#also because before i was further into the science i probably would have questioned this of someone in my position

[narelleart]

I visited a nearby city and stopped in a fish store that had four "species" of Parosphromenus (one undescribed, under a trade name).

I couldn't just leave, so I took home the pair they had of the species highest on the ranking list I'd made previously which also happened to be a critically endangered species. (Parosphromenus gunawani, if they were identified correctly. I'll sort it out when I get a chance to get a better look at them.)

I wish I could have taken the others too - some species had larger groups, and I would have bought every individual they had of any species I bought. But I wasn't prepared for that, I'm limited on tank space in my current living situation and only had one cycled filter ready.

All Parosphromenus are imperiled, they are endemic to niche specialized habitats that are under anthropogenic threat. They have no business in the aquarium trade, and certainly not in brick and mortar shops like this. Another customer was trying to get them to sell him moderately sized catfishes for his one gallon "tank". Anyone could walk in and buy these, with no intention of spawning them, no idea what they are.

I mentioned to the shop owner that they were imperiled and he clearly had no qualms about that, but was more so bothered that I brought it up.

The other Parosphromenus they had were:

P. nagyi

P. ornaticauda

P. sp. "Sentang"

#i cant decide if i am going to stop buying from this shop because they were also selling an alligator gar #which made me furious too #but they seem to have access to rare asian fishes i dont see elsewhere #so im not sure #unethical shop posing as a beautiful nano aquascape geared shop #should probably not buy from them anymore idk #also because before i was further into the science i probably would have questioned this of someone in my position #i cannot just take the undescribed species from a trade import and describe it #because i could not reliably tie it to a collection locality #gotta go get my own from the wild if i want to describe them #catalog a type specimen #then they could be assessed for the iucn to determine their conservation status #so we would at least know if they were critically endangered #but that would not keep them out of the trade because almost no freshwater fishes have any actual regulation

[loosescrewslefty]

Pieced together a few different conversations I've had over the last few days, and I think Twilight might suspect that Anya was subjected to human experiments.

Twilight has repeatedly shown to be troubled by the fact that Anya seems familiar with Classical Language, which seems to be a thinly veiled allusion to Latin as it is a dead language that isn't widely used any more. But there are two fields that DO regularly use Latin: the medical field, and the sciences. And Twilight is aware that Ostania ran human experiments, which is something that was discussed back in the tennis arc.

Anya is a child, who's past is one big question mark. If she was regularly in and out of hospitals before being adopted, there would be records of that. The fact that there isn't ANY records of Anya's existence and Anya doesn't have any medical scars that are common for children recieved regular treatments combined with her familiarity with a dead language only commonly used by medical professionals and scientists which hints at her spending a lot of time in the presence of one or the other is BOTHERING Twilight. Because if someone felt the need to hide Anya's existence from the rest of the world for six years, to the point where even experts can't find a trace of her, that probably means there is a reason she was hidden. And the fact that Anya would lie to him about it when asked is even more damning.

Like I mentioned before, Twilight is an expert at reading body language, and Anya is a child who is bad at masking her emotions. She clearly had a negative reaction to Loid's question, and Twilight sees that, but doesn't push or call her out on the lie. Because he's putting the peices together, and he doesn't like the picture that's forming or what it means for Anya's past.

Also, while Twilight is most likely suspicious Anya was SUBJECTED to experiments, that doesn't mean he has any suspicion about her powers. It's more probable that he'll assume that the experiment failed and Anya was dumped into the orphanage as the scientists saw no point in taking care of her further. But if he does suspect that she was part of some kind of human experiment, then there's a chance that Pandora's box might be opened soon and the rest of the secrets will come spilling out.

#spy x family #sxf #loid forger #anya forger #spy x family spoilers #sxf spoilers #manga spoilers

[spacefinch]

Rating TNG Characters based on how I’d handle being home alone with them

Picard: Good for a nice quiet afternoon. I imagine he’d just spend all day reading whatever book he’s currently working his way through. I would probably also be reading. And of course, it wouldn't be a proper visit without some "tea, Earl Grey, hot."

Riker: It is party time. This could mean a number of things: Watching a movie, going to a hamburger joint and then frozen yogurt “just because”, or just hanging out. When we’re not doing the aforementioned, we’re listening to jazz music.

Deanna: I try to tell her I’m not interested in a “girls’ day,” but she quickly wins me over. Not only does she make “girly” things like shopping and hair and nail painting fun, she also takes me to get ice cream (which we eat while watching a cheesy movie). By the time she has to leave, she’s ensured that my family won’t run out of dessert for the next two months.

Tasha: I would LOVE hanging out with her, no questions asked. At home, we’d probably play games or something, but it’s more likely we’d be on an outing. There’s not a lot of talking that goes on. I try not to ask about her past, since it’s clearly a sensitive subject for her. Instead, we talk about things like our favorite animals, or how the weekend went. 

Data: Another crew member I would love to hang out with. Before going home, we make a quick (translation: 2 hour) stop at the library, during which Data signs up for a library card. Most of our conversations are just back-and-forth infodumping. Further benefits: help with homework (especially math and music), and getting to pet Spot. (He definitely brings Spot over.)

Geordi: 90% of our time together is spent geeking out over various stuff. The rest of the time is spent doing stuff like building model airplanes and listening to radio dramas. However, I do not get to bed until almost 2 AM because neither one of us has a healthy sleep schedule.

Worf: Another “not a whole lot of talking” situation. He tries his best to make some sort of traditional Klingon dish, but the kitchen is a disaster afterwards. I try a tiny bit of the food just to be polite, but it’s not my favorite and I decide to just have leftover pasta. The rest of the evening is spent trying to get the kitchen back in order before my parents come home.

Beverly: Definitely the mom friend. She doesn’t let me watch TV until I get my homework done, but she does help me with said homework. Afterwards, though, we watch a recording of a Broadway musical together. Or if it works out, she takes me to see a play in person.

Wesley: In this situation, it is I who is the responsible adult. Nothing productive happens, unless you count “spent the whole day playing video games, showing each other memes, and doing questionable science experiments” as productive. We try to cook dinner, but it doesn’t go very well and we just end up ordering pizza and eating it while watching a movie.

Q: No. Absolutely not. Besides, he would rather be harassing Captain Picard and company. He does try to intrude on my read-a-thon with Picard, though. 

Guianan: She’s not the one hanging out at my house, I’m at her house. Or at her restaurant. She’s very nice to me and has plenty of advice regarding my concerns about navigating social life. I would be honored to hear what wisdom she has to offer me.

#star trek #star trek tng #headcanons #captain picard #will riker #deanna troi #data soong #tasha yar #geordi la forge #beverly crusher #wesley crusher #worf #q #guianan star trek

[britt-kageryuu]

I've read a similar concept before, but Youtuber/Streamer/VTuber Donnie going to conventions, whether in person or some one carrying around a tablet or something, and just interacting with fans.

If in person they believe he made a realistic costume of his model. He has Shelldon follow him around on a lead because he knows Shelldon would cause some chaos if not supervised.

Though the interactions all depend on what level of crazy or wholesome he meets. Like there has got to be one or two really crazy fans that make him question their sanity. Maybe he runs into some cosplayers and rates their costumes, bonus points if they have a Shelldon in some form.

Don't know if he'd have a panel/meet and greet/autograph table, but more chances for various interactions.

But real question is if he gets into a debate about shows, movies, books, games, or science! Probably alot of 'why would you like X?' 'You've never heard of/watch X?' or other standard banter among fans of many things.

Also don't know if he could go without his brothers following along, so there is alot of potential chaos if they go with him, though I half expect Mikey would set up a booth in the artist alley or something, maybe he gets permission to do some live art on a big canvas or something? I just figure he might sell merch for Donnie or something.

This idea is out there for further interpretation, and make of it what you will!

#rise donatello #rise donnie #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of thr teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2018 #rise tmnt

[shwoo]

I wrote a flash fiction thingy for Day 2 of @flooftober. I wrote it fast before it stopped being the second of October in this time zone, so it's pretty rough. I used a random number generator to determine who Floofty would be interacting with, and went with the prompt "Neon".

Prompt list

Title: Subcutaneous collagenous and adipose tissue Summary: Post Snaktooth, Floofty and Beffica talk about science. (Also on AO3)

.

"Shut up!" said Beffica. "They did not make rats that glow in the dark."

"Perhaps in your salacious line of work, the news passed you by--" Floofty began, before remembering the number one rule of successful social interaction. It was one that even Snorpington had insisted on.

During friendly conversation, no matter how tempting it was, Floofty could absolutely not insult the other Grumpus. Their conversation partner could usually tell, more often than Floofty had realised. And Beffica had always been very… skittish around Floofty. It was a shame, because Beffica was one of the more interesting Grumpuses of lesser education that they'd met on the Snaktooth expedition. Though the fact that she'd spied on them did indicate some level of interest…

They tried again. "That is… Functional genes for bioluminescence have indeed been introduced into laboratory specimens on multiple occasions. Sadly, only one type of protein has been successfully constructed and expressed by the host organism, but the research really is quite promising."

They kept forgetting to dumb it down, and they weren't sure if Beffica would understand, but she said "So, how long before scientists figure out how to do that with Grumpuses? I would totes go for some glowing pink paw pads." She held her palm upside-down, to show her ordinary orange paw pads. The other paw was gripping the chair's armrest oddly hard, and had been since they'd sat down.

Floofty stared upwards in thought. "Unfortunately, this technology remains in its infancy. And the path towards any sort of gene therapy upon Grumpuses, cosmetic or otherwise, is littered with questions of ethics that are certain to slow the process further." It would probably be safe enough to experiment on themself on the side, but replicating that feat would be the problem. They were aware of the risks and rewards, but they could never be certain that others truly understood them.

"Well," said Beffica, "if you ever get tired of, like, eating people or whatever, and figure it out on, like, your lunch break? Hit me up, okay?"

Floofty smiled. They weren't sure why they were happy to hear her play along with their cannibalism joke, but they were. "Rest assured," they said, "were I to stumble upon the secret of glowing pink paw pads, you would be among the first to hear of it."

#Bugsnax #Flooftober #Floofty Fizzlebean #Beffica Winklesnoot #fanfiction #Shwoo's writing #Will I have the energy to do any other days? Hopefully! #I also hope I got away with focusing this late in the day because my brain is still on non Daylight Savings time #(Beffica's really making an effort here) #(Floofty knows that she was spying on them because they are siblings with Snorpy) #(They have experience)

[callsign-bunnie]

Do you have everyone's majors decided in the college au?? And the classes the professors teach??

Yes! So this was further explained in An Academic Proposal chapter 14 and 15, but I've had their majors decided since about chapter 5 of An Academic Achievement! Feel free to ask any questions about Academic Achievement and Proposal since I know not everyone has read either

--

Rodolfo: Rodolfo's major is a little tricky. So, he's Pre-Law which isn't one specific major, but I've settled on Sociology being what he takes before he goes to Law School and switches to Criminal Law (Originally going to be for Custody Law which I think has a bit more specialized of a Law degree.)

Alejandro: Alejandro is actively a business major, he's also in Alpha Lambda which is a business frat. However, once he gets through this degree, he's going back into college to get a BSW (Bachelor's of Social Work)

Soap: Chemical Engineering. This was sparked because what he's supposed to be was split down the middle as half wanted Engineering, half wanted Chemistry, so I found a middle ground. He's not too passionate about his degree at the current time for reasons I can't say due to spoilers.

Ghost: Ghost is forensics with no specialty. He's kind of just going to college to have a degree, he has enough family money he doesn't really need to find a career. He plans on going as high as he can with Forensics and then teaching it.

Roach: Roach is Digital Forensics, which he picked because Farah is forensics and he has a mild interest in technology. However, he's reconsidering his major for Entomology, because he has more passion for insects than computers. I cannot explain why he didn't go with Entomology to begin with because of (you guessed it) spoilers.

Valeria: Sociology. She's also Pre-law and will be a prosecuting attorney when she graduates Law School. She's been on this track since she started.

Price: He's mostly just the coach of the football team as well as a few other very small sports teams. He also teaches a couple Sport related courses. He has a degree in Sports Management with a Sports and Society minor.

Laswell: She primarily teaches Criminology, but she's a Prosecuting Attorney for her main job. I should state this now I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LAW AND I DON'T FEEL INTERESTED IN LEARNING, SO ALL THREE LAWYERS ARE GOING TO BE FAIRLY INACCURATE

Laswell's Wife (Jen): She teaches Chemistry Courses, whatever ends up being most convenient for plot. Not super accurate for her character, I would probably choose Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree if I did another. However, she has a PhD in Chemistry.

Gaz: Business major. He's fairly undriven at college because he had other things going on when he joined. He's about to look over everything he's done and see if switching majors is something feasible for him.

Alex: He started out also as a business major, but switched to Criminology in his second year about a fourth of the way through. Laswell helped him do it and he'll likely join her firm when he's graduated. He used to also be in Alpha Lambda, but had to leave when he switched majors because it's a Business Frat

Farah: She's a basic Forensics Major with no specialty. I have no major reason, I don't really think it fits her character, but it did fit the story. If I was to do a new College AU, I think I would pick Social Justice or Social Work

Malika: She's a computer science major because she has a special interest in all things computer! She and Roach actually bond over a similar major quite a bit!

Graves: Business Major, current Chapter President of Alpha Lambda. Not much really needs to be known beyond that, tbh

Lucas: (He's important to the story.) He's also Pre-Law and his degree is in Criminology. He hasn't quite figured out the full scope of his career, yet.

--

Again, feel free to ask whatever for this AU. Here's the original headcanons post and here's An Academic Achievement and An Academic Proposal if you haven't read them, yet. I think I just recently reached a 225k total wordcount for the series!

#an academic achievement #an academic proposal #Johnny Soap Mactavish #Simon Ghost Riley #Rodolfo Parra #Alejandro Vargas #John Price #Kyle Gaz Garrick #Phillip Graves #Valeria Garza #Alex Keller #Call Of Duty Modern Warfare II #Call of Duty #Gary Roach Sanderson #Malika COD #Horangi COD #Alejandro x Rodolfo #Aledolfo #Soapghost #Ghostsoap #Soap x Ghost #Ghost x Soap #Macriley #Farah x Malika

[crowtrobotx]

your most recent fic destroyed me and now i HAVE to ask— how do you think the chrysalis story/maybe just lottie in general would turn out if she was raised by kris? if something happened to karl but maybe they’re still stuck in the village. obv don’t spoil anything you don’t want to but that little thought experiment killed me.

OHHHH MY GOD Jackal you really do ask the best questions. I had to think about this for a while! It’s funny bc Karl & Lottie are such a package deal in my head and I’m just like… Do Not separate them. Like so much of her personality is just wrapped up in being his horrible little clone and constant shadow that cutting her out of that picture seems almost impossible.

HOWEVER. I can think of several scenarios where they might end up apart (minus him straight up dying bc that isn't fun!!! I say as if what I'm about to talk about is any better lmao.) Like, minor spoiler but this won't happen (obviously) because Reasons - I imagine Karl would want to pay off the Duke to whisk Kris out of the Village before Lottie is born (whether it's because they realize their WHOOPSIE or it's coincidental.) And maybe it happens and Kris of course doesn't hear from him for ~7 years and she forgets a lot of the finer details of his face and his voice doesn't come so easily to mind anymore. And then he does escape and he does get his freedom ending and he finds her and whatever you do, do not think about Karl seeing Lottie for the first time after never knowing her especially in the scenario where he didn't realize she existed oh my god oh mY GOD--

Anyway. To your actual question: I would like to think most of Lottie's gremlin nature is just inherent. It's in the damn HeisenDNA. Like, no matter her circumstances she's always going to be a weird little girl who's a little too into the concept of cybernetic enhancements and bugs and rats. And Kris, being a former weird little girl herself, would definitely support her - but given that particularly the mechanics/engineering part are NOT in her area of expertise, I think she'd have to rely way more on teachers or outside sources to help that part of her blossom. She'd be the mom at the science fair nodding along enthusiastically like she knows what the hell anyone is saying while internally her brain is turning into soup. Would that effect Lottie negatively? I don't really think so, but it might make her less attached because she'd have to seek... enrichment further away from home lol. There’s also the issue of Lottie’s lil magnet powers. Kris would not know what to do with that/how to relate at all obviously. I think that’d cause a whole host of problems - not necessarily resentment on Lottie’s part bc she’d still think it was Neat but I also can’t help but think they’d be more chaotic or out of control after a point. I think it would fuck her up a little bit being the odd one out with no one to relate to and it might make her a bit mad at the world. :( I definitely am inclined to believe Kris would have a metric shitton of anxiety about keeping her away from folks who'd want to study her like a lab rat or worse use her for their goals, and as the child of an extremely obsessive compulsive parent I can tell you that it does rub off and can make you extremely paranoid. Like, Lottie's probably got her own little conspiracy board by age 5 in this scenario lol. Kris only knows protecc, attacc, and panic attacc.

Also, I’m truly trying to avoid saying “she’d be a bit kinder/more thoughtful” bc it feels like gender stereotyping but also Karl is Karl and the bar is on the floor lmao. Kris isn't nice but she does more or less recognize when people deserve kindness. I don't think she'd be better or worse off, overall. But she'd be different, as any of us would. I think what you'd end up with is a more subdued but still slightly feral little mischief maker who is more cognizant of other people's needs and wants but possibly less... funny and over the top in her pursuits as a result lol. I'll let you decide if that's a good or bad thing. Anyway. I'm now thinking too hard about that first scenario I described because you planted the seed lol. Hmmm.

#asks #the short answer is: lottie but goth #lmao. thank you for this truly it was a wild thought experiment and I'm still thinking about it. you might get an au fic out of this. #mourningstarmace

[thatlittleegyptologist]

The History of Egypt Podcast just had an interview with Bob Brier about the Tut DNA study and how Egypt is refusing to send samples out to secondary labs for confirmation of results. Allowing them some benefit of the doubt, I can see that viable 3,000 year old DNA samples are probably few and far between, but I also definitely see the need for replication of results before proposing theories. Idk if I have an actual question here, just your thoughts on that DNA study I guess?

I haven't read that study nor listened to the podcast to know Brier's thoughts on it. It's not really my area of interest so I don't keep up with the research outside of surface level stuff. Ancient DNA is very difficult. Even with the cleanest samples we can only confirm family relation, but not which family relation. Due to the advanced nature of decay, there's a high chance that we may not get another viable sample, or getting another sample might risk damage. Egypt has a long history of not letting anyone sequence the DNA at all, so the fact that they won't allow them out for replication of the results is relatively unsurprising, but there might be ethical and scientific reasons as to why they're not allowing it. I wouldn't necessarily doubt the science, but since it was done by Hawass, I would assume a certain level of sensationalism and a little bit of twisting of the actual science to give a 'discovery' he can claim. However, it should be noted that Brier has a new book out on Tutankhamun this month, which talks about his desire for further DNA analysis of Tut's mummy alongside many other things.

I'm actually going to tag in @23-tiny-wishes here because this is her area, not mine.

[zerozerozio]

your heavy headcanons were so cute like omg omg okay now I know you probably get this question a lot but do you have any lee ones for medic? he’s precious

first of all sorry i took so long to do this!!!!!!!! im a rather busy man, mwomp :( and im so glad you like my heavy headcanons!!!!! but anyway, oh my GOD okay this man. and a warning ahead of time, i am heavymedic trash and there is a decent amount of that in here.

this man drives me insane, im telling you. he drives me up the wall in the best way.

while writing this i sound like a maniac in my head, im bouncing all over the place writing this nonsense down. there will be more of these sort of posts likely, this is just the first one. idk if i can get everything down in one post Hh.

So. Lee Medic. in this essay i will

overall hes a ler leaning switch. ler leaning bc hes not close with many people in a way where he feels particularly comfortable being vulnerable, but is happy to tickle other people (and he doesnt necessarily mind if they get him back, but many people would be too intimidated to do that.) with people he's close to cough heavy cough, he actually really enjoys it. being playful and letting himself act childish is really therapeutic. plus the sensation itself is somewhat fascinating. hoo!

he is a silly guy, we know that. he is SO very silly. for personal reasons hes also very sensitive. like he told me himself guys trust me

his laugh??? HAVE YOU HEARD THAT SHIT?? ITS SO WJANZHJAJZHSGS. FREAKING ADORABLE!! The fuckin "hooh hooh!" CRIES /POS???

Also, nervous laughter King. He's giggling before you even touch him. this goes for non tickle related situations as well. he can be seen doing a little "aheh" anytime he is a bit nervous in canon material. so naturally, it is reasonable to assume the more nervous he is the more he will giggle. back him into a corner and start wiggling your fingers at him and giggles just bubble out of him what a Guy

He will try to hold back his laughter due to a combination of being flustered, trying to tease the ler, and just out of reflex. he can't do it for particularly long though. plus he doesnt really want to, laughing is fun for him!

if he doesn't want to be tickled, he will say so clearly. whether he isnt in the mood (which doesnt happen often but it does sometimes) or he doesnt feel comfortable with the ler, he will easily tell you to Stop. and he means it, he doesnt look flustered or anything in that moment, remember he is still a dangerous mercenary and not the most sane individual so just do not push him outside of his comfort zone. and in general, he doesn't really like being touched by people he isn't at least somewhat close with, so he naturally wouldn't like it if they tried to tickle him.

touch is a very complicated thing for him. neurodivergent alarm wahh!!! remind me to talk about medic autism headcanons in general because as an autistic person, trust me. anyway not to project too much but tickling as a stim? like hes all happy and excited talking about some ridiculous experiment that went well to his Bro™ Engie, and he just skitters his fingers along Medic's sides and riles him up further. science friends, good stuff.

okay i have more to say but this is Long jdhahsjs let me know if anyone wants to hear more but as one last thing i will say his ears may or may not be ticklish and he will shut his eyes and chuckle softly if heavy kisses him there

#bryn's headcanons #tf2 medic #sfw tickles #sfw tk blog #sfw twords #sfw tickling community #medic tf2 #tf2 #heavymedic #red oktoberfest #engineer tf2

[dogtoling]

Yay more ink questions. 1. If enemy ink hurts you, why doesn't ally ink? Technically, they are both foreign ink and could be harmful.

2. Why do you regenerate ink faster in your ink? Is your ink tank like a sponge?

3. Why does walking in enemy ink damage you? Why doesn't it splat you?

4. Why doesn't the Slosher use more ink? The bucket needs a lot of ink to fill and you more or less empty it when you attack.

5. On a related note, how does the Splattershot Jr. have a bigger ink tank? Is it literally just a bigger ink tank?

And finally, unrelated to ink...

6. DLC thoughts?

As usual, thanks. You're awesome.

Thanks for the questions! most of these are agonizing. Several of them are things i've been wondering about for literally years and they may be solvable, but you literally need to understand sciences to make some kind of good conclusions, likely chemistry... which I don't, lol.

If enemy ink hurts you, why doesn't ally ink? Technically, they are both foreign ink and could be harmful.

yeah. This is something that's genuinely annoying, lol. I think in the manga there actually is an instance of ally ink splatting somebody, but the manga also isn't canon-aligning (Inklings don't dissolve in water, for example), so it can't really be used as reputable reference in a lot of cases. If a liquid being "foreign" is enough to make it harmful, that SHOULD also make octolings and inklings incompatible with each other's inks BY DEFAULT given that they are completely different species and there's no way their inks are literally identical. but you know, game's got to work.

So we don't have an answer to how the ink even changes color in the first place. It's probably either chemical-based, OR it's chromatophore-based, like the Inklings' skin (which i have no clue how the hell that would work in a liquid that isn't really part of the body, and shouldn't be directly nervous system controlled like an organ). With it being chromatophore-based, it also makes very little sense that different colors of ink would be harmful to Inklings with other colors.

I had a stand-in theory for it before in which the reason being covered in enemy ink made you unable to battle was because the body automatically adjusts to whatever color of ink it's surrounded or coated in, which would make you the enemy color and obviously then you couldn't fight. But it's a flawed theory that not only doesn't take into account the actual physical effects being splatted has (although they could be worked in), but also ignores some holes in it like... a lot of other game mechanics that work around splatting in which a color change wouldn't really matter at all, not to mention it wouldn't explain why a teammate couldn't just shoot you again to get you back in action immediately. (Granted, my current theory shares some of these same problems, but there's a limit to how much sense you can make of splatting without it becoming paranormal.)

The more sensible answer would be that the ink color changes are chemical-based, which would make all ink colors roughly the same chemical makeup based on which color-aligned chemicals and bits are metabolically smart to manufacture by a cephalopod en masse. Of course, I have zero ideas on what those chemicals would be, and it's most likely that the ink colors would be mixed from different quantities of a few separate colors, much like a printer. Different chemical makeups would make sense for why enemy ink is a foreign liquid as opposed to ally ink, which in being the same (or an extremely similar) color would be extremely similar to your own ink. I'd like to think ink colors that are further from each other would have a much stronger reaction against others, which is one of the reasons turf war team colors tend to be starkly different. If you had a fight between Light Blue and Cyan, for example, the colors might be so similar that no one ever got splatted unless hit REALLY HARD with a ton of ink at once.

(The most sensible explanation for the colors and effects would be that different colors are in very different parts on a pH scale, but that would mean some ink colors would be a biohazard and others would be highly corrosive acids that would just obliterate everything and ink is clearly neither of those. It has been stated to be safe to even drink, which pH 2> acid usually isn't.)

So basically this part of the ask got really long without answering much of anything yet. I honestly don't have any solid answers for this question, lol. I wish we got word on it! Moving on...

2. Why do you regenerate ink faster in your ink? I think this one goes hand in hand with my reasoning on why Inklings have very porous skin. The short answer is that they're able to absorb ink from their environment back into their bodies while in swim form, and in this case the environment is of course the floor. So their bodies are basically a sponge, and it is very likely that being in swim form, especially being IN ink, stimulates their bodies to produce ink faster. Of course, the layer of ink on the ground is typically not much, but ink is thick enough that there will be some color left even if you pass by and absorb half of it back.

3. Why does walking in enemy ink damage you? Why doesn't it splat you?

Okay this has always been really annoying. Your player inkling really hates being in enemy ink. LOATHES it even, they are literally in Physical Pain TRUDGING through that ink. The ink is STICKY and it HURTS and it's like you're going across a fucking swamp. How much of that is gameplay and how much of that is real?

Bestie, you literally have SHOES ON in the game. Point 1 of why it has always frustrated and confused me that you take damage in enemy ink. You literally have shoes on, it's not in contact with your BODY. The best assumption I've been able to make is that different colors of ink stick to each other, whereas similar ink colors mesh with each other and have no such issue. Which is why you're able to slide on ink of your own color, but not enemy ink - it just trips you up because your body is coated in ANOTHER ink color, which sticks like glue.

As for why walking through enemy ink sucks? My best guess is that your character's shoes are usually coated in your team's ink, so when you walk onto enemy ink it's like you just walked into a vat of glue. The downside is that logically, walking back from enemy ink to your own ink should then have the same effect, but I'm not going to be too much of a stickler about it because this is just trying to make in-universe sense of nonsense game mechanics right now.

Still haven't touched on the ink literally damaging you though. I'm just ignoring that as being a game mechanic, because again, your BODY is not in physical contact with the ink - just your shoes are (unless you're not wearing any). Running around in enemy ink you might get tiny splatters on yourself but that shouldn't really add up unless you're doing so for a really long time. If anything, Inklings might just become very distressed in enemy ink as they've just entered Glue Zone and that's something that heavily limits your movement options (which is scary). So that might make them less stable overall, making them easier to splat?

4. Why doesn't the Slosher use more ink?

Okay but this one. seriously, this leads into a discussion about the ink economics of a lot of weapons being COMPLETELY unsustainable, lol.

This is the Slosher. Look at the size of that thing and how much ink is hurled out in ONE SINGLE SWING. If we were being real, with a container that's like the same volume as an Inkling's whole torso, that should be at least half the ink sac GONE in like one swing and that's assuming the ink in the ink sac is extremely pressurized.

But this is a game and their ink producing abilities being grossly unrealistic is something that's necessary for gameplay so there's like not much you can do about it. My best justification for weapons that take up way too much ink (mostly heavy weapons, ESPECIALLY the Hydra and E-Liter) is that the ink is insanely compressed in the ink sac of an Inkling, and weapons have technology that thins the ink out by a LOT, so whenever bullets are fired it's actually a very small amount of ink stretched out to achieve a lot more than it normally would. We know that ink oxidizes, expands and even explodes in contact to air (bombs, Blasters), so using ink to thin it out and still end up with a lot of usable bullets could work.

Also, in terms of some weapons, I think some of their balancing wouldn't exist in the game world. For example, the slosher is a 2-shot-splat, but in-universe you CANNOT tell me that just one swing wouldn't be enough to splat like 80% of the time. A lot of the balancing definitely doesn't exist in-universe with the battles itself also having a lot more chaos and other elements going on, such as weather conditions, wind, shot deviation, inherent changes in weapon performance based on how beat up it is (Inkbrush is a very good example with the tube that needs to be replaced often). Basically the Slosher might realistically consume way more ink than it does in the game, but it would also be stronger as a result...

Oh, or the devs could drop the info that the Splatoon world is using infinite ink technology in some of the gear and that's how there's so much ink everywhere all the time, like how the Ink Tank magically refills from the bottom and Steel Eels have infinite fish slime fountains or Flooders have infinite ink or Spreaders have infinite ink or Spawn Points... you get the picture. Probably not, I honestly HOPE NOT because that would result in a lot more questions about why the Splatoon world is so archaic (ON OUR LEVEL PRETTY MUCH) if they have insane world and physics-defying science. But it WOULD make my job a whole lot easier when trying to justify how you'd even produce enough ink in 6 seconds to swing a Dynamo Again.

5. On a related note, how does the Splattershot Jr. have a bigger ink tank? Is it literally just a bigger ink tank?

....yes! Well, it wasn't in the beginning of Splatoon 2's life cycle, and I honestly don't know (or really care) if it still has an increased ink tank. But some time throughout Splatoon 2's life, when Splattershot Jr was given a bigger ink tank, it literally WAS GIVEN A BIGGER TANK.

To my knowledge, it doesn't have this baby bottle tank anymore, but yes, the change is literally physical. And yes I think from a gameplay perspective this was like the dumbest thing they ever did because it gave birth to some of the most annoying weapon gimmicks ever to exist on this planet and if it was intended to help new players, they should've just made this tank something that's exclusive to like, players from Level 1 to Level 10, applied regardless of weapon... or something. Instead of giving one weapon infinite freaking bombs.

But TL;DR yes, the Splattershot Jr. has a bigger ink tank, physically!

Bonus question time!

6. DLC thoughts?

...I started writing this out and it was going to be like 10+ paragraphs, so I'll make a separate post about it after this one, I think! So stay tuned for that I guess!

#mailbox #squidthoughts #thanks for the ask! i love an excuse to ramble forever

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk in Space?!

Let me talk about something, that is not necessarily a biome, but that kinda gets brought up in a lot of Solarpunk discussions. So I thought it would be a nice thing to end this week on. "If we had a Solarpunk society, should we still go to space?"

It might seem like a weird question at first, but there is reason to ask it. A couple of good reason, in fact.

Baring a space elevator (aka a technology that we know in theory how we could do that but that might or might not work in practice), going into space will always burn fuel and quite a lot of it. As such, it will always release greenhouse gasses. So, is it worth it to go into space?

What goal would we have going there? Do we just explore for explorations sake? Do we want to find life? How would we go about it, if we did? Do we want to have space colonies? If so: What for? There is a certain senselessness in it and for that it takes a ton of effort.

Maybe we should just focus on fixing everything on this planet first, before going to another planet.

There also is the issue, that if we think about space colonialization, we think of it as that: Colonialization. And maybe... That's not a good thing.

So, yeah, to paraphrase a certain fictional scientist: "You thought so much about how you could do it, that you never once stopped to ask yourself if you should."

Here is the thing: Yesterday we spoke about how humans are surprisingly bad at surviving in the ocean. But we are even worse at surviving in space. So, every bit of space exploration will always bring with it the risk of killing people involved. Which is... generally bad. But yes, there is undoubtedly the fact that there are some scientific endeavors that can only be explored in space for one reason or another.

There is the other thing, though. See, in our SciFi media we always imagine those space ships and space stations with all that artificial gravity. Something that leans more heavily on the Fiction part of Science Fiction. While, yes, we might be able to create something like gravity by rotating our space stations... this will not happen for space craft. So, yeah... It will involve a lot of floating and hence a lot of tight spaces.

Why tight spaces?

Well, if you made a place without gravity not tight but had air inside of it... You would run into the problem, that people would get stuck in mid-air, because they pushed themselves off without the right amount of force to overcome the drag. Or maybe they collided with something else, that counteracted their propulsion. And then they would just hover there, mid air, unable to do a thing.

Beause of that (and of course the need to use air sparingly) real life space craft are very, very tight.

What I am trying to say with this is... there might be some reason to go into space. Yes. To explore it further. Sure. But it will never be this great fiction that we see in so many SciFi shows.

If we had a Solarpunk society... Would they still do it? Well, yes, some of it probably. For the science. But I doubt that any Solarpunk society would ever do any sort of space tourism or something like that.

Like... Space is pretty awesome. Yes. But... Realistically speaking, it is not quite as cool as Star Trek or Star Wars would make you believe.

#solarpunk #solarpunk fiction #space #space exploration #science fiction #scifi #cozy scifi #scientifically minded scifi #getting stuck mid air like its no-one's business

[chaosintheavenue]

Unprompted answering of random asks from my own ask memes for Kayli:

🌱 What’s their basic information? Name, gender, age, that sort of thing

Full name: Kayli Meyer (surname was originally Radley until she was around 7-ish years old)

Gender: Cis woman

Orientation: Asexual, vaguely sapphic but also definitely not alloromantic (AKA, the exact answer I would have given for myself about a year ago)

Date of birth: 19th February 2275 (so, five months older than Trin at any given time)

Place of residence: Born and raised in California- more specifically in Lost Hills. She had never left California before travelling to West Virginia with Trin and living there for two years (2297 to late '99) and some spare change. Has just left WV and headed back west at the current point in the day-to-day OC timeline in my head

🌎 Do they have a favourite region of the world map (e.g. the Forest, the Ash Heap…)? A least favourite region?

She enjoyed seeing the variety of different environments in Appalachia more than anything else, but she does have a soft spot for the atmosphere (not literally!) of the Ash Heap that Trin doesn't share

As for least favourites, she didn't particularly enjoy embarking out further towards the east side of the map (Mire/Cranberry Bog region), but that's more due to the tougher enemies in that region and potential for Trin to start scorchily losing her shit than the actual geography

📷 How often do they take photos (or alternatively, how often do you use photomode haha)? Any favourite/funny photos of them you’d like to share?

She will sometimes take environmental shots to capture any unusual or striking features in the landscape, but on the whole isn't snap-happy like someone I could mention. Definitely doesn't love being in shot herself (so, not a fan of selfies).

🎻 Do they play musical instruments? How skilled are they at it?

Yesss. I literally added this question to that list specifically for Kayli lol.

She's taken violin lessons since childhood, and kinda knows her way around all string instruments as a result. Also figuring out a little bit of piano, which is more likely self-taught. But the violin will always be her baby.

💰 What is the most expensive thing they own?

The most expensive thing in terms of its overall value that she ever owned, past tense, was probably her first violin. It was in pristine condition with a pearlised blue varnish, which I'd imagine would have been very hard to come by.

It survived its time with her, by the way! She just had to swap for a new refurbished one eventually because it was child-sized.

💬 How many languages do they speak?

She's only fully fluent in English, but knows phrases here and there in plenty of other languages. However, I'm inclined to think that she would count the ability to read and write sheet music as knowing a language, which brings her total per her own judgement to two.

☂️ What’s their favourite type of weather? What type of weather do you associate with them, if any?

She's not a fan of any extremes of weather, but especially not storms or heavy rain. Having grown up a) underground and b) in California, the severe East Coast-style radstorms were an unpleasant novelty to her and she's very wary of them.

🍇 Favourite food? Any dietary restrictions or specific dislikes?

Discovered when she travelled east that she likes fresh seafood- but it absolutely has to be fresh, and that's going to be in much shorter supply where she's now living than it was in Appalachia. Welp. Lakelurk meat, maybe?

Her all-time favourite food is the gulper meat in Rudy's pepperoni rolls!

🤖 Do they believe science or art is more important? How much value do they place on each?

She'd firmly agree with the paraphrased quote 'Science keeps us alive, but art is what we live for'.

#Kayli #oc asks #if you hadn't gathered Kay is the Musical OC™

[killerandhealerqueen]

20 questions writer meme

Tagged by @hils79

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

263

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

2,692,775 and growing

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly I write for Killer and Healer but I've written for S.C.I., The Devil Judge, CSI: Miami, Chimera, History 3: Trapped, Master Wait a Moment, Psych-Hunter, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, Under the Skin, Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa, Guardian, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity, The Untamed and Beyond Evil

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Wait, We're Married?! (1,465)

Succulents and an Overprotective Kang Yohan (1,185)

Kang Yohan's Relaxing Day Off (806)

Protect You (791)

Kim Gaon Is Mine (726)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always. I always like to thank people for reading my fics and also discuss/answer their questions

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of my fics have angsty endings...even my angstiest one Soul Bound has a happy ending cuz fuck unhappy endings

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, not really. I've gotten a couple of rude comments before but I usually just delete those because I don't have time to deal with that kind of bullshit. If you didn't like the story, there's always the back button

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. It makes me uncomfortable so I don't

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I do. I've done a really big one with History 3: Trapped, Guardian, and S.C.I. in like 2020 and some of the other crossovers I've done is S.C.I. x Under the Skin, S.C.I. x Killer and Healer, S.C.I. x Guardian, and S.C.I. x The Yin-Yang Master

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah, back when I was writing The Untamed Moments someone had taken it, posted it to Wattpad, and translated it to spanish. A reader told me about it and I got it taken down. No one steals a fic from me and gets away with it

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! My fic So This Is What Love Feels Like was translated to Vietnamese by Shu_Miw over on ao3.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A long time ago but I don't really like co-writing fics. I'll brainstorm/bounce ideas off of other people, but I won't co-write with anyone

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Yuezhi. While I love all my ships, I can confidently say that these two own my fucking heart

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I'll finish it eventually but right now it feels like 恨君不似江楼月 | Killer and Healer just because of the amount of work I'm putting into it. I knew it was a daunting task when I started it and I don't regret it but still...I'm much further behind than I would like

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and describing crime scenes. Dialogue because I've been told that I can get into my character's heads and everything I write sounds like stuff they would say. As for crime scenes, my forensic science background really helps with that

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing fight scenes. Fuck me, writing fight scene fucking suck. I can see how the scene is suppose to go in my head but to translate it into words and put it on paper is a whole nother ball game

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I only use words in other sentences that I'm confident in using. Mainly curse words. I will maybe use a sentence or two here or there but I make sure they go through a proper translator first so that it makes sense

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Either Dragonball or Black Butler over on Deviantart. I think. It's been so long

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I love all my fics. But so far I'd have to say 恨君不似江楼月 | Killer and Healer just because of the amount of work I've put into it. It's probably going to be my greatest achievement as a writer once I'm finished with it

Tagging: @ahhhnorealnamesallowed @kpopfantasywriter @fourth-quartet @bunnyseahorse-blog @missjudge-me and anyone else who wants to play

#tag game #20 questions

[clinicsharmartia]

I just finished having a long conversation with my friend about this but I’m 10000% convinced that Sergio Ramos has naturally curly/wavy hair but has never explored it before. Here’s an extensive list as to why:

1. Whenever his hair is wet, either with water or sweat or some other liquid, you can clearly see that his hair goes from pin straight to wavy. This might not seem like much, but for people who have ‘secret’ wavy/curly hair one of the only times it’s shown is when it’s wet. This is probably bc it’s being relaxed and brought back to its natural form with science or smth (I literally did Bio A-Levels 🤦‍♀️ anyways) but its basically the only time the pattern is able to be shown. Throughout the day things that stress your hair such as heat, brushing it, weather, hairstyles or other products can really fuck up the curl pattern, but once you relax it and wash everything out its essentially in it’s natural state.

2. The actual products he uses. It’s quite obvious that over the years, Ramos’ hair has gone through a lot of changes. Bleaching and other chemical hair dyes, hair gel, hair spray, and being continually stressed by being pulled back into a ponytail or bun are all ways you can fuck up your hair, and, mess with your hair’s texture. It’s a very well known fact that bleaching your hair is the worst thing you can do it to, only being equalised with relaxing and perms, and, well, Ramos hasn’t exactly been good in the sense of keeping his hair virgin pure (aka not dying it). He’s done it about three times in his career, which is surprisingly only 20 years long, so that’s estimated one bleach cycle every 6 years, which is not enough time for your hair to fully heal. That mixed with products mixed with constant heat means his hair is really, really damaged. Meaning his hair texture is also damaged.

3. Hair length. Even though his long hair is famous, for a lot of his career and childhood Ramos has had short hair. It's no secret that having short hair means less work, but that also goes for terms of showering and styling. You don't need to shower as often be it's less noticeable if your hair is greasy, and if you have short hair you don't really need to style it, you can just kinda wake up and flip it or brush it a bit and you're golden. Bc of this, short hair doesn't really give you the option to explore your hair texture. It doesn't give you enough opportunities (god this sounds so stupid for you to try out new things because why try out a new hair product when you don't actually need it. With the way his hair is now, it's shaved on the sides but still a bit long, but he's able to slick it back easily with gel. Gel = harmful hair product that harms your hair pattern, short hair = easy to style and ignore. Boom, two birds with one stone. Also he’s shaved his head a couple of times which should be obvious as to why his hair texture won’t show.

3 1/2. If you look at his hair when it’s short with no product (aka PSG days on his insta) you’ll see that his hair is very fluffed up. From experience and from what I’ve seen, ppl who brush their short curly/wavy hair will make it very fluffed up and frizzy. Not exactly like what his pictures show, but very similar, which makes me further believe that his hairstyle is also prohibiting him from unlocking this style.

4. Exposure. He's never really been exposed to people with wavy or curly hair, so he's never been told what he's doing wrong. Almost every person he's played with have straight hair, and any other player is black with coily hair, a completely different texture. No one would be able to recognise that what he's doing is wrong, meaning no one would be able to question the products he's using and if it's right for him. From what l've seen his family all have straight hair, and with siblings he's most likely had to share hair products growing up, including shampoos/conditioners. If you don't know your hair texture and you use the wrong products, your body is basically going to force your hair to adapt to the texture of the product you're using. That's why things like "curly hair products" exist, because it's made only for people with curly hair, anyone else it would probably mess with their hair or make it greasy or frizzy. Same thing goes for curly/wavy hair: if you use products made for straight hair it's going to basically "train" your hair into "acting" like straight hair. And like I said, with no one to tell you otherwise, you're going to continue to use the wrong products, meaning your hair will always act like it's straight.

5. I’ve literally had the exact same thing happen to me and all the points are taken from my life and experiences. Long story short, not a lot of people in my family have curly or even wavy hair. Thick hair, yes. Textured hair, no. And because of that I always assumed that it was the same for me, that I had thick but straight hair, so I’ve always treated my hair like straight hair. Until when I turned 16 and I got taken to this very fancy bougie hair salon and the lady there scrubbed my scalp within an inch of my life with fancy hair products I’ve never used before, and when I came back to the mirror my hair basically fluffed and bounced up into lovely little waves. And I asked what she did to my hair and she said she just washed it, and that’s when I realised that for my entire life I have had wavy hair but haven’t even been treating it right so I’ve never been able to see it until now. He is literally me but he hasn’t discovered it yet. Pilar get to work!!!!

6. All his children have curly/wavy hair, and unless Pilar has been wearing a wig this entire time to hide her magical curls, that hair texture has got to come from somewhere. Like literally look up his kids and look at their hair texture and you’ll see what I mean. Especially Alejandro, he has super curly ends.

7. Extra point. When talking to my friend she pointed out that taking away my short hair theory, he's always had straight hair as a child, with absolutely no sign of anything curly. To that I say hormones and puberty! It's a very simple fact that during puberty your hair can change texture, and that's because of hormones. Just like how if you get pregnant you can get curly hair, or if you go through chemo you can develop curly hair. It's all hormones, and that's probably what he went through, further proving my point that he doesn't know what he's doing with his hair. Going from straight hair to wavy/curly is very abrupt and he probably noticed it but didn't know how to deal with it, especially back then when the internet wasn't around so you couldn't look up what to do with curly hair or what products are best. So he continues using straight hair products and keeps on damaging his hair.

In conclusion, Sergio Ramos has curly/wavy hair.

#sergio ramos #pilar rubio #spanish football #football #footyblr #real madrid #psg #paris saint germain #sevilla fc

[procrastinatorproject]

Apparently, we are now moving fully into the realm of angst... 🙈

This chapter (of technically still the same story, though we are moving further away from the original prompt with every paragraph 😅) is veering into explicit AU territory of the "Everyone lives, no-one is turned into a Borg Queen" variety. I'm not sure how much I'll go into the details of how we got here, some of it will definitely come up during this chapter, but I haven't picked the fix-it version I like best for season 2. So for now, let's just say: "S2 happened mostly the same, except Agnes and Rios have returned safely with the rest of the motley crew."

(also: not sure how coherent this is, but it is late and I'm trying not to stay up until 2am for once. I'll do some proper editing before I post this to AO3 in the semi-near future 😋)

---

“How are you today, Dr Jurati?”

Despite herself, Agnes had to smile. “Emil, how many times have I told you to call me Agnes?”

“Force of habit.” She could hear that the EMH, too, was smiling. Or… he would have been smiling, if he currently had a physical matrix.

“How are you doing?” she asked, leaning back in her chair and looking at the ceiling. As an academic with contacts in faraway sectors, it wasn’t unusual for her to have calls that were voice-only. Even with the latest advances in subspace communications technology, the latency of inter-quadrant calls was greatly reduced if you didn’t try to submit an image at the same time.

Still, this wasn’t your average voice call, and it was difficult to stop herself from picking at the corner of the loudspeaker, where a slim gap had formed between rim and grill that was vibrating ever so slightly every time the device emitted the EMH’s voice.

Emil seemed to be pondering her question. After a long moment, he said: “All my systems are operating within normal parameters. The ones I have access to, anyway.” He sighed. “It really is rather inconvenient, but I suppose this has to count as an improvement.”

Agnes ran a finger along the edge of the speaker. “Well, I’m glad to finally be talking to you again.”

“We spoke only last week,” the EMH said mildly.

Agnes rapped a knuckle against the grill. “That wasn’t the same.”

There was a brief pause before Emil said: “No, it wasn’t.” Another pause, then: “I’m glad, too. I’ve missed our chats.”

For a moment, silence hung between them as each dwelt on their own thoughts. Finally, Emil made a noise like he was clicking his tongue, even though in his current state, he had neither the tongue nor the palate to perform this action. When he spoke, he sounded a lot more composed. “Commandr Barclay is to be commended; I didn’t expect he’d make progress this quickly.”

“I was pretty amazed, too. I guess the new algorithms helped more than we’d thought.” Agnes felt a familiar tingle on her right cheek and she started fiddling with the zipper-pull on the edge of her sleeve.

Even though he didn’t have any meaningful access to the ship’s visual sensors, Emil must have noticed her sudden discomfort, because he asked: “Would you like to talk about that?”

Agnes pulled the zip up a few centimetres, then back down to her wrist. “I’m really sorry we haven’t been able to fully untangle your programmes.”

“That’s not what I —”

“It should only be a matter of time now,” Agnes continued quickly. “I had a message from professor L’Nel this morning. She’s finally managed to look at the data we sent her, and she thinks we can significantly reduce the risk of algorithmic fragmentation. We’ll probably have to work backwards to your root architecture and save all alterations and augmentations along the way, but with a large enough external processor, it should be doable.”

“Dr Jurati…”

The zipper had gotten snagged and no matter how hard Agnes pulled, she couldn’t free it again. “I was thinking we might ask Seven and Raffi if they have time for a detour to Vulcan. I still have contacts at the Science Academy and who knows. With my new-found powers of persuasion, I might just get them to lend us their supercomputer for a few hours.” She was babbling now, but she couldn’t make herself stop. “It would take some time to iron out all the kinks in interoperability-interfacing, but now that Ian can help us with insights into Sirena’s computer system, we’re a lot closer to a solution.”

“Agnes.”

The zipper finally came loose, but she had pulled on it with so much force that it slipped over the delicate stopper at the hem of her sleeve cuff and landed on the desk with a quiet clink. Agnes took a deep breath, staring at her now permanently zipped-up sleeve. So much for getting unstuck…

#star trek picard #star trek picard fanfiction #agnes jurati #emil (emh) #i'm not 100% sure where i'm going with this #or whether anything in this bit is going to turn into An Metaphor(tm) #(i'm usually not good at doing those on purpose 😅) #so there might be some substantial editing before all is said and done #but maybe that'll be good motivation for a re-read if and when this goes up on ao3 🙈 #anyway #lili's writing adventures #writing accountability #AND IT IS PRE-2AM! PROGRESS!!!

[makethatelevenrings]

For All the Light That I Shut Out - 4

Series Masterlist (also on ao3)

“Hi, it’s your big sister. I’m walking into work now.” To punctuate her statement, Lily swiped her badge to get past the Wayne Enterprises lobby gates and headed for the elevators. “I know you aren’t going to hear this for a bit because you’re heading to your first lecture. I’m just calling because I know you’re probably feeling in over your head right now and nervous. You’re smart, Nadia, and you deserve to be there.

“I know you just rolled your eyes, so let me remind you of a time where you saved my life. Remember that? You remembered everything from your first aid class and you saved me until you could get me to the clinic. You’re going to be an excellent doctor because you are brilliant, kind, and empathetic. I’m so, so proud of you and I want to hear everything about your first day when you get a chance. I love you.”

Lily ended the call and set her bag down beside her desk just in time for a familiar voice to disrupt her peace.

“Boyfriend?” Bruce Wayne asked. She nearly jumped out of her skin, a hand raising to clasp against her racing heart. “Sorry about that.”

“Mr. Wayne, I didn’t realize you were here!” she said as pleasantly as she could. “In fact, I didn’t think you would be coming in at all with the news detailing all the fun you had last night.”

A low chuckle met her ears but she refused to look at him. “Yeah, well, you know models. Always have to be the life of the party.”

“Hmmm, that’s not what I heard. Rumor has it you were seen at the center of the VIP area with…Carmela, Chrysanthemum, and Christina, was it?.”

Mr. Wayne flashed her a cocky grin and leaned against her desk. “You never answered my question.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was company policy to disclose relationship status. But if you must know, it was my sister. It’s her first day of medical school.”

Lily began to straighten out Lucius’ desk, stacking up the papers that were cluttered all over the surface. She made a mental note to copy the schematics he had strewn around so they didn’t get lost.

“Medical school, wow. That’s great.” It was the first genuine compliment she had heard from him and she allowed herself a quick peek in his direction. “Have you and your sister always been interested in science?”

Lily shrugged. “I guess. I just remember taking my first chemistry class and suddenly it all started to click, y’know? For once, I was good at something and I liked doing it. Math and science just came easily. It was the same for Nadia.”

She jotted down a note about a shipment of the prototype vaporizer being sent to Gotham and stuck it on Lucius’ desk.

“And why did you take this job? I mean, smart girl like you, you could get any job you wanted in the field.”

“Mr. Fox has been the only one to believe in me other than my sister,” she admitted. “He never doubted me and even encouraged me to get my masters. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where I’d be.”

As if on cue, the door opened and Mr. Fox entered. He smiled at Mr. Wayne and shook his hand. “Nice to see you again, Bruce. What can I help you with today?”

“Oh, you know, I’m just getting the lay of the land and seeing what’s been done to my father’s company since being gone. I was interested in a certain prototype, actually…”

The two men headed further into the labs and Lily focused her attention on the papers on her desk. She realized with a jolt that she had never started the coffee that morning and moved to fill the pot.

But the shitty old coffee machine was gone. In its place stood a state of the art machine that she had only seen in commercials. Lily was almost scared to touch it in fear that she would break it. She didn’t even know how to work one of these.

After a bit of googling, she figured out how to make a carafe of coffee and successfully poured her and Lucius two cups before she reconsidered and made a third for Mr. Wayne. He offered her a grateful smile when he and Lucius returned.

“I’ll see you both tomorrow,” Mr. Wayne said before departing, mug in hand. Lily chose to ignore the way his blue eyes had met hers and she felt a rush of familiarity in them. She had seen him plenty of times. Nothing was different. He was a smarmy playboy trust fund baby and she was just trying to stay employed.

“Lily, can you return this to sector five? Mr. Wayne wanted to look at it but we no longer need it.” He held out a small apparatus that Lily recognized as the working prototype of a medication delivery system. It was like an epi pen but it could be loaded up with any type of liquid medicine and administered in seconds.

“Of course, sir.” She carried her work deep into the basement, passing the numerous pieces of junk and gold that littered the tables. This was the land of misfit toys and Lily was starting to feel like she would never leave.

She paused at one table and frowned. She could have sworn the military grade body armor was supposed to be stored there. The only people down here were her and Lucius. Maybe he took it to show an investor…

Lily continued on towards sector five.

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