fate.

Word Count: 2,063

(Crosspost from Wattpad, full fic is already posted there.)

When you told your mother that you had detention, she did indeed have a cow. It was the expected reaction, but still pretty embarrassing. You hadn't been scolded by your her in years, her stern voice reminded you of when you would get into trouble as a kid. After Senora Jones warned you to not be late again you retreated to your room upstairs from the bakery.

You didn't think to lock the door before jumping into what you had been wanting to all day. With bated breath you called upon your so called 'stand'. It took you a few tries, since you had only manifested parts of it before. Eventually you were face to face with a humanoid figure.

It was the exact same height as you, and mirrored any movement you made. Its 'skin' was a shiny metallic yellowish gold that reflected the late afternoon sunlight streaming in from a nearby window. The mouth, nose, and general lower face was concealed by a face mask. You examined it for several minutes but still couldn't conclude if the mask was clothing or part of its face. The eyes of your stand were a solid purple color with vertical lines across them. It wore clothes, which was odd given it looked like a robot, there was a jacket with a hood that was pulled over your stand's head. Finally, there was a belt that had a sort of loop on each side, they didn't seem to serve any purpose but they succeeded in making your stand look unique.

You experimented with your stand for hours trying to fully get a handle on how to control it. Your antics began with general movement. When you raised a hand in front of the stand, it mirrored you. Then you focused on just maneuvering the stand, it was surprisingly simple to get a hang of. It felt natural and somewhat familiar. Your mind generated more and more questions as you got familiar with your stand. Most of them were general questions like: what exactly is this thing? Why do I have one? What does it do? But also, more specific ones like, why was the mugger from this morning so intent on getting rid of you the second he realized you had a stand? Were there more stand wielders around? Were you in danger because of these stands? You were walking a line between information overload and information deprivation.

The day slipped away as you tried to get a grip on your stand situation. Eventually you had been working with it until after dark. Senora Jones was worried about how you had holed up in your room all day. Dinner time quickly rolled around, but you were to enthralled by what you were doing to notice.

Senora Jones stood in the kitchen alone before deciding to go check on you. Typically, you weren't the secretive type so she didn't think to knock before entering. Senora Jones opened your door only to find you standing alone in the middle of your room. You went rigid upon hearing the creak of your door's hinges.

"Dinner is ready sweetheart." Senora Jones smiled before pausing when she noticed your panicked expression. "Is everything okay?"

You mentally freaked out while trying to find words to explain the situation to your mother. However, you didn't have to, since her gaze never once turned to the figure behind you. Could you mother not see the colorful robot ghost thing behind you? You realized it was similar to Jaya, who's eyes never focused on Metal Health during the fight.

"I'm fine." You laughed nervously. "I'll be there in a minute."

"Alrighty then." Senora Jones glanced around your room suspiciously before closing your door and heading back to the kitchen.

You decided to stop for the night.

.......................

The next morning you walked to school with Jaya. You did have to remind her about the broken crosswalk sign. She was pretty talkative, but you didn't mind. It was a nice change of pace. You and Jaya didn't have any classes together, which explained you never meeting previously.

As the two of you entered school Jaya got some odd looks from many students. None of your fan girls came anywhere close to you which was highly appreciated. One or two walked up, but then saw Jaya. Saddened and betrayed expressions came across their faces and then they walked away, you didn't notice it though.

The school day began and ended with little consequence, but the entire time you mind was weighted by what awaited you after school.

..................

While other students headed out of school, you walked quietly to the classroom written on your detention slip. When you entered the room you were greeted by the same teacher who gave you the detention. She haphazardly instructed you to take a seat. As expected, Blake was there leaning back in a desk, hands positioned behind his head. It seemed you were going to be the only two there. You were expecting him to say something to you, a snide comment at least.

He just looked forward, occasionally his eyes would shift to something on the wall, but for the most part he didn't even acknowledge you had walked in. You awkwardly took a seat, taking out your homework to do. Ten minutes later Blake's behavior was starting to bother you. His motions were robotic, and if you payed attention, his eyes would follow a sort of timed pattern. Look at a poser, two three seconds, then shift to the wall clock. It was creepy to watch, had the teacher noticed this? Probably not, she was grading papers, never looking up from her work.

.........................................................................

Thirty minutes later your detention was over, so the teacher told you and Blake to scram. She quickly grabbed her own things and left. You got up from your own seat, but carefully watched Blake. He didn't move an inch from his spot. You waved a hand in front of his face, this time he looked at you. Blake blinked a few times, staring at you blankly.

"Uh? Detention's over. What are you waiting around for? We can go now."

"Yeah." He said before mechanically moving out of his desk and heading to the door.

What the hell? You grabbed your bag and followed him out of the classroom. Blake was headed down a hallway leading away from the front of the building. Despite Blake acting so strangely, you decided not to follow him. Ideally someone finally put him in his place and he was reflecting. Or he was stoned out of his mind. Hard to say. Really whatever happened wasn't your issue.

You headed to the front entrance of the school, which was next to the front office. The hallways were dark, empty, and quiet as your solitary footsteps echoed across the tiled floors. It was unnerving how the teachers and staff cleared out so fast.

When you turned the last corner leading to the office you were faced with someone unexpected. Standing behind one of the administrative desks, was Blake Greenmin? The same guy you distinctly remembered walking in the opposite direction. He was busily sifting through papers and manila folders. You took another step towards him before he noticed you.

Blake halted whatever he was doing to make direct eye contact with you.

"Hi Y/n." He greeted, immediately returning to flipping over papers.

"How did-?" you stuttered. Maybe this was a prank?

"What are you doing here so late?" Blake asked, legitimately sounding like he hadn't just seen you in detention.

"I was caught trying to sneak into school late the other day, so I had detention... How did you get here so fast?" You asked, completely missing Blake's eyes widen by a fraction. "Never mind that, what are you doing in that desk?"

Blake slowly set down a folder he had been looking at and glared at you.

"Got a problem Y/n? Seeing double?" In an instant the guy's body gave off a navy-blue glow and another figure appeared in the room. It stood behind Blake, the pair striking an odd pose together. You looked straight at the thing that appeared. A big mistake since Blake immediately noticed.

"In my experience nobody has been able to see my ability, but you seem to." This was a stand? Why were you just now running into these things? And right after the ordeal yesterday!

The stand, or at least what you assumed was a stand looked pretty odd. It was more human looking and less robotic than yours or the mugger's. Its entire body was the same navy blue as its aura. It had accents of green and orange on its arms, legs, eyes, and torso.

"Y-you have a stand?!" You gasped and backed up a few steps.

"Is that what these are called? Well then, I'll have you know my stand 'Know Your Enemy' is about to send you flying."

The stand placed its hand on the desk, you watched as it touched several pens and pencils. The writing tools multiplied before your eyes. The originals stayed on the desk, but the copies slowly floated upward, and then shot toward you.

You backed up a few steps before breaking into a run down the hallway. Whatever this situation was, you didn't want to fight another stand. Unfortunately, 'Know Your Enemy' ran after you. Blake didn't follow his stand, but seemed to have good control over it from a long distance. The pens and pencils also followed you, like some sort of heat seeking missiles.

You dropped your school bag and kept running, passing lockers, classrooms, and closets. While rounding a corner you looked back to see if the sand was still there, however this prevented you from noticing someone else rounding the same corner. The impact was hard enough to make the other person stumble, while you fell to the ground.

The pens and pencils were flying at you, with Know Your Enemy following not far behind. When they got to close for comfort you were left with no other options. You summoned your stand and had it punch at the floating copies.

"Muda!"

Your stand managed to punch all of the copies, effectively protecting both you and the man. The copies shattered like glass, but made no sound, and the pieces vanished into thin air. Whatever sound your stand had made, it caught both you and the man off guard. You still weren't sure if your stand had a mouth or not, but whatever it said sounded a lot like your voice just with a slight echo to it.

"Sorry sir!" You yelled, running past the bewildered man. From what you had gathered by watching Jaya and Senora Jones, non-stand users couldn't see stands. It was an odd situation to see whether he was a stand user or not, but you didn't have any time to explain yourself. Jotaro was about to call after you, but Know Your Enemy pushed him as it ran past him.

You sprinted down a few more hallways before deciding to duck into a nearby classroom. With luck you could lose the stand. When you tried to close the door behind you a blue hand shoved its way in. You fled to the other side of the room with Know Your Enemy still following.

"Why are you chasing me? I haven't done anything!" You were breathing heavily from all the running. The stand walked to a nearby bookshelf. It picked up a dictionary and proceeded to slowly make its way towards you.

"Look, if I let you go there would be no way of telling if you'd keep your trap shut. Plus, my master knows you. Despite everyone in school considering you just some face in the crowd, he realizes that you are nothing but a goody two shoes. You worry yourself with defending others, and upholding worthless concepts like respect and honesty. If I let you go, you'd tell the teachers or even try to stop us yourself. My master can't have that, so I think I'm going to just beat you senseless with these dictionaries!" Know Your Enemy multiplied the dictionary, the copies floated around the stand.

You closed your eyes and braced yourself for an impact that never came.

"Ora!"

Surprised, you looked up to find-... a buff naked purple guy?

[thebibliomancer]

100 Days of Comics! 033/100: The Avengers #24.1 (2012)

Today’s rummage in the box of 100 random comics brings me something more in my usual wheelhouse! Avengers! Robo-angst! What the heckle does .1 mean though?

From what I could find, it was either intended to create a jumping on point for new readers or represents Uatu’s fugue state that occurs every three years for 42 minutes.

Comics are weird.

So anyway. A long time ago around or about Avengers #500 the title was hemorrhaging readers due to the lackluster to completely shitty follow-ups to the Kurt Busiek run. I’ll single out Chuck Austen and then shake a fist at the sky. Brian Michael Bendis was brought onto the book and told to shake things up.

He did this by killing off a bunch of characters (including Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and the Vision), almost completely rendering the Scarlet Witch a radioactive character, having the team disbanded and the book cancelled. Good job, Bendis, you saved the Avengers forever!

Well. Okay. The book is restarted in New Avengers which did see a major uptick in readers, possibly due to fan favorites like Wolverine, Daredevil and Spider-Man on the team or possibly due to Bendis’ writing style still being fresh at the time.

Eightish years later publishing time (and who knows how long in-universe?) Vision finally finishes repairing himself. Its one of the perks of being a synthezoid. It takes some doing to kill you dead forever.

Vision just wants to know why this happened. Why She-Hulk tore him in half.

Oh god they left Tony to be the one to tell him the bad news. This is a terrible idea. But he’s the only one around so he tells Vision that She-Hulk was being manipulated by Vision’s wife Wanda, the Scarlet Witch.

And then he has to fill Vision in on whats gone on. That Wanda went crazy, forced the Avengers to disband, that she decimated the mutant population. And that, well, they don’t even know where she is anymore. And they don’t know what to do about her even if they find her.

Kill her? Arrest her? Prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she magically wiped away a population?

We cut to Vision confronting She-Hulk as she’s lifting buses for a PSA on eating healthy and exercising. She jumps over to talk to him. And she’s clearly still upset about what she was made to do to him. She tells him that if he’s here to fight, she won’t fight back.

But he tells her that he holds no grudge against her. And that he has to find his way in this new world now.

And she gives him a hug. She asks him not to blame Wanda on account of having a fucked up childhood. Y’know, Magneto was her dad maybe depending on the day.

So Vision goes to Utopia, the island nation that Cyclops established for mutants because an island nation for mutants NEVER goes awry. He confronts Magneto and demands to know where Wanda is.

Magneto tells him off so Vision sticks his arm into Magneto’s chest and grabs his heart and demands to know again. But Magneto doesn’t know. Why would he know? Wanda hates him, probably most of all. Also, she’s a grown ass woman and she makes her own choices and she’s responsible for own choices (-shrug-). Also also, if he does rip out Magneto’s heart, the humans will never again trust him. And Vision does so love being human.

So he lets Magneto go and Magneto instantly magnets Vision and tells him he could destroy him. Worse, he could puppet him around and make him do horrible things that would forever destroy his name. But he won’t. Because maybe Vision is the only thing that could bring Wanda happiness wherever she is (getting engaged to marry Dr. Doom, if I remember correctly). But yo, you get out of line with me again robit and I’ll magnet you so hard.

Then he throws Vision off the island.

Later, the Avengers Mansion. There’s a crowd outside protesting because of course there is. Funny thing is that one of the protest signs says “What have you done for me lately?” and if that doesn’t perfectly sum up the Marvel public’s feelings towards their superheroes nothing does.

Anyway, Hawkeye and Spider-Woman are making out. I guess Hawkeye is alive in his terrible not-purple uniform. And Captain America is looking constipated as he waits for the Vision. But he’s happy that Hawkeye and Spider-Woman are dating.

Then Vision shows up and Cap yells at him for going to Utopia and picking a fight with Magneto. Vision says that he’ll leave the team if Cap says its in the Avengers’ best interests but Cap stops him there.

See. Cap knows what Vision is going through. No, really.

“You don’t think that I know what it feels like to wake up in a world you don’t understand anymore? Listen to me, my old friend... This is the best, truest advice I can give you... There’s nothing back there for you now. For people like us -- everything is that way -- forward. You need to look forward.”

And Vision falls to his knees in front of a statue of the founding Avengers plus Cap. Probably feeling a lot of feelings.

Although considering that Avengers vs X-Men was looming right on the horizon, there wasn’t much to look forward to.

I still don’t completely get why this had to be a .1 issue but I did like it. Vision is one of my favorites because of his robo-angst and there is a lot of robo-feels in this issue. From quietly asking why this happened to him to feverishly trying to find Wanda. Although when she does pop back up after Children’s Crusade, their reunion does not go well and you will believe that even an android can cry, again.

I feel that an issue like this was necessary upon bringing the Vision back. Given the circumstances of his death, he needed this focus. He was such a mainstay of the Avengers. Its a shame that since Disassembled, he’s kind of lost that status.

And then he tries to have a family of his own and that descends into a nightmare of murder and hate. Vision just can’t catch a frickin’ break.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Amphibia is weird because it’s ten-minute runtime is perfect for some episodes, but also severely hurts others.

Like “Fixing Frobo,” for example. It’s a neat and insanely cute episode that shows how much Poly misses Frobo (even though he was only part of the family for, like, barely half of Season Two), and they handle the story well despite using only ten minutes. 

“Anne-sterminator,” however, feels like it could use a little more time. The first few minutes were just blasted by, getting through each plot point before the epic showdown. It eventually levels out, but it seemed as though it weirdly needed more than ten minutes. But even then, it doesn’t feel like it needed to be a twenty minute episode. More like...an episode that needed five minutes to slowly get to the evil robot attacking them. Especially since it felt like whiplash over how sudden it was and how quickly everyone accepted that this was their situation. The fight that follows was awesome, but I feel like we needed a bit more time before rushing into things. It was fine enough, but sometimes you want something to be more that just “fine enough” right?

Still, I liked both of these episodes today. “Fixing Frobo” was cute and introduced two new characters (are they being literal by calling them girlfriends or...). And pacing issues aside, “Anne-sterminator” was pretty epic, while also proving how Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy (still waiting to learn their real names) are the best cartoon parents in a while with Mrs. Boonchuy acting as the spine while Mr. Boonchuy acts as the heart.

While Mrs. Boonchuy can be a little unfair with Anne, you get her reasoning and understand why she would be so frustrated at Anne for lying and getting into trouble. Again.

As Mr. Boonchuy, he is somehow both the luckiest and unluckiest man on the planet. He’s lucky in how he gets to have badass b**hes as a mother and a daughter, but unlucky in all the stuff that happens to him in these episodes alone. I want to both give him a hug while shaking his hand in congratulatoins.

So, yeah. Two solid episodes again this week. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Here we go...Storm’s back is against the wall but well...we know he believes in survival of the fittest and as the old saying goes, a cornered mouse always fights back. Storm isn’t just a mouse, he’s one with every possible rodent transmitted disease in the book. Don’t expect things to go down easily.

What? I’m just telling it like it is.

Life is full of hardship and suffering, and not everyone can make it through. Only those who are strong enough can hope to survive everything life throws at them.

And you, my dear, are among the strongest.

Wh...what’s that supposed to mean?

Your friend Taira told me. She...She figured it out, just before we blew up the tower.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of a man named Utsuro, haven’t you? The miracle man, the luckiest human being of all time...

...But also the unluckiest. A man with all the power in the world, and it brought him nothing but misery.

I know the story. What’s that got to do with...

...

...

Wait...are...are you saying...?

It explains so much, doesn’t it? Remember when Damian saved you from falling out the window? That was crazy good luck!

...So...Nikei, Iroha, Emma, Hajime, Akane...

I have Divine Luck, just like them?

That’s what she told me.

I can also tell you more.

That story about Utsuro curing all the people in the hospital he was born in? Well, guess who also happened to be working in that very same hospital on that exact day?

None other than a Mrs. Nanami Harumi.

Mom...? She...She was affected by it?

Not just affected. It helped guarantee you were born in the first place.

I mean, I know the story goes that the Children of Utsuro owe their life to the guy, but for you, it couldn’t be more literal.

...

But you know what that means, right? You failed. No matter what you tried to do, you couldn’t beat her. She’s basically invincible.

I wouldn’t go that far, Kana-chan.

*Chiaki puts an arm in front of Kana and stands between her and Storm*

Protecting your little sister? How noble of you.

Like I said, she’s invincible.

You know, Kana-chan, lying is such a cruel thing to do, especially after you were so harsh to me about doing it. I’ve done nothing but tell her the truth.

Tell me, did your friends ever let you know your luck is limited? It’s gonna run out sometime, and it can be broken under the right circumstances.

…So that’s why. You did all this so my Divine Luck would stop protecting me.

Well, it won’t work! I’ve got Kana, I’ve got my friends, and we’ve got an army!

Oh yeah, I know.

But I’ve got this.

*Maverick snaps his fingers. A smaller robot rolls up beside him and projects a holographic screen*

*It switches back and forth to show several people in their hotel rooms with robots standing over them, looking absolutely terrified*

You...

You didn’t save everyone, you know. Sure, someone managed to slip out of my grasp, but you said no deaths would happen on this island, right? I can prove you wrong with a snap of my fingers.

And I’ll let you in on a secret: if your friend Kanon loses up there, she plans on throwing herself out the window. Or the elevator shaft. Whichever is available.

You bastard! Leave her out of this!

It’s so funny, isn’t it? All the luck in the world, but your lives are nothing but miserable tragedy after miserable tragedy.

But let me make this clear for you, Nanami Chiaki: I’m giving you a choice. I know I’m on the verge of losing, but understand that every single death that happens here is your fault. These people were ripped from their homes and it’s your fault. This entire situation happened because of you.

But you can do the noble thing. You can stand down and let me do my job. Sacrifice yourself for the greater good.

And since I’m feeling generous, even after all the bullshit you’ve caused, I’ll let you go, Kana-chan.

Like I’d ever buy that!

...

If you run or try to fight me, I will order my robots to kill. There’s nothing anyone here can do, get it? You might get me in a rush, but you’ll have blood on your hands and the memory that you could’ve made another choice.

I told you once already. Nobody lives life in a vacuum. All of us, in one way or another, impact the world around us.

So what’ll it be? Do you wanna be a great big hero? Isn’t that why you came to this island? Or do innocents not matter to you after all?

...

[fairymadnessyeah]

A Definitely Real Dad

Link to AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016309

Summary: Gyro seeks advice from an expert when he is faced with his greatest foe yet: Parenting an adorable real boy.

Or Alternatively: Mad scientist feeling emotions for tiny adorable robot needs help from tired and expert parent that is also a sailor.

Notes: This needs to happen.

Also Ducktales Disney right now: "You get a child, you get a child, you get a child, EVERYBODY GETS A CHILD!!!!"

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

"Why do you think Doctor Gearloose invited us to his lab?" Huey asked his companions Louis, Dewey, Webby, Della and Donald as they rode the elevator to the underwater laboratory below McDuck Enterprises'.

The elevator dinged and open its doors, revealing Doctor Gearloose looking at a piece of paper while Manny, Lil Bulb and Fenton working on a turbine.

"Oh, the ducks are here!" Gyro exclaims, folding the paper he had on his hands and pocketing it in his pants. He gently leads the family to where his partners were working as he explains why he needed them here. "I need your assistance testing my new mega super plane turbine powered by gold!"

Almost all the ducks present gasp in amazement and run towards the invention. The only one that looks at it in suspicion is the mature Donald Duck. He eventually shrugs it off, his uncle's employee wouldn't purposely put his kids in danger. But then he feels a feathered hand on his shoulder and a dark aura behind him. He turned around slowly, the feathers at the back of his neck standing up.

Doctor Gyro Gearloose was looking down at him, his face neutral and the light shining against his glasses hid his eyes, making him look extremely intimidating. "You will come with me Mr Duck," The scientist tells him slowly and threateningly.

As the unluckiest duck on the world was being shoved to a side room by the mad scientist, his family, ignorant to what was happening to him, kept playing with the machine. Although it didn't take long for the kids and Della to lose interest. As the turbine got boring, they noticed that the duck sailor was missing. Fenton dismissed their worries though, telling them that Doctor Gearloose probably needed him for something and continued to show them his inventions.

"And these are my spy-bugs," Fenton presents, showing them a bunch of different flying insects robots. Pressing a code on a mini-computer, the firefly one activates, lifting into the air. "With these little guys, we would be able to have 24-hour surveillance. They all work in a hive-mind structure and are controlled by this remote device that can be connected with any sort of memory RAM. NOW CONTEMPLATE!" Fenton uses the remote device to move the firefly out of the room and then turn on the giant computer of the lab and it starts showing what the robot is recording.

"HOW COME YOU WON'T DO IT!?"  A shout echoes nearby the robot and Fenton, recognising Dr Gearloose voice, makes the machine follow the sound. They see an office where Gyro is holding Donald by his uniform and shaking him. The scientist then sighs and lets him go.  "Well, If you won't cooperate, then you leave me no choice!"  Gyro declares as he takes off his glasses dramatically and stands taller over the duck, looking ready to destroy him.

"PLEEEEEEESSSSSEEEEEEEE!"

The peppers let go of the breath they were holding. Gyro had not done anything to Donald, instead, he fell to his knees and begged the other bird as he held his glasses in his hands clasped like a prayer.

"Alright, I'll help you," Donald sighs, his voice resembling that of a normal being. Dewey said he sounded like an actor from one of those comic book movies that everybody got crazy for. "But I can't guarantee results," Gyro got up and, out of nowhere, got top-notch audio recording gear and sat on a stool with a note pad and a pen.

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

"First," Donald started. "You need to listen. Listen to what they say, how they say it and what they don't say. That is usually where the problems appear,"

"You also need to be trustworthy. You want them to come to you with their problems. But until that happens, you need to show them that you can and will help them solve their problem,"

"But if they don't tell me what's wrong how am I supposed to know that something is even wrong?" Gyro asks.

"That is the next tip, notice the little details. For example, whenever Huey drinks chocolate-milk with three spoons of cocoa powder instead of two, means that his junior woodchuck meeting didn't go so well; Whenever Dewey does a dance that consists of two spins, one flip and landing on bent knees and jazz hands means he is proud of something; or whenever Louis gets a wrinkle next to his right eye, means he is lying,"

"But the two most important things you need to remember and never forget is that you are a parent and that your life is not only yours anymore,"

"What do you mean?" Gyro asks again. "I am his parent, what else would I be?"

"It means that you aren't his friend, you aren't his buddy that will never get mad and will do anything for you. You are his parent and sometimes, you have to be the bad guy of the story," Donald tells him.

"And the life-thing?"

"It's his no. You eat what they want to eat, you eat what they want to eat, you watch what they want to watch. Your life revolves around them, they matter more than you or your feelings now,"

Gyro nods and it looks like he is about to say something but the screen turns black.

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

"Hey," Dewey complains as the image disappears.

"I'm sorry little ducks, but that seemed like a private conversation and I refuse to eavesdrop on it anymore," Fenton tells them as the robotic-firefly returns and he leaves it with the rest. "Come, I have more inventions you can play with it," He gently guides them away from the monitor.

The ducks follow him with Lil Bulb behind them, except for one. The grown woman was starring at the screen. Every time she believed that she understood how the last years without her had been for her twin, she found out that there was something she had missed. And Donald's examples, about the tiniest details of the boys, she didn't know any of them, yet Donald seemed to know them by heart.

"Mom?" Dewey called as he turned back for her, after noticing she didn't follow them.

"Comin' honey" She snapped out of her inner monologue and followed her kids.

They spent a whole afternoon testing and helping Fenton, at some point, even Boyd joined them. The kids spent the evening together, playing, laughing and catching up. Boyd was now living full-time at the lab with Dr Gearloose, Manny and Lil Bulb.

The drakes had not taken the news very well, believing that once Boyd left, things would go back to the way things were before him. But the real boy made sure to pass his half of the inheritance to the two responsible adults, leaving Doofus without the power to be richer than his parents. They were all making plans for Boyd to come and sleepover at McDuck when the duck and the rooster that were missing came into the room. Dewey was the first one to ask for the cybernetic boy to come over.

"Well, I have no problem with it," Donald said in his normal voice.

"May I go, Dr Gearloose?" Boyd asks, looking up to the scientist.

"Maybe some other time, we still have to check if there is any residual damage from Beaks viruses on you," The chicken explains and pats the real boy on the head.

"Alright, thank you Dr Gearloose,"

Not long after the duck family is leaving, as well as Dr Fenton. Manny also retreated to his quarters soon enough. Gyro was working on Boyd wiring while the real boy was telling him about his day.

"And Mrs mom was very sad when I got to leave but she told me I can return any moment,"

"Would you like that?" Gyro asks remembering what Donald had told him.  ("Make him feel listened to. Do things he likes, and if they want to do anything without you, let him be. You are not the only person in his life.")

"Yes, that would be splendid! Once my programme is clear, could we visit?" Boyd asks.

"Of Course we can," Gyro tells him as he closes the lid on the robot's head. "But now it's time to recharge so that you have all your energy for tomorrow. You have that Woodchuck-thingy you like, right?"

"Yes, my Junior Woodchuck meeting, at 9:30 sharp, remember to bring Ice-pops wood sticks," He says as if reading a remainder on a calendar while the scientist and his creation when to Boyd's room.

The room used to be a storage closet for failed projects, but they put up a sliding door to give Boyd more privacy. The real boy had a closet, a small library with a study table, a laptop, some video-games and a bed. The bed was more like a nest, with a Japanese mattress and a lot of pillows and blankets piled up to make a circular form. Boyd would usually sleep in the middle with the blankets and pillows cocooning him in warmth. Next to his bed-nest, there is a tall bulbless lamp. Doctor Gyro used to have it in his room since it was Lil Bulb's resting place, but the little rascal moved it once Boyd's room started being furnished.

"Alright, I'll drive you tomorrow and we will pick up what you need on the way," Gyro tells him as he connects wires to his back panel to charge him. "If you need anything I will be on the room next door," The chicken said.  ("Always remind him that you are there for him. Kids tend to forget that,")

"Goodnight, Dr Gearloose!"

"Goodnight, Boyd!" He sees Lil Bulb climbing the lamp and posting himself on the top, before the light it emitted turned off before he leaves the room.

As soon as he is outside, the renewed scientist with a high intellect punched the air in excitement as the word "Success!" went off in his mind. When he turned to his side, heading towards his room, he saw Manny in front of his own door. The two scientists looked at each other for a while, no one moving, until the rooster fixes his clothes and his glasses.

"Not a tap from you, or your headless behind is fired," He tells the horse as he steps into his room.

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

Another date, another morning, another day where Doctor Gyro Gearloose wakes up to another mistake made by naive and foolish Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera that he had to deal with. This time in the form of a weird duck dressed in so much black, that the scientist is willing to bet its a hobo-emo that his stupid ex-intern picked up last night. The guy looks extremely beat up and not alone. There is also that stupid pilot that hangs around McDuck and a girl duckling.

Gyro sighs frustrated and rubs his temples. He did not have time for this. He had to take Boyd to his scouts meeting and even buy something on the way there.

"Explanation, Now," Gyro demand as he goes closer and checks on the individual better.

Launchpad, Fenton and the kid, who he learns her name is Gosalyn and the daughter of said hobo-emo, tell him that Gizmoduck and Darkwing Duck had a sort of agreement. They each take turns patrolling the city, both day and night, but last night, Darkwing came upon something too big for him and Gosalyn, who Gyro was starting to realize had more brain cells than the three adults combined, called Gizmoduck for back up. The two self-proclaimed superheroes ended the job, but the one not protected by a metallic super-suit, unsurprisingly, got the worst part of the stick and ended up in here to recover.

Just as they finished explaining their night full of shenanigans, Boyd came out into the main room of the lab, wearing his Junior Woodchuck uniform and a backpack.

"Oh, hi! I am B.O.Y.D! A definitely real boy!" The android says once he notices the other unknown ducks in the room.

"I want them out of my lab by the moment I'm back, Crackshell. Understood?" Gyro threatens the other scientist, that nods in response, and then turns to Boyd. "Come on Boyd, we don't want to be late to your meeting," The boy takes his hand and the two walk to the elevator.

"It was nice to meet you!" Boyd tells the others and waves as the elevator doors close.

The two birds head to the central park of Duckberg, stopping on a convenience store on their way. Using his moped is easier and faster than any car, not needing to wait for traffic. And even if Boyd can fly, he had already told him to only use his robotic enhancements when needed. Not to mention that it also helps with one of the tips he was given yesterday.  ("You have to prioritize him. Once everything is done with him, you can follow with your day,")

The reach the park fairly quickly, but when he gives Boyd the things they bought for this meeting, he notices that the backpack moves. It takes him a second to realize that Bulb never came out of the boy's room.

"Come on out Lil Bulb," He tells the backpack, and sure enough, said invention comes out of the little boy's knapsack.

"He wanted to accompany me to my Junior Woodchuck meeting," Boyd tells him. "Can he come?" ("You have to set rules, boundaries. There are things that they can't do or can't touch. And you have to tell him so, because even if it sounds obvious to you, it might not to them.")

"He can't Boyd, I need him at the lab," He explains to the real boy.

"Understood. Goodbye, Doctor Gearloose!"

"I'll see you at lunch," The scientist gets back on his moped and straps his helmet on. He notices that Lil Bulb is giving his back to him with his arm crossed, as if offended over what happened. "Oh please, don't be difficult you too,"

As he makes his way back to the underwater lab, he can't help the feeling that those three lunatic and that girl are gonna be there. Not surprisingly, when the elevator's doors ding open, the idiot, the stupid and the girl are marvelling at the facility and its contents as hobo-emo was slowly getting off the table he was laid in and stretching his column back into place.

"Gosalyn, don't touch that! You don't know what it does!" He reprimands the girl.

Gyro sighs defeated and pours himself a cup of coffee. As he sips his revival elixir, his mind wanders at the purple and black buffoon before him. The guy was in a dire need of an upgrade. He didn't scream battle-suit like Gizmo, but maybe a few gadgets and a more protective and lasting outfit would benefit him. If the guy was going to go around and try to be a nameless and unrecognised vigilante, the least he could do was have more than just a costume and a poor ensemble of sidekicks.

"Gosalyn, No, Get down from there!" Or maybe what he needed was something else.

Gyro looked at the girl duckling, who was balancing over an old cloning tube of his, and then back at the nightly superhero, who had red lines over his eyes, enormous black bags under his eyes, a stiff neck and almost ready to drop dead any second now. Analysing the facts he had, he made a decision.

"Gosalyn, Get down from there, We need to go! Now!" The dark avenger of the night kept scolding the younger duck, that still lead him nowhere.

"Here," Gyro, out of nowhere, presented a card to the shorter man. "A parenting expert, it seems like you need it,"

Drake looks between the card and the scary mad scientist twice before taking the card. Gyro left him alone once he took it to keep working on his inventions, leaving Drake to his own devices with the card.

Donald Duck xxx-xxxx-xxxx McDuck Manor's Pool

[lordgoopy]

Fallout OC Interview

Choose an OC.

Answer them as that OC.

Tag 5 people to do the same.

just steal this from me and say i tagged you, or not, it feels awkward to tag plp

1. What is your name?

… Aurelio.

2. How old are you?

Thirty-six.

3. What do you look like?

Average looking barring th'height… makes me stand like a sore thumb.

4. Where are you from? Where do you live now?

'Used to work at Follower Outposts as'a medic years ago… Just live between several bases of m' own nowadays.

5. What was your childhood like?

… 'Was decent, I guess.

6. What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions?

… Boomers, Khans, Followers… Sullied any alliance with bigger factions than them.

7. Tell me about your best friend.

'Guess that'd be Ulysses… He's a miserable bastard… guess we both are.

… What he wanted was a murder-suicide, glad it didn't come down to that. He's a good friend.

8. Do you have a family? Tell me about them!

… Don't really have a family anymore.

9. What about a partner or partners?

… Had some in the past; didn't last, obviously.

10. Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them?

A bunch of isolationists, some friends used to be with them, but exiled themselves in bad terms... I don't particularly have good thoughts about them.

11. Who are your enemies, and why?

… list is too long, would take up too much time… cutting it short it comes down to the Legion and the NCR.

12. What about The Enclave?

… 've met some people like them, in a way. Also met some of their victims back when I was with the Followers… Glad I never ran into them myself.

13. How do you feel about Super Mutants?

I get why folks are afraid of them, considering their past and appearance…

Perhaps it's because I'm nearly as tall as some of them, but I don't have a strong opinion of them.

14. Have you ever fought a Deathclaw?

Unfortunately… have got deep scars from it.

15. What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in?

… Getting chased by robot scorpions and dogs with both m' legs broken while in a mock pre-war school… sure I was trying to run away but it counts.

16. Do you like fighting?

Not at all… prefer to talk things out.

17. What’s your weapon of choice?

Anti-material rifle… if i have to fight I'd rather finish the fight before it starts.

18. How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?)

According to everyone 'm pretty smart… but also the unluckiest and least graceful bastard they've ever seen…

… Can't really argue the latter half.

19. Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them?

They're awful… even without the experiments.

20. How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you?

A lot of Rad-X and RadAway… Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if I started ghoulifying in a few years.

21. What’s your favorite wasteland critter?

Bighorners are pretty cute when they're not angry.

22. What’s your least favorite wasteland critter?

Cazadores, they move so fast it's near impossible to shoot them from a safe distance… Have gotten stung so many times I'm resistant to their venom.

23. How do you feel about robots?

'Don't have an opinion on them.

24. How many caps do you have on you right now?

… around ten-thousand… have no idea how I got them, woke up on a roof surrounded by hostile super-mutants with them.

25. Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla?

Sunset.

26. Do you do chems?

Rad-X, RadAway and Med-X mostly; with the occasional Steady.

27. Do you ever think about the Pre-War world?

Glad I wasn't born in it.

28. What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently?

… 'Don't think anything I could have done would have changed the end result… at least not in a good way.

29. What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve?

Surviving so far… it sounds grim, sure, but these days I have a near-death experience at least twice a week.

30. What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world?

… To things to get better? It sounds so childish of a dream these days…

… I'd like some calm.

[ipunchvampires]

Storm of Stars: Part 21

Previously on Storm of Stars, we went to meet with an information broker to learn the location of Broken Rock so we could stop an assault from the mad priest Hak Akon (but only after a major shopping trip.) We also got mugged by the unluckiest gangsters on Absalom Station. The session opened just after we finished looting their bodies. The broker, an android by the name of Impulse-14, was working out of a modified garage. It was mostly a fortified garage, with a cluttered desk, covered in old computers/datapads, and a holoscreen. Impulse-14 himself was a bald, skinny, male Android with red nanite markings. He told us that the data on the location would be expensive due to how much trouble he could get into for selling it. It would cost 17,000 credits and a promise to not tell the Free Captains where the information came from. He was willing to knock it down to 12,000 if we did a job for him. He wanted us to acquire an automated tank from Abadar Corp for some drow from Apostae, and was willing to lend us an anti-construct weapon to help us with the job. After some discussion, we determined that we weren’t willing to risk our employment with the Stewards over 5,000 credits. We paid up, got the location, and left. 

While in the drift, Korvas passed the time by assembling the second robotic apprentice he grabbed from Aladraivus’ base using the Wand of Grease he grabbed from the one he destroyed that sparked our tracking the contemplative down in the first place. With half the group being fans of RWBY (including the GM), they were then named Adam and Blake (Adam was the evoker with the magic missile wand, Blake was a conjurer.) We arrived at Broken Rock in time to intercept the ships. There were three small ships, with the main ship being a large Titan Hauler with the symbol of a yellow skeletal claw on it. That was undoubtedly Hak Akkon’s ship. A starship battle broke out between us. The highlight was when we got a critical hit and caused the engines to malfunction. Eventually, we disabled the hauler, leaving only 40 pirates still alive. Scans suggested that Hak Akkon strangled his chief engineer for failing to keep the ship together. They all gathered in the cargo hold, and half of them suited up to fly over to our ship and board. Which is where the session ended.

[wanna1studio]

REQUESTED: our times // ong seongwoo // part 1

genre: fluff // angst 

ficstyle: bulletpoints

summary:  “ ong seong woo as your prank mate “ was inspired by the Taiwanese movie “OUR TIMES” just with my own twist 

note: since this is inspired by the film; prepare for a part 2 and some tissues

bet. you were the most unluckiest girl in the world 

you always had puddles from what’s left of the rain splash you as cars pass 

you tripped on flat ground me 24/7 

your love life was non-existent why am I describing myself lmao 

you never cared for you appearance either regardless you were happy

all you needed was BTS; you loved BTS you bought everything BTS because they were your idol

so anyways, there was a complete shift in your life you were on your way from school when you scrummage in your bag for your headphones and found a letter

it was an anonymous letter addressed to you

IF YOU DO NOT PASS THIS ON TO 1 OTHER PERSON, YOU WILL DIE 

fuck

you didn’t want to die; you haven’t even gone to a BTS concert yet

maybe you should write something on the letter so that there wouldn’t be any confusion for the next person

you saw a guy on his bike so you put the letter in his cup holder side of his backpack at this point you were panicking because you didn’t want to cause anyone harm but you didn’t wanna die

then a car approached you guys

THIS WAS WAYYY TOO SOON

maybe the curse had already affect you

CRASH

huh? you were unharmed

instead the guy with the bike crashing into the car and he was on the ground

YOU WERE IN SHOCKED before you could try to see if he was okay, he got up

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE FUCKING GOING!!”

a bunch of guys with their bikes ran towards the screaming dude

they were your school’s bunch of delinquents

“BOSS ARE YOU OKAY?!”

at this point you ran because you were gonna be late for school and you didn’t want him to find out it was you

“sorrysorrysorry,” you chanted as you ran away

the bells chimed as you sat in your seat; wheezing because you couldn’t run to save your life but hey, you’re here

“y/n! are you okay?” your two friends, Ai and Mina 

before you could answer, you saw Daniel look over at you

Daniel, Kang Daniel. was the most popular guy at school. He was good at everything; everybody loved him even the teachers! 

You were determined that it was impossible to marry anyone from BTS but Daniel was a closer choice

he smiled at you

you hastily looked away “I-I a-am FINE!”

“girl ok chill drink some water”

someone else entered the class, it was the guy that crashed into the car this morning

he was play fighting his way to his seat

WAIT YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT SEONGWOO WAS IN YOUR CLASS

everyone looked at him and his friends

“don’t give us shit just because we were in F Class, new system, new classes” he announced

apparently there was a new dean at your school, F Class will not be in action at this school since all of F Class were delinquents

it seems like the new dean is trying to get rid of the “bad kids” and make the school more strict, all of F Class will be placed in other classes and if they don’t pass their classes, they will be expelled

you felt bad for them but what could be done?

you saw Seongwoo take out his books from his bag and found the letter

OH SHIT YOU FORGOT ABOUT THAT

“ooohhh Seongwoo’s got a love letter!! maybe it’s from Somi” (the most loved girl in the school; female version of Daniel) 

Seongwoo just smirked as he pulled the letter out of the envelop

you saw his smirk fall into a frown, he examined the letter and the envelop

OF COURSE YOUR DUMBASS WOULD PASS ON THE LETTER WITH YOUR NAME ON THE ENVELOP

you tried to sneak out of the classroom

someone headlocked you as they guided you out the classroom

“y/n right?? let’s go” 

as you felt the person released you, you saw Seongwoo sitting on a lounge chair

 you tried to exit the room but his friends Guanlin and Jihoon blocked the door from the other side

“y/n care to explain this letter?” Seongwoo waved the letter in the air

“u-um I.. it wasn’t me..”

he scoffed “you think I’m stupid? I saw you put this in my bag and at that moment, I crashed into a car. ALMOST FUCKING DIED!”

you flinched at the tone of his voice

“so.. you know what you’re gonna do for me?” 

he got up from his seat and made his way to you

you immediately covered your body

“YOU PERV”

he gave you a confused look and hit you in the head with the letter

“you look like a mangled dog, no thanks” 

although you sighed in relief, he put his arm over your head against the wall, “you’re gonna be my personal slave, or I will hand this letter to Daniel” 

“I’LL DO IT JUST DON’T... wait... how do you know about me liking Daniel?”

“oh that was just a guess, BUT NOW I KNOW”

you felt deceived

“but um... maybe I could help you with Daniel.. if you help me with Somi..”

surprised, you felt your jaw fall to the ground

Seongwoo tapped your jaw “What?! I’m not a robot, I fall in love too, idiot.”

“okay deal” 

you wished you would die instead because Seongwoo makes you run EVERYTIME, EVERYWHERE haha see what I did there 

he’d make you sit down so he could tutor you because he got better score than you on the exams

make you go to the arcade with him, knowing that you would lose at every game

you bought him melon bread, honey butter chips and banana milk, every break you got

it was hell but maybe he did that so that you could see Daniel all the time, since Daniel works at the student store?

NAH, Seongwoo wasn’t that nice, he just wanted snacks

you ran to Seongwoo, out of breathe and before you could set the snacks down, he grabbed your wrist and dashed out

“DUDE I AM TIRED AF WTH WE GOT CLASS” you tried to push up your glasses every .5 seconds

he stopped outside the school, in front of the wall surrounding the school

“I don’t wanna go to class, let’s skip”

this boy

“I DON’T WANT TO SK-”

he placed you into a headlock

“WHO ARE YOU? SEONGWOO’S SLAVE REMEMBER?”

you glared at him through the rims of your glasses

“i hate you”

he smiled and tried to push you over the wall

“Y/N WHY ARE YOU SO SMALL BUT SO FAT”

“LEAVE MY FATASS ALONE SEONGWOO”

you guys ended up going to a bookstore where they sell cd albums and artist merch

“SEONGWOO LOOK AT THIS!” 

you held up a Park Jimin my bias plushy

“is he your favorite?”

you nodded, “but I love BTS as a whole”

knowing that you spent all your allowance on his ass, you placed the plushy back down and walked around the store

Seongwoo held your wrist

“y/n, thanks for these past few weeks, you’ve made it really fun. lemme repay you with a new look”

you were confused but once again, you were dragged against your will and into a salon

Seongwoo had a proud face 

“this is my sister, she’s a stylist,a good one too, she’ll make you look good for Daniel”

“EXCUS-” 

he already left 

MONDAY (you guys skipped class on Friday)

you came to school and you felt weird

it’s been years since you actually had a haircut from the salon, you usually just hack it out of your face

Seongwoo’s sister made you get contacts too, it felt weird

everyone was looking at you as you walked onto school property

FUCK I KNEW I LOOKED WEIRD 

out of all the faces, you saw Seongwoo in the student store

“SEONGWOO!!”

he turned to look at you, and he was in shocked, everyone was

you’d changed into a bright-eyed young lady

before you looked like a stray dog with glasses making you look 10x gloomier

but you were always smiley, you were always the same

as you dashed towards the store, you saw Somi and Daniel sitting together 

“y/n?” Daniel called out to you

“yes?”

“wow. you look different. you look pretty” he scratched the back of his head and looked at his feet

you saw him wearing a cast on his wrist

“what happened?” you pointed to his cast

“he injured it while b-boying” Somi responded with a sweet smile

“oh okay.. I hope it’ll be okay”

you rushed in the store, your face was burning hot

tbh that was the longest you’d ever talk with Daniel, that was the first time he ever called you by your name

Seongwoo gave you the popsicle that you’d usually share with people

“here’s your chance”

he gave you a reassuring shove out the doors of the store and smiled

you smiled back and gave the popsicle to Daniel so that he could ice his injury

Seongwoo turned around from the scene before you could look back to thank him

although you were talking to Daniel, you thought of Seongwoo, how much you wanted to thank him for everything

this was your turn to help him

“Ong Seongwoo!”

everyone turned to see what was going on

“you’ve skipped school for 3 days now, 3 strikes and you’re out. Come with me to my office, Y/N you too!”

before you could say anything, Daniel stepped in

“Y/n went to the hospital with me when I hurt my wrist. I’m sorry for not adding that into my leave-note”

why would Daniel lie for you?

“Seongwoo helped clean up the mess from the art room with me as well!” Somi spoke for Seongwoo

what was going on?

you thought, ah this is the chance for Seongwoo to talk to someone he liked for so long

TO BE CONTINUED

[blakes-seven-or-so-blog]

S1 E13: Orac

Gan, Jenna, and Avon are feeling ill. Blake pronounces Orac with a rolled ‘r’ and thinks there's something odd about the whole Orac situation. He makes Avon watch last week's episode in slow motion, something Avon completely forgets about by season four. They discover that the VW didn't break down because of the usual reasons but because of sabotage.

Cally uses a geiger counter on Avon and Vila and it clicks like a New Year's Eve noisemaker. Wait, they didn't decontaminate after returning from Cephlon?! How can they be surprised at having radiation sickness after spending all day on the Highly Radioactive Planet? They probably tracked isotopes all over the Liberator, too. Its market value just plummeted.

There are no decontamination drugs on their super-advanced spaceship, and their only hope is that Ensor will have some. Avon acknowledges that he and Vila share a few talents, among them ‘mortality’, which Vila finds unpalatable.

I am a little dubious about the idea that a drug could easily reverse the kind of severe cellular damage a lethal dose of radiation would cause, but: it’s the 28th century, and also it’s plot grease.

Iscandar! They can get a Cosmo Reverser there and cure the radiation damage... Oh, it's only Aristo. They’re screwed.

A kindly old man nearly has a heart attack in his solarium and checks the charge level on his chestronics. Hairy chests are so 25th century. He has a conversation with someone about the intruders that have landed nearby. His unseen companion sounds just like him and also like drunken bees and is talking out of a fern. The kindly old man hates unexpected visitors, and if you don't call first, consider yourself lizard food. I like this guy.

Travis and Servalan arrive and use the map Ensor, Sr. provided (why? why would he give them a secret map when he invited them?) to break in through the creepy lizard-man infested undersea tunnels.

Ensor needs the batteries his son was bringing because he has a primitive artificial heart that needs batteries every forty years. Here's my question: why did he wait until the very last minute to get replacement batteries? Did he forget? Did it take that long to find the right size? It's a mystery.

Orac gives Zen brain freeze and then starts talking through him. It accepts Blake's excuse for showing up unannounced and turns Zen back on. Zen finally has a paradoxical koan to ponder.

They're down to five teleport bracelets. Looks like it's time to draw straws and throw two people off.

Servalan gets groped by a lizard-man and Travis rescues her. She uncharacteristically sobs in horror like a damsel in distress. This whole scene annoys me. At least he doesn't attempt to comfort her; she would definitely stab him in his last eye. He dares Servalan to crawl and taunts her with the notion of staring at his leather-clad ass, but she haughtily reminds him whose ass is Number One here.

Orac arrives in his security sphere guise and starts giving snippy orders and warning shots to Blake and Cally. If they only knew that it would soon be the eighth 'or so'. Gan tries and fails to cheer everyone up by making sasquatch sounds from behind furniture. Avon, for the third time, gives Vila a backhanded compliment. Everyone is short-tempered in the face of imminent death.

Orac insists Blake and Cally enter a revolving darkroom door that rises from the ground. Blake jokes that they should catch the versatile flying jerk and give it to Avon as a pet, which is exactly what happens. They are taken deep down to an underground solarium. Ensor immediately charms them with his warm hospitality. He calms down after they tell him his son is dead and gives them the radiation drugs they need. Blake once again thinks Zen-assisted surgery will be a piece of cake.

Ensor wheels Orac out from behind the fern and it turns out to be a fish tank full of junk. Blake scoffs but Ensor says Orac is not a computer but a genius brain that can access every computer everywhere. Orac is Skynet but with Ensor’s personality; basically it’s a god-tier honey badger.

Travis crashes the party and once again has Blake in his grasp and loses him. I’m nicknaming Travis ‘Butterfingers’. Blake thinks pulling the ancient tunnel ceiling down onto his own face is a good idea despite Cally’s sensible suggestion to stick together. A lizard-man gropes Cally and Blake beats it to death with a rock. Ensor sits down for a rest and dies. I’m really sad about this, no sarcasm. At least his winning personality will live on through Orac.

Right at the greatest moment of Travis’s life, when Servalan says ‘go ahead and kill Blake’, Avon shoots Travis’s blaster hand off. He jokes that he missed and was aiming for Travis’s head. Avon is more than ready to kill Butterfingers and Servalan but Blake stops him, intending to just spread nasty rumors about them instead. Servalan blames Travis for everything again. Travis is so embarrassed he changes faces, eye color, and accent for the next season.

Travis is the unluckiest person in the universe. He probably locks himself in his quarters and cries afterward. His Blakeicidal dreams and his robot blaster hand have been destroyed in the most humiliating way possible, and the guy who installed his robo-hand is dead thanks to Servalan. The only thing he got out of this was a memory of his boss’s ass maybe. Poor Butterfingers.

Back on the Liberator, everyone is feeling better and they turn on the drunken bees. In Ensor’s voice, Orac immediately starts hurling insults. Avon is horrified. Orac goes on to inform them of his abilities. It takes exactly one minute before they tell him to shut up. Orac predicts that the Liberator will explode, and when he is evasive about the details, Avon gets even.

Orac’s shutting off sound is ‘exasperated drunken bees’.

Damage report:

- Ensor, Sr.

- Ensor’s fish and plants which were left to die

- a couple of lizard-people

- a couple of explorers whose skeletons decorate the tunnels

- Travis’s robo-hand, dignity, and what was left of his career

We never see Orac's flying sphere again, which is a shame. Ensor left it on Aristo and no one ever makes a replacement. He seems perfectly satisfied with being a brain in a box and unlike Krang never has himself installed in a body.

I like this episode because it introduces one of my favorite characters. Zen is condescending and passive-aggressive, but Orac is a complete asshole, yet invaluable to the Liberator crew. I also watched this episode repeatedly as a teen while half-asleep and dreaming so it was etched into my eternal memory extra-weird.

Next: Redemption

[alexalister97]

I didn’t read Twilight, but I know there’s inaccuracy on things like vampires. They cannot stay in the sunlight

Hunger Games is one of my favourite books of all time (and I love the movies). But when I got the books, my father asked me: «Why are you reading a book with a girl as main character? A boy can’t do that!». I hope he was joking, but I ignored him and I loved Katniss and if someone touches her I’m going to kill him.

That sentence made me think. Why can’t I do whatever I want? Even if it was a joke, why????

Then I started writing. And love and use female characters more than male characters. I still write using boys as main characters, because I think I can relate better with their teenage problems and I can describe them better from their point of view. But I still give my girls important roles and absolute badass moments, because they deserve that.

Not much time ago, I wrote a short story about a woman who lived in 2486, that managed to build a secret army of robots alone, to take down the president and stop a terrible nuclear war. She saved the planet.

Women are strong. And they deserve better, just like Lgbt+ people.

That’s why in that story there are more gay couples than straight ones. That’s why in the sequels I put more women in charge than men. That’s why in that sequel a non-binary person and a trans woman are two of the most important people in the world.

Oh, and that woman who saved the world, my bravest and unluckiest character, that I love so much, is asian and asexual. Her name is Anita. And honestly, I’ve never invented a better character.

[anotherhopespeak]

You know the school, and you’ve met the students. Now, it’s time to hear the story! Fasten your seatbelts, pals, it’s gonna be a bloody ride!

(896 words)

A gentle little lass with a heart of gold and a thumb of green.

A virtuoso who fancies herself the sinful temptation of audiences everywhere.

A scientist who could take on the world with the contents of a single test tube, if she dared.

A girl who walks a dangerous, if flashy, line between chaos and control.

A taciturn swordsman who prefers to do his talking through a foil.

A graceful snowflake on the ice, formidable as a blizzard to anything in her way.

A burglar whose stealth and sleight of hand are exceeded only by his greed.

A daredevil who flies close to the sun and never looks down.

A shooting star who exists only as an image on a screen, a carefully tailored avatar.

An artist whose lofty wordly ideals are splattered on bridges and subway walls.

A dramatist with an eye for detail and an intolerance for error.

A carpenter who built the bed in which he’d rather spend his day.

A disciplined leader whose life achievements decorate the sash on her shoulder.

A pugilist who knows his own strength, but knows his own weakness even better.

A multilinguist who prefers to hold her universally-understood tongue.

A boy who knew his way around robots so well, he began to become one.

A coxswain who knows that, eventually, he always has to come back ashore.

A soothsayer who can see every ghost and every loose end, except the ones in her head.

An intrepid reporter with his ear to the ground and his nose where it’s not wanted.

And a red-ribbon achiever who got very lucky in the unluckiest way possible.

Twenty young men and women, all known for being the best at what they are, all hand-picked carefully from among all the high school students in the country. All of them found an envelope in their mail stamped closed with the wax imprint of a winged, crowned shield that well known to be the official school seal of Hope’s Peak Academy.

The letters were full to bursting with praise for the incoming potential students, waxing poetic about how the graduates of the academy represented hope for the future, the great things the students can go on to accomplish, the merits of school’s curriculum, the great fortune of the letters’ receivers to have been selected to receive such a high honor.

A lot of big talk, really. But who could blame them, really? Nobody would have expected that these letters contained nothing but empty promises.

Well, no, not nobody. After all, the disaster to come was already being put into work within the turning gears of inventive minds, so those minds knew. They knew, and they were preparing to give these twenty students an academic experience that no one had ever so much as conceived before.

But I digress.

Each of the twenty recipients of these letters responded, and each eagerly accepted the invitation. Naturally. Who would ever be so foolish as to turn down the opportunity to guarantee for themselves a bright and prosperous future?

Preparations were made. Even long before the beginning of the new school year, the twenty students became household names among the many teens who followed the Hope’s Peak forums religiously, discussing the new recruits, picking their favorites, wondering and theorizing about who these people are and what they’re going to become. And on the day indicated in the acceptance letters, the students gathered from all corners of the country to join in the welcoming ceremony and orientation at the school that they knew would be a significant step toward a lifetime of success.

They all had the opportunity to stand before the breathtaking edifice, prominent against the city’s skyling, that was the main building of the Hope’s Peak Academy campus, some of them seeing the place for the first time in their lives. There was undeniably a certain majesty to the building, although it is hard to say for certain whether this came from the architectural feat itself, or simply from the knowledge of what went on inside.

The new students were told to gather in the entrance hall at eight in the morning, and none risked being late. Each student, after granting the face of the building the awe it was due, approached the entrance of the building, climbing the little stone steps leading toward the front doors.

Looking back, it’s too bad they didn’t take the time to soak those last few steps in. Climbing those stairs was the last moment in each of those twenty lives when things were normal, when things were going according to plan. When the world was all in order and no one needed to fear anything worse than poor marks on a test.

Oh well. What was that saying about spilled milk?

The final step from the outside world and into the school was the one that took them over the threshold of the entryway and into the grand foyer serving as the entrance hall. None of the twenty students got to experience that step in full. They each lifted their foot, passed through the doorway, and then –

Darkness.

Nothing.

…

…

…

…

…

Inside the walls of the school and outside, throughout the neighborhood for nearly a mile all around, the brass school bell’s chimes could be heard.

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Bong!

Then, silence.

[starlightshowtimeproductions]

trial 5 - chirisma - let us strike while the iron's hot! - @ eiji and daichi

How strange.

How strange, to touch and feel this imperfect world again. To have accepted the meaningless of your own death, only to be reborn in the blink of an eye. Standing in an elevator that she had previously only seen from the comfort of the afterlife's viewing room. Stepping up to a podium once covered with flowers to commemorate her death. The quiet whirring of her hastily assembled parts- the soft echo of those who died so that she could, once again, live. 

The robot known as "Prisma" was capable of emotional depth unmatched by many actual humans The robot known as "Chiriko" was such a doormat that she fell for a trap anyone else would have scoffed at. The combination of the two-

...Actually...

...The combination of the two... doesn't seem that upset.

She knows she should feel sad. She knows she has this capacity in her. The tragedy of Maggie Munroe, someone who had shown her nothing but kindness, skewered and left afloat like cosmic debris. The tragedy of Momoko Momoi, the unluckiest woman here- someone forced to witness the ones she loves the most killed again, and again, and again. Chirisma contemplates the weeks she spent in the afterlife, coming to terms with the futility of her non-existence. The time she spent alone- the time she spent with others, as more and more of them woke up in the grassy fields of Purgatory. She looks up- up at the very same corner of the room that she had seen the cameras on the other side focus on the most. 

Perhaps her eyes are meeting Maggie's right now. Perhaps, in her absence, Maggie's doing a better job spending time with the rest than Chiriko managed. Alan. Clyde. Perhaps Maggie was getting on better with Mimzy or Shu-hua more than she ever did. Chirisma can't feel sadness for Maggie's passing, not when she's already been where Maggie is now. But- she can feel-

Determination. It's always been so easy to yell at trial proceedings from beyond the veil when the murder victim's sitting right  next to you. Now, for the first time, Chirisma's actually flying blind. And honestly... it's kind of a thrill.

"Did you all miss us?"

"Call me CH1R15M4, back from the dead. You'll have to forgive me for any odd behavior- it's a funny thing readjusting to life, as it turns out!"

A smile.

"But enough of that. If I'm going to be the only machine here, then let's get this done with perfect efficiency." 

The robot throws her arms wide, metallic casing gleaming in the lights of the courtroom. It's a good thing she's managed to put some clothes on by now; Maggie might have appreciated their death being commemorated by Chirisma's shiny metal ass permanently blinding their friends, but it's doubtful anyone else would see the humor in it.

"Casey. Sooyun. The Artist Formerly Known As Amelie. Corpse discoverers. By the rules of this game, ruled out as suspects. Who does that leave? Well, let's narrow it down. Given his change of heart, I would have assumed Shimura- but miss Mimi, who I will be talking to regarding robotic liberation after this trial, thank you, claims he was in his trailer the whole night. Besides, given that everyone's disposition was indisposed, let's look at the how and not the why."

hey chirisma what does that mean. hey chirisma. he-

"...So. It could have been the dart, or the fork, that caused such grievous wounds on Maggie. But there's also the matter of the bloody sword that was found on the battlefield, isn't there? That seems like a more logical weapon to me. And it's not like we haven't witnessed those swords used for bloodshed before. Eiji and Daichi have both proven themselves handy with a blade. Gentlemen, do you have any way of proving your innocence?"

[yes-dal456]

Oh, Lovely: The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading

By Megan Molteni for WIRED.

First comes the unscratchable itching, and the angry blossoming of hives. Then stomach cramping, and — for the unluckiest few — difficulty breathing, passing out, and even death. In the last decade and a half, thousands of previously protein-loving Americans have developed a dangerous allergy to meat. And they all have one thing in common: the lone star tick.

Red meat, you might be surprised to know, isn’t totally sugar-free. It contains a few protein-linked saccharides, including one called galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, or alpha-gal, for short. More and more people are learning this the hard way, when they suddenly develop a life-threatening allergy to that pesky sugar molecule after a tick bite.

Yep, one bite from the lone star tick — which gets its name from the Texas-shaped splash of white on its back — is enough to reprogram your immune system to forever reject even the smallest nibble of perfectly crisped bacon. For years, physicians and researchers only reported the allergy in places the lone star tick calls home, namely the southeastern United States. But recently it’s started to spread. The newest hot spots? Duluth, Minnesota, Hanover, New Hampshire, and the eastern tip of Long Island, where at least 100 cases have been reported in the last year. Scientists are racing to trace its spread, to understand if the lone star tick is expanding into new territories, or if other species of ticks are now causing the allergy.

RELATED: Lyme Isn’t the Only Disease Ticks Are Spreading This Summer

The University of Virginia is deep in the heart of lone star tick country. It’s also home to a world-class allergy research division, headed up by immunologist Thomas Platts-Mills. He’d been hearing tales of the meat allergy since the ’90s — people waking up in the middle of the night after a big meal, sweating and breaking out in hives. But he didn’t give it much thought until 2004, when he heard about another group of patients all suffering from the same symptoms.

This time, it wasn’t a plate of pork chops they shared; it was a new cancer drug called cetuximab. The drug worked, but curiously, patients that lived in the southeast were 10 times as likely to report side effects of itching, swelling, and a dangerous drop in blood pressure.

Platts-Mills teamed up with cetuximab’s distributor, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and began comparing patient blood samples. He discovered that all the patients who experienced an allergic reaction had pre-existing antibodies to alpha-gal, and cetuximab was full of the stuff, thanks to the genetically modified mice from which it was derived. With that mystery solved, Platts-Mills turned to figuring out what made patients so sensitive to alpha-gal.

The best hint he had was the geographic overlap between the cetuximab patients and previously reported meat allergies. The area perfectly matched where people came down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever — a disease carried by the lone star tick. But it wasn’t until Platts-Mills and two of his lab members came down with tick-induced meat allergies of their own that they made the connection.

READ MORE: Blood in a Mosquito’s Belly Could Reveal How Diseases Spread

Over the next few years Platts-Mills and his colleague Scott Commins screened more meat allergy patients and discovered that 80 percent reported being bitten by a tick. What’s more, they showed that tick bites led to a 20-fold increase in alpha-gal antibodies. Since ethics standards prevented them from attaching ticks to randomized groups of patients, this data was the best they could do to guess how meat allergy arises. Something in the tick’s saliva hijacks humans’ immune systems, red-flagging alpha-gal, and triggering the massive release of histamines whenever red meat is consumed.

Researchers are still trying to find what that something is. Commins has since moved to the University of North Carolina, where he’s injecting mice with lone star tick extracts to try to understand which molecules are setting off the alpha-gal bomb. It’s tricky: Tick saliva is packed with tons of bioactive compounds to help the parasite feed without detection. One of them might be an alpha-gal analogue — something similar-but-different-enough in shape that it sets off the human immune system. But it could also be a microbe — like a bacteria or virus — that triggers the response. Some have even suggested that residual proteins from the ticks’ earlier blood meals could be the culprit.

RELATED: Zika Isn’t the Mosquito-Borne Virus You Should Fear

Whatever it is, allergy researchers will be paying attention. Because, as far as anyone can tell, alpha-gal syndrome seems to be the only allergy that affects all people, regardless of genetic makeup. “There’s something really special about this tick,” says Jeff Wilson, an asthma, allergy, and immunology fellow in Platts-Mills’ group. Usually a mix of genes and environmental factors combine to create allergies. But when it comes to the lone star tick it doesn’t matter if you’re predisposed or not. “Just a few bites and you can render anyone really, really allergic,” he says.

In the meantime, Platts-Mills, Commins, and Wilson are busy communicating the scale of the public health problem. Every day they check local news headlines to log new cases of catastrophic hamburger aversion, and spend hours on the phone gathering the latest intel from allergy clinics and academic centers around the country. They’re building the first real red meat allergy incidence map of the U.S. — because state health departments aren’t required to report alpha-gal syndrome to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it’s still rare enough outside the southeastern US that many doctors don’t correctly diagnose it.

Wilson is trying to get blood samples from all the new outbreaks, to figure out if the patients’ antibodies correspond to the saliva of lone star ticks or a different tick species. That will tell him if the increases in the allergy are the result of changing range patterns, or if other ticks have developed the capacity to rewire human immune systems in the same way. That information would also provide further clues to the mechanism itself. As for a cure? There’s not much science has to offer on that front, besides Epipens and veggie burgers.

More from Wired:

The Muddled Link Between Booze and Cancer

A Social Network for Women Facing Breast Cancer

Why I Won’t Get the Genetic Test for Breast Cancer

Do Carrots Actually Improve Your Eyesight?

The Smartest Robot You’ve Ever Seen

Hackers Trick Facial-Recognition Logins With Facebook Photos

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2rAtW8H from Blogger http://ift.tt/2tKK7kj

[imreviewblog]

Oh, Lovely: The Tick That Gives People Meat Allergies Is Spreading

By Megan Molteni for WIRED.

First comes the unscratchable itching, and the angry blossoming of hives. Then stomach cramping, and — for the unluckiest few — difficulty breathing, passing out, and even death. In the last decade and a half, thousands of previously protein-loving Americans have developed a dangerous allergy to meat. And they all have one thing in common: the lone star tick.

Red meat, you might be surprised to know, isn’t totally sugar-free. It contains a few protein-linked saccharides, including one called galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, or alpha-gal, for short. More and more people are learning this the hard way, when they suddenly develop a life-threatening allergy to that pesky sugar molecule after a tick bite.

Yep, one bite from the lone star tick — which gets its name from the Texas-shaped splash of white on its back — is enough to reprogram your immune system to forever reject even the smallest nibble of perfectly crisped bacon. For years, physicians and researchers only reported the allergy in places the lone star tick calls home, namely the southeastern United States. But recently it’s started to spread. The newest hot spots? Duluth, Minnesota, Hanover, New Hampshire, and the eastern tip of Long Island, where at least 100 cases have been reported in the last year. Scientists are racing to trace its spread, to understand if the lone star tick is expanding into new territories, or if other species of ticks are now causing the allergy.

RELATED: Lyme Isn’t the Only Disease Ticks Are Spreading This Summer

The University of Virginia is deep in the heart of lone star tick country. It’s also home to a world-class allergy research division, headed up by immunologist Thomas Platts-Mills. He’d been hearing tales of the meat allergy since the ’90s — people waking up in the middle of the night after a big meal, sweating and breaking out in hives. But he didn’t give it much thought until 2004, when he heard about another group of patients all suffering from the same symptoms.

This time, it wasn’t a plate of pork chops they shared; it was a new cancer drug called cetuximab. The drug worked, but curiously, patients that lived in the southeast were 10 times as likely to report side effects of itching, swelling, and a dangerous drop in blood pressure.

Platts-Mills teamed up with cetuximab’s distributor, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and began comparing patient blood samples. He discovered that all the patients who experienced an allergic reaction had pre-existing antibodies to alpha-gal, and cetuximab was full of the stuff, thanks to the genetically modified mice from which it was derived. With that mystery solved, Platts-Mills turned to figuring out what made patients so sensitive to alpha-gal.

The best hint he had was the geographic overlap between the cetuximab patients and previously reported meat allergies. The area perfectly matched where people came down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever — a disease carried by the lone star tick. But it wasn’t until Platts-Mills and two of his lab members came down with tick-induced meat allergies of their own that they made the connection.

READ MORE: Blood in a Mosquito’s Belly Could Reveal How Diseases Spread

Over the next few years Platts-Mills and his colleague Scott Commins screened more meat allergy patients and discovered that 80 percent reported being bitten by a tick. What’s more, they showed that tick bites led to a 20-fold increase in alpha-gal antibodies. Since ethics standards prevented them from attaching ticks to randomized groups of patients, this data was the best they could do to guess how meat allergy arises. Something in the tick’s saliva hijacks humans’ immune systems, red-flagging alpha-gal, and triggering the massive release of histamines whenever red meat is consumed.

Researchers are still trying to find what that something is. Commins has since moved to the University of North Carolina, where he’s injecting mice with lone star tick extracts to try to understand which molecules are setting off the alpha-gal bomb. It’s tricky: Tick saliva is packed with tons of bioactive compounds to help the parasite feed without detection. One of them might be an alpha-gal analogue — something similar-but-different-enough in shape that it sets off the human immune system. But it could also be a microbe — like a bacteria or virus — that triggers the response. Some have even suggested that residual proteins from the ticks’ earlier blood meals could be the culprit.

RELATED: Zika Isn’t the Mosquito-Borne Virus You Should Fear

Whatever it is, allergy researchers will be paying attention. Because, as far as anyone can tell, alpha-gal syndrome seems to be the only allergy that affects all people, regardless of genetic makeup. “There’s something really special about this tick,” says Jeff Wilson, an asthma, allergy, and immunology fellow in Platts-Mills’ group. Usually a mix of genes and environmental factors combine to create allergies. But when it comes to the lone star tick it doesn’t matter if you’re predisposed or not. “Just a few bites and you can render anyone really, really allergic,” he says.

In the meantime, Platts-Mills, Commins, and Wilson are busy communicating the scale of the public health problem. Every day they check local news headlines to log new cases of catastrophic hamburger aversion, and spend hours on the phone gathering the latest intel from allergy clinics and academic centers around the country. They’re building the first real red meat allergy incidence map of the U.S. — because state health departments aren’t required to report alpha-gal syndrome to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it’s still rare enough outside the southeastern US that many doctors don’t correctly diagnose it.

Wilson is trying to get blood samples from all the new outbreaks, to figure out if the patients’ antibodies correspond to the saliva of lone star ticks or a different tick species. That will tell him if the increases in the allergy are the result of changing range patterns, or if other ticks have developed the capacity to rewire human immune systems in the same way. That information would also provide further clues to the mechanism itself. As for a cure? There’s not much science has to offer on that front, besides Epipens and veggie burgers.

More from Wired:

The Muddled Link Between Booze and Cancer

A Social Network for Women Facing Breast Cancer

Why I Won’t Get the Genetic Test for Breast Cancer

Do Carrots Actually Improve Your Eyesight?

The Smartest Robot You’ve Ever Seen

Hackers Trick Facial-Recognition Logins With Facebook Photos

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://bit.ly/2tq8gNK

[sims2legacytale-blog]

Legacy Challenge Part 2 - The Unluckiest Heir

This legacy challenge is proving to be a lot more difficult than I originally anticipated. After reading this part, you’ll understand why!

Picking up from where we last left off, Jayc (son of founding legacy sim Kallum), was now a fully fledged adult. His fathers death had been a wake up call, and now it was time for him to get a job, find love and head out into the big wide world…

It didn't take long to see for himself exactly what he’d been missing out on in his youth!

Things moved fast with his first love Demi...

But unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Mere days after falling pregnant and moving in to the family home, Demi collapsed in the kitchen from starvation.

Jayc pleaded for her life...

But Death had no mercy, and he found himself alone once more.

Whilst his mother Kimberly learned to craft toy robots on her weekend off from work...

Her newly single son Jayc donned a cheesy suit and took up a job as a campaign worker in the political career.

Not one to give up on his hopes of raising a happy family of his own and continuing the Foundation legacy, he set off on a series of dates with the young ladies of downtown Veronaville.

It wasn’t long before he met Jill.

And though the ghosts of his past were never far away, they quickly fell in love.

Jayc introduced his new girlfriend Jill to his mother Kimberly, and shortly thereafter invited her to move into the house.

Their love continued to flourish...

and Jill fell pregnant. Perhaps everything was going to work out OK this time, Jayc though to himself.

Meanwhile, the robots that Kimberly had been crafting in her spare time as a means of helping the family with their chores were doing more harm than good; malfunctioning left, right and centre and turning the house and gardens into something more akin to a scrapyard.

Touching down back home after a day of business meetings and trips around the world in her private jet, Kimberly was shocked to see the mess her creations had caused...

But it was Jayc who took the initiative to shut them down and finally get rid of them for good.

The robots were to be the least of their problems though. After falling sick with a stomach bug and failing to take proper care of herself and the little one brewing inside of her, Jill collapsed that evening on the bathroom floor.

This all seemed so terribly familiar to Jayc...

But this time he fought harder. He pleaded for Jill’s life and Death took mercy, restoring her to life.

A thanks was most certainly in order!

Sadly, the relief was to be short lived. Just one day away from giving birth, the ghost of Jayc’s father, founding sim Kallum, snuck up on Jill and frightened her to death. She collapsed once more on the cold bathroom floor...

And though Kimberly got down on her knees and pleaded to strike a deal with Death...

This time she was unsuccessful. Jill had met her fate, and like Demi before her, her gravestone was placed at the front of the lot.

Will Jayc find love once more and continue the Foundation family bloodline? Or will his biological clock continue to tick away until tragedy befalls both him and his mother? Tune in to part 3 to find out! --- Whew! What a ride. Sidenote: Why are pregnant sims so darn difficult to take care of? The first one (Kimberly’s) went without a hitch but now they just seem to keep dying! I guess it’s only going to get more difficult with all the ghosts on the lot, but I’m trying to play by the rules so I don’t want to get rid of the tombstones. It’s certainly frustrating but hey, at least it makes for interesting storytelling! :)