#things you learn working in DNA sequencing

[satisfactionbroughtmeback]

Danny stared at Ra's. Danny stared at the baby. This entire infant and now the second child of his created without his knowledge or consent.

At least this one was young enough to have not suffered as much damage. He had destroyed the first and largest Lazarus Pit a bit under 2 years ago and this child looked maybe a bit under a year. Or just over a year? He had not had enough time to pay attention with attacks happening during the unit for baby care in high school, and he could now say for certain the flour sack had not prepared him for this. Hopefully Frostbite would be able to help because otherwise he had no idea how he was supposed to figure out how to take care of an extremely liminal child not yet capable of expressing its desires.

"Yeah, no. I came here to close the portals and no, creating a baby me will not give you a weapon that will be able to open them again. How long have you even been planning this? And how did you get the material needed? Did you think I wouldn't be coming back to check my work when I noticed Realms energy that shouldn't be there? Just... what the fuck man."

Ra's glowered furiously. "You stole my pits! You had no right! And I will get them back. If it necessitates the creation of a child to remake them, so be it. You left through similar portals after destroying my property! Do not expect me to believe that they cannot be remade!"

Danny held the child closer. It's eyes were wide but they weren't fussing yet, thankfully, despite the shouting. "Portal creation is an extraordinarily difficult and rare ability! Even if you managed to create an exact clone, which this child clearly is not, they would not have been able to recreate those cesspools you were using."

Ra's expression, disconcertingley, lightened. "Maybe not for a being of your limited intellect, but I have worked to remedy the issue. Young Timothy may have refused to be my heir but I have ample genetic material and something with your abilities and his brilliance will no doubt be able to solve the issue. But further discussion is unnecessary. You are correct that the creature you are holding fell short of expectations but my research has found a way to contain your kind and I will be able to make better versions soon enough. Shadows!"

Phantom darted backwards scanning the surroundings as the ninjas he had seen previously at the locations he had been to destroy the faulty connections to the Infinite Realms filled the room. Ritual markings for bindings lit up the walls and floor and Danny was horrified to see one of the individuals kneel at cult leaders feet only for Ra's to slit the man's throat to power the binding. "What the hell are you doing!"

"Containing something that has caused enormous harm to my organization on a degree almost as destructive as the Detective. Fitting that a combination of the two of you will be used to bring it back to, and greater than, it's previous glory!"

The bindings grew stronger and settled into their final configuration. Phantom settled with eerie stillness in the center. Then the shadows cracked around him.. ̸͚̈"̵̨͖̤̓̆͐H̶̦̳̍̈̑ȧ̴̝d̴̩̀̓ ̸̤͕͖̽̌y̸̹̐̈́o̴̼̎̏̚ŭ̷̮̹͌ ̴̧̰͑̇͝a̵̞͑͛͘c̴̡̦͖̚c̵̡̝̯̈́̏ē̷̡͎̣̂p̵͉̻̻̅͒̄ṱ̸̛̮̿e̸̗̱͐d̵͕͊ ̸̟̬̬̋l̷͖̜̹͊́o̴͉̚s̶̲͇͔̓̄͒ȉ̴̭̑̓ͅn̸̯̮̣̅͗͘g̶̢͖̼̐̓̊ ̵̤̙̚ț̷́h̴̪̦̓é̸̪ ̵̘̻̋̋h̶̡̼͉͆ǫ̴̰͗́l̴̡̲̚ď̸̺ ̴̪̼̄͒o̷̖͗̋́f̴͓̳͒̑͜ ̵̣͕̠̾̚ţ̸͗͝h̴͈͗̑͑e̵̡̨̻͝ ̷̫̈́͜Ȋ̷͉̭ͅṉ̶̚f̶̖͖͚̐i̴̪̇̉͠ǹ̵̬í̸͉̐ͅt̶̳̭͋̂ȩ̵̘͒̆̄ ̷̪͒R̴̹̠̩̂̃e̵͎̺͑͠a̴̯̱͂͝ļ̴̮́̂̽m̶̼̬͆̿͌s̵͍̓ ̵͚̆́̚w̴̯͛e̸͓͊́ ̴̠̦̏̿̚w̸̟͗̋o̵̮̐̅û̶̡l̷̡̼͍̐̈́ḋ̷͍̖ ̸̛̣̍̆h̴̻́a̸̽̓͝ͅv̶͉͈̊͆e̸̺͊̈́̿ ̸̺͇͔̅͆̿n̷̻̙̬̾͊̾e̵̙͝v̸̖̘̿̏̚ͅḙ̷̙̭̏r̴̬͓̻̉̔̎ ̵̨͉̽̈́̓ͅn̴̢͎̓͋͝e̶͙͒͒ḛ̸̮̹͒̈d̷̤̯͋͝͝e̵̺̗͗ͅd̷̠̝̜͆͆ ̶̟̹̂͒̈t̵͇͎͋̆o̵̢̠̗͆͝ ̶̧͎͖̋͂m̵̛͔̟é̶̹̮̈́͐e̶̯͑t̶̩̑̏ ̵̇ͅa̵͎̪͔͝g̷̻͗̉͊a̸̫̐̾͝i̸̗̇ņ̸̮̍ ̶̦͈̖̑̉̿ö̶̞́͝ṇ̶͉̰̔ ̴̢̹̭̓̇͠t̵̼̘̑͒͜h̷͓̻̋ͅe̷͕̾̒̉ ̵̳͇̌M̶̙̦͔̉͌o̵̥͎̤̾r̷̯͗̾̕ͅṫ̸̤̈́̈́ä̶̧̻̹́̇ĺ̸̠̭͌̈́͜ ̸͈͛̚P̶͉̩̗̈́̃͌l̸͔̘͎̀͐͗ă̶̠͈̈̈́n̵̞͉̱͘e̷̘̍.̵̼̟̥̽̂̃ ̵̘̘̿U̵̗͐͠ͅn̴͎̊f̶̛̬͙̃o̵̧͎͓͆r̸̯͕͍͌t̸͙̾̈́̎ͅǘ̶͙͎͉̃́ṉ̷̆ͅa̶̖͍̗̔̈͝t̶̨͈͗ę̴̣̌̒l̸͙̹̓y̶̝̰̺̿̂͂,̵̺͍͊͑̀ ̸̭̹̰̃͊̚y̷̺̭͝ö̴̯͚́ų̵̯̱̔͆͝ ̸̰̯̋͊͌h̸̢̪͖͆ā̶̩̣́v̶̳̼̍̾ͅe̵̯̞͆̔ͅ ̷͙͆͋c̷̢̱̺͂h̸̫̐o̸͍͕̓̋̕s̸̲̞͗̉é̵͓̮̀n̸̢̛̜̑͘ ̵̪̞̃͑t̴̪̽́̚ȏ̸̲͙͖̅ ̴̗͎̏͌c̶̗͊̒a̸͉̿ụ̷̋̊͘s̴̪͌͌̀e̸̯̹̾ ̶̞́̒̀m̷͚̓́̍e̷̢̅̀ ̷̟̿ẖ̶̔͝a̸̢̗̪̾̈́r̵͓̳̳͒̌m̵̘̳͓̀̅ ̴̼̚ä̴͙ͅn̶̰̘͇͝d̸̺̞̍́ ̴̝̅̂͠h̵̙͖̆̈́a̶̼͆̐͝ŕ̸̡̤̳m̵͈͔̰͆̈́̽ ̶̳̑��̻a̶̮̪̓̈́ ̶̳̬̖̓͆c̶̞̈́͑͑h̶̛̖̣̟̀̾î̵̜̤̘l̶͈̱̉̽d̵̝̜̙͗̌.̵̲̍͝ ̶̝̑Ť̴̫̜̮h̷̗̆͗͂i̵̳̋̈́s̷̹͍̑͊ ̴̹̈͊̓ỉ̶̯͍s̸̫͋̐͗ ̴̝͍̝̆̿͆u̸̼̺̔́̇n̶̮̣̅̏f̶͕̮̪͂̌̈́o̶̳͉̮͒̃r̷͖̥̈͑̄ǵ̵̤̼̿͐ḭ̸̘̥̄̈́̿v̵͓̏a̶̹͑̐́b̸̨̜͊l̸̙̟͕̓ę̶̀̀.̵̨̆"̶͙̅̿̕

Ice crept from the corners of the room and fractures of green light became apparent as Phantom's form warped, child still held safely against what had been his chest before his being had changed into an ever shifting nebula.

̷̧̛̖̗̜͒͋̉̓̒͑̑̄̓̚̚"̷̤͛͌͐͂̐Y̷̗̱̯̞͔̖̱͍̯̜̣͐̉̓͐̾̓͝o̴̡̡̨̝͓͖̭͓̗̣̮̰̞͚̰̺̿͗̐u̷̢̨̡̬̪̞̟̙̯͖͙̘̲̭͕͋͑̋͝ ̴̢̟̺̦̤͍̭̥̥͕̯̩̥̪̮̥͉̒̇̀́̑͘s̶̜͌̇̈́͂͋̆̅͊̃͌̑̚͝͠͠͠a̵̢̻̭̮͓͙̙̗̩͌c̶̨̡̠̤̞͓̥͖̞̗͙͉͆́́̓̐̈́̓̏́͆̄̄ͅŗ̶̜̳̤̠͇̦̰͕̭̼͙͈̟̹̙̪̓͋͗ì̴̡͈͈̀͐͒̈́̋̽̅f̸̠͓͕͕̼̣̦̲̗̙̰̮̱̙̳̏̔̐̃̈́̎̾̈́͜͜͝͝i̵̧̤̠͖̿͐̑̓̾͂̇͒́́̉̎͗͘͝ͅc̸̢̛̬̳̯̀̋̿̓̏̽͛̔̈͂̎ę̵̈́̀͐d̸̙͐͌͗̈́ ̵̛̳͗̌͆͑̽̿̑̒͗͂̅̕͝s̵̢̛͕̘̯̹̻̰͍͍̠̆́̈́̆̇̔̌̄̏̿͌̀̆͒̈́̊o̴̦̳̘̝͛̓̆̿m̷̥̠͔̻͙͖̖͕͇͈͙̹͉̅̓̐̋̔͗͋̄͑̓͛͗̊̆̕ͅé̶̢̻̖̲͖̈́̎̓͋̉̆̍̍̅̌͊̎͆͜͝o̶̜̅̋̌̏͑̄̎̐̾̇̓͑͌̓̊̌͘͠n̷̛͚͍̥̘̱̲̘̟̲̉̃̿̇̑̓̿͋̊̐́͆͘̕ë̶̢̻̬̙̖̬̪͇̝͇̘̫̙̬͚̪̪͚́͆̃͋̄̈̃̆̌͛̈̊͛͘͝͠͝͝ ̴̢̡̡̛̠̝̩̼͔̩̰̼̦̘̣͍̠͑͐̀͗̎̽͂͘ȉ̷̞͉̳̳̹̏̄̈́͝͝n̴̢̢̧̧̯͙͍̥̹̺̞̭̱̱̽͊̾̈͒͒̽ͅ ̷̳̣̱̳̟̥̎̄̒̔͛́͒̀̉̓̇̕̚͠͝͝a̶̡̢̙̞͈̹̠̜͓͚̠͈̦̰̓͑̌̓̄̋̊̐͑̉̓̀n̷̢̢̧̡̰͉̙̙̤̺̩̟̲̝̱̽͊̄̏͐͒͋͌̀͆̊̎̚͜ ̸̡̜̙͇͔̣̭̝̞̖̈́̀́͑͝ͅạ̷̢̯̙͍̹̦̳̤̫͙͆̽̂͛̌̿̈́̾͐̒͊͑̌̀̒ṱ̶̪͋t̵̛̛͉̭̳͕͉̟̔͂̍̚͜e̴̛͎̟͕̗̣̣̭̣̱͔͓̰̬̐͂̆̇͆̕m̵̡͙̱͎̬̮̠̾̀̈̇̍͂͗̏̋̀̍̍̕͝͝p̸̢͎̲̗̟̞͌̂̒̉̄͆͘̚t̵̡̗̬̲̞̫͈̜̺͍̫͂̆̋̐̑̌͊͊͠ ̶̛͚̜͚̯͔̼̼̍͒̓̓̾́̍̈́͗͌̈́́̄̓̍̕ṫ̵̋̈̓��̞͆̏̾̓͐͑̓́̑̚͘ö̶̯̤̜̘́̚ ̵̧̮͉͇̦̤͔̠͉̺̹̝͈̝͙̖͐̈́͒͊͆́̎͒̾̒̚͠͠c̶̜̝͙͍͙͍͈̬͍̔̔͜ḩ̴͙̬͈̪͈̻͙̻̯̭̲͍̻̤̞͎͎̌͋͂̉̅̓̐̓̀͋͠a̶͉͙͍͈̼͔͎͇̫̫̭̝̪̒̂͝i̶̧̛̠͉̳͎̣͐͐̓̄̓͊̎̓̚͝ņ̸̡̡̛̼͉̲͇̗̄͌̃͗́͆̒̎̋̌̕͘͝ ̵̢̘̼͓̤͕͔̦͍̱̞̝͎̮̬̥̠̈́̏̈́̾͂̚̕m̵̢̧̜̤̦͒̈̈́̅͒̌̓͒̓͜ȩ̴̨̢͚̥̘͉̲͉̙͇̮̳̰̦̱̔͜ ̷̛̼̪̮͉̰̰́̋̋̈̍̆̈̽͗̕a̵̩͓̯̤̼͉̰̦͍͔̻͔͋́͒̾̒͒̂ń̴̻̩̳̙̼̝̄̊̃͒̇͆ͅḑ̶̢̢̛͍̞͉̘̬̜͕̪̟͉̲̬̼̥̟͗̔͊͋̄̂͊̾̍̂́̿̃͘͝ ̶̳͉̬͍̮͓̟̹͌̃̽̾̀̏̑͛̈͝î̵̝̣̝̼̠̱̅͋͘̚͝t̶̢̰̲̼̩̬͕̗̘̺̑̏͂̆͐͂̄͂̚͝ ̷̼̄̂͗̆̉͂̿͊̉̓̈̑͆͂͋̚w̴̘̮̲͎̝͇̠̗̫͎͓̣̙͋̄͒̔́̏́̈́̈́̓̔̂̉̿͒͘͝ͅȁ̷̧̢̡͔̼͍̺̱͈͉͚̹͉̈́̓͑͂̑̓́͂̅͗̿̌͝ͅs̴̨̛͎̭̦̯̜̻͔͔̈́̓͋̆̇͗̃̽͑̅́̚ͅ ̷͎͕̲̤͔̬͖͎̙̎̓͋p̵͖̃̆̂̔͋̎̏͌͠͝ǫ̸̧̰͚̰͍̗̺̞̣̒͊͛̉̀͋̃̄͆̓̐͑͑͝͝i̶̢̼̱͙̱̘̘̠̣͚̙͙͙̤̙͕̻͍͊̂͌n̴̢̻̰̜͇͚̝̂̏͜͜͜ẗ̸̡͓̰͔͍͈͔͙̦͖̩́̽ļ̸̧̢̛̻̣͖̤̃͋̀͋̇e̸̡͍̰̹̯̱̯̫̹̼̹͍͗͆͒̚ș̷̊̀̽͒̌̋͂̔͛́͌͂̾ș̷̦͔̘̀̓́͂́̉͑͋́̃́͘͜ͅͅ!̴͍̜̤͎̯̠̥͙̀̈̿̿̈́̽̊͝"̵̭̻͑̉͑

Phantom's voice could no longer be considered human. It crackled like electricity. Like ice breaking. Like the sun as it burned.

"̴̥̞̘̠͉̠̬̞̗̻̝̫̥̘͔̟̣̪̫͈̘̟͈̯̺̞̎͋̐̌̽͗̓̽̀̕͝I̵̡̨̧̪̗̳̬̠̫̱͍̝̬̝̗̥̗͕̯͇͆̏͑̈́ ̶̝̥͕͔̫̪̳̥̜̠̘̫̹͇̋w̸̧̮̣̙͚͓̦͖͙̘̼͉͔̼̜̭̗̣͉̲̜͈̘͊̈̈̓́͊̔̕͜͜ͅi̵̢̢̲̼̭͙͙̥̪͔̣̭̥̤̤̠̯̩̭̗̭̠̳̘̤͙̇̃̒̏͜ͅͅl̴̡̡̢̳̘̖̟̻̥̲̤̼̬̫̺͎̣̗̭͉̩͍̱̞̼̈͊̒͂̑̐̽̂͗̍̈̐̚͘͜͜͠ľ̵̛͇͙̭̪͍̱̬̒̈̓̔͗̏̐̈́̎̋̈́́̓͐̽̈̄̅͘͘̕̕͝͝͝͝͠ ̸̡̡̠̼̤̯͙̳̣̤̼̰̗̣͗̽͊̓̑̾̈͂̐̾̅̚͘͠b̵̨̨̡̛̫͕̮̘̣̺̳̖̠̜̻̠̗̘̖̭̯̳͙̫̱̪̱̺̥̟͙̻̗̲̓̌̓̆̀́́̿͒̾͋̋́̽̊̀͌̈́̒̅̆̓͛̊͗̃͂̚͝͝͠͝͝ͅȩ̷̧͉͍̼͉̙̘͓̯̻̻̣̤̣̩̗̹̬̙̪̺̼͊̓͋́̈̊̑̒͛̔̾̐͑̊̂̕̕͜͝͠͝͝ ̷̌͌̏̀͐͛͝͠��̛̮̠̜̼̌̊̉̅́̈̓̏b̴̛͇̮͈̥̥̣̯̫̻̞̙̟̼̹̞̈́͂̅̍͛͑̆̅̆̂̄̈͛̅̄͌̂̂͜͝͝͠͠ͅą̴̛͍̳̰̰̩͓͇͕̳̠̭̠̜̦͂̊͊̏͐̀̓̇͝ĉ̵̠̰̣͈̘̰̞͈͎̙̖̖̰̬̬̪͐̈́̾͆͋͂̊̂̀̍̈́̏k̴̡̨͉̪͔͎̼̳̖͈̥̝̺̟̝̭̩̮̣̳̼̻̮̹͗̈́̔́̿͛̂͐̓̒̊͝͝͝͠.̶̢̨̫͚͔͖̩͚̖̱̱̣͓̳͖̗̞͎̬̳̬͒"̵̢̢̛̙̦̝̘̣̳̖̤̯͖̜͖̙͓͖̤̹̹̖̎͛̽̇͊́̊̒̏̀̀͊̑̌̈̌̅͐̒̄͛͌̒̀͒͋́̐̑̈́̕͜͝͝ͅ

A portal opened behind him and the ritual shattered, room breaking around it.

The portal closed leaving nothing but rubble behind.

Project R au except Danny is not the clone.

Instead Danny gets Ras Al Ghuls attention after overhearing that the baby in the tube was made from a bunch of "Robins/detectives" and a little of Phantom himself and looks the guy in the eye before using his intangibility to grab the baby-still not breaking eye contact- and saying, "Mine now." before disappearing.

Danny comes home and explains the situation to his sister and parents and they welcome the new baby into the family with open arms. When asked why they took dna from Danny, Jack immediately jumped in with, "Because we're Fentons!" As if that was all the reason needed.

Elsewhere Ras tells the bats about the clonenapping, conveniently leaving out the part about Phantom also being one of the babys dads. The bats go a little crazy trying to find out where thier baby is and why some no name villian (cause thats what they believe he is due to what little media coverage Amity Park has on him) wants with thier baby.

Then they learn about the ghost thing and then the research. At first they didn't believe it because they had dealt with ghosts before and they were nothing like that. But the more they looked the more they realized these weren't the kind of ghosts they were used to...

[absolute-flaming-trash]

congrats!! #3. Movie Night + Mahito??

Ohhhhh I loved writing this so much, I hope you both like it!!

Warnings: Yandere, Implied forced relationship, Mahito

Word Count: 578

Additional Notes: Some spoilers for the movie Annihilation.

Movie night with Mahito was always a gamble.

While he could get absorbed in a book like nothing else, media was a different story. Unless the images on screen immediately held his attention or sucked him in with a great hook, he would either pester you the entire time with questions, or he would rip the film to shreds with his commentary.

Thankfully you’d managed to pick one out that had him captivated almost at the very start.

Annihilation was a trip, and you had said so when you mentioned the movie to him in the first place. He was doubtful, of course. What could possibly be so interesting about a movie that had aliens coming to Earth? However, as soon as you mentioned DNA and mutations, he clicked his tongue and decided it didn’t sound too terrible.

You were watching him more than the movie itself as it played. He was the most attentive you’d seen in a while, sitting beside you cross-legged on your couch - eyes glued to the screen of your TV. No smile of malintent on his face, rather one of pure intrigue.

You couldn’t help but smile yourself for once. “Still think it’s boring?”

“Shh.” He didn’t just put his hand over your mouth, no, he wrapped his entire hand around your face and pulled you against his chest, muffling your cry of surprise. You didn’t have to crane your neck up to know he was grinning. “You’ll ruin it.~”

In all fairness, he had a point. This was the sequence you enjoyed the most in the film and you figured he would as well as you watched from between his fingers.

The concept alone was, in your opinion, one of the most terrifying put to screen in decades.

“Oh my god! Help me! Help!”

Whereas the characters on screen were shaking with fear, Mahito was practically radiating with excitement as the bear on screen cried out in the voice of its last victim.

“Don’t react.”

Mahito giggled, the line from Natalie Portman’s character adding to whatever sick train of thought he had going on in his head - one that wouldn’t be hard to guess.

Not reacting to a monster like this would likely save the skin of the characters here, but in real life? Not reacting to a Curse never worked.

You’d know. You had tried.

He still had his hand over your face when all hell broke loose on screen. You tapped his hand with one of your free ones in a silent request, and he looked down at you.

“What was that? I can’t hear you.~”

You narrowed your eyes and he giggled again before taking his hand off your face. You weren’t completely freed though, his arm still wrapped around you and keeping your body close to his.

It was deceptively domestic.

“What do you think?” He whispered by your ear as the scene continued to play out. “Do you think the woman who died was aware of what this animal was doing? If her soul became bound to the same thing that killed her?”

You didn’t answer, partially because it was explained later on in the movie, but also because you’d learned that Mahito’s questions on this sort of thing were mostly rhetorical.

He placed a chaste kiss on your temple, something he only did when he was exorbitantly happy. You frowned, keeping your eyes on the screen.

“Thank you, doll, you’ve given me lots of new ideas.”

© absolute-flaming-trash 2023. Do not repost, modify, copy, or claim.

[wellofdean]

Okay now I’m wondering what they told Jensen about that ‘secret’ that Dean has because it wasn’t Dean’s need for a ‘normal’ life and relationship, so to speak, because we had the dream sequence with Lisa and the picnic in season 3 (not to mention Cassie), and Kripke was pretty open about how Sam and Dean both put on masks about what they want with women, Sam is the secretly horny one and Dean is a secret romantic. So the secret has to be something else. If it were to be his bisexuality, which given that his character is queercoded from the very beginning of season 1, isn’t implausible.

From what I’ve seen, there’s multiple ways they do this, sometimes they tell the actor the secret (that their character is queer) and the actor plays it that way. Sometimes they just tell them “okay your character has a secret” and don’t tell them what it is (see Jensen’s character, Eric on DOOL) and sometimes they don’t tell an actor at all and just write it that way.

Hypothetically if the secret was Dean’s bisexuality (I mean, Dean Moriarty, James Dean? very bisexual), and they hadn’t told Jensen, I wonder at what point he would’ve figured it out. Because as much as people like to rib him, he’s not stupid and he’s a very intentional actor (maybe that’s why him and kripke get along).

Anyways that ask got away from me lol, fascinating topic, it’s fun to still be learning things about the show 4 years after it ended.

That IS an interesting question... Linking to the posts that likely prompted it. I would bet that he knew it was part of the DNA of Dean that he was not straight. I think Jensen knew who Dean was named after, and probably knew or was told it would always be subtext, and also that Dean was closeted, so...not admitting it to himself. How could he in that family? I think he knew the character backstory and what the writers were working from.

We know Jensen doesn't read scripts too far ahead so that he isn't too influenced by what is coming and can react to Dean's moment cleanly, so...If I had to guess, he knew it was in there, but bisexuals are able to blend and play straight. But, I think he knew, because otherwise, why that face when Sam clocks him for being butch and over-compensating? Why his full clown approach to tropey women? Why do they so obviously contrast that to how Dean treats women who aren't performing femininity as hard as he is masc-ing? Why say Dean is a 'promiscuous guy' when he demonstrably isn't? Wherefore Jensen's 'who knows how Dean scares up money' headcanon? Wherefore A LOT of things, honestly.

And, let me just add that nothing I have ever heard or heard tell of Jensen saying actually contradicts this if you realize that what he does is basically refuse to comment on anything that has not been explicitly shown on the TV screen. So, someone point blank asks him: do you play Dean as queer? And Jensen says No. Ok. Yeah. Dean is not ready to admit that to himself and Dean's vessel plays him straight.

If he elaborates, hesitates or prevaricates AT ALL, then suddenly Dean is queer, and the secret character note is no more, and it would blow the ability to let that thread of Dean's story develop in response to events in the narrative. So...

I mean, I'm only guessing, but that's my guess.

[despazito]

hey! I was wondering if you ever watch clints reptiles - he just posted a video about marcupeal phylogeny and specifically mentioned thylacines, and talked about how theres been sightings in new guinea? i was just wondering about your opinion, since you just posted a new thylacine drawing and i know youre very interested in them :D

idk, the fact i haven't heard all that much buzz about this theory from the zoologists i follow on twitter makes me doubtful by default.

i'll be honest i'm pretty skeptical of this new guinea claim because of dingoes and new guinea singing dogs.

the popularly accepted theory for the mainland extinction of the thylacine and likely tasmanian devil was competing pressure from dingoes.

clint mentions all of this, but he leaves out the fact that dingoes arrived on the australian continent from the north and studies indicate that dingoes may be descendants of more basal new guinea singing dogs. that would likely mean imo that the new guinea thylacine population, if anything, would be the first to suffer the consequences of canine encroachment.

only on the island of tasmania where absolutely no dingoes were ever present sheltered a 100% verifiable thylacine population by the time of european colonization. to my knowledge, the most recent solid physical evidence of thylacines in new guinea is still several thousand years old. so to me it seems that dingo/wild dog distribution and thylacine distribution mixed as well as oil and water. If there's thylacines in new guinea, it would have to be some enclave free of dogs.

i know the topography of new guinea can give refuge to very cryptic animals, and as clint said the relatively low human population and no european persecution is a plus. i won't disocount local indigenous anecdotes because they've been proven right with other species once thought extinct, but like where are skins or bones or footprints?

also i feel like clint really really oversimplified the cloning process thylacines would require. he makes it seem like it would be simple because we have their whole genome sequenced and have specimens under 100 years old to work with. the thing is, cloning a mammoth is simpler than cloning a thylacine even though they went extinct millenia ago, because mammoths still have a close living relative.

a cursory look at google tells me wooly mammoths and extant asian elephants last shared an ancestor as recently as 6 million years ago, they both belong to the family elephantidae. thylacines however were the last living member of their own family, thylacinidae, which diverged somewhere around 25mya from the other dasyuromorphs. scientists don't really have a close living relative to work with. clint says the complete genome means we wouldn't have to "stick frog DNA in there" to complete it, but the thing is with cloning you have to start with a frog/living DNA sample to tweak it into a thylacine!! until we can 3D print an organism out of thin air with proteins and acids, there has to be a template sample of living cells whose nuclei we can tamper with. and the less related they are, the more DNA has to be overhauled

if you wanna learn exactly how much of a logistical nightmare it's gonna be to clone a thylacine, this lecture explains it way better:

the takeaway analogy is that cloning a thylacine is the CRISPR equivalent of doing a puzzle of a clear blue sky, not having the box to look at for any reference, and about half the pieces are doubles of other pieces (because most DNA is junk code that does nothing). it's like next to impossible and i still have more faith in de-extinction than a rediscovery.

so yeah, i guess i'm a bit of a thylacine doomer. but i do want to believe, just temper your expectations. to me a win would be a single engineered thylacine cell by the centennial of their extinction lol.

[shotmrmiller]

Was homeschooled 6th grade and up. Found out real fast what classes were actually necessary for day to day work/life. There is seriously more unnecessary shit in schools than you need to learn. If it interests you, pick up an extra class. But day to day? I saw a group of middle schoolers learning about dna sequences like they were going into forensics. They didn’t even choose the topic their school did. When are you going to need that info between now and high school? You guys don’t know how to cook one meal that isn’t ramen, but you know how dna works?! You can do calculus but have no idea how to count change back to a customer?

it’s really really sad.

same thing with college

imagine being forced to pay for filler classes like they have something to do with your career. i remember i paid for some home room-esque ass class where they forced me to talk to those people in it like i gave a fuck about any of them.

like they wanted me to go out of my way and meet up with them for a project about like the school or something i just-

don't waste my time.

garbage.

[amber-tortoiseshell]

Hello, do you know why salmiak is considered an allele of KIT if it's actually located on a different gene? Idk much about genetics so I'm asking you.. Would it be possible for a salmiak cat to be e.g W/W or Ws/wg or whatever on KIT, but still be salmiak if its actually a different gene? Or maybe I just misunderstood the article and its the same gene 😅 I just get confused when it says salmiak is ' downstream' of KIT?

Another genetics question I just thought of, is it possible for an allele to actually be a combination of two- so let's say hypothetical allele 1 is a deletion somewhere, and allele 2 is a virus insertion. Can there be a new allele combining both the deletion and insertion?

Sorry if these questions are stupid or obvious ! I am very new to genetics and still learning. But thank you for any answer!

Yes, the salmiak mutation is outside of the coding region of KIT. But it's less like 'salmiak is located on a different gene' and more like 'salmiak isn't located on any gene'.

You can see it on this figure from the original article describing the salmiak mutation. The wide blue stripes are the actual genes: KIT on the right and something called KDR on the left. Note that there's a ~258 kb long "empty" DNA sequence between them in the wild type allele: this area probably doesn't code any proteins but it still can have important functions, for example in transcription regulation or RNA-coding.

But since this region is so close to KIT, and we know that mutations here cause similar phenotype changes as mutations in coding KIT in several animals, we can probably safely assume that this region is an essential part of the transcription of the KIT gene.

But does this mean a salmiak (wsal/wsal) cat can be for example W/ws at the same time? Yeah, actually it does. It's possible. But you have to understand one very important thing about genes: they all work like this. (Except if the mutations are in the exact same position, like coincidentally full white W and white spotting ws are.)

Let's take color restriction (TYR) for example. We have several identified alleles here: sepia, mocha, point and a couple of mutations causing albino. They all have different positions in the gene:

sepia: c.679G>T (the 679th base changes from G to T)

mocha: c.820_936delinsAATCTC (deletion of the bases between 820 and 936, insertion of AATCTC)

point: c.940G>A

albino: c.975delC or c.1204C>T

So theoretically one single chromosome could carry any combination of these mutations, even all of them at the same time. (I'm pretty sure tho that that would count as albino.)

So why do we treat them as one gene then?

So far we used the word gene as "a DNA region that codes a specific peptide", but it can be and often used in a slightly different meaning: "the unit of inheritence". KIT or TYR are clearly genes based on the first definition, but what about the second? Are they still genes by this definition?

The answer is yes, but a less unequivocal yes. In this meaning a gene is a part of the DNA that's short enough to safely ignore the possibility of a chromosomal crossover when its inheritence is considered. Crossovers can happen anywhere, they don't care for gene (as in peptide-coding region) bounderies. In terms of inheritence, there is no real difference between a single gene and two very-very-very-very thighly linked genes.

The feline chromosome B1, where KIT is located, is 208,212,889 base pair long. To get a chromosome with the salmiak and another KIT allele, a crossover must happen in the ~66 kb long region between the salmiak deletion and coding KIT. I believe that's approximately 0,000317 part of the chromosome; crossover here will happen rarely. Salmiak will behave basically allelic with the other KIT mutations.

(Since gloving is in a different position than white spotting, crossover can happen between them too. They are closer, so the probability is even lower, but it's possible.)

This starts to get very long, so i'll put a cut here, and under it i'll write about two relevant examples: the brindle allele in dogs and hotot rabbits.

Brindle

Brindle (kbr) is an allele of the K locus, it's recessive to black (KB) and dominant to wild type/yellow (ky). It's gives an intermediate phenotype between those two: the dog is black and yellow striped.

The most interesting thing about brindle is that it's incredibly hard to test for. As this page says:

At the moment there is no commercial test available testing for brindle. Instead, KB/kbr, kbr/kbr or kbr/ky will all be reported as KB/ky since elements from both alleles are present; kbr orignated from a recombination event between a KB and a ky allele. So the brindle allele essentially is a duplication of the K-Locus on one chromosome.

So seems like here happened something like what we were talking about! Once, a long time ago, there was a crossover exactly on the K gene.

Hotot and broken dutch

Rabbits have two types of white spotting: english and dutch. These are two very tightly linked genes (or maybe even both are mutations of the KIT gene), with a very low crossover rate. (This article says 1%. For not linked genes the rate is 50%.)

(Dutch has two alleles, dark dutch (dud) and white dutch (duw). Dark gives generally less, white more white.)

Hotot is a rare, desired pattern that is the combination of (usually homozygous) english spotting and (usually homozygous) white dutch spotting (EnEn duwduw). Breeding hotots is considered very difficult because of rarity of the english-dutch crossover.

If there are less white spotting alleles present, the pattern can become a broken dutch:

[likefolksongs]

fall out boy on absolute radio listening party 3.26.23

[link]

the host asks about the parentheses around for in the album title - pete says it's "a double or triple entendre, everyone's trying to be someone and have their moment but that doesn't fill you up" but "there's something to be said about so much stardust." talks about how we're all just carbon, stardust and still can't get it together. he also just love parentheses!

talking about the album as an art form - patrick says they absolutely consider that and sequencing is important. there are a "few songs" which only made the record because of how well they told the story of the album. also love from the other side was conceptualized as an album opener because patrick felt none of the other songs felt like an opener!

the intro to lftos is patrick playing the same piano part at four different speeds, starting in sync and then falling out of sync as it continues - he says it feels representative of the whole album for him

with hold me like a grudge, pete says when patrick first played it for him the verses sounded like 2000s alternative radio hits but the chorus sounded "distinctly patrick" which was an "interesting blend." patrick: hm. thank you. i think. pete: yeah that was a compliment!

hold me like a grudge was the last song they wrote for the record! pete was second guessing other lyrics and sent patrick new lyrics to possibly replace the ones he was feeling unsure about. patrick read them before driving to the studio and by the time he got there the song was basically written in full.

pete makes a comment about how that's at least two songs "that people really like" that patrick's written in the car (referencing lotro); patrick says he's written a lot of songs in the car and pete jokes they should just toss him the keys

pete says it's the worst when you think of something in the car and are sure you'll remember it but you don't. says now when he thinks of something in the car when he's with bronx he'll tell him to write down words to trigger the whole phrase "but they don't make any sense together. i'll be like write this down and he'll be like '...okay." andy: like dad shut up [giggles]

fake out didn't come together until joe heard it! patrick had most of the lead guitar down but none of the rhythm guitar but "joe came in, gave it one listen, and picked up this acoustic. none of us had really thought about acoustic, he just went into the booth and we pressed record and he did it in one take... that became kinda the whole song."

patrick talks about soul punk briefly, says the most surprising thing about making it was that it was very unsurprising, because all the ideas were already in his head. part of why he enjoys working with the band so much is that they have ideas he never would've thought of.

they discuss changing sound - pete says the first time he had that feeling of like "oh i don't know if this is too different" he was scared of it but he's learned that it's a good thing and that there's always going to be so much of the band's dna on it that it Will sound like a fall out boy song

andy: i think a band can not just be a city it can be a continent. writing these different things is building the map to what the bigger picture is

they bring up queen and bowie as examples of artists that kept changing but now when you hear their songs you just think "oh that's queen" or "oh that's bowie." the host mentions he used to hide liking queen from his friends and patrick says he had to hide liking ska from the band. andy says he's had a really big reggae and ska phase recently and loves being able to talk to patrick about it because "he's a fountain of knowledge."

heaven, iowa is one of andy's favorite on the record and he loved it from the start! patrick reiterates a comment from another interview about how he didn't like it that much at first but knew everyone else did, kept asking joe for any and all ideas because he didn't like how much "space" there was and how naked his vocals felt. andy says he thinks space in music can be magical.

they talk about track sequencing again - patrick says he and pete moved "the meat of the album" around many, many times.

pete talks about the pink seashell interlude and being obsessed with mortality. patrick talks about the process of scoring it and how joe added guitar to the string lines which he thinks brought it all together.

they didn't start out thinking they necessarily had a record - patrick says "we went in with neal for a week to see if we had something and by the end of the week we had half the record.”

patrick's been asking people to tell him fan reactions to the record since he doesn't have social media 🥺 "i know i've been driving everyone nuts... i've been asking everyone 'do people like it? what do people think?'" reiterates the dinner for your family line to explain why this record means so much to him.

pete says making an album is kind of like being a climber standing at the bottom of a rock face trying to find a route up; when you get up the route might seem like it was obvious the whole time but it wasn't. patrick chimes in to agree and add that it feels like the song that was the centerpoint of the album shifted many times.

the host mentions that he really likes and relates to the title of "i am my own muse." pete talks about looking at his four year old and thinking about how "at that age, you Are your own muse. you're like 'i just color, i do what i want, i'm not trying to conform to your idea of my creativity' and welcoming some of that back into your life as an adult or an artist is great.'"

the host mentions that his nine year old son's favorite song ever is "centuries" and the band are appropriately flattered (though patrick does say sorry when the host says he's probably heard it more than any other song ever ajfioenaj).

going back to the discussion of different songs being the centerpoint of the album, patrick says flu game was "one of the first songs to have that spot."

patrick talks about not being the most confident guy but that he's learned to share all of his demos; he thinks he might not have played flu game in the past. pete chimes in to say in the past patrick has tried to throw out some of his best ideas.

patrick says flu game "kind of started the record" because it was the favorite out of the first five songs they made with neal. "this was the one that convinced neal i think." pete notes "this would've been an insane record if [flu game] was the lynchpin."

flu game was originally the lead single! pete: you know how we always talk about how if we were gonna fly in a helicopter that i would have to knock you out like b.a. baracus? patrick, instantly: yes. pete: if we had made this the first single you guys would've had to b.a. baracus me. patrick, protesting: that wasn't my choice!

pete says baby annihilation felt like an authentic way to pay homage to his past spoken word bits and he trusted neal to be able to make it work.

they have a discussion about the distinctions between emo/pop punk/straightedge hardcore and pete talks about how arbitrary the labels that are assigned to musicians often are. pete talks about how fall out boy started as kind of a break from the more hardcore stuff for him that he was doing for fun which allowed it to be more freeing. patrick agrees, talks about how andy and pete were in "real bands" so no one was taking fall out boy completely seriously which allowed them to be looser.

kintsugi kid was one of the songs patrick was mentioning earlier that was almost cut from the record but made it because of the track sequencing. patrick says he always felt very strongly about it and believed in it so was very glad when it made its way back on to the record. pete calls it the little song that could.

the host asks about their songwriting process and pete talks about how the best songs are the ones where he and patrick "clash" just the right amount; songs where one of them dominates over the other don't connect as well.

they discuss the different producers they've worked with; pete says every producer they've worked with has felt like the right person for the job. patrick talks about how working with so many different producers is part of why he wanted to go back to neal.

patrick talks about how important it was for this album to be a single producer album; with mania they had so many different producers and he wanted to get back to just being in a routine with the same person. andy: it's the difference between microwaving and actually cooking. patrick: yeah, i agree with that! andy, jokingly: thanks, i'm gonna leave.

patrick calls what a time to be alive his baby. says every time he played it for someone they would say "really?" pete: patrick was really determined to get this song on the record. i felt like gamora like "is it done? what did it cost you?" pete and patrick in unison: everything [laughter]

patrick says he and pete struck a bargain (pete: i don't remember this). patrick didn't want so good right now to be on the record (he wasn't going to name the song but pete told him to go for it) but pete was really advocating for it. patrick said that if pete let him have what a time to be alive he would green light so good right now.

pete talks about how art only really becomes art when it connects with its audience which is part of why they wanted to do those small shows and host listening parties, to see how people reacted

the host asks how their relationship with fame has changed; pete says they had a year or two where they were super famous "and it was not a great life;" talks about how he looks at kpop groups and boy bands and thinks "god bless that it wasn't that long for us." he says he made a point to rearrange his life to be less famous and prioritize his family and the band. also pete makes a star wars reference and patrick does a yoda impression 😭

the hour wraps up with pete asking the host if he still wants a video for his son and they do a quick video for him 🥺

[mthollowell-writes]

I am a mystery reader

Or, Why I Read Forensics by Val McDermid

For the past year, I’ve been inhaling mystery novels to learn about the genre. I often engage with intense genre studies when I have an interest in writing within particular story conventions. It’s always fun and I get to learn about an amazing world of books that I don’t normally pick up.

For most of 2023, it’s been mysteries. And, I can confidently say that I’m now a big mystery reader. I’m obsessed with it. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The clues have been there since the beginning.

I’ve always loved stories with mystery elements to them. I wrote a thesis comparing and contrasting TV/movie adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and the original short stories. Most of the podcasts that I enjoy are true crime because I love learning the details of specific cases, and how certain clues or slips led to the apprehension of the perpetrator. But it wasn’t until 2023 that I would’ve classify myself as a “mystery reader.” I can be really thick-headed, if you couldn’t tell.

Horror reader, sure. Detective enthusiast, you betcha! True crime addict, guilty.

There are so many things that makes a mystery, a mystery. They include, but are not limited to:

Your killer and their motives

Your detective and their unique skill set that makes them best suited (or most motivated) to find said killer

The clues, the false leads, and the red herrings

And most importantly, that the killer is caught: unmasked by the detective. If it doesn’t have this particular element, it’s not a true mystery. (Not to discount genre blends which I adore and champion).

Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid goes into the more technical aspects of solving a crime. There’s an umbrella of fields under forensics from DNA to facial reconstruction to forensic psychology to entomology. All these discipline work to make the sequence of events and the truth of the crime clearer in the context of the courtroom.

I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about all these disciplines. Its filled with countless case studies throughout the centuries, tracking the development of new techniques and their limitations. Val McDermid, who is a veteran of the genre (I’ve read the whole of her Allie Burns series this year and intend to read more), explains all this in a very approachable way with interviews from professionals in every field she covers.

This is a must read for everyone who wants a comprehensive introduction to forensics for either bulking up their knowledge for their own mystery or they just genuinely find the science fascinating (Hello! I am both).

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

(Tw: suicide) I'm the original Pike confessor and I think people are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I've taken a bioethics class before and I've sat on the side of those for assisted suicide. I've been in the shoes of both the disabled person, the person who had to make a really hard decision on behalf of another and the person who had to watch while someone ignored every wish a person had in the last few weeks of dementia (if you know how they finally died, you know).

When I say update, I mean that in the 60s those writers sat down and thought what's the worst piece of medical equipment someone could ever be hooked up to. I know! The Iron Lung! And then they made it Future. There's only one person on Earth still hooked up to one of those because we don't need them anymore. We've moved beyond them. So if the tech they based the chair off of is obsolete, then yes, I do fully think they should update the chair. That chair has to be reading his brainwaves somehow because he's making no movement for it to read. Computer programs now can translate a code to a word, so the idea that it's somehow reading yes and no in his thoughts and blinking a light is ridiculous. If your brain is able to understand questions being asked and can communicate yes and no, then he should be able to at least communicate other simple one word statements like "food" or "thirsty". They don't let him.

If your reasoning for this treatment is sci-fi BS like unraveling DNA then you can Sci-fi BS a better explanation. As someone who has worked with DNA let me tell you, unraveling it isn't that big a deal. I've unraveled, reraveled, inserted, deleted, and moved DNA sequences around and the bacteria lived to tell the tales. It's much more resilient than people understand. I'm not saying by the 23rd century we can do this to an already living human but if we're already suspending our belief that unraveling their DNA won't kill them instantly we can suspend our disbelief about other things. They just won't because they have to get rid of him somehow.

And that's what it really comes down to: they have to get rid of him. I really don't mean to be rude about this, but let's maybe stop making up reasons Pike's depiction isn't bad or defending the depiction based off our reframings of his experience, through our lens as disbaled people, rather than the show's actual framing. Maybe you relate to feeling like disability was equal to death and it took a long time to see it otherwise, if you ever did. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't, but the writers of Star Trek are not writing from the perspective of someone who gets it. They are writing it from the perspective of able-bodied people who think disabled people are a thing to be pitied and hidden and you can tell both in the 60s and now from the way they framed everything around it.

Pike thinks becoming disabled is equal to death because his able-bodied writers think they'd rather be dead than disabled not because grief and mourning who you were is a genuine feeling every disabled person goes through at some point. Pike accepts his disability not because he's learned to deal with and work around it but because if he's not disabled then Spock dies and rather he be "dead" than Spock be dead.

I'm not saying you can't relate to Pike by reframing his behavior (and you do have to reframe it because its not the intention of the writters for you to relate to Pike but rather for you to be afraid of becoming like him) but I'm saying they put him in a cage out of sight and there's only one way to take that.

Pike was not written for us. We can reclaim him and his story all we want, but he wasn't and isn't written for us. I'm going to hold the writers accountable for that fact.

Posting this as a response to a previous confession.

[technoregression]

ngl kinda pissed off with the way the world works like you spend your first 10 20 years just learning learning learning:

when you draw, by hand, a graph and it has an asymptote, you must not in any way indicate that the line diverges or moves away from the asymptote. the formula for calculating temperature loss in an environment!! that was my favourite :<

nutrient agar would be described as a control, a negative control to be precise because in this instance, no growth is expected. a "lawn" of bacteria in a Petri dish is when all individual colonies in an agar plate merge to form a field, or mat, of bacteria

Gel electrophoresis of DNA. endonucleases (restriction enzymes) hydrolyse (cut) the phosphodiester bonds at specific DNA base pair sequences. In the bacteria, the restriction enzymes cut DNA as a protective mechanism against invading foreign DNA. smaller fragments can move faster through the agarose matrix from the cathode to the anode, even though the larger fragments (i.e., 23kb) are more electronegative.

if animals are stressed before slaughter, you may end up with either PSE (pale, soft, exudative - severe short term stress) or DFD (dry, firm, dark - longer term stress). This is because they either suffer a rapid breakdown of muscle glycogen (PSE), or their muscle glycogen is used up during handling, transport, before and after slaughter (DFD).

the literary devices employed by the author work in tandem to elicit an emotional response from the reader by appealing to their sense of humanity, as well as an imagined psychological trauma.

data can be stored on a hard drive next to each other in physical space and we call this contiguous. It's useful for certain data structures, sometimes necessary. But you may not have enough free memory to access or execute programs if it needs to be contiguous. This is where something like a linked list data structure can come in handy.

Metamorphic rocks are are those that have been altered by external forces, such as (and typically) pressure and temperature. Eluviation is the process of clay leaving the A1/A2 horizons and heading toward the B horizon. Illuviation is clay accumulating into the B horizon. Leaching is just the movement of other things like phosphate, nitrates, etc, downward toward bedrock. The triangular soil texture (clay/silt/sand) diagram!

K(S) + H2O(I) → H2(g) + KOH (no idea what this even meant tbh)

I used to know all of that, and more, all at once. But now here I am filling out forms for people and scanning their documents and liaising with insurance, medical, financial, and other companies on their behalf.

"Why am I learning trig? When will we ever need this?" truth is little Timmy, you (on average) won't get to use it, you (on average) won't experience the joy of using these magnificent tools we get to learn at a young age, you (on average) will be robbed of every opportunity to experience this magic.

So. Enjoy it...

[kornstreifs-storys]

Tales of Origin, Mewtwo

To whoever finds this letter. I write these words not as an apology, but so that I may never forget what we, humanity has done in the name of progress. If you think you can’t handle staring into the abyss of human greed, don’t read any further.

I should have known that this project was screwed up from the beginning. The amount of funding and quality of equipment was beyond suspicious for a small team trying to research a long extinct Pokemon. No one pays a bunch of Paleontologists that well without ulterior motives. Yet when your a young Collage graduate, being offered a job at the pay level of a senior researcher you don’t just decline.

Log entry xx1: Nothing we tried so far is working. The fossils are just to fragmented, we will never be able to reconstruct the genome at this rate. Darn it all! This is my only chance, my only chance to see her again.

Well, things got even more suspicious when I learned that the team had actual knowledge of a living specimen of the Pokemon we were supposed to research. I mean why spend billions of Poké-dollars on DNA splicers and gene sequencing, in order to reconstruct the genome from fossil records if a living one is out there still. And don’t get me started on the cloning equipment.

Yet, whenever I asked, I was told not to worry about it and that the goal of our research was to maybe repopulate this species as only this one seemed to have remained and we couldn’t risk loosing this last specimen while trying to get the DNA needed. Turned out that was a bigger lie then when my teacher in school tired to convince us that Mega Stones had come from outer space, but I digress.

Log entry: xx3: Mew gave birth, we named the offspring Mewtwo. I was quite surprised when these Rocket guys managed to catch Mew in the wild and even more so when it turned out that it was pregnant. I would almost call it a turn of fate. A Mew embryo is all we could ever need, finally Team Rocket can have it’s biological weapon and I’m one step closer to bringing her back.

When I found out that they had actually captured Mew and experimented on it while it was pregnant I was furious, but the others didn’t seem to see any problem with it. They had simply discarded the Mew after they were done leaving it heavily injured. They never cared for it, they only wanted it’s DNA, getting an Embryo was like hitting the jackpot for them.

I recovered the Mew and nursed it back to health in secret, but it wasn’t looking to good. Obviously I didn’t want to take it to a Pokemon center, there was no telling what could happen if they discovered me. So I went out and hunted for Pokemon that knew healing moves and told my colleges that it was just my new hobby so they didn’t pry. I can only pray to Gaia that this works, I can’t let them get away with this, I will put an end to this madness. But I’ll need Mews help for that.

Log Entry xx5: Everything is going fine so far. Mewtwo is growing well, we haven’t run into any of the complications we had with the previous attempts. I’m starting to think we might really do it this time. Giovanni was beyond pleased as well, he even provided us with more funding. We can do this!

Log Entry xx6: Some of the researchers are growing suspicious. I might have to cut them loose, I won’t let them ruin this. Were already in to deep, I won’t back out now. This Mewtwo will grow, I will perfect the cloning technology. Then I will get her back. No one will stop me!

Dr. Fuji is seriously off the deep end, sometimes I think at this point he might be more dangerous than the Team Rocket guys backing him. He has locked out most of the researches, works almost on his own most of the time. I don’t think he cares much for this Mewtwo they’re creating, he has other stakes in this. And I’m somewhat scared to find out what they are.

Mew is recovering well. Tomorrow we plan to attack the research center and put an end to this project. Mew also wants to free it’s child. I trained up many strong Pokemon these last few months. Between my new team and Mew, Fuji and his team don’t stand a chance of stopping us. I can only hope we’ll be able to hide from team Rocket afterwords, they won’t be trilled at us stealing their “new weapon”, but I’m tired of just being a bystander.

I don’t plan to return here after words, so I’ll leave this letter behind. If you read this far, wish us luck. We’re probably going to need it.

Log Entry x10: It’s over. I failed. … A researcher secretly saved Mew and somehow trained up a Champion level Pokemon team. He stormed the facility yesterday with Mew and they destroyed everything in their path. The fossils, the cloning lab, all the collected data …, even Mewtwo, they’re all gone.

The other scientist all quit after that, I’m all alone now. Giovanni is furious at the loss of his weapon, but I honestly couldn’t care less. I never intended for the project to turn out like this, all I wanted was to research cloning technology, to find a way to bring back Amber. But I failed even that and now she’s really gone for good.

I wish I could have seen what this one researcher saw, then maybe all this tragedy could have been prevented. … Now I can only hope that he and Mew are safe out there. In the end, my wife was right. I really am a horrible person. Signed Dr. Fuji.

================================================

Index (Tales of Origin)

Well, the Tales of Origin page I worked on last week was a dead end. So instead I decided to write my take on the creation of Mewtwo and tell how this Pokemon came to be in the Universe of Ages of Ruin.

This time i also chose to write in the first person as opposed to the third person view I usually use for my other updates. I'll probably continue to experiment like that in future updates for Tales of Origin, so I hope you liked it.

[chiyana]

HA yeah that was…that was from Tuesday night so you know a dude had to be a little sedated

But in ANY case, I for one am happy to have another chapter in this trying time! Regardless of thematic coincidences!

And I’ve thought about it more, and I think Kryptonians would definitely use fluorescent based sequencing, as opposed to something chemistry based, because they’re such a heavily wavelength based species and sequencing using flashing colors detection really fits that, you know? They seem like they would utilize lasers forever and for everything

And while I’m sure they have something to do whole genome sequencing that’s faster than we currently have (tho we are limited by how fast chemistry can you know. Chemical), I like to think Tim’s sequencing was done using Sanger sequencing, or the equivalent, because it’s fairly easy, fairly accurate, and it’s confirmed they already have sequenced something similar before so they would have the materials already (and you know, now that I think about it, Kon being a hybrid and in canon Kal having a half/half kid does indicate Kryptonian DNA has the same if not chemically compatible bases to humans)

If I had a heavy hunch about the identity of a sequence AND I already had the materials from before, it would take me like….personally 4-5 hours from start to finish to confirm Tim was human, and that’s from using my 2005 sequencer. If I needed more information/more sequence, I would use a next gen sequencer of some kind, but those take a lot longer to set up, like…hmmm at least a day (you can way more info, like in depth population analysis or a Whole Entire Genome, but they don’t NEED that right now)

Also I just love Sanger sequencing a lot, it’s so neat how it works. It’s like. It’s like you place a train on a track, and the train is a short DNA sequence you know (or hope) matches somewhere in your sample. And that train goes forward, replicating the strand of DNA it’s on (the train track). And every so often, the train will get stopped in its path by a glowing DNA base, 4 different colors for the 4 different bases. And this train does this thousands and thousands of times, getting stopped randomly at any point in the track with a glowing base. And when it’s done, you use an electric/magnetic current to separate the different train paths, from shortest (train gets stopped immediately) to longest (train gets stopped a solid mile down the track). And then look. At which color each track glows. Because they’re in order of size now! So you can see what the sequence of the whole track is by checking the order of the glowing bases from smallest to largest! I love it, I want to be buried in a Sanger sequencer when I die

Anyway. I actually love how you write your fic because you put just enough science in it to entice me and make me think, but not so much that it kills suspension of disbelief. It’s the perfect amount of explanation for me, unlike other shows that shall not be named

Ooh! I like the idea of them using fluorescent based sequencing, since yeah considering how heavily light/the sun ties into them conceptually and thematically, they absolutely would use lasers for everything forever XD

I didn't know about different kinds of sequencing, but Sanger sequencing does sound really cool! I like learning about neat tricks in science used to gather data quickly and accurately and then organize it to sort through and understand :)

Thank you so much for sharing, and I'm glad you like the fic! Also, if you want sci-fi world-building that really gets into the weeds of things like different genes and chemical structures, I recommend checking out Jay Eaton and Runaway to the Stars! It's a currently updating webcomic, but they're on Tumblr as well as jayrockin. The story follows a hypercarnivore alien/aerospace engineer named Talita who gets involved in fixing a pirate ship and running off to have space adventures. There's SO MUCH world building and thought gone into the world of the story that I think you would be interested in (if you haven't heard about it already).

Thank you again for the ask!

[alesseia]

Happy worldbuilding wednesday!! I wanted to ask about the magic in Alesseia—you mentioned everyone has it, but how does it look like at the lowest level? How do the people in caste 6 most commonly use it?

Hello, thank you so much for the ask!! I'm really happy someone is interested in learning about my world 💖 Sorry for answering it a bit late (it's Friday morning in my time as I answer this) but I was busy 😅

Before I can answer your question, I want to talk about how magic works in this world, so buckle down and strap in!

Magic is defined in Alesseia's world as the essence of life, the power that every individual holds. This isn't to say that magic is only found in living organisms (the earth itself contains much magic, which is why Alesseians tend to think of the earth as a living thing) but rather, magic is a semi-corporeal substance that empowers life. Whatever supports magic supports life, as magic is what makes life blossom in this world.

With that in mind, it can be said that every living organism has magic in one way or another. Of course, all humans definitely have magic. If anything, humanoid species are notable for having some of the most powerful¹ strains of magic available.

[1] This is what modern humanoids believe in Alesseia's world. Is it true though? Eh, that's a question that can be answered by reading.

However, magic works differently for everyone; each human has a unique² strain of magic, so not all humans have the same powers. That's why they've sorted themselves into various castes³ depending on the rarity and power level of magic.

[2] On a small tangent related to this: magic is commonly noted to be the unique power of an individual, but that is a bit of a misconception. While each individual has a unique strain of magic in the same way every organism has a unique DNA sequence, this doesn't mean that they don't share magical similarities with each other, or that the outward characteristics (i.e. how magic is expressed) will not be similar. This is a lot of words that basically boil down to "people can do similar magic even when they're not related."

[3] See footnote number 1.

Last notable thing: magic is inherently a natural part of this world. That means everyone can naturally do magic without needing specific tools, accessories, or rituals. Of course, some people may experience difficulties in casting magic for one reason or another, which is why things like wands, potions, and certain traditions were invented to help with casting magic. Some items may even allow them to use magic outside of their capabilities, though technically they aren't casting magic themselves. These inventions may have even brought in new strains of magic that weren't available in the past.

So... How do people in the lowest caste use magic?

The average person in Caste 6 generally has magic underneath one or both of the following categories:

their magic is significantly weaker than others with similar powers (example: only being able to control a few gallons of water at a time)

their magic is too specific to be considered powerful (example: only being able to "communicate" with chickens, not even other birds, just chickens)

Other examples include fruit ripening, flora/fauna identification, healing minor injuries, minor usages of air and earth magic, and lots of other relatively small magical types that are associated with nature.

It's notable that these powers are generally useful in modern day society; the first two examples above are great for fish and chicken farmers. However, they're not considered powerful enough by the ruling families for a higher caste.

Shame, isn't it?

[okimargarvez]

Inside the (crazy) mind of a garvez shipper (26)

Watching the Italian version of CME I got an idea, or better, I had an epiphany. The sequence of events about Luke/Penelope/Tyler-Garvez-Greencia is wrong.

Let me explain.

The chronological order is:

16x3- Luke catches the suspect, Tyler Green, with the ability he learned when he was with Fugitive team.

The team understands Tyler is not a killer. Penelope discovers Green is her informant.

16x4- Penelope tries to make Tyler cooperate. She fails.

Luke pushes her to tell Emily about her idea, trying cognitive interview. He supports her idea as it was his own.

When Emily asks if Penelope can try to talk again with Green, he replies in her place "yes, the answer is yes".

Penelope convinces Tyler to try the cognitive interview.

Luke tries the cognitive interview with Green. He is very good. Penelope and Emily are watching. It works, Tyler remembers important details about last day he saw his sister.

16x5- Penelope and Tyler can barely stand each other.

Rossi suggest Tyler to make something to convince Penelope work again with him. He gives her a real kitten.

Meanwhile, Luke and JJ blowing up.

16x6- Penelope is so worried for Luke, after they are able to talk with JJ. She says she want to take back all the mean things she said (about Luke). They discover Tyler' sister DNA in the bunker; Penelope informs him.

After this, she goes to Tyler the day they released him. He refuses her help. Luke and JJ are back: Penelope shows her happiness with a hug.

They call Penelope: she has to get Tyler, because he had a fight with a guy that saw him in the news; she takes him to her apartment. They have a deep chat about grief. Tyler tries to kiss her, she runs away and says they should take a walk. She has an idea about the case and leaves him, then turns and kisses him. [Don't look at next pic if you have weak heart; for me is just a science fact]

Penelope runs to the BAU and tells them what she thinks. Luke objects that Tyler sister is not in the pattern, but she explains with other details. Luke looks at her in a weird way. Maybe he thinks/understands she could have been with Tyler.

But the right sequence it should be:

Luke discovers about Tyler and Penelope kiss

-> Luke jumps him

JJ and Luke risk to blow up. Penelope is fucking scared.

[Penelope understands he has still feelings for her and she too, then kisses (Luke) and hugs him, alone (sorry, JJ)]

Okay, just a stupid thought, but seeing Luke jumping on Tyler, knowing that he is gonna helping him and pushing Pen to interact with his reval... If he only knew... he would have said "Ok, great idea, Penelope. I will talk to Prentiss. You can stay in your office, don't worry. You and Tyler are just incompatible. He will never open himself with you".

Inside the crazy mind of a garvez shipper - masterlist

[icegrillz]

the shadow self is all the parts that have become fragmented from being whole, healing means becoming whole, it’s an illusion that we’re separate, when you incarnate as white light into the physical vessel the white light fragments into the body and self organizes by vibrational frequency, but essentially that fragmentation is a temporary experience until the vessel wakes up consciousness to remember that it is white light again, the shadow self is all the fragmented parts that haven’t remembered they are white light,, so to heal all we have to do it’s super simple, get to the fractalized parts of yourself and walk them back to the light or allow them to see themselves as white light again. our life is a journey of learning unconditional love because unconditional love is that white light and you become white light when you are unconditional love. this gives you the ability of seeing yourself and all things as a part of you, you break the matrix , you’re seeing beyond the veil of separation into the unity that is all, and the fact that you create your reality. the way the mechanisms of this hologram work are that you project into your reality, your dna code stores information of fractalized experiences past and present, projects through the self organized system of the chakras into your everyday life in order to create a “life “ the life is the sequence of experiences in order for you to experience. infinite consciousness learns through you, you and i we’re a spectrum of different experiences. white light holds the spectrum of all vibrational colors learning through all the different colors, green, blue, pink , orange.. it learns and it experiences and through this it expands it’s own range of colors essentially. that’s why we can’t take this life that serious and we also have to understand that it’s very short it’s a very short temporary moment of experience that you’re here to have. many of you have such heavy heavy traumas and hearts so we gotta get that going.. because it doesn’t exist right now, and if you’re going through a hard time right now we have to readjust our perception to remember that this is a temporary experience. but we also need to understand how we got there because we got there because we wanted to get there ok. you wanted to experience that suffering, if you don’t know how you got there you better know because otherwise you’re gonna keep getting there over and over again and that’s the mechanisms of this experience because that’s what it’s for.being fearful of not being accepted by other’s in such a strong way that you hinder your own expression is an example, to change this shadow part of you which is the judgemental part of yourself.. immediately come into self love, self acceptance and remember that your acceptance doesn’t come from the external it comes from the internal, you immediately shift that program and you begin to expand

[inkofamethyst]

December 10, 2022

Thinking about how I had the weirdest, most emotionally-draining weekend a year ago.  I had a mild anxiety attack over being asked out, I lost the solo I’d worked so hard on (they cut the song out of the repertoire (every time I go to an event where this one specific girl who was involved in that decision is also there, I learn a little bit more about that situation and I think she just feels really really bad about it but apparently most of the sections were struggling with it and it just wasn’t coming together)), and then there was a covid outbreak the following week that postponed the concerts altogether.  Hmph.  Memories.  And lots of journaling this week.

I finished Crooked Kingdom last night!!!  Loved it!!!  Thought the.. shocking event near the end was kind of glossed over to the point where I felt insulted for that character, but whatever.  GAH it’s got to be one of my favorite YA series.  Now I have to figure out what to read next...  OH!  That book about Jean Luc Picard, of course!

Also I’ve seen two spiders in my room in less than a week???  That is unacceptable!  The main downside to winter is that all the big buggos decide to stay inside more as well and I hate them for it!  If I could have one superpower it would be the ability to maintain a 20 foot radius of no bugs (secondarily, I’d like kinetic energy manipulation, like Quake :D).

Anyway, you know what time it is.  I’m overly ambitious and I’ve got six weeks of no school and I wanna use ‘em, so it’s time for... Winter!  Break!  Goals!!!  We all know the rules to this game, but for any newcomers, allow me to elucidate.  There’s a bunch of stuff that I plan to do whenever I’m home from school, and I consider a long break to be successful if I can finish three of them.  So let’s begin the list, shall we?

Input all the dna sequence data for my research and get back on that grind (and also just organize my data a bunch more)

Read up a bunch of archaeology and geology papers, also for research purposes

Teach my dancer-friend how to read music so she can audition for choir (if she still wants)

Maybe go to the zoo?  (this is less of a goal but there’s a lil zoo near my campus that I’ve never been to)

Stretch three times a week (to prepare for ballet in the spring)

Just do one alteration/mend, just one is all I ask

Maybe make that one dope jumpsuit from Mood Patterns

Make a mockup of that ulster coat for my dad (and also maybe find the fabric for it)

Make the cropped jacket from Charm Patterns, or at least a good draft of it

Make/find a petticoat or slip or something that will allow me to wear long circle skirts without them sliding between my legs

Maybe go ice skating

Make more of my off-brand jerk spice mix

Finish that Paradise arrangement

Find people for my One More Soul arrangement

Find a dress for the orchestra’s spring formal

This winter will be an interesting one because I have to fit in some of my goals while also being a TA for the first time which I’m really looking forward to.  It’s a subject that I could probably (and would love the opportunity to) talk about for sixty hours straight.

Today I’m thankful for the fact that my blackened salmon turned out really really well???  It’s my first time making salmon myself, and I was afraid of overcooking/drying it out but it went really well!!  I think next time, I might try marinading it beforehand to see if the spice flavors can seep deeper into the flesh, but it was absurdly quick to make and I’ll get four dinners out of it.  The only problem is that salmon ain’t cheap lol.

I’m really looking forward to the concerts tomorrow (even if the twelve-hour day drives me to madness! (though I’ll be able to test how much time I’ll actually need to get from my apartment to my “early” class next semester at the performing arts building in the mornings and what that’ll mean for my wake-up time))!  I’m also looking forward to them being over so I can focus on other things (like getting some sleep <3 (and also my apps and essays lol))!