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neysaadept · 2 days ago

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Prometheus Chapter 8

Emily Prentiss x Female CIA Reader

Chapter 8 - Excision Part Two (Criminal Minds Case Time)

Tags: Limited use of y/n but established last name. Swearing, mentions of the pandemic and human and sex trafficking. Canon typical violence. Sexual innuendos. Drinking. Smoking. Slow Burn. Murder. Depictions of Flaying. Implied Rape. Mentions of Date Rape Drugs. Strangulation. Restraints. Mental Institutions. PTSD. Childhood trauma. Psychological Trauma. Implied references to child abuse. Minors DNI.

Word Count: 6k

AO3

Chapter 7

You were hanging out in Prentiss' hotel room later in the evening. She was able to reserve three rooms for you all at a hotel in Indio to be close to the unsub’s hunting grounds. You all decided to eat dinner together while processing the information gleaned from the M.E. and Rossi’s interviews, which ended about an hour ago. You all felt you could think clearer here than at the station. Sheriff Grosch was breathing down yours and Prentiss’ necks every step of your investigation since the tox screen came back. It was unbearable. Even you being direct that you needed space to work without constant interruptions that had nothing to do with the case fell on deaf ears. So, the two of you said fuck it and called Rossi to meet you at the hotel. The station knew how to contact you if anything further came up. Local law enforcement had given you everything you needed and were just in the way at this point and explained you would have the profile nailed down soon to announce at the station late tonight.

Garcia had given you a brief update on the ‘Home Team’. JJ, Luke, and Tara almost had the unsubs but were distracted by them hacking into the Bluetooth speakers to lead the BAU away from their exact location in the house. They were able to flee the scene with two more dead guards to process. They worked out the profile and announced it to local PD. They believe they’re local so they’re hoping they can make an arrest soon.

You also feel that the unsub is local based on the geographical profile you worked out that was taped on the mirror over the flatscreen. You had marked up the dumping grounds of both bodies, where they lived, worked, and where they were last spotted. There was far too much overlapping for the unsub not to be familiar with the area. They were staying inside safe hunting grounds.

Dave was able to find out that McGarth was meeting a woman for drinks at the bar. It wasn’t just a wind down and hopefully get laid. The meet up sounded like a date. Unfortunately, his boss and the other members of the firm had no idea who this mystery woman was. Garcia was running through dating apps to see if there was a match with McGarth, but the guy was a player. He had several apps and lots of ladies that he was chatting it up with. That would take time on top of Garcia working with the home team in tracking down the security guard murderers, but she assures you all that she’s got this.

Sulliven’s family and his assistant were not helpful. The timeline indicated that he left work like usual but never made it home. His family thought he was working late at the office, which was not unusual.

You also learned that neither victim was sexual assaulted nor had any trace residue of semen. That was the part that was baffling the three of you – the method didn’t match up with the assault.

Rossi was sitting at the desk, using a fork to eat his orange chicken which made both you and Prentiss poke fun of him since the two of you were using chopsticks.

Prentiss was currently on the bed plucking out a peapod. “So why drug them? I get the sedation but drugging them with no signs of sexual aggression doesn’t add up.”

“The drugs were used on both victims,” says Rossi. “It’s possible that’s what they had access to.”

“But flunitrazepam isn’t sold in the US. Even doctors barely use it in other countries” you add before munching on a steamed shrimp. You had made yourself comfortable on the floor sitting cross legged.

“But they can?” Rossi leans back thoughtfully. “Not common but possible.”

You shrug. “Not unless you bring a script to your local drug dealer. And by script, I mean cash.”

“With how meticulous our unsub is, I find it hard to believe that they’d visit a drug dealer.” Prentiss shakes her head and motions animatedly with her hands, keeping a firm grip on the veggie between chopsticks. “They like being in control. Everything’s done with precision and going into the wrong part of town meeting a drug dealer gives up a lot of control.”

“A lot of countries have access to it. Australia, Japan, Mexico … quite a few countries in Europe.” You were well aware of this having worked with Interpol investigating a serial rapist in the UK and Ireland. Despite being legal, flunitrazepam was used as a date rape drug in other countries as well. “Can always narrow down our doctor pool with any international travel.”

Garcia’s search brought back over five thousand surgeons in Thermal area. With the flaying technique used, you narrowed it down to plastic surgeons but that only got the suspect pool down to over two thousand. You were in California. There were a shit ton of plastic surgeons.

“And with the bodies being relatively untouched, the unsub is probably female,” says Rossi. “Majority of rape victims are women. Especially with the use of date rape drugs.” He pauses in consideration. “Is it possible that our unsub picked her victims because they’re sexual offenders?”

Prentiss immediately facetimes Garcia on her laptop who immediately appears with a friendly wave. “Hello my fine furry friends. What’s up?”

Emily stabs her chopsticks into the food and sets aside the container. “Cross check police reports on our victims.”

“Anything specific we’re looking … Oh…” Her voice drops solemnly. “Am I looking for something extremely bad like rape charges? Cuz, I’m finding that both of them have that in common. As in they both were charged for the same incident.”

“They were convicted?” you ask in bewilderment since nothing came up on their background checks.

“Uh, no. Both of them had the charges dropped. Oh, get this. Alcohol was involved and it was indeterminate if consent was obtained or not and the poor darlings took some time before they reported the assault. Both men lawyered up really good, which is not surprising for a paralegal and a psychiatrist. One being able to use connections and the other having the money. They just up and ran with the lack of physical evidence even though hair samples on the victims detected our unsubs drug of choice. There was no way to prove these jerk faces did it.”

“Who pressed charges?” Rossi asks.

“Uh, Desiree Villanueva and Lauren Conway. Couple of friends trying to have a nice girls’ night when … ah damn. There was a third man involved. A Robert MacDonald - some banker at Wells Fargo.”

“Lovely. Little rich boys club wanted to play and wouldn’t take no for an answer,” states Rossi with disgust.

“Are either victim on our plastic surgeons list?” Prentiss questions next.

“Nope. Waitress and jeweler.”

“But we’re on to something with the unsub being a woman. How many are those plastic surgeons are female?” you request of Garcia.

“Little over four hundred.”

“Any of them show up on McGarth’s dating apps?”

“Ah … yes! Dr. Sandra Duncan! Has a practice in La Quinta.” Garcia brings up her driver’s and medical license. She had short brown hair with wavy bangs and piercing blue eyes. She was caught in mid-smile.

“That’s in our geo profile,” you confirm.

“Has she been a victim of sexual assault?” presses Emily.

“Unfortunately. She accused a Benjamin Riley of drugging her at a bar called The Treehouse in 2015. They were students together at Standford. Charges were dropped in a similar manner like our victims. After that, she went on to finish medical school, get married to an engineer named Drew Arnold. Oh no…” she whimpers while continuing “… her daughter, Charolette, died of leukemia six months ago. Then her jerk of a husband served divorce papers.”

You, Rossi and Prentiss share a knowing look and immediately leave dinner where it is and grab your coats.

“Two triggers in such a short time is more than enough to make someone lose control,” you state. “The family she had to ground her is gone, so she’s turn vigilante. Helping those women when no one helped her.”

Prentiss nods. “And she’s taking off their faces, their masks as you said, to show them for the rapists they are. She’s angry they got away with it and regressed back to when this happened to her.”

“And being a physician, she has access to drugs like midazolam,” says Rossi as you all walk out of Prentiss’ hotel room, already on the phone with the sheriff station to get the location of Arnold’s personal residence and place of business. “We’ll need a unit on Robert MacDonald, DOB 2/23/97, out of Palm Springs. Our unsub’s going for him next if she doesn’t have him already,” he explains to dispatch.

“Any chance she’s gone abroad?” questions Prentiss as you all head outside to the parking lot where the two SUVs waited. Garcia was now talking over speaker phone.

“Why yes she did. Two months ago, in fact. Visited a cousin in Ipswich, just outside of Brisbane. Happened after the divorce.”

Prentiss stops in front of the vehicles. “Garcia, work with local law enforcement to get us warrants ASAP on Duncan’s home and work. Does she have a business partner?”

“She does not. All solo.”

“Good. We don’t have to wake anyone else and waste more time. Once those warrants are in have SWAT meet us at both locations. Rossi?” Prentiss calls out to get his attention. He places the phone against his chest, giving her his full attention. “You take Duncan’s home. We got the clinic. No moving inside without the warrants unless there’s signs of a victim. Clear?”

“Crystal. I’ve got Grosch on the line who’s grumpy about things moving so fast …”

“Fucker’s always grumpy unless he’s calling the shots or up our asses,” you mutter while leaning against the front of the car.

Rossi chuckles. “Yes, but he’s waking the judge to get everything legal. Units will meet us there and set up a perimeter. They’ve got a squad car heading to MacDonald’s right now.”

Prentiss nods. “Let’s roll.”

“Be safe my loves!” Garcia says and hangs up.

Without warning, Prentiss tosses you the car keys and you deftly catch them in surprise. “You’re letting me drive?”

“Why not?” she says, opening the passenger door. “Or is driving twenty miles too hard for the maniac driver of the CIA?”

You grin ear to ear. “No, Ma’am.”

A Toyota SUV with no headlights on makes its way down the driveway of a multibuilding business center. It slows and makes a right and then swings around to back up into the driveway for deliveries at the one-story single building at the far end of the complex.

The garage opens and the SUV disappears inside. Only until the garage door closed, did the driver side open. Dr. Sandra Arnold was dressed in nice blue jeans, black boots, and an off the shoulder floral blouse. Hair and make-up were pristine, complementing her features for the faux date. She made her way to the patient cart that was already set up with sheets and pushed it over to the side of the trunk. With a quick wave of her foot under the car, the trunk slowly opened revealing an unconscious Robert MacDonald.

She brought the cart around, locked it in place, and then slid Robert onto it by the sheet he was laying over. After a few adjustments of scooting him around, she pulls up the slide rails, hovering over his face with blue eyes filled with malicious intent.

Her black gloved hand gently strokes down a chiseled cheek, then chin, and repeats the gesture back up the other side. Fingers play with brown strands of short hair. She roughly combed her fingers through it and looks at his face objectively, pulling it side to side to finish making the mental notes required to mark her incisions.

She pulls back, nostrils flaring as her eyes closed. Hands ball into shaking fists as she breathes through the rage building inside her, stopping herself from injuring this bastard. She had plans and could not ruin them with a violent outburst. Her heart now races with anticipation knowing that the victims that could not find justice just like her would have the peace they deserved. The peace that was denied them with a broken system easily manipulated by rich men who didn’t want their careers ruined.

Can’t have a career if you’re dead. Can’t hurt another woman if you’re dead, too.

“And how many more women did you rape since then, huh?!” she hisses with clenched teeth as she unlocks the cart and roughly pushes him into the next room.

Captain Robles met you and Prentiss outside La Quinta Cosmetic Surgery with a warrant in hand close to sixty minutes later. In that time, you and Prentiss were vested up as SWAT had set up a perimeter around the stucco and modern style office building. It was closed to 1am and there was little public to redirect since this area was all businesses. The building itself was dark with no vehicles in the parking lot or immediate surroundings. Chances of Arnold and or MacDonald here was slim after the first walk through around the building, but you all had to move fast to be sure.

Chattering over the radio indicated Rossi and Sheriff Grosch were about to enter Arnold’s residence after no response to announcing FBI presence.

Now it was your turn.

Prentiss had already ordered Robles and his officers to set up positions by all exits of the building. You, Prentiss and the SWAT team were going to coordinate entrance on the section chief’s orders. You and Prentiss had your guns at the ready, pointed at the ground, as you flanked the doorway together.

You lock eyes with Prentiss who gives the go ahead and you speak into the radio that Robles provided both of you. “Ready in five … four …”

You go silent as all units would finish the count down and on one, a SWAT officer came swinging in with the two handed breaching tool to place right between the lock and jamb. With two soft slaps that sound like a piston, the door is breached and Prentiss heads in first, shoulder blocking the door fully open.

A cacophony of clears starts echoing in the empty rooms. You call some out yourself as you clear a utility closet and bathroom and work your way with Prentiss and SWAT down the hallway. You all fan out to cover the rest of the rooms. There were two offices and six examination rooms. All empty.

One of the officers comes up to Prentiss, assault rifle securely pointed to the floor. “Building’s secure. No one’s onsite, Ma’am.”

Holstering her Glock, she licks her lips in thought. “Spread out and search for anything connecting Arnold with the victims or where she’s at.”

You already wandered away from her to do just that and landed in the supply room to look around at all the basic medical equipment an office like this would have. All the sterile processing of surgical tools would be done somewhere else. You were about to turn around and leave when something caught your eye. A white strap dangling out of a floor cabinet. You lean forward to open it and feel a rush of memories.

“FUCK YOU!” you screamed, spitting at the male nurse’s aide’s face. Two of them were trying to grab your flailing limbs as you thrashed about on the bed. “I’M NOT GONNA GO!”

“Damn it!” the one orderly huffed, shaking his head along his shoulder to get his eyes clean of saliva.

It gave you the chance to kick him in the stomach when his grip loosened. But with the commotion you were causing, two more men came in to assist and grabbed ahold of you. You were outnumbered as they forced your hands and feet into the padded restraints.

Then there was the hated sharp sting into your thigh of forced medication …

You come out of the memory, not realizing you were already cradling the wrist restraint. With a hard swallow, you now know why those indentations seemed so familiar with the victims. You had them yourself at one point when some asshole tech tightened your restraints too hard. Of course, part of you still wondered if you deserved the rough treatment. That guilt that since you were a bad patient, you deserved the treatment you got. You were always physical and uncooperative with staff, and you didn’t give a shit who you hurt back then …

“Hey, Whitlock?” Prentiss’ voice forces you to look up and you curse the fact that you just know your cheeks are burning. There is no way she didn’t notice it, but she didn’t press. “Got something?” she asks instead.

“Uh, yeah.” You toss the restraint over to Prentiss and she catches it. “Pretty sure this is what Arnold’s using on her vics.”

She turns it over thoughtfully. “And we found midazolam in the med room. Arnold’s home’s empty but Rossi did find untouched ampules of flunitrazepam.”

You free the phone from your belt and call Garcia. “The princess is in another castle. We’re 0 for 2 here.”

Prentiss looks up at you but was unable to catch your gaze. You were focused on the call with Garcia. She did have some reservations with how you reacted to the restraint she was now holding and wondered if it would affect your ability to remain in the field.

“Let’s see what my crystal ball can tells us. Ah! Arnold did set up shop at a different office before the one you’re currently standing in. About eight months ago she moved from there before her whole world unraveled. Former office locale is currently vacant and just like that, you have messages with the address.”

You take a peek at your texts before responding. “Thanks, Garcia. We’ll keep in touch.”

“You better, missy!” You wince, hearing the commanding tone of wholesome concern. “Queen Penelope out.”

You start moving out of the room while pulling up directions to the office. “We’re six minutes away.”

You were focused and the section chief would keep her concern to herself and stay close to you as this unfolds. Prentiss’ voice carries loud and clear throughout the hallway as she leads the way. “Alright everyone, we’re moving out!”

Fully gowned with hair tied back under a blue surgical cap and face covered by a mask, Arnold adjusts her goggles as she leans forward to inspect her work one last time. MacDonald’s face was centered inside the hole of the surgical drape to where the markings were clearly visible. His neck and upper torso were covered as well with wrists and ankles secured to the cart by restraints.

With a practiced hand, she reaches for the instrument tray to pull closer. She slides a finger down the length of the scalpel handle before picking it up. Despite her malevolent intentions, her grip was gentle as she tilted his head to secure him for the first incision.

But she was interrupted by the double doors to the exam room being kicked open. Her eyes widened in terror as officers start shouting orders.

“FBI!!!” Prentiss yells, gun lined up for a shot as two SWAT follow suit to cut off Arnold’s escape routes.

“FREEZE!!!”

“LOWER YOUR WEAPON!!!”

You watch Arnold pull the scalpel closure to MacDonald’s neck, securing his head in a headlock. “Get away! Get the fuck away!!!”

All four of you had a clean shot to take Arnold, but there was a chance she could still do irreparable harm with how close the blade was to MacDonald’s neck.

“Sandra, you need to put the scalpel down,” Prentiss says firmly.

“Like hell I do!” she shouts back. “He fucking deserves this! They all fucking deserve this!”

“It’s bullshit the justice system failed you. Failed Desiree and Lauren. But this won’t take the pain away of what happened to you. To them,” Prentiss implores.

“No … but at least there’s some justice,” she hisses, the blade digging in just enough to draw a bead of blood on his neck.

“But is it really? Justice?” you ask as you lower your gun. Prentiss quickly looks at you and wonders what the hell you’re doing.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she bites back, puffing her chest out arrogantly. “With him gone, that makes three less rapists in the world.”

“Alright. Let me ask it like this.” You hold your hand up as you put your gun away. Arnold remained engaged. “Does it feel like justice to you?”

She blinks her eyes several times and looks around the room, passing over Prentiss and the officers without focus. Your question stumps her. You can see how she is struggling to reconcile what justice means to her. You could even see the face mask crinkling as she was trying to find her words.

You nod with understanding, your eyes betraying the same conflict that Arnold has in trying to reconcile the feelings of violation and anger right now. You fight the shiver that threatens to run down your spine, needing to stand firm as the two of you share the same haunted look that does not go unnoticed by Prentiss.

“It’s doesn’t. It never will, Sandra. Even if you were able to find the one that hurt you, that you do this to him and declare justice in victory, through their death,” you slowly motion with your hand to the guy on the cart, “you’re trying to find peace.” You lick your lips as your throat tightens, regaining the control you need to get through to Sandra. “But there’s no peace.” You shrug tearfully. “It never comes. It never will. You just … have to find a way to live for yourself. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. You just have to find the strength to survive.”

You watch as Sandra’s throat bobs up and down several times as you all wait to see how this will go. Will she surrender or cause someone to pull their trigger and end this stalemate.

But then you hear her sniff as she blinks back tears. “You know.”

A statement that you affirm with a nod. “I do.”

She fights back a sob. “I was really trying to help them …”

Your watery eyes soften as you sadly smile. “I know.”

And it was in that moment that Arnold made her decision to step back, letting the scalpel fall to the floor with a loud clang. SWAT immediately went in to put cuffs on her and read her rights as you vaguely were aware of Prentiss calling in for a medic. Right now you are focused on watching Arnold being escorted away. The two of you kept eye contact, her watching you over her shoulder until more officers came running in to obscure the view.

“Hey…” Prentiss voice was like a loud boom that went off by your ear. The anxiety of forcing yourself to come back from such raw memories heightened everything around you.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” You look passed Prentiss as a group of officers’ start assessing MacDonald.

She places a hand on your shoulder and since you didn’t flinch, she squeezes. “You did good getting her to surrender.”

There was a lot to unpack with what happened here. The enigma that you are just grew with what Prentiss learned tonight. It already started with the faraway look you had holding the restraints back at Arnold’s office. This unsettling revelation amplified so many questions that Prentiss wanted to know about you.

“Thanks,” you say, offering a forced half smile at her. “Better than her getting shot, right?”

She drops her hand and nods. “Yeah. She’ll get the help she needs.”

At that you laugh shakily. “Remains to be seen, but yeah. Hope so.” You felt conflicted about knowing that MacDonald was going to live because you understood where Arnold was coming from. There was a reason you didn’t share with Sandra that you personally rid yourself of your abuser. You would have lost the connection of trust built on shared trauma.

Prentiss watches you shambling off, unsettled with how your eyes had lost its luster. Seeing you sullen and devoid of your usual concealing humor was concerning.

Prentiss catches up with you after giving out last minute directives to secure the area until forensics arrive. Emergency lights flash brightly as officers were carrying out orders. Robles was here delegating tasks to where his people would contain the crime scene in and outside the building. You heard MacDonald moaning as the paramedics guided the gurney passed you to the ambulance. Whatever they had given him started to get the guy into some conscious awareness.

Rossi was waiting outside waiting for the two of you with a satisfied smile. “Sorry I’m late, but clearly you didn’t need me.”

You had stopped off to the side of Prentiss with hands tucked into your vest, your attention on watching Arnold being put into the backseat of a squad car.

“Whitlock talked Arnold down.” Prentiss explains with a small nod your way.

“How ‘bout that.” His smile grows and fights to catch your eyes. He raises a brow in question if he should push things, but Prentiss lightly shakes her head no. Getting the hint, he shifts gears. “Should we pull an all-nighter to tie things up on our end?”

“Might as well. I’d like to get the hell outta here. How about you?” She looks at you still staring off. “Whitlock?”

You didn’t acknowledge her, and Prentiss calls out your first name. That jars your attention as this was the first time you heard her say it. “Yeah?”

Rossi smiles patiently. He knew Whitlock was a seasoned officer but everyone’s first case with the BAU had a track record of rattling an agent. “We’re going to the station to get things squared away so we can hand it off to local PD. Sound good?”

You nod firmly with a tight smile. “Definitely.”

“It’s unfortunate this case’s a bust regarding Sicarius.”

“True. Maybe JJ and the others fared better.” Prentiss nods in agreement as both her and Rossi watch you wander off to the SUV.

“What happened in there that spooked her?” Rossi asks, moving closer to speak with Prentiss.

It didn’t feel right to explain it so candidly what you had gone through. It was best that Rossi read what the official reports said that you and she would write up. Anything more just invites a difficult conversation that she knew you wouldn’t be ready for. There was a burgeoning trust that had sparked between the two of you over drinks and she didn’t want to fuck that up.

“I think she just needs some time.” She watches you climb into the driver’s seat. “Like we all do when shit happens.”

You were sitting alone on one of the four seaters close to the window as the pilot confirmed you were at a safe altitude to move around the cabin. Rossi was passed out on the couch and Prentiss had just gotten up to head to the back of the plane.

You barely noticed, too focused on the music playing in your earbuds as you debated how to answer the text from Brian.

Dad sent 0330: How are things going?

You got that at the station over an hour ago and made a note to answer once the BAU wrapped things up. You were grateful that Prentiss and Rossi took the lead on what was needed to secure the case and that their official reports would be completed midweek. You tried to make mental notes on these protocols but your mind was elsewhere. Once you all signed off on what was required onsite, you drove the team back to the hotel to pack up and then it was off to the airstrip. An officer met you there to take the loaned vehicle.

You barely said a word except what was necessary. You hardly smiled. There were no quips, and you offered non-committal, I’m fines, when the two of them asked how you were. Prentiss was already piecing things further silently and was concerned. There was no way that a crime like this rattled you like Rossi had presumed. She knew you had seen far worse, and she can imagine in great detail what those situations were, having lived through many herself. You just hadn’t anticipated old wounds being ripped open with memories of darker times in your life to surface that made you feel like that lost tween Brian had recruited.

A soft thunk on the table startles you and you see Prentiss taking a seat across from you. There were two tumblers of whiskey before the both of you.

You stop the music with a furrowed brow in silent question. Prentiss explains gently. “Rough day. Thought you could use one.”

“Uh, yeah.” You take the glass to swirl the liquid around. “Though, isn’t it a bit early to drink?”

She shrugs. “Not in our line of work.”

You bring the glass up to your lips with a cleansing breath and figured, why not? You note the smell of whiskey and … “Did you just make me a Jack and Diet Coke?”

Prentiss’ head tilts slightly to the side, pleased you noticed. “I did.”

You raise your glass and give her your first genuine smile since talking Arnold down. “Thanks. Really.”

You both take a well-deserved drink and close your eyes at the warm burn that moves down your throat before radiating towards the rest of your body. You didn’t immediately relax, but the thoughtful gesture helps to provide focus. Enough so you found the strength to really look at Prentiss. You’ve seen enough as her brown eyes narrow in concentration, working on how to broach the unspoken but known.

You quickly lick your lips and set down the glass in a rush. “Don’t.”

Prentiss cautiously questions your reaction. “Don’t what?”

“Look at me like that. With pity.” You curl a hand into a fist to stop it from visibly shaking, but you watch in dismay that Prentiss already spots it.

She remains resolute in maintaining a steady eye contact once she has yours and emits a level of comfort and understanding. “It’s not pity. It’s understanding …”

Your felt your stomach sink, your chest tighten as a breath of surprise escapes without permission. You attempt to recover by clearing your throat and ask with hesitation. “Um. Really?”

That was a such a fucking dumb response to a monumental admission. Prentiss took the need for affirmation in stride. “Really.”

You pinch your brows and swallow hard, your lips trembling ever so slightly. “Well …that really fucking sucks.”

Prentiss chuckles bitterly. “Ain’t that the truth.” She opens a compartment under the table and pulls out a deck of cards. Tapping the case on the table, skilled fingers open the lid to remove the cards and starts shuffling. The methodical way she splits the deck and layers it back together with a rippling noise was comforting to you. “Did you wanna talk about it?”

You shrug still watching slender fingers be in complete control of the cards. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Well, it’s usually polite.” Her face scrunches up coyly.

You half snort and appreciate what she’s attempting to do. You finally look up at her. “What’re we playing?”

“Anything you want. Gin, poker, cribbage…?”

“Well, Rossi’s sleeping.” You sit up just enough to confirm he still was and sit back down. You thoughtfully rub your cheek as Prentiss finishes shuffling. Her compassion had truly touched you and even though your emotions were not fully boxed up as tightly you liked, you decided to say fuck it and have some fun. You waggle your brows, showing Prentiss you were feeling a little better. “There’s always strip poker.”

Prentiss cackles and you shush her, waving your hand to lower her voice. She starts dealing for a five-card draw. “There’s the Whitlock I know.”

You take each card that comes your way to sort them in your hand after rolling your eyes. “Figure you were missing her. I know you just love my antics.”

She wouldn’t admit it just yet, but she was. She fans the cards in her hand and studies them. “Possibly.”

You fall into companionable silence taking turns picking up cards, sipping your drinks, and showing your hands. You play several rounds and the two of you end up being even for wins and losses.

It was your turn to shuffle and you off-handedly ask a question that’s been on your mind. “Did they get the guy that hurt you?”

The two of you gaze intently as she slides her cards over. “Yes.”

You set the deck between you and reach for your glass. “Is he dead?”

The answer is immediate. “Yes.”

You take a healthy swallow as you debate on asking your next question. You slide your tongue along the front and back of your top teeth and find the courage to ask. “Did you kill him?”

She shakes her head no. “Someone else pulled the trigger.”

You lean back, shoulders slumping forward as the small similarities that could exist between two survivors ends. You fiddle with the cards, forcing them to ripple against the table as Prentiss waits you out calmly.

“I pulled the trigger,” you confess quietly. “I didn’t have to do it. But I wanted to. So … I did.”

With no response from Prentiss, you dare to look up but see no judgement, just an attentive listener that sought whatever you wanted to reveal.

“It’s partially why I was recruited.” That admission caught both of you by surprise and you try to backpedal. “I … fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.” You roughly sit up and lean over the table to get your cards in order. You’re such a fucking idiot!

“Hey, it’s alright,” she says gently. “I won’t say anything.” She could tell you weren’t convinced by how your eyes darkened with fear. She reaches out to lightly touch your arm and was glad you didn’t pull away. The warmth of her fingers soothed the fast-paced beating of your heart for fucking up again. Though this one was far worse than letting slip up about the AWOL matter. You really should have cut Rebecca off when she mentioned it and not join in the frivolity.

She takes a chance and squeezes your arm. “Promise. It’s like you keeping the sleepovers in my office a secret.”

Prentiss’ cheeky remark made you smile. Then you chuckle. “Okay, to be fair? You sleeping on your office couch isn’t a national secret.”

“Work with me here, Whitlock.”

“I am!”

You both share a smile and when Prentiss starts to pull away, you place your cards face up so you can cover her hand. She found it impossible to hide the astonishment at your gesture. “Thanks, Emily.”

She pauses for the right words to say, further touched by using her first name. She softly says yours and simply adds. “You’re welcome.” Then brown eyes look to the hand you gave up and tsks at you.

You’re confused. Did you do something wrong? “What?”

“Honey, you gave up a pair of aces.” She gestures to the cards as you both finally untangle your hands.

“Well, fuck me, I did.” You chuckle and pull out your phone after sliding the cards to Prentiss. “Here, get us started. Just gotta check in with Brian.” You point an accusing finger at the section chief. “And you especially can’t tell him anything about this conversation.”

She scrunches her face playfully. “What conversation?”

You grin brightly. “Exactly.” And then finally type up a simple response to Brian.

Whitlock sent 0527: Going very well.

@unkonw00 @ara-a-bird @rayisaknight @sevyscoven @maybe-a-humanbean

#criminal minds #emily prentiss #criminal minds evolution #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x female reader #prometheus #emily x you #emily x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x you #emily prentiss fanfiction

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literary-illuminati · 2 days ago

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2024 Book Review #61 – Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

This is the latest in my now-extremely-belated attempt to read all the nominees for Best Novella from this year’s Hugos (only need to hunt down a copy of Seeds of Mercury somewhere now!) It was a well-done, enjoyable read – nothing to change your life but, frankly, would have been far more deserving of the prize than Thornhedge was.

This is the fourth in the Singing Hills Cycle, following the itinerant archivist-monk Cleric Chih as they travel across a vaguely Chinese fantasy setting collecting histories and folktales to be collected into the monastery archives. After nearly three years walking the earth, they return to the titalur monastery itself to discover Cleric Thien, a very senior cleric and their own mentor, has died in the intern. Of more pressing concern, two members of their family are outside the gates – one of them a corporal in the Imperial Army with her command of two war-mammoths – demanding their body turned over to buried with their family and ancestors instead of interned in the monastery catacombs. And if that wasn’t enough of a complication Myriad Virtues, Thien’s companion neixin, has been driven to self-mutilation and a total withdrawal by her grief. It is, needless to say, an eventful funeral.

For all that, it’s not a particularly exciting novella, let alone an action-packed one. It’s very much, and very consciously, About Grief in a few different ways. Compared to earlier stories in the series, the narrative is far simpler, with none of the playing around with framing devices, unreliable narrators, or stories-within-stories that have kind of been the cycle’s trademark until now. The freed up space is instead used to make Chih far more of an actual character than they have been previously, rather than just a cipher to experience the narrative happening around them.

I do find myself slightly annoyed at the book because having set out such a genuinely messy and compelling conflict – both on the level of ‘who gets to decide what funerary traditions to follow and where the body is kept, the religious institution or the aristocratic family?’ being the sort of thing that has absolutely started wars, and with ‘who decides how someone should be remembered and grieved, their family or the people they choice to build a life with’ being a theme with a certain amount of contemporary resonance even without the whole thing where clerics are universally refereed to as they/them and Thien’s granddaughters kept insistently referring to them as a man – the book gave itself an easy way out on several different levels. But that’s just me being irritated it isn’t a different story entirely – this is a gentle, elegiac story; the central emotion is the melancholy of quietly organizing a loved one’s things after they’ve passed. On that level it works quite well and is even beautiful at points.

I’ve said before that this series would adapt near-perfectly into a high budget miniseries with a 40-60 minute episode per novella, and I stand by that. If anything, it feels like it’s only getting more true. It does feel like a bit of a loss, though – maybe I’m remembering it as more than it was, but I think Empress of Salt and Fortune had a level of thematic and narrative ambition that all of its sequels have kind of lacked. This and Into the Riverlands especially feel like they exist in a different and...shallower? Simpler? Clearer? Register than the first two entries in the Cycle.

Ah well. It would have to far a long way before it was even in the conversation for most disappointing book I read because of a Hugo nomination. On balance, lovely read with a dog cuddled up beside you on the sofa.

#book review #mammoths at the gates #nghi vo #hugo nom #sff #singing hills cycle

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power-chords · 1 day ago

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She’s also going to try to track down a therapist who specializes in mood disorders, costs less $$$, and can see me sustainably long-term for talk therapy. I told her that I was having trouble processing what happened to me, probably a common sentiment in the aftermath of psychotic mania. She said I was lucky, that she sees a ton of bipolar patients, and that the fallout from mine was “nothing” (which was not to diminish the extremity of my experience, only to emphasize just how destructive the disease can be and often is). I had just enough insight, grit, and craftiness to recognize that my beliefs and perceptions were bizarre and required concealment from loved ones/employers. It was a blessing and a curse — on the one hand, very few people figured out that I was sick. On the other hand, very few people figured out that I was sick! What might have lasted three weeks dragged on for three months because the (reasonable, lmao) threat of involuntary commitment petrified me. I’d done the psychiatric ward once before in 2008 while waiting for a bed at Silver Hill to open up. Those 36 hours in a blank, padded room scarred me worse than anything I had ever done or had done to me under the influence. I was completely unprepared for the terror and humiliation that is the total revocation of one’s autonomy. The nurses were callous, and I felt like an animal. To call it dehumanizing is an understatement. As hostile as the environment in my head was becoming, I was convinced that the ER posed the more immediate danger and had to be avoided at any cost.

Somehow I succeeded. I was listening to a clinician on a podcast the other day, this guy who runs an outpatient facility for people with mood disorders, and he said that manic episodes inevitably end in one of three ways: death, jail, or hospitalization. HA HA! Not for me! Meep meep, bitch! Weaseled my way out of that one!!! (Ironically, it’s a permutation of the old AA/NA refrain I had heard so many times before: "We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death." Dodged two bullets, apparently.) I have to laugh about it so I don't cry.

I'm sure it's annoying that I'm posting about this so much but having my whole life upended again at 36 was not on my bingo card. I had been so stable for so long, I was by all accounts a well-adjusted, normie-passing yuppie, and assumed the psychic turmoil of my youth was ancient history. It is a miracle that I was not seriously injured — for a while I was wandering city streets late at night, believing no harm could come to me — and that my career, finances, and marriage have survived intact. The statistics on bipolar illness are astonishingly grim. It’s like being in possession of a nuke inside your skull that can arm itself without warning and the codes to destroy your own life. You think of yourself as a sane person; you take for granted that the state of "sanity" is a robust and stable one, and that only the most extreme circumstances would push you over the edge. It is, and I do not use this term lightly, traumatizing to spend 12 consecutive weeks unmoored from reality and behaving in ways that are completely at odds with your personality. I am not a paranoid, angry person. I don’t hold grudges or presume the worst of others’ intentions. On the contrary! If anything, I am too trusting, too forgiving. I reflect on this past summer and don’t even recognize myself. The existential reckoning, the guilt and the shame, are overwhelming.

Last week I finished reading An Unquiet Mind and one of the things that struck me is how fortunate this woman was in three respects: the timing of when her manic depression struck (I.E., at intervals that still permitted her to finish college/her post-graduate studies), the uncommonly generous support of her family and colleagues (back when the stigma against mental illness was even worse than it is now), and probably most significant of all, access to superlative medical care (the UCLA psychiatric department) and responsiveness to lithium treatment. I benefit, thank god, from a situation with many of the same resources. She's led a fulfilling, successful, and ultimately long life. It felt good to read about a woman who played a "happy ending" out of the rotten hand she'd been dealt, whose experiences reflected so many of my own, and who seems to have retained her sharpness and verbal acuity well into old age. Cognitive decline is common as the illness progresses, and this is my greatest fear of all.

What's immediately, tragically evident in perusing the r/bipolar subreddit is just how many people find themselves in the exact opposite position. Insanity strikes at the worst possible moment; abandonment ensues from friends and employers, relatives and spouses; therapy and medication are lacking and insufficient, respectively. Financial and social ruin, and the resultant despair, are frequent outcomes. Dependency on SSDI and/or abusive and inescapable housing situations are documented left and right. The scope of the devastation is harrowing, and the guilt and humiliation that follows on its heels is a compounding cruelty. Knowing this, I am opting to feel lucky instead of unlucky. It has not been easy. It will not be easy. But I am as stubborn as they come, and I will figure shit out. "One day at a time," to borrow another 12-Step adage.

Dr. Ferrari referred me to a ketamine clinic and we're shooting for the week after Thanksgiving to commence infusions. She wants to space them out more than is typical, like every four days as opposed to every other day, to minimize the risk of triggering mania. But that's strictly precautionary and she thinks I'm an excellent candidate overall. Fingers crossed...

#bipolar diaries

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thearchercore · 5 months ago

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are people asking to be adopted now by charles and max? lmao

#they said family is an institution of TWO #lestappen #austrian gp 2024

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reasonsforhope · 17 days ago

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"Once thought to be extinct, black-footed ferrets are the only ferret native to North America, and are making a comeback, thanks to the tireless efforts of conservationists.

Captive breeding, habitat restoration, and wildlife reintegration have all played a major role in bringing populations into the hundreds after near total extinction.

But one other key development has been genetic cloning.

In April [2024], the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced the cloning of two black-footed ferrets from preserved tissue samples, the second and third ferret clones in history, following the birth of the first clone in December 2020.

Cloning is a tactic to preserve the health of species, as all living black-footed ferrets come from just seven wild-caught descendants. This means their genetic diversity is extremely limited and opens them up to greater risks of disease and genetic abnormalities.

Now, a new breakthrough has been made.

Antonia, a black-footed ferret cloned from the DNA of a ferret that lived in the 1980s has successfully birthed two healthy kits of her own: Sibert and Red Cloud.

These babies mark the first successful live births from a cloned endangered species — and is a milestone for the country’s ferret recovery program.

The kits are now three months old, and mother Antonia is helping to raise them — and expand their gene pool.

In fact, Antonia’s offspring have three times the genetic diversity of any other living ferrets that have come from the original seven ancestors.

Researchers believe that expanded genetic diversity could help grow the ferrets’ population and help prime them to recover from ongoing diseases that have been massively detrimental to the species, including sylvatic plague and canine distemper.

“The successful breeding and subsequent birth of Antonia's kits marks a major milestone in endangered species conservation,” said Paul Marinari, senior curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

“The many partners in the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program continue their innovative and inspirational efforts to save this species and be a model for other conservation programs across the globe.”

Antonia actually gave birth to three kits, after mating with Urchin, a 3-year-old male ferret. One of the three kits passed away shortly after birth, but one male and one female are in good health and meeting developmental milestones, according to the Smithsonian.

Mom and babies will remain at the facility for further research, with no plans to release them into the wild.

According to the Colorado Sun, another cloned ferret, Noreen, is also a potential mom in the cloning-breeding program. The original cloned ferret, Elizabeth Ann, is doing well at the recovery program in Colorado, but does not have the capabilities to breed.

Antonia, who was cloned using the DNA of a black-footed ferret named Willa, has now solidified Willa’s place as the eighth founding ancestor of all current living ferrets.

“By doing this, we’ve actually added an eighth founder,” said Tina Jackson, black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in an interview with the Colorado Sun.

“And in some ways that may not sound like a lot, but in this genetic world, that is huge.”

Along with the USFWS and Smithsonian, conservation organization Revive & Restore has also enabled the use of biotechnologies in conservation practice. Co-founder and executive director Ryan Phelan is thrilled to welcome these two new kits to the black-footed ferret family.

“For the first time, we can definitively say that cloning contributed meaningful genetic variation back into a breeding population,” he said in a statement.

“As these kits move forward in the breeding program, the impact of this work will multiply, building a more robust and resilient population over time.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, November 4, 2024

#ferret #ferrets #mustelid #black footed ferret #conservation #endangered species #conservation biology #biodiversity crisis #dna #genetics #cloning #good news #hope #hope posting #hopecore #hopepunk

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sayruq · 7 months ago

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Police in the Turkish city of Adana detained 11 suspects, five Israeli and two Syrian, on allegations of organ trafficking, the Daily Sabah reported on 5 May. The Provincial Directorate of Security's Anti-Smuggling and Border Gates Branch began investigating after examining the passports of seven individuals who arrived in Adana from Israel about a month ago by plane for the purpose of health tourism. The two Syrian nationals, ages 20 and 21, were found to have fake passports. Further investigation revealed that Syrian nationals had each agreed to sell one of their own kidneys to two of the Israeli nationals, ages 68 and 28, for kidney transplants in Adana. During searches at the suspects' residences, $65,000 and numerous fake passports were seized. Israel has long been at the center of what Bloomberg described in 2011 as a “sprawling global black market in organs where brokers use deception, violence, and coercion to buy kidneys from impoverished people, mainly in underdeveloped countries, and then sell them to critically ill patients in more-affluent nations.” The financial newspaper added, “Many of the black-market kidneys harvested by these gangs are destined for people who live in Israel.” The organ-trafficking network extends from former Soviet Republics such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova to Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, and beyond, the Bloomberg investigation showed. Accusations of Israeli involvement in organ trafficking also apply to the occupied Palestinian territories. In 2009, Sweden's largest daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported testimony that the Israeli army was kidnapping and murdering Palestinians to harvest their organs. The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israeli army, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs. "'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," wrote Donald Bostrom, the author of the report.Bostrom also cites an incident of alleged organ theft during the the first Palestinian intifada in 1992. He says that the Israeli army abducted a young man known for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the Nablus area. The young man was shot in the chest, both legs, and the stomach before being taken to a military helicopter, which transported him to an unknown location. Five nights later, Bostrom said, the young man's body was returned, wrapped in green hospital sheets. Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Institute harvested skin, corneas, heart valves, and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, and foreign workers without permission from relatives. The Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place, but claimed, "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer." Israel’s assault on Gaza since 7 October has provided further opportunities for the theft and harvesting of Palestinians’ organs. On 30 January, WAFA news agency reported that the Israeli army returned the bodies of 100 Palestinian civilians it had stolen from hospitals and cemeteries in various areas in Gaza. According to medical sources, inspection of some of the bodies showed that organs were missing from some of them. On 18 January, the Times of Israel reported that the Israeli army confirmed reports that its soldiers dug up graves in a Gaza cemetery, claiming its soldiers were trying to “confirm that the bodies of hostages were not buried there.”

#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #human rights #war crimes #gaza genocide #genocide

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fairuzfan · 4 months ago

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Sana Wazwaz, the chapter lead and education coordinator for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) Minnesota, told MEE the Palestinian community had been trying for months to arrange a meeting with the governor to talk about the devastating losses in Gaza and their demands for an arms embargo on Israel.

When they did manage to arrange a meeting with the governor for early July through the Council on Islamic American Relations (Cair), it was cancelled even before it began.

Wazwaz says when the six-person contingent, made up of activists and representatives of families who had lost relatives in Gaza, made their way to the governor's office on 9 July, they were first asked to meet with his staff.

When they explained to the governor's staff that they had come to discuss "material solutions" with the governor and not merely to narrate "sob stories" about the loss of their loved ones - given that it was now almost a year since the war on Gaza began - the two staffers abruptly got up and returned 15-20 minutes later to inform them the meeting had been cancelled.

"[We said] we want to talk about actual material solutions; how we can rectify the situation; how we can stop the horror; stop the genocide, and one of these mechanisms is divestment. We want to talk about like actually pulling materially out of the institutions that are complicit in the slaughter of our family," Wazwaz said.

When asked why the meeting had been cancelled, they were told that the governor "was prepared to listen to you tell your stories, but we weren't prepared to talk about divestment".

#palestine

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numinous-scribe · 9 months ago

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Siblings by trial and choice

So @noir-renard posted a prompt in Haunting Heroes a little while ago that's had me in a perpetual choke hold ever since.

When the Portal ZAPS Danny, he doesn't just get turned into a half ghost; he gets catapulted halfway across the galaxy. So now he's stuck on an alien ship, trying to deal with new powers, and desperately searching for a way home.

And my immediate thought was "How can I make this about Starfire?", from which everything spiraled.

[Click the pictures for better quality!]

Having assumed that the portal wasn't even supposed to be functional, Danny had absolutely no basis for anything that was happening to him. Not his new look or powers, not for wherever he was, and certainly not for the predicament of where he landed-- A ship he would later come to know as belonging to the slavers known as the Gordanians.

For all Danny knew, he certainly wasn't human anymore, and he might not have even been in the same dimension either; while Earth had been seeing more and more interactions with aliens, he'd never seen any quiet like these, and his parents had said that the portal was designed to view a whole other world.

And that was terrifying! He was Danny Fenton, just fourteen, and so far out of his depth it wasn't even funny. If it weren't for Koriand'r then Danny didn't know how he would have kept it all together.

As it were, Kor'i had already been enslaved for four years by this point. She knew what it was like to suddenly be cut off from everything she'd ever known, and the torment that was awaiting this strange boy that had appeared in a flash of green light. So even though she had nothing to give, Kor'i stuck by Danny's side.

Together, for the next two years, they fed each other hope.

Naturally, returning to Earth was a big ordeal for Danny, and by proxy for Kor'i as well. Over the two years they spent enduring harsh labor and torture from both their Gordanian captors and the Psions, Danny had confided in all sorts of stories about his home world and vice versa Kor'i about Tamaran. After confirming that he hadn't been transported to another reality, and that this was his Earth, Danny had been so excited to return home and to introduce Kor'i to his friends and family.

But while Earth was still the same, home... was not.

His parents were in jail; not only for their unethical and code violating lab, but because they were so neglectful to the point that minors were able to get into the lab unsupervised and one of them— Danny —was able to access their faulty machine and, presumably, died.

Jazz got picked up by the state, but quickly managed to get herself emancipated and now lived in some other state attending college.

The Manson's moved. Sam was a wreck and not coping well at all; her parents were considering having her committed to an institution for a bit to help her last anyone had heard.

The Foley's couldn't afford to move, so Tucker had to carry on with life as well as he could. He's quiet now, not as verbose and shameless as before, more of a hermit than anything.

And since he's been presumed dead, and can't figure out how to disprove that, honestly, Danny doesn't know how to pick back up where he left off. He can't. Because everything, including him, has changed as well.

But, like she's always done since the moment they met, Kor'i was there for him. And now they have a new family in the Teen Titans as well.

Bonus:

Close ups of Phantom and Starfire. Danny's suit design is a mixture of some of his original concept art and @the-stove-is-on-fire's designs :)

#scribe's work #tt!danny&starfire au #dpxdc #dpxdc crossover #dpxdc art #dcxdp #dcxdp crossover #dcxdp art #long post

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branwinged · 4 months ago

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"dragons plant no trees" gets thrown around a lot as fact, but i think the veracity of that claim is still up for debate in the books. because dany (like bran and jon and many others) is a narrative symbol of hope and rebirth within the series because of her connection to dragons and fire, not in spite of it. this is because dragons in asoiaf have a much more expansive narrative function than simply 'nuke metaphor'. the 'exclusively weapons of war' image they have acquired breaks down immediately if you recall that the first thing dany does with them is begin dismantling an unjust status quo. she rallies the unsullied at the gates of astapor with cries of dracarys! dracarys! freedom! <- dragons as a symbol of hope and freedom for the persecuted. and obviously they've been built up as an oppositional force against the others. we're told when the last dragon died summers became shorter. in that respect the dragons, or more specifically, fire which is warmth which is passion—very much embodies life against the numbing, deadening threat of eternal winter that the others represent. but fire also consumes, which simultaneously makes dragons agents of destruction, or as adwd shows: the monsters who eat little girls and leave behind their bones. but when dany found herself chained to a false peace which effectively undid her cause in meereen, it was the dragon that rescued her and reignited her fire to fight back—which is to say that dragons represent a wealth of contradictions within the text and this is likely something grrm means to parallel with the others to some extent, by questioning their apparent narrative role as the one true evil. because i doubt the series is gearing up towards a spectacle-esque battle wherein our heroes get to practice righteous, easy violence on a monolithic army of monsters. that feels like it would undo a lot of asoiaf's preoccupation with investigating violence against socially acceptable targets, even if said target is ice sidhe. and this binary between a one true good and a one true evil, i.e. melisandre's philosophy ("if half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. a man is good or he is evil.") is not something the story takes as given.

instead there's this exchange between bran, jojen, and meera in asos: "but you just said you hated them." / "why can't it be both?" / because they're different. like night and day, or ice and fire." / "if ice can burn. then love and hate can mate."—and i think it's talking about reconciling two conflicting ideas. because the dream of an eternal summer is just as unsustainable as the threat of eternal winter. i think the battle for dawn is more about questions of seasonal harmony. the first line from agot's summary says, "long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance", so it's not totally out of question for the series to end with that seasonal balance restored once more. and that question of balance and how it can be achieved then works as a metaphor for a bunch of other things. because asoiaf at its core is very interested in exploring big contradictions, like love and duty? how do you keep all your oaths without betraying someone you love? how can one hope for a just, rightful ruler in a world where the systems in place can never allow such a thing? how do dragons plant trees?

you cannot frame dany's arc as a binary choice between planting trees or embracing (dragon)fire. because the fire is hers, it is a part of her, that's who she is. and her character has always existed outside of rigid dichotomies. at the end of agot she had two options, resign herself to a life of seclusion as a widow or die with the last of her family in that pyre, instead she performed a miracle. presently, i think grrm means to explore necessary, revolutionary violence with her arc because you cannot deal with institutional slavery by simply negotiating with slavers like she does in adwd. and the consequences thereof because she's also been set up to be more reckless with dragonfire in the future. but i think there will be an eventual reconciliation there, between her dreams "to plant trees and watch them grow." and her role as the mother of dragons, as a revolutionary figure. because if ice can burn, then maybe dragons can plant trees. they'll learn how to.

#love jojen btw like yeah king ominously mutter the main series thesis statement just like that.#have wanted to make this post for a while because that quote is everywhere. why are we taking hallucination jorah mormont at his word...#someone else must've already said something similar in response. sorry if this is repeating a bunch of known stuff #anyway i want a citadel sam chapter so bad. i need to know about the seasons!!! i was so excited about it in affc #but then i realised sam wasn't making it to the citadel proper in that book. maddening!#dany #*[🫀]#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #magic in asoiaf #dragonposting

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stellas-and-tonitruses · 10 months ago

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Everything we know about Project Apple (and, by extension, Anya's past) thus far

thought i'd compile all of that now while endo's on break Just In Case the next chapter happens to start anya's backstory (i don't Think it will but endo likes surprising us LSDFKLFS)

important disclaimer that project apple and the organization in charge of anya's experiments have not been confirmed to be related! there's evidence that they have things in common, in particular employees, but that's our only real connection between the two thus far. still! worth looking into

more under the cut!

so, starting very strongly with the very first mention of anything related to the project: anya's introduction in chapter 1

despite her being a main character, we know very little about her past at the moment, and this little blurb at the beginning makes up a very big portion of what we know.

things to note here:

as an experiment, her name was "Test Subject 007". important to note that the notation differs between her and bond: she was Test Subject 007, bond was Subject 8, no zeroes in there;

she had been made thus by accident, the phrasing itself implying quite heavily that she was just a normal child before said accident (but this is the translation! i don't know japanese so i can't cross-reference with the raws to clarify if the phrasing changes anything, but the fanbook uses the word "gained" to describe her powers too);

because her mind-reading is an unintended consequence, that means the scientists were presumably not, at least initially, trying to achieve cognitive enhancements in humans, and were instead trying to achieve something else, whatever that might've been;

she escaped from the facility and then moved from institution to institution, looking for a family.

so, crucially, through this little introduction we learn that there is an organization, government-funded or otherwise, that is or was conducting human experiments for unknown purposes. we also learn that whatever family anya had prior to being involved in the experiments is more than likely unreachable, at least as far as she knows, and so she has settled for finding a new family to take care of her instead.

in terms of the facility itself, here we see they clearly drilled it into her that she can't ever reveal her secret (and the darn plush is there too -- in the anime it's even more emphasized, as you can see in the gif i made)

through her reminiscing though, we get our very first look at the scientists that were in charge of her! they're in the gif above but here they are in the manga too. it's so interesting that the anime actually shows their eyes behind the glasses though, fascinating choice.

the insistence on world peace is important, as it explains her own personal obsession with it and shows that it's not just because of twilight's own focus on preserving the peace. i also don't think twilight ever really talks about "world peace," only about "preserving the current peace between westalis and ostania" -- anya seems to be the only one talking about WORLD peace (even in the very first scene where either of them mention it in proximity to each other in ch 1, loid says "understanding the other party is the first step towards peace" and anya's interpretation is "understanding me makes world peace?") but take this with a grain of salt because i might be wrong! going through every single mention of peace in the story just to fact check this one little trivia fact is a bit much i think so i'm not doing it JSDFKLSD

but yes

remember mr hair strand and baldy, we'll see them again. not her though, ig she wasn't in charge of bond

now, fast-forwarding to chapter 19, we finally get a name and a premise for the experiments:

"but oana," you might say, "this is talking about animals only! how do we know it's the same project as anya's, which involved human experimentation?"

i don't think it is, is the thing! i think it's related to the experiments anya was a part of, which is evidenced by the same scientists being featured in project apple too, but there's more going on that we don't know about. there wouldn't be such adamancy on keeping the two separate in every official mention of them if they were just the same thing, imo!

back to the evidence, we learn that the project, conducted and funded by the previous ostanian regime (meaning donovan's related to it one way or another, since he was prime minister), was marked by franticness and desperation -- a prime place for accidents like anya's telepathy and bond's future vision.

we also learn that the project was sacked by the new administration and that the former test subjects ended up on the black market.

(this makes it very important, imo, to learn when anya escaped the facility vs. when the project was sacked. it's clearly no longer in function, but while we've heard nothing from them thus far, i'm willing to bet the shady dealings around the desmond group are NOT related to the war, as W.I.S.E. has been led to believe, but rather to reignite project apple. that is speculation however so i'm going to refrain from theorising much on why the desmond group is focused on acquiring pharmaceutical companies!!)

ok speculation tangent over, back on track

so, that's already a decent amount of info! but moving to chapter 22, when bond is finally home, and we finally see some familiar faces

behold! baldy and mr hair strand!

and 2 other guys we don't know but will see again in another bond flashback!

that's 2 out of the 3 scientists we've seen thus far from anya's own time as subject 007, confirming that there IS a connection between anya and bond's experiments, regardless of whatever the project anya was a part of might've been named.

this is also the chapter in which we learn that bond himself was subject 8 (or, if we take it from the fanbook, subject #8. still, diff notation from anya!)

in chapter 31, we learn an interesting tiny piece of trivia. we don't get any further info on it, but it IS mentioned as something that is known by W.I.S.E.:

ostania is rumoured to have done human experimentation! and W.I.S.E., and by extension loid, are aware of that.

do i know how them knowing may be important later? not really!

the next droplet of info we get is in chapter 40. we see that project apple had collaborators that are still functioning unhindered.

of course, born industries is only rumoured to have been involved with project apple, but regardless of whether or not they actually were, the rumour itself implies that the project likely pulled scientists from various other companies' R&D departments.

(this makes the desmond group's acquisition of glooman pharmaceuticals shadier, but anyway)

as a side note, twilight is emoting so much at just his wrong assumption that bond is seeking revenge against the scientists. imagine how he's going to react when he finds out about anya JKSDFKLFSD

and now aaaaall the way in chapter 58, we see the bald guy who anya also knows, the two scientists from bond's previous flashback, and one whole new guy!

and thus ends our current knowledge of it all!

the only other thing worth discussing is anya's knowledge of classical language

but plenty people have already discussed these scenes, especially recently, so here are some links: 1 | 2 | 3

the only thing i can add is that i'm fairly certain that classical language is a lot more likely to be latin than old english, because it's a very common language to learn in school (in europe at least, and ostania is based on east germany so it makes sense to me. i learned mandatory latin in school for a few good years too, even if i wasn't that good at it lol) and because one of the most common modern usages of latin are in medicine and science, it would make sense that she'd be better at it due to exposure.

a possibility is also that the scientists would think in latin to conceal their thoughts from her, and that's how she ended up learning so much. she's not fluent in latin, she's just well acquainted and that cicumstance would explain the how.

BUT THAT'S SPECULATIONNN

also i don't think "ANIA" is an acronym, nor do i think anya's been misspelling her own name out of lack of knowledge. "ania" is a polish diminutive of anna and an alternate transcription of Аня, so i think it's far more likely that anya isn't ostanian or westalian than it is that her name comes from an acronym.

now,

TL;DR!

what we know about project apple (and the "mysterious organization"):

project apple was funded and conducted by what appears to have been donovan's regime and, from what W.I.S.E. knows, aimed to create highly intelligent animals for military purposes;

W.I.S.E. is aware that ostania is at the very least rumoured to have dabbled in human experimentation;

the project is presumably no longer on-going, though it is likely there are efforts behind the scenes to revive it;

it is rumoured but not confirmed that project apple had collaborating companies that are still functioning perfectly fine;

the same scientists who were in charge of bond were also in charge of anya, signalling that there is a very significant connection between project apple and the "mysterious organization;"

based on what they were telling anya, they were/are very focused on "world peace";

their experimentation methods include but likely aren't limited to electrocution.

and what we (vaguely) know about anya that relates to this:

she is at the youngest, 4 years old, and at the oldest, 5 nearing 6. we don't know her real age, all we know is she definitely lied about being 6;

she is very fixated on specifically world peace while twilight is focused on peace between ostania and westalis. the scientists are the very first we see talking about this, so it's likely their fault;

she is unreasonably well acquainted with classical language;

she has escaped the facility at LEAST 1 year ago;

and, one tidbit from the fanbook (page 29): "Anya has been reading minds for as long as she can remember," implying that her memory of a life before the lab is muddy at best and absent at worst.

that's all we know that i know of!!

if you got this far, thank you for reading :D hope any of this was interesting or sparked any theories >:] have a good day!

#sxf #spy x family #manga spoilers #project apple #anya forger #bond forger #sxf manga #spy x family manga #sxf manga spoilers #spy x family manga spoilers #analysis #meta #I DIDN'T OWN THE FANBOOK WHEN I FIRST MADE THE DRAFT FOR THIS BUT THEN I BOUGHT IT well my brother bought it for me #bless his heart #AND SO I WANTED TO READ THE ENTIRE THING BEFORE CONTINUING ON!!! didn't find much out in relation to this post specifically but #there's quite a lot to infer on how anya's powers work #and there's a distinction between what she reads (internal voices vs mind reading which would be digging into someone's subconscious)#so that would be super interesting to talk about but uh not in this post KLSDFJSDKL since it has little bearing on the project itself

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motimatcha · 7 months ago

Text

"nostromo"

PART 5. Survivor for the Nostromo.

parts: one | two | three | four | five

dbd Xenomorph (alien) x fem!reader. smute: unprotected sex; vaginal sex; tongue fucking (cunnilingus); sperm inside; tongue in mouth; size difference; a large amount of sperm; bloating; sex with a monster.

The familiar crackle of the fire filled the space, but for the first time, you bet you could feel its phantom warmth. Perhaps you were warmed by the thought that you would still be able to meet the xenomorph. But asking yourself the question “why do I need this?”, you did not dare to give a clear answer. Because this could be the beginning of the end for you and for you to accept those brewing feelings for a humanoid creature.

Is it possible to joke that his courtship has borne fruit? Or is it the time spent together? The answer to this question could only be given by you yourself, and since you decided to go into the forest to search for an offering that could lead you to the xenomorph, the answer was more than obvious.

The moon was your only companion on this thorny path . Decorated with millions of stars in the dark sky, she looked blankly at your futile attempts and searches in the forest. During all this time, you happened to find several abandoned lanterns of good quality, collect herbs for good luck, a first aid kit, even a high-quality key to the hatch was in your pocket. On any other day, you would have been happy about such a large number of valuable and rare items, as well as improvements to them, but the situation was different and you were looking for offerings for certain territories.

One got the feeling that they exchanged rarity with the items or that the Entity, in mockery, took them away altogether. What did you do with the xenomorph? This couldn’t help but anger you, but gritting your teeth and wrapping yourself in a jacket so that the biting branches of bushes and low trees wouldn’t hit your hands so hard, you continued your search.

He who seeks will find, as your grandmother said, and therefore you did not stop at the achieved result.

The first location found for your offerings was the Loray Memorial Institute, followed by Springwood, Gideon Meat Processing Plant. Apparently the Entity decided to take pity on you, but not too much, and give out offerings in the reverse order of your stay in its world and during the trials. If everything goes on like this, then you won’t be able to get the offering you need in a century.

Exhausted, you sit down on the grass, damp due to fog and dew, and then lie down. In silence, far from the fire and the hubbub of people, you feel calmer than ever. So what if you are a black crow among black crows? You should be proud of yourself, no less; survive the hunt, aka courtship, of a xenomorph , and then be under the protection of the same creature from David, on top of everything else, a successful conversation with GhostFace... it’s time for you to become a living legend of this small world, so as not to go completely crazy. But the idea is not so bad. It will be possible to tell other survivors about this while you are all... while you are imprisoned here for all eternity.

Deep in thought, you don't notice Ellen's silent approach. The woman, concerned about your disappearance, even though she believed in your strength, and the forest shrouded in white fog itself was safe for survivors, but she still decided to check on you. What if you had a nervous breakdown and need the support of a loved one? Ripley , in any case, tried to think that you were close people to each other.

There may be a family not related by blood.

“Are you okay?” a calm and quiet voice pulls you out of your slumber. Louise sits down on the ground next to you, you can feel her familiar warmth and smell, this time mixed with swamp mud. Apparently she was lucky enough to be tested in a rotten swamp, although it also took place at the AutoHaven landfill. “You look inspired, albeit tired.”

“Um, I was looking for an offering,” you answer vaguely before turning from your back to your side towards the woman. So you looked even more like a family, strange, but a family: a mother and daughter, wise in life, in love with a monster. The plot is suitable for a film adaptation of one of the versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” except that the rating will be much higher than that of a regular cartoon, filled with blood and corpses. “So far the search has been unsuccessful.”

The brunette was silent for about a minute. Either she couldn’t find anything to say, or she knew, but had no idea how to do it. Finally, with a sigh, she continued the conversation:

“Do you want to meet him?” and you both didn’t need to clarify with whom exactly. Your nightmare, at the same time an object of interest, haunted you in your sleep and in reality, and with the departure of the xenomorph from the usual tests, this need only became stronger. And thoughts, dark and vicious, visited your dreams much more often than they should have.

And it was time to give answers to my own questions. Is it possible to joke that his courtship has borne fruit? Or is it the time spent together?

“Yes. Really want to.”

The ex-officer does not grin amusedly, but does not express any negativity or disgust towards your choice . You may still regret your choice, but the choice is entirely yours. Everyone must develop their own skills in order to make new decisions based on their experience. Ellen, as a caring person, can only support your aspirations and give advice, but not insist.

“As you said, “after courtship, you must prove your strength by resisting the xenomorph’s attacks , and then you yourself will find your way to him. If you want,” Ripley laughs with you and nibbles grass from the clearing. She pulls out one particularly long spikelet and presses it between her lips, thereby reminding you of a cowboy from the wild west. “It seems your words were prophetic.”

“Yes, I can see it myself,” the woman grumbles demonstratively and waves her hands in the air, and then rummages in her pockets. “Take it. Found it on the way.”

What was in your hands made you sit up abruptly and look in disbelief at the hand holding the offering. The "sluice doors" leading to the xenomorph's territory are in your hands.

“You can take all the things I found while scouring the forest if you give me this offering.”

“I was going to give it to you anyway, I still don’t understand how they work.”

“Thank you thank you thank you…”

You stood up from your seat and, as if under hypnosis, headed towards the general fire, before the voice of the former Nostromo officer brought you out of a kind of trance.

“To the edge of the fog,” was all the woman said before disappearing behind the trees.

You nodded gratefully.

As you moved towards the edge of the safe zone reserved for the survivors and separating those from the killers, the white fog began to rapidly thicken. Was this another test from the Entity? Maybe a test of your determination to see things through? Will you retreat at risk or will you still meet with the one you have been afraid of for so long? Shaking your head, dismissing the thoughts imposed on you that nothing would work out, you moved on.

Soon, a white fog enveloped every part of the space, making it impossible to go further. Somehow subconsciously you realized that this place is the line, the transition between the recreation area and the test, and it is here that you need to use the offering, otherwise the insidious entity will return you back to the fire.

You picked up a green polygon with doors drawn there and threw it into the fog. It, inexplicably fluttering and gurgling, began to become denser, and you were drawn to sleep.

Before you fall into oblivion, you think. How could you talk to Ripley if she was on trial and how did she know where to go?

A brutal industrial interstellar cargo ship where human life takes a back seat to brutal efficiency. Death lurks around every corner of its labyrinthine decks. From Ripley's well of memories, a dark and hopeless realm turns into a terrifying nightmare.

That's what you once thought, but finding yourself at the crash site of the Nostromo, with no generators or grappling hooks, surrounded by control points without turrets, you felt safer than ever.

You hesitantly step forward, hoping to meet the xenomorph, but as you search and spend time walking around the entire map, you realize that it is not here. But this is not so. Otherwise, why would the Entity fulfill your whim and allow you to step into the territory of the fallen spaceship? One can, of course, assume that your the captor just likes to watch how your face is distorted in despair that the stranger has been excluded from the kingdom of essence, and maybe everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance.

You approach the nearest control point. The strange thought “can a person go down there?” takes on new colors when the underground tunnels of the alien remain the only place that you have not yet explored. Exhaling, you turn your back to the entrance and slowly crawl through the narrow hole in the ground. The familiar mucus covers your body from head to toe, and now it becomes clear to you why the alien himself is constantly shiny and so sticky.

The dungeon, made of a material unknown to you, flavored with mucus, greeted you with gloomy silence and rare rays of light penetrating through the tunnels from the control points. You could almost stand up completely, the passages themselves were so wide, but it is worth noting that you still had to bend your head a little so as not to crash into something incomprehensible. And then you had to get down on all fours, because otherwise walking on two legs on the sticky floor threatened you with collapsing on it, and then suffocating in the mucus. Shameful death. Following your plan, you decided to go around the tunnels first along the edge and only then inspect the center, believing that this way you will increase your chances of meeting a xenomorph.

But here you are inspecting every passage at the border, then slowly crawling towards the center because of all the mucus stuck to your body, and the one you are looking for is still not there. There were no tears when you leaned against one of the walls and sat down with your legs bent towards you. The heavy realization that the xenomorph has been removed from the realm of essence falls on your shoulders. A heavy lump rises in your throat when the first plaintive sob escapes your lips. This was, at least, unfair, but the natural outcome for violating the rules of the world of the Entity and the corresponding punishment - for the life of one survivor, the killer pays with his own.

“Apparently, it’s time to leave,” you thought and directed your gaze to the exit to the control center ahead of you. You had just managed to lift your butt off the floor when suddenly there was a sound of a passage opening and a xenomorph descended, gracefully and naturally . “Is he really...”

The stranger you were looking for underground was himself looking for a violator of his peace on earth, sensibly believing that none of the survivors would think of descending into his kingdom. To see you here - covered in the mucus of an underground tunnel, tearful, but seemingly happy - was beyond all his expectations. His precious couple, who reciprocated his advances in marriage, themselves came and descended on him, honoring him with great honor.

The creature from distant space froze in place before taking a step towards you, then another, and now he was already at your feet. Seeing a xenomorph so close, knowing that it would not harm you, was surprising and amazing. Adrenaline hit the blood, and the heart began to beat so fast, attracting the attention of the predator. The alien made a sound similar to a purr, at least you could interpret it that way, before burying his smooth head into your chest. The strangers' hearing was a little weaker than that of a human, but even so, leaning close to your body, practically pressing you into the soft surface of the walls, the creature could hear the beating of your heart.

You knew that once you came and descended here, the xenomorph would not let you go. Remember Ripley said that the humanoid wants to create a new colony with you and you, being a vicious child of the Internet who knows about rule thirty-four, hoped that creating a colony implied a method common among people. Just the thought of what a monster’s penis might be like and how it penetrates inside you already excites your nature: there is a pleasant tug in the lower abdomen, it becomes wet from the approaching vaginal lubrication, and you want to see with your own eyes, feel for yourself everything that can give you xenomorph.

The latter seemed to sense the excitement hanging in the air . He hissed, but not threateningly, as it had always been before, but low and gutturally, so that his knees began to tremble. The alien took two steps back, allowing you to take a more comfortable sitting position, and just when you thought that everything would happen right here, the xenomorph suddenly shook his head negatively and waved into one of the corridors. You had no choice but to follow him.

He led you to one of the far corridors of the tunnel, where you had already been, but you did not properly examine the seemingly identical walls at first glance. And apparently in vain, because they lost sight of one of the secret passages leading somewhere deep down, where the temperature only rose, but not so much that it became unbearable for you. Clothes soaked in mucus clung to your body, outlining the curves of your body, giving the xenomorph an excellent view not only of your juicy ass covered in the fabric of your pants , but also of your breasts with hard nipples, and your long neck, so thin and inviting to leave its mark there. The stranger does not need imagination at all, his instincts and the growing desire to possess your body, heart and soul - all of you - did their dark work. The humanoid creature paused before smoothly descending, standing on its hind legs and extending its large palms towards you, lowering your half-size body down.

Based on generally accepted human standards, you could describe this place as a bedroom, making allowances for the non-human appearance of your future or current lover. The floor under your feet, which was a kind of flesh, was warm, soft and slimy, making it impossible for you to walk on your feet with shoes on. Perhaps, if you had the same sharp claws as a xenomorph, allowing it to cling to any surface, it would be much easier for you, but for now, overcoming the fear of the unknown, you take off your shoes. Your feet touch the soft floor, slightly springy and sagging under your weight, but overall the feeling was not disgusting.

You, drenched from head to toe in the secretions of a strange cave, feel more relaxed than ever.

The xenomorph hisses, attracting your attention and pulls the sleeve of your sweater towards him, pushing you to sit in a small recess in the bedroom. Can this thing be described as a bed? Maybe yes.

Surprisingly neat and gentle movements contrast so much with the wild nature of the stranger that it becomes almost funny. A light half-smile adorns your lips when the creature, picking up the hem of your T-shirt under your jacket, tries to pull it off of you over your head. As soon as you do this, it seems as if it becomes easier to breathe, but inside everything is tugging and burning with impatience. The mucus, which no longer seems so disgusting to you, envelops and warms the body, allows you to relax as much as possible, and now you forget about any pain in the body that tormented you due to both the uncomfortable posture while moving and the for a long walk on the surface. All fear has receded, relaxing and preparing your mind.

The stranger’s attempt to take off your pants was unsuccessful, just like yours, because the fingers covered with a layer of mucus simply could not grab the slippery button. For the first time, the sharp tail of a xenomorph was so close to your body, not in an attempt to kill, piercing through your body, but to get rid of a wardrobe item.

“However,” you think, looking at the sharp tip of the alien’s tail, “I wouldn’t mind trying games with a knife.”

You decide this for later, when the degree of your mutual trust moves to a new level. The xenomorph , kneeling in front of you, hisses and purrs contentedly. You slowly, a little fearfully, spread your legs to the sides, giving him a view of your womb, the pink folds of which are covered with your own juices and mucus. The xenomorph is dripping with saliva from his mouth when your hand reaches down along his stomach, covers his pubis with your palm, and thin fingers spread the natural barrier to your entrance to the sides - another narrow hole shrinks around the void, calling on the alien to fill it with himself. You thought that this creature had no mouth, that it was replaced by that extending thing with fangs, and for a second you even doubted the correctness of your decision when the alien opened its mouth, but instead of seeing the usual second mouth moving forward, it touched your womb something cold, thin and just as slimy.

The xenomorph has a tongue. Long, with a green tip that turns black the closer it gets to the throat. The xenomorph's tongue became thicker somewhere in the middle, you could compare its thickness to your three fingers, and there were also ribbed protrusions along the entire body.

It was hard to believe that it would be inside you, and you were counting only on light caresses, but the alien was determined to prove you wrong. Even if he himself had no idea about the course of your thoughts.

The actions of this snake tongue can be described as “chaotic” rather than “planned” or “purposeful,” but it is worth giving credit for its efforts. The sharp contrast of the coldness of the tongue and the warmth of the room excited your nerves brought to the peak, causing his every movement to tremble in your body. Here the xenomorph caresses your clitoris, tense with excitement, and you are ready to burst into ecstasy at any second, and a second later it teases your entrance to the vagina, penetrating inside with just the tip, and a disappointed groan already escapes your lips. All you can do is rush around the floor in the hope that the absolute weapon will stop playing with you, or mocking you, to be honest, and will fill your needy body, if not with its penis, then at least with its tongue.

Perhaps your prayers have been answered.

As soon as you open your mouth to tell the creature exactly how to move in order to bring you the maximum amount of pleasure, it puts its tail across your stomach, and its paws with razor-sharp claws touch your thighs, spreading them even further to the side. It knocks the air out of your lungs, but as soon as his cold tongue slides inside, stars flash before your eyes. It’s so unusual, strange, but pleasant to feel inside, from this feeling of gradual fullness as the xenomorph slowly and carefully pushes its tongue inside your womb. His movements are rhythmic and slow, first a little forward, then almost completely withdrawing from you, touching the sensitive clitoris with his growths along the tongue. Oh, that wonderful feeling of friction and pressure, pulling moans from your lips. Your hands are rushing around, not knowing where to place yourself . Maybe grab a stranger’s tail, counting the vertebrae with your fingers, or play with nipples swollen from excitement? Well, you have two hands to do both.

As soon as you touch the tail, slightly touch a sensitive point of the alien body, the xenomorph begins to squeal, pushes its tongue into you a little sharper and deeper than originally planned, as you arch your back, but most importantly, your lover’s tongue arches after you, touching and pressing on the very point that brings you a lot of pleasure . Your loud moan, the echo of which reaches your ears, in which you can hear the frantic beating of your heart, marks the arrival of your first orgasm.

The alien had to do so little to get you to your peak that it's almost astounding. Will you then be able to normally perceive caresses from a person or will you become addicted to the feeling of buzz and euphoria from the alien language, and then the penis?

With one hand you cover your tightly closed eyelids. You try to catch your breath, but it’s all in vain, because the overexcited and full of energy xenomorph is ready to continue giving you affection and pleasure. After all, you are his couple, who reciprocated. The tongue inside you rubs and curves, getting thicker and thinner and always touching your swollen clitoris so that you don't have to worry about having a second orgasm. The movements become faster and more chaotic, as if the alien is trying different methods and approaches on you to find what gives you the most pleasure. And when you are ready to reach the peak of orgasm for the second time, the xenomorph allows you to do this too, smearing the wide part of his tongue along your scarlet bundle of nerves.

This time it just rings in horror, and black dots flash before your eyes in place of the stars.

The xenomorph steps back. His slippery tongue comes out of your womb. And such a sound is heard, vulgar as in porn, but damn exciting. It’s as if a plug was pulled out of you and all that mucus that came inside along with your tongue began to flow out of your body.

Having barely caught your breath and found the strength to open your eyes, you look down to where the xenomorph is located. But he soon reached forward, placing his huge paws on either side of your chest. You were wondering if someone else has a penis, right?

There, pushing the groin shields to the sides, it appeared. Something that will divide your world into before and after.

Big, long. The tip of the xenomorph's penis was slightly elongated and thin, becoming thicker just below, and tapered again at the creature's hips. Its color was identical to the tongue - green at first, gradually turning black - and had growths, two of which ran along the upper part of the penis and one below. You could assume that the maximum length of these protrusions does not exceed half a centimeter, but this will be enough to give you an unforgettable experience.

A clear viscous liquid dripped from the tip of the penis, not the same as the mucus that envelops your bodies and you remembered the word pre-cum . Apparently this is typical even for xenomorphs .

“I want to touch,” became your first thought, and you listened to your desire. The stranger, showing you the highest degree of trust, allowed you to touch his most sensitive part of the body without any obstacles. And he hissed in surprise as soon as your hot hand touched the alluring flesh. "Marvelous".

The penis in my hand felt pleasantly heavy. It was slightly warmer than the alien creature's tongue; either the humanoid was simply excited until the body overheated, or its organ itself should be warm. In addition, it itself was soft to the touch, but hard, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. Mucus began to accumulate between your fingers as you ran up and down the ribbed shaft. Soft, pleasant, slippery. And it will end up inside your body.

Being under the influence of hypnosis due to the fascination with the xenomorph’s penis, you yourself, without knowing it, bring him to his first orgasm in his life. The alien life form does not know what it means to hold back, applying a similar concept to you for the first time, so as not to simply break the bones in your body, but otherwise gives its all. White streaks of sperm spread across your chest and stomach, slowly flowing down. You pick up one track with the tips of two fingers, spread them to the side, noting how thick and viscous the sperm of the creature from outer space is, that between the fingers spread in different directions, a string of sperm remains hanging between them.

It tastes... strange. It’s as if there is no taste at all.

The xenomorph groans . His nervous, twitching movements of his pelvis back and forth lead you to the idea that he himself wants to fill you with himself as soon as possible, and not only with his penis. You yourself have to raise your body to align yourself with the length of the penis and place the tip at the entrance to your body . My mouth was dry from anticipation. The creature's strong tail grabs you at the waist, sharply lifts you a little more, which is why you have to grab onto the powerful shoulders of your lover, in particular, reach for the tubes protruding from the back, in order to keep yourself in place. The legs can barely be locked behind the xenomorph's back, so you rest against the area above its tail.

Unusual pressure and stretching constrains your body . Despite the preliminary preparation, a copious amount of lubricant such as saliva, mucus and your own secretions, this is not enough to fully prepare yourself for the meeting with this monstrous penis . Only the head has penetrated, and it already seems to you that there is nowhere else to go . But at the same time, you want it to enter you completely, to divide you into two parts, to destroy your pussy, declaring its sole rights to your body and pleasure. Therefore, the xenomorph slowly moved further, penetrating you deeper and deeper with its monstrously large penis, exerting pleasant pressure with its size. The lumpy growths only complemented this wonderful sensation, pressing on the most sensitive points inside your body, and rubbing against your clitoris along with the thick penis. From pleasure, your mouth opened by itself, and pleasant moans, along with unintelligible babble, caressed the stranger’s ears. He was happy to feel that his partner was getting as much pleasure as he did from the feeling of how tightly the vaginal walls fit around his penis . How they tremble every time he plunges deeper into the supple body. He might think that he is intoxicated by this sensation and now he will certainly not let you go from his grip, he will fill you with his sperm, even if you cannot get pregnant in the realm of the Essence. He didn't care at all as long as it meant he could have you in every sense of the word.

The xenomorph stopped moving as his cock entered you fully, tearing through your sensitive walls, overloading your nervous system with the signals it sent. It was hot, cold, hot, everything throbbed and burned, but the vicious desire to become a victim of an alien creature, to be completely fucked and filled with his seed, overpowered any feeling of fear. But you were afraid to move, reasonably fearing that the feeling of pleasure would disappear. The alien decided to act first; slowly, his pelvis began to move away from you, creating many trails of mucus connecting your bodies. You wanted to tell him to stop, not to deprive you of this wonderful feeling of fullness, when he succumbed back forward, a jerk of the entrance turned around, crashing into your fragile human body with all his bestial power.

For long seconds you lost touch with reality, and when you returned, the feeling of lust, pleasant bliss and excitement that spread throughout your body, capturing every part of your body and soul, dispelled all doubts. You loved the xenomorph, his monstrous cock in particular adored you just like he did. The thrusts became smoother each time as your body and womb got used to the size of the alien creature, adjusting and stretching to suit its needs. And when there was no resistance left between you, when the xenomorph could freely penetrate you, desecrating your flesh with his nature, the angle of entry of his penis into you changed, as did the speed. The creature from another world had strength and endurance incomprehensible to the human mind, so it was not difficult for him to rise with your body on his hind legs and sharply lower him onto his penis, touching with the tip of his penis such places that you could not even think about.

It was nice. It's terribly pleasant. The vulgar sounds - your moans, his animal hands, as well as the slapping of your bodies against each other and the squelching sounds coming from the entry of his penis into your womb - only spurred the arousal of the two of you. The xenomorph opened his mouth, releasing his tongue, which immediately entered your mouth. The feeling of movement, both in your mouth and inside, completely severed your connection with reality and there was nothing left except the pleasure you received.

The pace of the thrusts gradually changed, becoming faster and sharper with each passing second. At the edge of your consciousness, you understood that the xenomorph was about to cum and his sperm would paint the walls of your vagina white. I wonder if there will be enough of it for your tummy to become bulging, if even now, by touching the designated part of the body, you could feel its ribbed penis under your fingers? Most likely, yes, but the excitement to check was as strong as your excitement.

After a few thrusts, the xenomorph released his cum into your body. You felt his cock throb as load after load of cum shot into your body. And there was really, really a lot of it. So much so that, despite still having his cock inside you, acting as a plug, white streaks of his seed were already running down the inside of your thighs and large white drops fell onto the slimy surface of the floor. The alien's long tongue licked the tip of your nose before being hidden in the creature's mouth. It, carefully supporting you in the air, sank back onto the warm floor and laid you under it.

It was clear as day that the xenomorph had no intention of leaving your body just yet. At least until he satisfies his hidden desire to impregnate you.

a little about this work.

Initially I planned to write only one part, the fifth, but I thought that without a pre-story it would not be so interesting.

It took me a day to write. in total there were 32 pages in Word, font Times New Roman, size 14.

I was thinking about attaching files with the Russian and English versions, but Tumler does not have this option. In any case, I don’t know about this.

At the moment, I finished making the last changes at 4:33 am on May 1st, whereas I started at 11 am on April 30th.

#dbd x reader #dead by daylight x reader #dbd xenomorph x reader #xenomorph x reader

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ghostwritermia · 7 months ago

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Mia love, i came over from Mothers post and your call for Jegulus.

I have this DESPERATE need to bite Jamies hipbone. I have to excuses, but i realllllllly wanna 😭

So, what about Reader and Reggie who just bite Jamie all the time at random amd while James has just bevome accustom to it, Siri would be so HORRIFIED and try to progect sweet Jamie everytime and it kind of just becomes a game to Reggie and Reader: Operation Bite Beefy Boyfriend!! Alternatively how many times can we bite James before Siri has a meltdown.

I hope you get all your Jegulus wants!! 🫶

sorry if this sucks and that its so short, I tried 😭

It had started as a joke really, between you and Regulus. A game to see how long James could go without saying something about it. But he never did.

You and Regulus, both sorted into separate houses, had found your way to each other in 5th Year, and then during summer break between 6th and 7th Year, the two of you had fallen in love with the sweet sunshine that was James Potter, though you two would never admit that you fell first.

You had been neighbors with James for as long as you could remember, but had never actually visited his house until Regulus took up refuge there, therefore, you spent more time there. Hence, the blossoming of feelings and the addition to your relationship.

You were laying on the couch in the Gryffindor Common Room, your head in James’s lap, while Regulus sat in an armchair next to James’s seat on said couch. Absent-mindedly, James moved his hand to stroke through your hair when he then felt the gentle nip of teeth sinking into his forearm, stopping his movement.

Where James had gotten used to the game you and Regulus had started, some had not. Example being, Sirius screeching from his place in Remus’s lap on the opposite side of the room.

“Get your teeth out of my precious Prongs you demonic piranha!” he leaped from his place in Remus’s lap and strided over to you two and rolled you out of James’s lap and onto the floor with a thud.

Hearing the sudden commotion, Regulus’s head perked up from his book and looked to see you on the floor, simply laying there on your back, staring at the ceiling.

He sighed, placing his book down before sliding out of his armchair to reach a hand out to you. “Are you alright, Mon Amour?” he asked as he pulled you up.

“I’m fine. Your brother, however, needs to be in a mental institution.” You hiss, rubbing the back of your head.

“Trust me, I know, Amour.” he sighed, and you two looked over to see Sirius curled into James’s body gently stroking from the top of his head down his face to his chin.

You, Remus, and Regulus let out a collective scoff before Remus makes his way back up to his dorm, and you and Regulus grab your things before leaving James and Sirius to be.

~~~~~~

It was lunch and today you and Regulus had decided to sit at the Gryffindor table with James. You sat on the right side of James whereas Regulus sat to the left. However, Sirius saw something before you did. Regulus biting into James’s shoulder.

“Prongsie is not your chew toy, Regulus Black!” You hear Sirius squawk. You look past James’s chest and see Regulus simply lift his eyes from James’s shoulder to roll them at Sirius before looking over to you smirking, yet to remove his teeth from James’s shoulder.

"Well that would make sense, seeing as how you're the dog in the family." You retort, laying your head on James's shoulder.

James looks to each of you, smiling before affectionately leaving a kiss to each of your foreheads, much to Sirius Black’s protests.

#james potter fluff #the marauders #james potter #the marauders era #jegulus #jegulus x reader #james x regulus #regulus x reader #james potter x reader #regulus black x reader #regulus black fluff #jegulus fanfiction

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crabcackes · 19 days ago

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DA Veilguard sanitized world isn't inclusive or progressive. It's whitewashed

There I said it. The way the game presents Tevinter (no mentions of slavery or racism, compared favorable to the south, only bad people are venatory) or Antivan Crows (presented as a cute found family who rebel against their oppressors, again no mentions of slavery, abuse, murder of innocent) is disastrous. Remember we had two companions who were victims to those institutions? Does Zevran's or Fenris' stores mean nothing now? Bioware took stories of two non-white companions who were abused and enslaved and then made their abusers into wholesome and friendly entities.

The are honestly plenty of other examples of DAV doing it but it's a bit long to summarize.

#I could go on and on about the implications of doing it and parallels to real life #but i'm honestly not smart enough to summarize it neatly #veilguard spoilers #veilguard critical #dragon age critical

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truth-has-a-liberal-bias · 4 months ago

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On Monday, former president Donald Trump announced his vice presidential running mate: Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.

There are endless reasons why I find this alarming, from Vance’s anti-LGBTQ legislation to his disparaging remarks about DEI initiatives. But I want to focus on an old speech that’s been recirculating since the news broke.

In 2021, Vance spoke at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s conference on the Future of American Political Economy, where he blamed "the childless left" for the nation's woes. As a woman who’s intentionally childfree, I am livid over this rhetoric. According to him, we have "no physical commitment to the future of this country."

...

Vance specifically called out several Democrats for not having "a personal and direct stake in [our country] via their own offspring": Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris (disregarding that the Vice President is the stepmother of her husband’s two children). Since this speech, Buttigieg and his husband have adopted two children.

...

Vance bemoaned the current state of "family formation" and "birth rates" in the US. But in true Republican fashion, he didn't bother exploring why many Americans are having fewer children.

...

Did Vance propose sound solutions to the "civilization crisis" like addressing climate change? Of course not. (He doesn’t believe that people contribute to climate change.) Other than praising Hungary's pro-natal policies, the only suggestion he offered was this preposterous idea: "Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children."

He continued, "Doesn’t this mean that nonparents don’t have as much of a voice as parents? Doesn’t this mean that parents get a bigger say in how democracy functions?" He answered his own questions with a "yes" after admitting "the Atlantic and the Washington Post and all the usual suspects" would criticize him.

...

After Vance received blowback for his ludicrous suggestion, he appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, where he double downed. "We are effectively run in this country...by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact." [...]

#Republicans #J.D. Vance #politics #2024 Election

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reasonsforhope · 1 year ago

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Story from the Washington Post here, non-paywall version here.

Washington Post stop blocking linksharing and shit challenge.

"The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was.

Her name was April Burrell.

Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself.

April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality.

“She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” ...

It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries...

Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain.

After months of targeted treatments [for lupus] — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.

The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other people with similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions.

Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery.

And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.

Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients, the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated.

“These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.” ...

Waking up after two decades

The medical team set to work counteracting April’s rampaging immune system and started April on an intensive immunotherapy treatment for neuropsychiatric lupus...

The regimen is grueling, requiring a month-long break between each of the six rounds to allow the immune system to recover. But April started showing signs of improvement almost immediately...

A joyful reunion

“I’ve always wanted my sister to get back to who she was,” Guy Burrell said.

In 2020, April was deemed mentally competent to discharge herself from the psychiatric hospital where she had lived for nearly two decades, and she moved to a rehabilitation center...

Because of visiting restrictions related to covid, the family’s face-to-face reunion with April was delayed until last year. April’s brother, sister-in-law and their kids were finally able to visit her at a rehabilitation center, and the occasion was tearful and joyous.

“When she came in there, you would’ve thought she was a brand-new person,” Guy Burrell said. “She knew all of us, remembered different stuff from back when she was a child.” ...

The family felt as if they’d witnessed a miracle.

“She was hugging me, she was holding my hand,” Guy Burrell said. “You might as well have thrown a parade because we were so happy, because we hadn’t seen her like that in, like, forever.”

“It was like she came home,” Markx said. “We never thought that was possible.”

...After April’s unexpected recovery, the medical team put out an alert to the hospital system to identify any patients with antibody markers for autoimmune disease. A few months later, Anca Askanase, a rheumatologist and director of the Columbia Lupus Center,who had been on April’s treatment team, approached Markx. “I think we found our girl,” she said.

Bringing back Devine

When Devine Cruz was 9, she began to hear voices. At first, the voices fought with one another. But as she grew older, the voices would talk about her, [and over the years, things got worse].

For more than a decade, the young woman moved in and out of hospitals for treatment. Her symptoms included visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delusions that prevented her from living a normal life.

Devine was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which can result in symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She also was diagnosed with intellectual disability.

She was on a laundry list of drugs — two antipsychotic medications, lithium, clonazepam, Ativan and benztropine — that came with a litany of side effects but didn’t resolve all her symptoms...

She also had lupus, which she had been diagnosed with when she was about 14, although doctors had never made a connection between the disease and her mental health...

Last August, the medical team prescribed monthly immunosuppressive infusions of corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs, a regime similar to what April had been given a few years prior. By October, there were already dramatic signs of improvement.

“She was like ‘Yeah, I gotta go,’” Markx said. “‘Like, I’ve been missing out.’”

After several treatments, Devine began developing awareness that the voices in her head were different from real voices, a sign that she was reconnecting with reality. She finished her sixth and final round of infusions in January.

In March, she was well enough to meet with a reporter. “I feel like I’m already better,” Devine said during a conversation in Markx’s office at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she was treated. “I feel myself being a person that I was supposed to be my whole entire life.” ...

Her recovery is remarkable for several reasons, her doctors said. The voices and visions have stopped. And she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for either schizoaffective disorder or intellectual disability, Markx said...

Today, Devine lives with her mother and is leading a more active and engaged life. She helps her mother cook, goes to the grocery store and navigates public transportation to keep her appointments. She is even babysitting her siblings’ young children — listening to music, taking them to the park or watching “Frozen 2” — responsibilities her family never would have entrusted her with before her recovery.

Expanding the search for more patients

While it is likely that only a subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders have an underlying autoimmune condition, Markx and other doctors believe there are probably many more patients whose psychiatric conditions are caused or exacerbated by autoimmune issues...

The cases of April and Devine also helped inspire the development of the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia, which was named for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which awarded it a $75 million grant in April. The goal of the center is to develop new treatments based on specific genetic and autoimmune causes of psychiatric illness, said Joseph Gogos, co-director of the SNF Center.

Markx said he has begun care and treatment on about 40 patients since the SNF Center opened. The SNF Center is working with the New York State Office of Mental Health, which oversees one of the largest public mental health systems in America, to conduct whole genome sequencing and autoimmunity screening on inpatients at long-term facilities.

For “the most disabled, the sickest of the sick, even if we can help just a small fraction of them, by doing these detailed analyses, that’s worth something,” said Thomas Smith, chief medical officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health. “You’re helping save someone’s life, get them out of the hospital, have them live in the community, go home.”

Discussions are underway to extend the search to the 20,000 outpatients in the New York state system as well. Serious psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, are more likely to be undertreated in underprivileged groups. And autoimmune disorders like lupus disproportionately affect women and people of color with more severity.

Changing psychiatric care

How many people ultimately will be helped by the research remains a subject of debate in the scientific community. But the research has spurred excitement about the potential to better understand what is going on in the brain during serious mental illness...

Emerging research has implicated inflammation and immunological dysfunction as potential players in a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, depression and autism.

“It opens new treatment possibilities to patients that used to be treated very differently,” said Ludger Tebartz van Elst, a professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University Medical Clinic Freiburg in Germany.

In one study, published last year in Molecular Psychiatry, Tebartz van Elst and his colleagues identified 91 psychiatric patients with suspected autoimmune diseases, and reported that immunotherapies benefited the majority of them.

Belinda Lennox, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Oxford, is enrolling patients in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of immunotherapy for autoimmune psychosis patients.

As a result of the research, screenings for immunological markers in psychotic patients are already routine in Germany, where psychiatrists regularly collect samples from cerebrospinal fluid.

Markx is also doing similar screening with his patients. He believes highly sensitive and inexpensive blood tests to detect different antibodies should become part of the standard screening protocol for psychosis.

Also on the horizon: more targeted immunotherapy rather than current “sledgehammer approaches” that suppress the immune system on a broad level, said George Yancopoulos, the co-founder and president of the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.

“I think we’re at the dawn of a new era. This is just the beginning,” said Yancopoulos."

-via The Washington Post, June 1, 2023

#mental illness #schizophrenia #schizoaffective #psychotic disorders #psychology #neurology #autoimmune #autoimmine disease #neuroscience #medical news #medical research #catatonia #immunotherapy #immune system #clinical trials #good news #hope

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