#today is Research Methods Paper Day

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Had a productive hour and a half! Knocked out my methods, results, and figures (the easy part of this paper). Now to find more sources so I can have a cogent introduction and discussion…

[srbachchan]

DAY 6057

Jalsa, Mumbai Sept 17, 2024 Tue 11:26 pm

The impotency of content :

"The term "impotency of content" suggests a situation where content—whether in the form of text, media, or other forms of communication—fails to achieve its intended purpose or lacks meaningful impact. This concept can be explored from multiple angles, including the relevance of the content, its delivery, and the broader context in which it exists.

Content becomes impotent when it fails to resonate with its intended audience. Relevance is key; if content does not address the needs, interests, or concerns of its audience, it is likely to be ignored or dismissed. For instance, a marketing campaign that does not align with the target demographic's values or preferences is unlikely to generate engagement or drive sales. Similarly, academic content that lacks practical application or fails to address current research gaps can be deemed impotent in the context of advancing knowledge or solving real-world problems.

Even if content is relevant, its effectiveness can be diminished by poor delivery. This includes factors like the format, accessibility, and clarity. Content that is poorly organized, difficult to navigate, or presented in an unappealing format may fail to capture and maintain the audience’s attention. For example, a well-researched academic paper presented in dense, jargon-laden prose might be ignored by those who could benefit from its findings. Effective delivery involves not just the substance but also the style and method of presentation, ensuring that the content is engaging and accessible.

In today’s information-rich environment, content is often lost in a sea of competing messages. The sheer volume of content available can lead to saturation, where individual pieces struggle to stand out or make an impact. This is particularly relevant in digital media, where algorithms and social media platforms amplify popular or sensational content while less eye-catching material may be overlooked. In this context, even valuable content can become impotent if it cannot rise above the noise. Content must be timely and contextually appropriate to be impactful. Content that is outdated or irrelevant to current events or trends can quickly lose its significance. For instance, historical analysis or commentary that does not consider contemporary developments might appear disconnected or obsolete. Understanding the broader context in which content is produced and consumed is crucial for ensuring its relevance and impact.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of content is measured by its ability to engage and elicit a response from its audience. Content that does not prompt interaction, reflection, or action is often considered impotent. This engagement is not just about attracting attention but also about fostering meaningful connections and responses. Content that encourages dialogue, provides value, or inspires action is more likely to be perceived as potent and impactful.

In conclusion, the "impotency of content" underscores the abd not a word about the mediaimportance of relevance, delivery, and context in determining the effectiveness of communication. To avoid impotency, content creators must carefully consider their audience’s needs, ensure their delivery methods are effective, and remain mindful of the broader information landscape. By addressing these factors, content can transcend its potential impotence and fulfill its purpose, whether that be to inform, persuade, entertain, or inspire."

and hahaha .. 🤣 and not a word about media for which it was intended .. the most protected, educated, ultimate genre in this Universe ..

Love and in the more of reality ..

Amitabh Bachchan

[morganbritton132]

My friend is a high school teacher, and the other day, he told us this story of when one of his students said, "Going 90." And proceeded to type his chair AND his desk to the side aka 90°. The kid landed on his side and got out his paper to start working. He said, "I think better this way." And my friend just had no clue what to do, lol.

I could help but think of Steve just standing there with his hands on his hips, trying to hide his laughter with a look of disappointment. And one of the other students gets it on film. So Eddie sees it and starts doing it everywhere as a joke.

The whole class is in on it which is how it ends up on TikTok for Eddie to see.

Mr. H hasn’t been in a bad mood per se, but there’s something off about him that his whole sixth period has picked up on. It’s not the low energy tiredness that sometimes lingers after he misses a day of work because of a seizure or the tense stiffness that’s present when he’s trying to work through a migraine.

It’s something else. It’s like he’s…sad.

He just seems really sad and the students do not like it, so sixth period looks towards their class clown and Jeremy says, “No problem, guys. I got this.”

They are waiting in anticipation as the class starts.

Steve takes attendance, nothing. He passes out a worksheet and notes, nothing. He starts the lesson and nothing happens until Steve asks, “Can anybody tell me what the characteristics of a right triangle are?”

There’s a moment of hesitation as everybody waits to see if that’s the moment but when Jeremy doesn’t do anything, Annalise answers, “One of the angles is ninety degrees.”

“That’s ri-“

“Going 90, Mr. H!” Jeremy shouts from the back of the classroom and then proceeds to yeet his desk, his chair, and himself sideways onto the floor.

The reverberation of the desk hitting the tile echoes around the room, followed by a round of giggling as Jeremy casually gets his spiral notebook and a pencil. He presses both of them to the desk so they don’t fall.

He’s writing his name at the top corner of his worksheet when he sees Mr. H’s shoes approach. His socks match his tie today. Jeremy thinks that’s very stylish of him. He mentions it.

Steve makes a strangled noise and when Jeremy looks up at him, he sees that he has his hands steepled in front of his face like he’s praying for patience. At the angle that Jeremy’s at, he can see Steve pressing his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh.

Finally, he puts his hands on his hips and asks, “Why?”

“I’m putting myself in the mindset of a right angle so I can learn better,” Jeremy answers and Steve presses his lips together again. He shakes his head so Jeremy presses on, “It’s like method acting but for math. I’m becoming the angle. There’s like, a whole bunch of research and stuff about it online.”

Steve’s shoulders shake when he asks, “That so?”

“Yep, Mr. H. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

“Yeh, that’s up,” Steve composes himself. “That’s hypoten-news to me.”

The whole class groans.  

Eddie rolls his eyes at the pun but laughs at the three different videos he sees of the interaction. He thinks it’s hilarious and he thinks it’s even funnier when Steve retells the story later. He comments on one of the videos, “V funny, gonna steal this.”

A few days go by and then Eddie posts a Tiktok that’s just a compilation of him shouting ‘Going 90’ and Steve scrambling to catch him before he falls over. With each clip, Steve’s reaction gets slower and slower.

The first time Eddie does it, Steve drops everything he’s holding to stop Eddie tipping the barstool he’s on onto the floor. The second time, he follows Eddie into the grass when he goes 90 off the deck. The fifth time, Steve bear hugs him before he can get the phrase out. The fifteenth time, he just lets Eddie fall. 

[eclipsellium]

Why I hate the pomodoro method.

You’ve probably seen someone suggest the Pomodoro method before— you do short sprints (typically 25 mins) followed up by a quick break (typically 5 mins).

I don’t like it, and I will never go back to using it. Don’t get me wrong, it can work really well! My sibling only gets anything done if they use this method, so there is something good about it. However, I’m going to talk about the downsides and what else to do instead of this method.

1. It focuses on time spent rather than results.

Many tasks are quite flexible in how long we take to complete them. Take walking home for example. When I am in a rush to school, it takes about 20 mins uphill, but my legs cramp really bad. When I’m just listening to my music and vibing, it takes about 30 mins downhill.

It's a similar idea for studying. Apply pressure on your learning and assignments, and they get completed faster. Too much pressure, you get exhausted or can’t think straight. (HINT: Procrastination). Too little pressure, and it takes forever to get anything done.

Different results require different amounts of time and pressure.

Trying to strive for a specific time frame undermines what your true goal is: to get some something done. The repetitive cycle assumes a “one size fits all” but that is rarely ever the case. Saying “I studied for two hours today” means nothing compared to “I wrote my essay, read a research paper, and annotated my notes from yesterday.”

2. It discourages focus and flow.

When I was trying out the method, I kept trying to find the ideal time for work and for breaks. The problem is it's never the same. Some days, you are more mentally exhausted and need longer and more breaks, otherwise you are just going to be miserable.

As it is, the five-minute break isn’t long enough to go on a short walk, take a dedicated snack, or fully disconnect. It’s a waste of time that taunts you with distractions that aren’t conducive to a good work environment.

The opposite is also true. Good days can be rare, so when you get into the zone, there’s no reason to come out of it for anything other than a natural transition. A ticking timer to your productivity doesn’t help, and breaking up that “flow state” isn’t maximizing your time or your efforts.

I also haven’t heard many people mention stamina. If you are in school and taking tests, you realize they are typically around the same length (90 - 120 mins where I am). The pomodoro method contradicts this. For a lot of people, focusing and doing your best on a test for such a long period of time can be difficult.

Oh, but that’s just life.

Maybe a part of it is, but you can take steps to improve your stamina during test taking. Spending upwards of two hours studying or taking practice tests, especially leading up to huge exams, can make the test fly by. Simulating test conditions is also a great way to study or increase pressure, which is what long term study periods achieve. Taking longer study periods also relates back to breaks. With the same amount of break time, you consolidate it into a greater block. You can grab a snack, watch an episode of your favorite show, take a walk outside, or do your hair. All fun stuff you can’t do with pomodoro.

3. It brings technology back into the equation.

If you’re using pomodoro method, most likely, its on your computer or your phone. Which means you have to have a device in reach and visible (for work on paper) or be constantly switching tabs (for work online).

Distractions are a huge part of this modern age, which means that you could inadvertently be teasing your mind with a computer game or social media or whatever you enjoy. Even if you don’t give in, you *are* losing focus.

Forget the clocks, forget the devices, forget the notifications. It’s so much easier to be productive if you have nothing else to do and no distractions to take you away from something that, at the heart of it, you enjoy. Because if you hate studying, why are you still reading this??????

This is really long so I’ll make another post about different study methods next week.

[grad-premed-suffering]

2024.02.29 | Day 40/100 days of productivity

Happy leap day!! My day is pretty calm, with an NVIVO workshop in my class this afternoon (which I think I may already know most of) and otherwise just grinding away to get my communicable disease term paper drafted. I don't have any classes tomorrow so I'll just push all my readings for next week until then. After this term paper, the last big assignment I hjave this semester is my thesis proposal, so I should be able to get back into doing more of my research shortly.

I hope you all have a lovely and productive day!

Today's goals:

Qualitative methods class

Draft communicable disease term paper

Drink water (0/2)

Pick up prescription

Buy a few groceries on the way home

Read before bed

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

July Week 1: Dreams, Astral Work, Life and Death Philosophies

So this week we will focus on some pretty broad topics, so that we can pack more learning and practical things into the second half of the year. Let's start with some pretty heavy topics for the week! These days will be very chock full, so feel free to save these prompts for rainy days or to keep working on after this week!

Monday - Dreams and Dream Work

Research/ New Page - scientifically speaking, what are dreams? How do they work? Why do they occur? When do they occur? Now apply a spiritual and magical lens to what dreams are. Then apply a philosopical lens. How do all of these definitions and functions work together to form what dreams are to you?

Research - Sending, Receiving, Shaping and Controlling Dreams. How does one send dreams or influence the dreams of another? How does one become more open to recieving dreams? What are the methods and ways we can shape our dreams? How can we control our dreams? Make a list of any terms, practices, methods, or articles on the subject you want to look further into. Or read and define things now! Learning is understanding. Also look into ways to help you better recall your dreams after you wake up!

Research - Look into the history of dream work, and the study of dreams in general, both in a magical and scientific way.

Tuesday - Astral and Astral Work

Research/ New Page - Define Astral and astral work. What is the astral or astral plane? How do we reach it? How do we see it, sense it, and connect to it? What things can we do when doing astral work? What does this influence, if anything, within your craft?

Introspection - Expectations vs Reality. What are the things you expected from astral work and what you thought you knew? Now compare that to the reality of what you've learned. What did you expect to see/ hear/ feel/ etc when you did astral work? What was the reality of the work you did? It is important to be able to differentiate between reality and your mind and perceptions tricking you.

Research - Gem Study - Pick a gem or other item from your list and study everything about it that you can!

Wednesday - Life, Death and Beyond

Introspection/ Meditation/ Journal - Think on the three topics listed. What is life? What is death? What is beyond those things (before and after)? Really dig deep into your beliefs about the world and the way these things work and how they are connected. Why do you believe those things? What influenced these beliefs in you? How do you feel about each of these things?

Research/ Introspection - Do you believe in reincarnation or a "beyond" where your spirit or soul or what have you goes after death? Define it, describe it, how does it work and why does it work and who is in control, if anyone, of this process or place? Are there multiple places or levels? What are they? Where do they exist? How do they function? The idea of a 'beyond' flows into and around the ideas of life and death. Connect the dots in yourself and in your beliefs.

Research - Herb Study - pick an herb from your list and learn all that you can about it! Magical, mundane, everything!

Thursday - Some fun stuff!

Practical/ Craft - Take today to do some design work on your pages! Color them, decorate them, add paper or notes, stickers or flowers, anything that helps make your grimoire feel more at hand and connected to you! Example: If you've made a page on Basil, find a basil leaf and dry it, then add it to the page! Or draw a picture of a basil plant!

Practical - Attempt some dream work or connection to the astral plane. Journal the experience, start to finish and look back on the experience to learn how to improve it!

Friday - Casual/ Catch Up

Use today to dive deeper into the topics discussed earlier this week, I know these were some big topics to broach. If not, rest! It's important to take breaks on projects as big as this challenge!

Well that’s a lot for the first week! But we’re gonna be getting deeper into a lot of broad topics this month! Stay tuned everyone and thank you for participating! I’m hope you’re all having a wonderful summer so far!

-Mod Hazel

[eponymous-rose]

Wednesday!

It's super foggy, so my bus gets in later than I'd like and there's no time even for the cup of tea. :( I tell my students how great they did on the first homework assignment and then launch into a lecture about the various methods we use to measure the wind. It's a fun lecture, but I'm most excited for getting into the discussion of radar next week! We also have a lecture on Friday about scientific writing that I think will be pretty interesting. Good times all around.

Lunchtime! I threw a bunch of random stuff into my bag this morning, but there's a good soup and some veggies and fruit, so I'm happy. I should probably be using this time to catch up on (SO MUCH) e-mail, but I'm just sort of zoning out and have a busy afternoon ahead, so instead I hang out and enjoy my lunch, watch some silly videos, and pay for my table vending at a card show on Sunday! Protecting an hour for lunch each day has actually been a big lift in terms of rearranging my schedule, but I notice a huge difference in my afternoon energy levels. (I do check my e-mail long enough to promise my forest service colleague that I'll get back to him tomorrow on the financial stuff.)

Now it's time for a 90-minute meeting with the team on my National Science Foundation grant - 3 professors (including me), a postdoc, and my PhD student, across two universities. The mood is considerably less panicked than it would have been yesterday! For context, all five of us have some fraction (up to 100%) of our salaries paid through this grant. One of the professors on this project is the most Eeyore person I've ever met - every statement that comes out of his mouth is a worst-case scenario or a reason why something won't work, but I've known him since I was a student, and I'm kind of used to filtering that view on life to a degree (I remember some friends and I taking him out for dinner at a conference and him saying in a morose deadpan what a good time he was having - he's just hard to read!). The other professor is an energetic ray of sunshine, but he was a little frazzled today since his kid got sick on the way to daycare and was now jumping on the couch behind him and demanding more crackers.

But it was a great meeting! We got a plan laid out for the next steps of research, and managed to put some blinders on my very, very ambitious and slightly scattered PhD student (every project leads to five side-projects with him, which is amazing... but he's meant to be defending his dissertation this summer). The highlight was when he showed some figures and promptly said "anyway, none of that's interesting, but the paper I actually want to write is--" and everyone cut him off like "WAIT WAIT PUBLISH THAT EARLIER STUFF FIRST IT'S AMAZING". I think we managed to encourage him to just publish this early stuff and also lock in the methodology so the postdoc can get started on next steps, and I got some support from sunny-professor (who was my PhD student's undergrad research advisor back in the day) to help keep my student on track - we decided to see where he's at early next week and set a deadline accordingly. We all finished the conversation in much better moods!

On to a quick half-hour chat with the student who defended his PhD last week - he has a couple questions about my comments on his dissertation and mostly just wants to pick my brain about where to put some figures in his upcoming paper. We agree that this is a job for Supplemental Materials and have a few minutes to chat about how wild the whole process feels. Since we finish a little early, I manage to get my signature on a letter supporting yet another student who recently took his PhD entrance exam.

Onward! Up next is an hour-long meeting with my first-year Master's student and her co-advisor. (Our department is very collaborative - this is my second co-advising experience, and I genuinely do really like that balance, although logistics can be a big pain.) I admire her co-advisor a lot, and I know his students think the world of him, but I think he's a little too hands-off as a research advisor sometimes - there's a time and place to let students investigate and come up with their own ideas, but a new grad student returning to academia after three years working in industry is likely going to need a little extra guidance. We do manage to throw some ideas around and I finally get a little fed up with the vagueness and point her at a dataset that I think will start to get questions going in her mind. Her co-advisor did have the excellent idea of having her put together an application for a national graduate fellowship to put a deadline on solidifying an idea for her Master's topic, and that's really helped. I also talk a bit about a Department of Energy proposal a colleague and I put together that might be a good fit for her research as well. A good chat!

Next is an undergrad research assistant (one of the amazing students taking my class this year, actually!) - she is also co-advised by another of my colleagues and I. That colleague and I have a really fun project we've been developing, also for the National Science Foundation, and one of the biggest comments on our initial submission was a lack of proof-of-concept data. Before sending in the resubmission (which is something I have to work on tomorrow), my colleague and I decided to bring on an undergraduate researcher to do some preliminary research and to get some experience working on this kind of project! We've already sent her to one conference to present her results, so she and I catch up on things (her co-advisor just left for an eight-week field campaign in a remote location in the Rockies, but will be kept up-to-date via e-mails) and she talks a bit about some of the feedback she got on her poster at the conference a couple weeks ago. That sparks some ideas about new data we want to investigate, and I think we manage to thread the needle so that we're going to be able to get substantial science done without overcommitting (she's graduating this spring!).

My final meeting is an hour-long check-in with another grad student prepping for the dreaded PhD entrance exam! He's doing extremely cool work - I like being a committee member for grad students because I get to see the work in these snapshots representing massive leaps in understanding and scientific maturity. I have just a few minor suggestions, and we agree to chat again in the next couple weeks before the exam.

Okay! It's time to make some to-do lists.

Stuff that needs to get done tomorrow (no meetings, work from home all day, sheer bliss):

Send my forest service colleague the financial info he's been waiting so patiently to get from me. This will involve coordinating with our terribly understaffed grants team and may involve me writing a few pages of justifications, so I'm anticipating this one will take a few hours.

Write letters of support for my PhD student. These are a joy to write and shouldn't take too long.

Provide comments to the postdoc out in Switzerland about her proposal. It's not a super long proposal, but it looked a little rough the last time I saw it, so I'm steeling myself for what may be a long read.

Decide whether I want to submit an abstract to a conference that'll be happening in June. It's not needed for me, but it's close by, a good friend is running it, it looks relevant, and I have some travel funds that will be deleted if they're not used by November. If I decide to go for it, writing the abstract won't take long at all.

There's a questionnaire asking how my research would be impacted by various political things going on, so I need to fill that one out.

I have a peer review for a scientific journal due on Monday that I've already delayed once - I simply gotta write it. I'm good friends with the editor, so I want to help him get that off his to-do list as well.

There's some required grants training that expires after four years, so I guess it's time for me to do that again.

Oh dang, speaking of expired, my driver's license is up and I need to apply online for the renewal (no huge inconvenience - I don't have a car and I use my passport for travel anyway).

There's a possibility of applying for a major grant with a friend in the computer science department. I don't know if either of us can put this on our plates, but we should at least chat about it quickly.

Reply to my absentee finishing-remotely-while-starting-a-new-job-but-has-been-incommunicado Master's student who reached out yesterday for the first time in three years.

Work on revisions to a grant proposal - I promised my co-author that we'd have the proposal draft ready to go by Feb. 7.

Work on revisions to the review article I have to cut down by about 5,000 words.

Stuff that needs to get done that I don't have to touch tomorrow necessarily:

E-mail my contacts in Canada and Europe re: my PhD student and future job opportunities (it's a little early to e-mail them now).

Figure out the no-cost extension process for my grant that's expiring at the end of the year - I know it has to be done at least 45 days before the grant expires.

Fill out a form that was sent to me about becoming affiliate faculty with a cool multidisciplinary institute on campus.

Make some fresh recordings for my distance-learning class next quarter (the old ones are from 2021 and I look quite frazzled).

Order copies of a couple of textbooks I'd like to evaluate for next quarter's 100-level class.

Grade the second homework assignment for my students (not due until Friday, but some may hand it in early).

Read a couple of articles recommended to me during my meetings today.

PHEW. Tomorrow is work from home! I'm excited - these have been fun days, but there's been SO MUCH one-on-one intense conversation and I'm ready to be a hermit for a bit.

[pjo-tvs-version]

Fanfic no. 3 !! Wohooo!!! I never thought it would happen. I am sticking with Annabeth POVs currently as I enjoy writing them. This one's based on @liesmultixxx's suggestion of the day Percy goes missing. Title from Love Story by yet again Taylor Swift. Enjoy!

Beggin' you, "Please don't go, " 

I stand outside by the gates of my school, excited. It was a lovely Saturday afternoon and Sally had insisted on having lunch with her. The crowd around me was buzzing with enthusiasm too. Today was the last day of school. Everyone was planning their summer vacations. I smiled knowing that I had already planned how to spend the entirety of the few days I got. Training at camp, finishing the plans for the renovation of Olympus, helping out with the architecture of the new cabins, teaching the new campers a few tricks, chatting with Sally and of course, spending time with my Seaweed Brain.

I was told by a particular green eyed boy that I often get lost in my thoughts. As much as I hate accepting that, it's the truth I realise now. As I’m happily going over my to do list for this summer, I hear a car’s horn, startling me. It’s Paul’s Prius with Percy in the driver’s seat, wearing his orange camp shirt. “Did I scare you, Wise Girl?” he says mockingly. There is a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and it feels wonderful to observe it without a Greek apocalypse taking place.

I dump my books in the back seat, taking my place beside Percy as we set off to his New York apartment. A lunch by Sally’s and then we will be off to Camp Half Blood. I was eager to go to camp as I hadn't seen it in a while. I am looking forward to seeing the new campers, even the ones from minor gods. Yesterday Chiron had even Iris messaged me about my requirement for building the new cabins. Percy was most probably picking on my thoughts (that was something I realised that he is pretty good at doing since we started dating.)

 “Well someone looks happy today despite her pessimistic attitude”, said Percy. “Let me remind you that you have an English research paper to write a History project to work on and not to mention solving questions from Trigonometry” I replied.  Percy let out a groan and said “Well you take the win on this one but please tell me you are helping me out with trigonometry.” I laughed. It was so funny to see the Savior of Olympus complaining about maths homework. I retorted “Only if you give me an extra blue cookie.” Percy looked aghast and I was just enjoying the banter. I knew I hit the right bargain.

 “You drive a hard deal Annabeth. Can’t we just stick with something nicer like I give you an extra goodnight kiss and you help out with the soul destructive maths?” “Hmm let me think about it” I pause dramatically and pose to be in deep thought and then add “nope.” “Please Miss Owl Head. I am begging you” Percy adds with the cute baby seal eyes. Oh no! I stared at them and it was a mistake. The eyes always got me. “Okay fine the extra goodnight kiss it is in exchange for the maths homework. But I am warning you beforehand, I’ll just teach you the method, you are solving them yourself. Also the good night kiss better be good.” I say with a sigh. He grins and I can’t help but adore his raven coloured hair. The rest of our ride passed with more banters about school, camp and dates. I enjoyed every minute of it.

I waited as Percy parked the Prius. Sally is already standing at the door. I could smell the delicious lasagna bubbling in the oven. As always Sally hugged me. She smelt of cookies and honey suckles. It always filled me with warmth whenever I was with Sally. She was like the parent figure I never had. She always treated me so warmly, like her own family. It always managed to make me feel cosy and warmed my heart every time.

“Come in quick! The lasagna is almost done, my dear. The blue cookies are in the oven right now. They will be ready soon too. "Sally said as she beckoned her inside the Jackson apartment. Percy eyes always glazed with amazement whenever a Sally Jackson styled blue cookie was in a 1 mile radius from him. Percy helped Sally set up the dining table as I went to his room to freshen up and change. 

When I returned to the table, a table was ready for three. Paul I had been told by Percy was in school, teaching. Sally and Percy were seated already and were waiting for me. A dish full of mouth watering Lasagna, Sally’s classic seven layer dip with tortilla chips and a jug of lemonade were kept, ready to be eaten.

“Dig in '' Sally said and that is exactly what we did. Gods, it was delicious. We talked as we ate. Sally inquired about my school, Percy sprouting out facts about marine life and me going over my plans for the summer. There was utter chaos as the three of us ate and chatted and it was soo much fun. When our meal finished, I along with Percy helped clear up the table. It sounds weird but I had fun doing the dishes. 

When everything was done we sat on the couch with the blue cookies. Percy’s eyes rolled up in ecstasy at the sight of them and I was pretty sure that my face was pretty much the same. As I savored my last chocochip bite, I glanced at the watch. It was almost 4. I stand with Percy in tow. We had to leave for camp now.

Sally hugs us goodbye, packing a few cookies for our trip to camp too. We hail a taxi to Long Island. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Percy and I stood on Half Blood Hill, enjoying the view. Camp Half Blood was buzzing with excitement everywhere. Many of the Apollo kids were doing target practice. The satyrs were playing a sweet tune on their pipes to grow the strawberries. The sun was dipping and the view was breathtaking. “Race you down the hill. Whoever loses doesn't get the last cookie” I shout before sprinting down the hill. “Hey, that's not fair! You went first. But you're on Chase. Anything for my blue cookies.” Percy retorts and he races against me. 

As always it ended as a tie so the cookie will be divided into half. Chiron was there to greet us. After exchanging a few hugs, I went to meet my siblings in Cabin 6. Malcolm welcomed me back warmly. I make my way towards my bed to start settling in. Unpacking took way more time than I expected. “Hey Annabeth, time for dinner. We are even having a campfire tonight.” Malcolm calls out as I stack my last book on the shelf. Perfect timing. “Coming Malcolm," I reply.

After a filling dinner everyone gathers around the fire for a song night. I sit beside Percy, a little at the back of the crowd. We sing, laugh and dance till our throats are sore from shouting and our knees are worn out from the dancing. The crowd dispersed albeit reluctantly since we were having so much fun. Me and Percy walk, hand in hand towards our cabins.

The walk was purposely slow since we were savouring the solitude. As we reach the entrance of his cabin we both halt. A drop of water fell on my nose then another on my shoulder and then on my hand. Before I knew it, I was standing under a mini raincloud. Percy was getting drenched in the rain too but he was smiling, that classic troublemaker smile and his sea green eyes were full of amusement. “May I know exactly why Perseus Jackson is it raining only above us? Considering that you are a Son of Poseidon, it puts you in a quite suspicious position. There is no scien-” I say before I am cut off. 

Percy’s lips are on mine as kisses me soft and slow. As he pulls away grasping for breath, I remember that he kept his promise about the goodnight kiss. Something must have shown on my face as I leapt to the realization because Percy’s smile widened. “So this is your special goodnight kiss I see. Where both of us are drenched in rainwater” I say. “I always wanted to kiss you in the rain. Might be romantic you know. But I kept my promise. So math homework tomorrow?” he replies. He really is a Seaweed Brain. He looked so cute with his hair plastered across his face and pearl like water droplets on his eyes that I could’nt help but kiss him again.

I will begrudgingly admit that it was actually kind of romantic but there is no way I am saying it out loud. We pull away and I say with a sigh “Okay, maths homework lesson in the morning in the strawberry fields. Okay?” “Thank you so much Wise Girl. Good night.” he says with a yawn. “Goodnight Seaweed Brain” I reply, feeling sleepy too. I make my way towards my cabin with my heart content. Tomorrow will be a fresh new day and I can finally enjoy myself after so many taxing years of war.

I wake up to a sunny morning. I freshen up and grab my supplies. Chiron had requested me to meet him first thing in the morning as he wanted to discuss a few new cabin designs for me. As I make my way to the Big House, I am interrupted by Clarisse. “Have you seen your kelp-filled headed boyfriend? He was supposed to spar with me to a death battle.” Clarrise asks. I laughed. So Percy and Clarisse are going toi spar. Guess I’m going to watch a good show. “I’ll go check on him. He’s most probably snoring in his cabin.” I reply. Clarisse nods and goes to her cabin. 

I knock on the doors of cabin 3. No response. I knock again but still not a single reaction. That was weird so I just pushed against the doors to find an empty bunk bed. Where was Percy? He most probably must be playing one of his pranks on me. I step out and call out his name. Still no answer. I find Chiron waiting at the steps of the Big House. I’m sure he would have some idea. “Have you seen Percy Chiron?” I ask. There is a look of concern in his eyes. “Annabeth, dear I thought Percy was somewhere with you though it is unlikely that he would be awake so early in the morning.” Chiron responds. “What no! I just got up and was on my way to your office when Clarrise asked me if I knew where Percy was. I said no and went to his cabin to find him but he was’nt there.” I say, panic seizing me. “Annabeth, you are not the first camper who inquired about Percy. Are you sure you have no idea where Percy is or is it some joke?” he asked me.

“I swear on the Styx Chiron that I have no idea where Percy is.” I say as my dread increases in my heart. “Well this is serious then. I am going to announce this immediately” Chiron said.

Every camper was searching every possible place. I was getting terrified with every passing second. Percy pulled off pranks but they were light hearted. When I find him, I’m seriously going to threaten him about this. He has no right to give me such panic attacks. After a while of searchin everyone gathered in the Amphitheater. “We’ve looked everywhere, only the strawberry fields are left for us to-” Connor says before I cut him off.

The strawberry field, of course he must be there. Maybe he wanted to surprise me by getting up early and being ready to study. I race against the wind. As I reach the entrance of the field I shout out “I’m here Seaweed Brain. Time for maths.” Still no reply. He was’nt there. My heart was thudding against my chest and I fell to my knees. Where was Percy? The rest of camp arrives to find me there in this miserable condition. Malcom approaches and kneels beside me. “Don’t worry Annabeth, we'll find him. He must be somewhere, I’m sure of it.”

I burst into tears not being able to control them. Percy was gone? Overnight? He kissed me goodnight yesterday and now he is gone? There was no trace of him. He wasn't in camp and I realise with a foreboding fear that this isn't a prank. Chiron removes the crowd as Malcolm hugs me fiercely. “He’s gone, he’s gone” I say with shuddering breaths. “I was supposed to teach him maths, go on a date with him tomorrow and…”. “Annabeth, it's okay. He will be fine” Malcolm tries to reassure me. “You don’t understand. Where is he? Is he alive or…….” I didn't complete the sentence. That’s not possible. I was going to search for him until I found him. A part of my brain nags me- what if I don’t. I push that thought away. I stand up with shaky legs and reach for my cell phone and dial Sally. After a few rings she picks up, “Hey Annabeth how are you and Percy? Any issue?”. “Sally is- is Percy at home?” I say even as my heart slows with dread. “No Annabeth! Why would he be here?”. I can’t reply. I lost my voice and I didn't know how to respond. What should I tell her. Sally must have sensed the silence was not a good one because there was concern in her next words “Annabeth honey Annabeth are you okay? Is Percy okay…” If only I knew that my happy, planned summer was going to be my worst possible one….

So how was this? Positive criticism is appreciated. Thank you @liesmultixxx for the lovely suggestion. Hope you liked it!!!

You can read it here on AO3 too

[cappucinosandnotes]

100 days of productivity

4/100 - 11/7/24

really struggling to feel productive today, i just cannot bring myself to focus on anything but i have so much stuff piling up that i am getting stressed

today's to-do list:

orgo hw

ALS case study

case study evaluation

research

methods and results section

english paper

carboxylic acid and esters reading, notes, and practice problems

at least its almost the weekend so i can catch up on everything and rest and recover

[cnestus]

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your job and degree? Getting into the field of entomology is a bit intimidating and I would appreciate any any advice.

i tend to be a little cagey about my exact job since my field is quite small and there's enough people following me that the chances of someone deciding to take offense to something and Get Weird at me are nonzero, but that's probably excessive paranoia on my part. then again beloved internet bug person mossworm got recently sacked from their job on account of weirdo online tattletales so maybe not.

anyway i can say i work for a government agency identifying insects from a pretty wide geographic range, looking for new exotic species and potential pests. during the busy season i spend most of my time processing huge volumes of raw trap samples, pulling out insect groups of interest, mostly woodboring beetles, for myself or one of the other entomologists in the lab to identify to species. during the off-season when we're not getting tons of new samples i get a little more free reign to work on other projects of my own design, so for example lately i've been working on my bee identification skills and am slowly putting together a large reference collection of native bee species that i reserved from years of insect trap by-catch.

i got my PHD in entomology without a specific career in mind but knowing i wanted to do something that wasn't just about developing products and methods for killing unwanted insects which seem like the main entomology jobs anyone wants to fund anymore. in a perfect world i'd love a entomological curation job in a museum but those positions are rare and in-demand and i didn't have the mental fortitude to do the kind of academic work in grad school to make me competitive for that field. but then i went ahead and got a job that lets me do some curatorial work anyway so i sort of won? my position is still at least on paper about controlling unwanted insects but in practice i rarely have to do much of that work, at least directly.

i get semi-regular requests for advice on getting a job as an entomologist and i often feel like i don't have much constructive or encouraging to say, since it's hard not to feel like it's one of the many disciplines being squeezed to death by the iron hand of capitalism. more and more positions in the government and academia are being cut or downsized by bureaucrats who don't see the benefit of taxonomy or any other research that doesn't directly result in their department or some corporation making a bunch of money. whole subdisciplines are dying out as the elder entomologists who were the sole sources of knowledge about them die off. there are entire groups of insects and other arthropods that are effectively impossible to identify to species now because the one taxonomic wizard who specialized on them died without having anyone to pass that knowledge onto. Donald Bright, the only living expert on bark beetles in the preposterously diverse and morphologically subtle genus Pityophthorus, died a few months ago without an heir that i'm aware of.

also most of the taxonomic research that is being done these days is all molecular systematics which i have Opinions about but this post is way too long already.

sorry. that was a bummer. i guess i'm proof that it is still possible to get a job like this today, even if i can't help but feel like it was mostly luck that got me here. plenty of the others in my academic cohort (that didn't burn out from grad school stress) also went on to get degrees in their field of study or at least adjacent to them. and again there are still plenty of entomology jobs in other sectors like agriculture, public health, nonprofits and NGOs and stuff like that. you also don't necessarily need an advanced degree in entomology for a lot of these, and a lot of people in the entomology field came in sideways through related disciplines like ecology, evolutionary science, general biology, or even things like viticulture and forensic science to name a couple examples from my own cohort.

looking back, that was mostly a lot of vague grumbling and not much concrete advice, but to be fair asking for "any advice" is a hard prompt to go off of so i tend to default to the kinds of grim thoughts that are usually rattling round in my brain. i may also be in an especially dour mood at the moment because even though my job isn't to my knowledge at any risk of being eliminated, my lab is currently being passively if not outright antagonized by higher-level bureaucrats for genuinely mysterious reasons and i will not elaborate on that any further for reasons i mentioned at the beginning. anyway! i am always happy to at least attempt to give more specific advice but i can't promise there won't be at least a little grumbling in that as well.

[uncleasad]

This post came past my desk today, and I thought folks here might find it interesting/helpful, particularly the suggestions (from the academic paper, as summarized by the author of the blog post) for clearing a block—or at least a specific type of block:

Take a break from writing: “Stop writing, decide tomorrow is another day, and walk away from the computer until the next day.” (26%)

Work on a different writing project: “Jump from the work on which I’m currently engaged to another.” (13%)

Keep writing: “Force myself to write to a certain page number” (12%)

Revise or reread current work or skip ahead to work on a later section: “Reread notes or drafts” (10%)

Read a book or watch a movie: “I read the work of authors I admire to become inspired.” (10%)

Take a walk: “I go for a walk” (6%)

Discuss ideas with others: “Ask for advice. See what other people think. While you usually won’t use what they suggest their ideas can kickstart you brain.” (8%)

Change writing location or writing method: “Switch up locations or methods of writing – write using a pen, a typewriter, etc.” (6%)

Exercise: “Exercise/movement” (3%)

Research: “Researching relevant or related topics” (3%)

Eat or drink something: “Drinking coffee or snacking” (2%)

Meditate/do yoga: “Meditate for five minutes” (1%)

Number 2 is responsible for pretty much the entirety of my In-Progress list as well as for the Tales from the Salvatore Kitchen series. I’ve also done a lot of #4 (especially on After Ten Long Years, which currently consists of 5 distinct sections, but I also successfully employed the reread/revise strategy on the final part of the Josie Saltzman’s Final Holidays trilogy), some #6—which is really a specific subset of #9 I think—(often working in the yard/garden or mowing the lawn instead of walking per se), sometimes #7 (looking at you, friends 😀)…and #10 is a good procrastinator 😂

One thing I don’t see mentioned, and the source of all my best ideas (as I’ve mentioned before) is take a shower; the article I linked to in that post explains why that works.

(Sadly, none of these suggestions are relevant for my current case of writer’s “block,” which is entirely a lack of time. Maybe I should stop visiting tumblr 😂)

[firewalkwithmme]

☾𖤓 — 19 October 2024

˚˖𓍢ִ໋🦢˚ — Today’s accomplishments:

did 1.5 hours research for a film paper analysing Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

practiced russian and dutch for 20 min

I am working on becoming a better student as I return to university tomorrow from my fall break. I often struggle with getting work done and today was one of those days, but my new method is remembering something is better than nothing. Whatever I get done today is one more thing I’ve completed. It’s the little things! Tomorrow I will study for my economics exam and do some more work on my film paper

[literally-in-too-many-fandoms]

Wreck When I'm Without You

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Fanfic

characters: Linhardt von Hevring, Caspar von Bergliez, Ashe Ubert

Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, Established Caspar/Linhardt Relationship, Polyamory

. The new year at Garreg Mach University brings a series of crises to the happy relationship of Linhardt von Hevring and Caspar Bergliez, and to Caspar's new lacrosse teammate, Ashe Ubert.

Between unexpectedly attractive teammates, getting cut off from family, and navigating new social situations, these three are going to navigate an eventful year. And as we all know, the best solution to any problem is to panic and avoid communicating your needs to the partners and friends who explicitly offer to care for you.

They'll figure it out, probably.

Chapter 1: all my emotions feel like explosions when you're around

Sophomore year of medical school was honestly two years further than Linhardt expected to ever get.  So even though that was when this tiny piece of perfection he’d carved out for himself began to crumble, Linhardt was merely grateful for the time he had had.

Okay, that was a lie. 

He was full-on panicking.

First, there was a series of emails from the university and his bank. 

[Tuition payment method has been changed] [Please confirm your billing method] [Your Upcoming Tuition Payment] [New Billing Statement Available] [PLEASE READ: Tuition payment options]

Second, there was the error message he got when he tried to message his father. 

The text chain was old: scattered check-ups with one-word responses, a message on the holidays and birthdays.  The last text was dated three months prior, when his father had asked him to come home for a distant relative’s funeral.  Linhardt had begged off with an excuse about a term paper.  His father had responded that of course, he should prioritize his studies, as long as his civic engineering minor wouldn’t impede his business major.  Now, his newest message bounced.  A physical representation of how it always felt to communicate with his father.

Third, Caspar was shouting (this was not unusual) that they were out of milk again (this was also not unusual) and asking Linhardt to order some from the store pretty please (this was also also not unusual). 

What was unusual was that as Caspar stumbled into the room, pulling his jacket on one shoulder, a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth, he stopped before he approached Linhardt’s bed.  Usually, Caspar did not hesitate before bodily scooping him out of his blanket cocoon, ignoring Linhardt’s protestations.  This was their deal.  Caspar would wake him up before practice or games on Saturdays, because otherwise Linhardt was liable to sleep through the whole day without seeing his boyfriend, given that Caspar had work in the evening.  Linhardt would not protest too much because this was what he wanted from university.  Good research, and the chance to be with Caspar.

What hurt most about it, was Linhardt had been excited about today.  His next research project for school was interesting.  New data from Lysithea, who was the bright star up and coming in the biomed department, with her statistics background.  Professor Hanneman had suggested some promising studies on the degenerative disease which linked to certain “crest” genes.  He’d been up late studying and was looking forward to waking up in order to read more.

But then he’d glanced at the cascade of emails.  His father’s radio silence.  And now Caspar was hesitating, eyes caught on his.  Caspar was, for all his faults, unerringly honest.  Linhardt had never known him to hesitate.

There was a honk from outside. 

“von Bergliez!  Do not make me tell our lovely team captain that you made us late again!”

And then Caspar blinked, and the hesitation was gone; he swooped over, one arm under Linhardt’s knees while the other tucked the blanket around his shoulders and lifted him up and close to Caspar’s chest.  He started talking around the piece of toast in his mouth.  It was spraying crumbs across Linhardt’s favorite blanket, and it was somehow still endearing.  “—‘n can you help me wi’ the one reading assignment for Prof Eisner, I know I can read, but in their class I feel like I can’t—”

It was almost lucky that Caspar didn’t give him even a breath to respond, because Linhardt couldn’t formulate words.  There was no space in his brain between the sudden onslaught of nerves that those emails had inflicted.  One thought screamed he needed to tell Caspar right now because rent was due soon and Linhardt didn’t have a job or steady income if his father had cut him off.  Another thought choked it, that Caspar could never know because Caspar was putting himself through college on a partial lacrosse scholarship and part-time job for Linhardt.  Caspar was at Garreg Mach because of Linhardt and if Linhardt failed at this, all his work would be for nothing.

There was a breath of quiet weightlessness in Caspar’s arms before he deposited him on Linhardt’s favorite study spot, the corner of the couch with the good pillow behind his back.  There was already a cup of tea on the coffee table.  Caspar swallowed the last of the toast and pressed a kiss to his forehead.  “—Thanks again Lin!  Text you after the game, I’ll try not to need stitches again this time!”

And then Caspar was gone, the whirlwind out the door, accidentally scraping the doorframe for the nth time with his lacrosse stick on the way out.

Linhardt was stuck in the aftermath.  The house was silent.  There was birdsong outside, the robins startling to trickle back after the winter.  Ferdinand’s and Caspar’s yelling from the car before it drove away, blasting what had to be Dorothea’s music from the speakers.  But the house held that kind of quiet after a storm had blown through.  Usually Caspar was the only storm that inhabited.  This time, the winds howled inside Linhardt’s head.

He took a deep breath.  Deep breaths were conducive to clear thinking.  Linhardt had learned breathing exercises early.  They got him through high school, through panic attacks, through the worst possible dinner parties that his dad’s company hosted.  The winds quieted.  They still swirled, thoughts like detritus cast back and forth across his head, each important and incomprehensible.

The first one to parse was not the clear-cut, easy to understand bank statements. 

No, the first thing that his mind wrapped itself around was the quiet knife through his ribcage that his father had blocked his number, and cut him out entirely.  It was not surprising.  Waldemar was a proud executive of his own company, from a long line of graduates from Garreg Mach’s school of business.  He had one plan for Linhardt, one that allowed no deviances.  Waldemar had thrived under the same plan; Linhardt had long since stopped trying to convince his father that the same path would only choke him.  There was a sense of loss there, but it was muted.  He’d resigned himself to this outcome when he’d committed to trying med school out for the hope of his own future.  He’d thought, in some abstract way, that his father would at least have the dignity to text him first.  Call.  Ask for an explanation.  Not just slam the door and leave Linhardt virtually penniless on the other side.

The second to make its way to manageable in his head was the university emails.  They were easy to follow.  Fake-sympathetic language about his payment being declined.  About the grace period while he arranged for the next payment.  The number of zeroes on the tuition payment stacked up like stones in his throat.  They far outnumbered his current bank statement.

This spawned quieter questions in the back of his head.  How fast could he get a job, could he juggle the major and minor and honors and a job, how much was this going to impact his sleep schedule?  If he couldn’t make it through university, would he be stuck at a dead-end job til he died of a disease he should’ve been treating as a doctor?

Eventually, Linhardt extracted one arm out of his blanket cocoon and reached over with slow hands to the mug of tea which Caspar had left for him. 

It was in Linhardt’s favorite mug, with a cartoonish fish that said “Women want me, fish fear me”, except Caspar had taken a sharpie to it and crossed out “women” and wrote his own name.  The tea had long since gone tepid.

There was a tight grip of cold fingers wrapped around his stomach, but Linhardt quietly diagnosed it as psychosomatic and likely the aftermath of not having any solid food in almost 24 hours and then extreme emotional stress.  He took a sip of lukewarm tea that had steeped too long, but it was soothing on his throat.

The one tumbleweed left bouncing between his ears was Caspar’s hesitation this morning.  Was he nervous about the first game of the new semester?  No, that wasn’t like him.  And no assignment had ever stumbled Caspar truly, for all that he struggled in any subject that wasn’t his practical classes for sports medicine.

No answer rose to him, no matter how long he tossed it back and forth. 

And Linhardt had always understood Caspar, had been close enough to him in their childhoods to see him in every mood, and had long since discovered that Caspar’s relentless optimism and drive ignited something in Linhardt himself.  They’d been together since junior year of high school, when Caspar burst into his room and said a very long string of words which amounted to him having a conversation with Dorothea and she had told him that boys could have boyfriends too, and Caspar had run directly to Linhardt’s house to ask him to date him.

And that was the thought that haunted him, even as Linhardt put away his med books and started planning to save his future from collapsing around his ears.  The thought that there was something about Caspar he didn’t know or understand.

////////////////////////////

Caspar was having a crisis.  This was pretty new to him, all things considered, since the last problem he couldn’t solve by yelling or fighting was also the one he’d worn the longest, and to this day he didn’t know how to shake off his father’s dismissal.  He’d yelled his way through a sexuality crisis in high school, through finding a part time job, through 5am lacrosse practices, just to name a few.  Crises he couldn’t solve by yelling were not usual.

The current crisis was just a few inches taller than him, had silver hair, and had managed to win Edelgard’s respect within the first half-hour of the new season of lacrosse with his pinpoint accuracy. 

Now, falling for the new guy on the lacrosse team was maybe not as big of a crisis as it once might have been.  It wouldn’t have been a problem at all, were it not for the sleepy pile of blankets and green hair which Caspar had left at the house this morning.  See, Caspar and Linhardt had not much talked about their relationship; their friendship had morphed naturally into something more after the year in high school when Caspar realized it was possible to like guys.  They already knew each other so well that there was no need for discussion or boundary-setting.  Linhardt had kissed him once on the forehead, shocking Caspar into three minutes of stunned silence, and then it was smooth sailing for the rest of their partnership.  Moving in together at college hadn’t even been a conversation—especially since it was the only way Caspar could afford to not live on campus. 

So, it wasn’t so much that liking Ashe was a problem.  It was that he liked both Ashe AND Linhardt, and had no idea how to bring up the conversation with his boyfriend, without potentially breaking something he couldn’t live without.  Sometimes Caspar felt left behind by his boyfriend’s genius, or maybe just that he was running a different race entirely and had no real context for how far ahead of him Linhardt stood.  He knew Linhardt wouldn’t drop him, no matter that they were in different sports.  But sometimes when he saw the way Hubert and Ferdinand smirked in the same way when they won a match together, and he wondered if Linhardt would always be happy with him in a different arena. 

He and Linhardt worked because they’d never known life without each other.  Too much change, and Linhardt might realize there were other paths of less resistance. 

But Caspar had managed to get Ashe to smile before their match, and Caspar’s heart had raced. 

Ashe had dimples.  His quiet chuckle filled Caspar’s chest and then when it morphed into a full-blown laugh, Caspar felt the same warmth of pride as when he managed to get Linhardt to smile.  And their friendship felt almost as comfortable: they both babied the stray cat which haunted the gym and when Ashe admitted to feeding it in the mornings, Caspar had grinned and shown him the bag of cat food which he stored at the front desk for that express purpose.  Ashe tutored him in literature class.  Caspar had become Ashe’s unofficial tour guide around the school.

The additional problem was that Ashe’s calendar was formatted the same as Linhardt’s.  They color-coordinated their notes in similar patterns.  And Ashe laughed at the same jokes which made Linhardt chuckle.

There was some math in there that Caspar couldn’t figure out.  Him and Ashe were great friends, and Caspar couldn’t stop wanting more.  Ashe and Linhardt had never interacted and it was simultaneously Cas’s greatest hope and deepest nightmare that they would.

“Eagles,” Edelgard’s voice cut through Ashe’s laughter.  She was getting ready to give her pre-game speech.  Caspar’s heart was still racing.  Petra nudged him, and he knew his cheeks must be burning too—hopefully she’d think he was just hyped up for their first match of the season.  He always got a little too into it, as Hubert said.  “Form up!”

Ashe continued to grin as they walked over.  Caspar wanted to pin that smile to his jersey collar.

Edelgard was talking—something about “a strong start to the season means more than simple numbers on the scoreboard” or some such—and Ashe was listening intently.  Caspar, not so much.  Edelgard’s pre-game pep talks were not important, he’d come to realize.  He needed to listen to her during games and needed to pay attention if Hubert started looking like he was going to strangle Caspar with his own intestines (this was a separate look from his usual murder-face).  But right now, Hubert had his smug smirk as though he’d helped Edelgard write this pep talk.  Right now, Caspar could bounce back and forth on the balls of his feet to get out the constant energy thrumming in his veins (while glancing intermittently at Ashe’s focused expression, because he realized that Ashe’s freckles were brighter in the sunlight).

“—and I am proud to be an Eagle, on this, the start of our new season!”

The rest of them gave a pre-match battle cry, as across the field the opposing team did the same.  Caspar was a moment behind, but they moved as one out on to the field.  It was still too early in the year for the warm spring and the best field conditions, but it hadn’t rained in a few days and the chill was easily driven away by the weak sun and the way Caspar’s whole nervous system lit on fire when Ashe nudged him—and Caspar physically had to shake his head, shove the warmth away, because there was a hole in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Linhardt shutting the door in his face.

The opponents were some no-name team from a no-name college which Caspar only knew because Linhardt had laughed when he’d gotten their letters in senior year.  Linhardt had gotten a lot of those college letters in senior year.  If Caspar asked, he’d tell him about their programs or look up their lacrosse team.  He’d offer to call them on Caspar’s behalf.  To ask about their scholarships.  But Caspar only applied to Garreg Mach.  Their lacrosse program was not the best, nor did they offer the best scholarships.  But once he knew that was where Linhardt was going, that was the only option for him.  And he’d been happier the past two years than he could ever remember being before.

So Caspar shook his head again, only nodded in return to Ashe’s mildly nervous smile.  He readied his lacrosse stick and fell in behind Edelgard at the line.  If he couldn’t fight or yell his way out of this crisis, he would ignore it.  And one day he’d learn to bear it like he bore his father’s lack of interest.

That day was not today though, because Caspar kept getting so distracted by Ashe’s freckles that he managed to get clocked over the head when the opposing team checked him. 

They finished the match but Caspar’s vision was still swimming.  Petra was worriedly buzzing around him and Edelgard was muttering something disparaging, but the only thing Caspar could focus on was Ashe’s face.

“Caspar, are you okay?”

Cas grinned back, unable to contain it.  “We win?”

Petra sighed and Hubert said something that contained a lot of numbers and statistics but amounted to yes. 

“Then… ‘M doin’ great!”

“Guys, I think he might have a concussion,” Ashe said, and turned away to look at Edelgard, at Coach Jeritza.  Caspar frowned, and reached out for him again.  Ashe obediently grabbed his elbows again, kept him upright.  Caspar was delighted to find that he could support his weight.  Ashe was so strong!

“Yes, he is having a concussion again.” Petra said, and Caspar realized with horror he probably said that aloud.

“Take him back to his place, Linhardt will take care of him,” Edelgard said.

Somewhere in his mind, part of him balked at that.  Wasn’t that the thing that he was so preoccupied about this morning?  But right now, Ashe was warm, and Caspar could lean against him.  And if they were back at his place, Linhardt could help—Linhardt always helped.  Caspar wanted to know if he and Ashe took their tea the same way.

“—you don’t need tea, Caspar, you need a nurse,” Ashe was saying, but Ferdinand and Edelgard were talking over both of them, and before Caspar knew what else was going on, they had bundled him into Ferdinand’s car. 

////////////////////////////

The semester was going “great.”  It’s what he told Lonato on their weekly phone calls.  He liked his classes, and the profs were great.  The lacrosse team that he’d joined due to his little siblings’ gentle bullying was great.  The campus was great (though the food was only tolerable since he didn’t have his own kitchen and the dorm kitchen in terrible shape so he couldn’t cook anything) and he was making great friends.  These were not lies, technically.  Lonato always joked that he was losing his eloquence as a Lit major if everything was only “great.”

Ashe could amend those statements: His classes were interesting, and his profs were very supportive.  The lacrosse team was the perfect kind of insanity and only sometimes made him miss his old team.  The campus was something out of a fairy tale, all old stone and vines.  And he was making new friends, while ignoring the urge to make anything more than that with Caspar.  Those were also not lies.  And they gave a better impression that he was adjusting well to the sudden transfer to Garreg Mach halfway through his college career.

And he was!  Adjusting well.  Comparatively.

This particular Saturday morning was maybe the first time the whole semester that he’d thought about going back to Gaspard.  And it wasn’t that it was bad, per se.  Today had been good, a strong opening match to the season.  His teammates were wonderful, and Caspar had been in rare form: captivating in the way he moved, the way his erratic energy coalesced into an unstoppable force on the field.  Ashe was more than happy to have Caspar lean against him in the car, though he did not appreciate that Caspar had to be delirious with a probable concussion for it.

The problem was that they were going back to Caspar-and-Linhardt’s house. 

Ashe knew that Caspar was in a relationship.  It was hard not to: Caspar talked about Linhardt like he’d hung the moon.  The other lacrosse teammates spoke of Linhardt often, hung out at their shared house off-campus on the weekends after practice.  Ashe always begged off.  He enjoyed his friendship with Caspar, and tried very hard to remind himself constantly that it could never be more than that.  Anytime Caspar-and-Linhardt came up, Ashe tried to be respectful.  He didn’t know if he was afraid that Linhardt was secretly a terrible person who Ashe could then resent, or that Linhardt was secretly the best person ever.  Or maybe he was afraid that Linhardt would see through him and know he had a crush on his boyfriend and banish Caspar from talking to him ever again.  Whichever outcome, it would change the easy friendship he had with Caspar. 

But there he was, Caspar potentially injured beside him, bundled into the car as Ferdinand monologued, unconcerned, about some training plans he had discussed with Edelgard (which Edelgard was going to throw out the window, honestly).  He didn’t know how he’d got there.  Why hadn’t any of the other guys come with them?  Ashe didn’t want to take Caspar back to his house and meet his probably-perfect boyfriend and be immediately crushed that he’d be alone forever.  But Petra had plans afterwards with her partner, and Edelgard and Hubert were busy planning training regiments, and Caspar was already half-collapsed in Ashe’s arms.

To make everything worse, Ferdinand had hopped out long enough to open the door, and Ashe had started helping Caspar up the steps to Caspar-and-Linhardt’s house. 

It wasn’t until he had already knocked that he looked around to realize Ferdinand had gotten back into the car without him.  “Ferdinand?!”

Ferdie waved out the window.  “I am afraid I would be more harm than help in this case!  Linhardt has banished me from their place after last time, anyways.  Let me know when you need a pickup, and I will be over as swiftly as possible!”

“Ferdinand!” Ashe yelled, but the car was already pulling away.

He had just enough time to think longingly of the familiar streets of Gaspard, and his old friends who would never abandon him at a random house.

Then the door opened, and Ashe looked up to see a green-haired man in comfortable, cozy attire, with a disinterested eyebrow raised in question.

Ashe was not ashamed to admit it, but the second he laid eyes on Linhardt, he knew Caspar’s boyfriend was out of his league.  He had the perpetually tired look of all the other overachieving students Ashe knew, but there was the quality of his sweatshirt (nicer than all the ones Caspar wore), the three stacks of old Starbucks cups on the counter, the unimpressed way Linhardt glanced at the mud Ashe would be tracking into his home.  He looked like the kids that Christophe always complained—always used to complain about when he was dragged to Lonato’s fancy dinners.  He was pretty in the way that came with good genes and a good skincare routine.  He probably fit in well among Edelgard with her name-brand cleats, Ferdinand and his outdoorsman club membership.  Ashe was tired of meeting people at this school who could buy new textbooks instead of scrounging through Chegg for used copies or borrowing from a friend of a friend.

Then he shook his head, and tried to squash the instinctive vitriol in his heart.  After all, since Lonato had adopted him and his siblings, Ashe was one of them.  One among the echelon who could afford a big-name school.  And while Lonato only paid the (unfortunately large) portion of his tuition that wasn’t covered by student loans or Ashe’s job, Ashe was still doing better than most.  Better than he’d ever dreamed of.  And even his major—there was a quiet voice in his chest that told him constantly that he should be getting a “real” degree, that he was going to graduate and fall flat on his face in a world that didn’t pay you to read books.  Ashe was in no position to judge anyone for their socioeconomic status.

And then he realized he was still standing, dripping mud and possibly blood onto Caspar-and-Linhardt’s doormat, and Caspar was still mumbling deliriously about the game.

“Uh, I really don’t mean to intrude—” Ashe said, hating every second of this day that had led up to him being abandoned on this random doorstep. 

Technically, he didn’t even know that this actually was Caspar-and-Linhardt’s place.  Were the Eagles the type to haze?  Because this felt like it might be a hazing situation.  He didn’t think that Edelgard was the type, but then again she did get a really intense look in her eye when she talked about lacrosse that was only matched by her fervor in her poli-sci classes. 

“—Um, are you—is this Caspar’s house?  They said to bring him here but I tried to tell them he needed to see a nurse—”

Caspar stirred in his arms.  He shook his head, grinned in that all-consuming way that Ashe couldn’t help but enjoy looking at, and said the clearest sentence in the past hour: “No hospital, Lin’s got me!”

Ashe looked back at the green-haired man, who was still staring back with an unreadable expression.

“—And I don’t even know if you’re Linhardt,” Ashe said. 

“…Unfortunately, you’re at the right place,” Linhardt said, and finally uncrossed his arms.  His voice was languid, tone seemingly disinterested.  “And yes, that one is my problem to deal with, though I have considered dropping him at the ER if he gets concussed again.”

“Nooo, Lin,” Caspar moaned, still leaning half of his weight on Ashe’s chest, blue eyes unable to keep focus on where Linhardt stood but clearly trying.  “Pl’s no more.  It’s… so boring in there.  But, but I’ll stay in m’ room.”

Linhardt rolled his eyes, but then stepped closer, and the first real expression crossed his face.  His dark gray eyes softened to something kind, and some endearment eased the worry line between his eyebrows.  “No, I’m not going to banish you to your room,” Linhardt said, only to shudder and draw back when he saw the streak of red down his boyfriend’s face.  “Urgh, but I’m not dealing with your blood on the couch again.”

Linhardt turned his eyes to Ashe’s, and he unconsciously straightened up.  It wasn’t the stare of someone looking down their nose at him.  If anything, it bordered on introspective, some analysis taking place that Ashe couldn’t comprehend. 

Whatever Linhardt saw in him, it must have sufficed, because he turned and gestured to the kitchen, sighing.  “Well, if you’re nice enough to help Cas through the door instead of dropping him at the doorstep like Hubert is wont to do, you’ll probably be willing to help me clean him up.  I’ll even give you our wifi password for it, if you’ll just get some paper towels and stop that head wound from bleeding.  Cas would probably buy you a coffee but I don’t feel like pay—waiting, for DoorDash right now.”

“I—” Ashe stuttered, stumbled in. 

He couldn’t help but look around in amazement at the living room; there were more medical textbooks in the shelves than in the library, a collection of novelty mugs decorated in between the stacks, and more pillows and blankets than seemed reasonable for any two people to own.  It was the coziest reading room he’d ever seen, and Ashe shoved down the instinctive desire to ask if he could come back here to read sometime.  There was even a bay window with a couch cushion on it!  Ashe was definitely going to have to bribe Caspar into letting him do some homework here.  “—Yes, I can help, but I’m not—I’m just a Lit major, I don’t know the first thing about medicine.”

Linhardt was already walking to the kitchen.  At some point he’d swiped the two bags of lacrosse gear that Ashe had been holding and lugged them over with difficulty to be dropped unceremoniously at the fireplace. 

“That didn’t stop this idiot from trying to give himself stitches the first time he got injured in a game, so I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Linhardt said.

Ashe looked down in horror at Caspar’s face.  For all that he was still visibly drooping, Cas gave him a loopy grin.  Ashe refused to acknowledge that his heart sped up at the expression.

“He did what?”

Ashe didn’t know Linhardt well enough yet to say, but he thought that the way his voice lightened, even as it kept a dry edge, might have been closer to affection.  “Oh yes.  Thankfully I found him before he used an actual sewing thread to close something that only needed a butterfly bandage, but ever since then, I insist he comes here for treatment.  He’d duck out of it if they took him to the nurse.  At least he listens to me, once in a while, or if all else fails I can sit in his lap to make him stop running around the house.”

The kitchen was slightly a mess, but Ashe was struck with jealousy.  An actual kitchen!  Ashe missed having a gas stove… and pots and pans.  There was a crockpot—dirty, caked with day-old food—but it was the brand that Ashe had always drooled over in the supply store.  The kitchen was a narrow thing, but there was lots of counterspace, and there was a clear line of sight back into the cozy living area, and then out into their medium-sized backyard.  There was an old lacrosse goal against the fence.  Ashe imagined Caspar trained out here.

Ashe had to close his eyes against the wave of longing.  He wanted to cook.  There was a certain piece of belonging that came only when you made something and brought it to a table for others to enjoy.  It didn’t need to be spoken; Ashe didn’t need someone to tell him he was good at cooking.  He just wanted people who dug into a meal and gathered strength and joy from shared laughter and shared food.

For a second, as Linhardt led them over next to the sink and pulled out a rather large first-aid kit from some cabinet, Ashe let the cozy-ness of the house pervade him.  The place was eminently lived-in, dirty dishes scattered around and post-it reminders stuck on every conceivable surface, novelty salt & pepper shakers on the table. 

And as he supported Caspar over to lean against the counter, Cas smiled at him—eyes still closed, trusting Ashe wouldn’t lead him wrong.  And he couldn’t help but smile at Linhardt in turn, who handed him some paper towels and gauze, gesturing wordlessly at Cas and digging through the first aid kit with his other hand—scarcely needing to glance or instruct, as though this was a normal routine.

Ashe obediently pressed the wet paper towel which Linhardt handed him against Caspar’s forehead.  The cut was small, and Cas barely winced, but Linhardt at least looked relieved when the blood was cleaned away.  Ashe was almost sad when the blood was cleared off and he had to remove his hand from Caspar’s cheek.

“Thanksss, love,” Cas mumbled, eyes still closed.

“Uh,” Ashe responded, eloquently.

Caspar’s eyes flew open—an actual cognizant expression on his face for the first time since the match.  “Ashe!  Hi!”

Now his boyfriend stepped over, seizing his forearm in a loose but firm grip.  “Yes, you managed to drag another of your lacrosse friends over because of an injury in that stupid game.  You know you can just invite them here, right?”

Caspar’s ice blue eyes flicked between the two of them.  “Uh, haha yeah, no, I know, I didn’t, I—Lin, I promise I tried not to get hurt again this time!”

Linhardt took Cas by the chin, tilted his head back and forth while flashing a penlight in his eyes.  Presumably to check for a concussion.  That sounded like something Ashe had read in a book somewhere.  There was a flash of concern in his gut—maybe they did need to take Caspar to a nurse, because Linhardt was probably great, but he was a med student, not a nursing major, did he really know how to treat a potential concussion?  But then Caspar’s expression cleared, and he grinned, something wide and instinctive.  Ashe’s heart clenched.  It was the lovestruck look that the best writers liked to describe with flowery language, the one lovers gave each other at emotional moments of their journey. 

Ashe was painfully aware he was intruding on something.  The comfortable spot he’d imagined himself in moments previous scattered before him: Caspar and Linhardt were together.  They were happy.  Yet another landscape at this college with all its components already snug in their spots; no jagged edges or missing pieces.  Ashe had been hoping he’d find open spaces he could fit himself into, now that he couldn’t stand the gaping hole in his home back in Gaspard.  But almost everyone else in this school was already in a rhythm, in a clique, schedules unaccommodating of a new commitment.

He needed to leave, now.

“Uh, Linhardt, can I—Can I help with anything else?  I, I should get back to the dorm and work on some homework.  But, I can still help, if you need anything else, or can I get anything else for Caspar?”

The two of them turned to look at him.  Linhardt was still appraising, and his face was back to its apparent trademark blank look.  Caspar’s face tightened and then a grin possessed him again—it was a different one than how he looked at Linhardt.  It was still bright, affectionate.  Ashe had never thought he’d get along well with someone of Caspar’s somewhat abrasive personality, but the honesty in his gaze was something refreshing.  He was lucky to count Caspar as a friend.  He couldn’t hope for anything more than that.

“Wait, Ashe—” Caspar reached out for him.

Linhardt turned to look at Caspar.  They had a conversation in raised eyebrows and then Linhardt sighed.  “I can’t just throw you back out after you brought him here, now can I?  I’ll get you the wifi password and you can have some of our nice tea.  Maybe if you hang out for a little while, I can keep Caspar contained with less effort on my part.”

“Help me with my Lit reading?”  Caspar asked, and the hope in his eyes crumbled the last of Ashe’s defenses.

“You,” Linhardt said, poking Caspar in the chest, “Need to lay down.  No screens.  I don’t think you’ve got a concussion but I’m going to keep checking for the next day.”

“I… I can stay and help, but I don’t want to be in the way,” Ashe said, and the two of them shook their heads—Caspar wincing with the movement. 

Linhardt patted Caspar on the shoulder and pushed him gently back out into the reading room.  Ashe instinctively moved to support his shoulder when Caspar stumbled for a second for balance.

“Let’s get him settled on the couch and I will get tea started,” Linhardt said.  “If you want to take a shower, we probably have enough hot water for that.”

Ashe thought for a second about staying in his sweaty jersey, how it would crust up and he would feel filmy and disgusting for hours, and then thought again about using Caspar-and-Linhardt’s shower and flushed.  “I should be okay,” he said.  “Could you point me in the direction of the bathroom though?  I should just change real quick.”  Even that had his cheeks flaming.  He really had watched too many rom-coms if all his brain could think about was getting caught with just a towel around his waist by his crush, or by his crush’s attractive, aloof boyfriend.

...

CHECK OUT THE NEXT CHAPTERS ON Ao3! see reblog for link!

[laxmiree]

[CN] MLQC Lucien's Through Thousands of Mirrors event translation (Day 1 -Thursday)

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT ⚠️

This post contains a HEAVY SPOILER for the event that has not been released in EN yet! Feel free to notify me if there are any mistakes in the translation~

Through Thousands of Mirrors Event | Day 1 (You're here!) | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | HS/Uni SSR Story: Monochrome Scenery

-

[Tidbits: I don't wanna break the flow so I'll put some information here first 😂. Dr. Lawson is Lucien's post-grad professor. Before, he also appears in UR MQ Distant Similarity. During his post-grad he has three seniors Colt, Elliot, and Caroline.]

-

[Math]

Seeing the particularly puzzled expression on the classmate next to him, Lucien starts to consider whether he should offer some assistance within his capabilities.

For instance, he thinks about telling the classmate that the topic currently being discussed on the blackboard is not from the same chapter as the one in the textbook he's currently reading.

-

[MATH/BIOCHEMISTRY]

After the vending machine devours Lucien's one dollar and twenty-five cents for the third time, and with only three minutes left to get to his next class, he begins to seriously contemplate whether he should try some mysterious repair method—like giving it a good smack or a swift kick.

-

[BIOCHEMISTRY]

Lucien coincidentally runs into Colt by the sports field, just as Colt is about to attend a cricket practice session.

Upon realizing that his senior from the lab is not only managing coursework and a significant project workload but also juggling a 20-hour weekly part-time job and daily school cricket team training, Lucien begins to contemplate whether there is any room for further optimization in his own schedule.

-

[PREVIEW/COMPUTER SCIENCE]

During the brief half-hour period, Lucien typically uses the time to prepare for the upcoming class or visit the library to research and gather information.

In any case, that time should not be spent on arguing and explaining to people, like the enthusiastic campus volunteer in front of him.

"No, thank you. I'm not a high school student attending a summer camp. This is my student ID, and I'm indeed a student here, a graduate student. Yes, I'm not lost, and I need to get to my class. Can you please let me go?"

-

[COMPUTER SCIENCE]

Lucien presses the enter key, intending to ask the teacher if he can leave early once his coursework is done. However, the error message on the screen deters him from that thought. So, he sits back down and begins to examine it again.

But that's okay, he does understand the commonality between computer science and experimental research: it's often hard to know right away if the thing at hand will work, why it's not working, or even why it's even working.

-

[LAB]

Come on, come on, come on. After moving this box, there's another.

And after moving that box, there are three more to go.

The prospects for the future and the shine in one's eyes are often taken away by the God of research in such necessary yet mechanical repetitive work.

-

[LAB]

Lucien goes out to get some water and returns to find a school burger on his desk.

Colt, with dark circles under his eyes, waves at Lucien and saying, "No need to thank me, newcomer. Have some food, we might be staying here today."

Lucien quietly eats the burger, hesitant to tell Colt that he has spent more time in the laboratory than in the dorm.

-

[LAB]

When Dr. Lawson enters the laboratory, what he sees is a scene where his graduate and doctoral students are sleeping and sprawled all over the place.

On the laboratory whiteboard, several words were written in large letters: "Publish immediately! Guaranteed to be published in Nature!!"

Dr. Lawson retrieves small blankets from the cabinet, covering each of these research madmen.

He proceeds to organize the data and take over the finishing work on the project. Of course, when it comes to authorship in the paper, not a single one of these kids' names can be left out.

[tummacademia]

Day 12: Turning Papers into a Usable Summary

Today's challenge: summarize five tables in a table and see how they are connected.

📌 What I did today:

✔ Picked the five most important papers.

✔ Created a table of Author|Year|Methods|Key Findings|Relevance.

✔ Unintentionally built a family tree for the field.

Seeing everything side by side made it easier to spot where different researchers disagree. Would be helpful for tomorrow, as I will be identifying two recurring themes/debates in the literature.

[mariacallous]

Vasectomies are on the rise, but not all men are ready to commit to a permanent form of birth control. While the surgery can sometimes be reversed, it's expensive and doesn’t always work. What if there was another option?

Virginia-based biotech company Contraline is testing a new type of male contraceptive akin to a vasectomy but made to be fully reversible. Today, the company announced that surgeons in Australia have safely performed the procedure on 23 men in an early-stage trial.

The approach uses a soft, water-based substance called a hydrogel that’s injected into the vas deferens—the pair of tubes in the male reproductive tract that transport mature sperm. Within 30 days of being inserted, the gel led to a more than 99 percent reduction in the number of moving sperm, according to the company. No serious side effects have been reported.

Kevin Eisenfrats, cofounder and CEO of Contraline, says it’s like an IUD for men. “Right now, there is nothing out there that’s long-lasting and reversible for men,” he says. “This is made for people who are not ready to have kids, are spacing out having kids, or think they are done having kids but maybe not ready for that permanent option.”

In a vasectomy, the vas deferens are cut and sealed so that sperm can’t travel from the testicles to the urethra, the tube inside the penis.

Contraline’s method involves making a small piercing in the scrotum and using a handheld injector to push the hydrogel through a catheter that’s connected to the vas deferens. The catheter is then taken out, and the puncture heals on its own.

Once injected, the hydrogel is meant to block sperm from getting into semen. Eisenfrats likens the gel to a coffee filter, where sperm are the coffee grounds. Sperm can’t get through the filter, but semen, a liquid, can still pass through.

Men in the trial ranged from age 25 to 65 and were placed into two groups that received different amounts of hydrogel: a lower volume and a higher one. Implanting the gel took about 20 minutes and was done under local anesthesia, unless someone chose to be sedated instead.

Eisenfrats says sperm concentration and movement in the men are comparable to levels seen with a vasectomy. “We’re seeing that this is working.”

The purpose of the current trial is to assess the gel’s safety and longevity, not how well it prevents pregnancy. Participants were asked to use a back-up form of birth control while being enrolled in the trial.

The gel is designed to dissolve at the end of its lifetime, so the men will be followed for two years to determine how long it takes for that to happen. Eisenfrats says the goal is to have a product that lasts one to two years.

But men might want to restore their fertility before that time frame, so Contraline wants to show that it can safely reverse the procedure. The company has tested the reversibility of the gel in dogs, showing that sperm counts and sperm quality rebounded after removing the gel. It plans to launch a second trial this year to test the on-demand reversibility in people. Only men who said they do not want to have children were included in the initial trial.

While the study is small, Heather Vahdat, executive director of the Male Contraceptive Initiative, a nonprofit based in North Carolina, is encouraged by the safety profile so far. Her organization funds research into nonhormonal male birth control and has contributed funding to Contraline. “Reversibility seems very feasible,” she says.

The nonprofit Parsemus Foundation has been researching a similar gel, called Vasalgel, for several years, but has faced delays getting it to human trials. The San Francisco-based health organization partnered with a biotech company, NEXT Life Sciences, in 2022 to further develop Vasalgel. In a 2017 paper, researchers with the foundation showed that Vasalgel could be flushed out in rabbits with an injection of baking soda. Sperm flow returned in the animals after reversal.

“These are not complex components in these polymers. They’re pretty well characterized, and we know how they behave,” Vahdat says.

But any medical procedure could cause side effects or complications. Raevti Bole, a urologist specializing in men’s health at the Cleveland Clinic who’s not involved in the trial, says an injection into the vas deferens could come with a risk of skin infection, mild discomfort, or minor bruising, she says.

And there are still unknowns about the gel itself. While hydrogels are biocompatible and generally safe, Bole says she would want to know if Contraline’s product could cause permanent scarring or changes to the vas deferens and whether repeat injections could be done safely.

One practical consideration is how doctors will monitor patients to make sure that the gel is still working. “Even if the risk of pregnancy is low, I would want to know the risk to counsel my patients and allow them to compare their options,” Bole says.

Contraline’s gel is still years from becoming commercially available. The company will need to conduct trials of hundreds of men and their female partners to test its efficacy in preventing pregnancy. Eisenfrats says the company aims to launch a larger trial in the US in the next few years.

Meanwhile, there are other forms of male birth control in the pipeline. The US National Institutes of Health and the Population Council, an international nonprofit focused on health and social sciences, are testing a hormone-based gel that men apply daily to their shoulders to block sperm production. And in December, a small trial launched in the UK to test a hormone-free contraceptive pill developed by YourChoice Therapeutics. It prevents sperm production by blocking access to vitamin A.

YourChoice and Contraline are avoiding hormones because they tend to produce unpleasant side effects. A previous trial of an injectable hormonal contraceptive for men was stopped early when a safety monitoring board found a high number of adverse events, including acne, mood disorders, increased sexual drive, and muscle pain. The rate of side effects was high compared to what women typically experience while on hormonal birth control.

There’s evidence that men are interested in trying new types of contraception. In a US survey conducted in 2017, the Male Contraceptive Initiative found that 85 percent of the 1,500 male respondents aged 18 to 44 were interested in preventing their partner from getting pregnant.

“Men want to step up. They’re realizing that their partners have all these effects from birth control,” Eisenfrats says. “They need more options to take charge of their reproduction.”