I need an adult.

Something hit me while listening once again to Raphael list all things Cazador would gain upon completing the Vampire Ascention ritual. Don't have it right in front of me, but he lists things like: gaining back his previous appetites and arousals, become powerful (very vague) and, of course, to ability to walk in sunlight. Hear me out here but;

What if it had not actually made him more powerful, but just reversed the vampire transformation? What if he'd just become a normal elf again?

Because 1. It was a deal with Mephistopheles, a known demon. Demons, who very often make deals without making their patronees read the fine print. And 2. It would've given him all those things, but not at all in the way he'd have thought. Then 3. We all know vampires, including spawn, are at least semi-undead. What if they were there just to act like some weirdly fucked up component for a backwards True Resurrection?

On one hand, IF Cazador would've ascended, yeah sad, Astarion's dead, but what a fucking thing to behold, him losing all of his vampiric powers, and all his previous "friends" turning on him, Tav getting to take revenge for Astarion with Cazador at his weakest.

On the other, if Astarion would take his place, making him a normal elf again, he'd have no unimaginable power or hubris to hide behind that he just caused the deaths of 7000 people.

Just. something I think about sometimes.

It’s giving Pirates of the Caribbean a là Captain Barbosa becoming human at last, just in time for Jack Sparrow to shoot him with his very last bullet.

Is this a prank? What….

Edit: holy heck it’s real…

They might be able to help us…

The stage that they're at is animal testing but it sounds like it's been successful in mouse and primate models.

My understanding: The way autoimmune diseases usually seem to work* is the immune system is "flagging" the wrong thing as harmful/not needed and destroying it. The typical treatments for autoimmune diseases are just tamping the entire immune system down so it can't destroy anything, which leaves a person vulnerable to infection.

The newer method is basically "tricking" the body using a method that... the human body already came up with. Cells flagging the wrong thing apparently happens all the time, so there are multiple defenses against immune disease, and one of them is in the liver. So scientists figured out a way to tell the body "hey, you flagged this wrong" and sent it to the liver and the liver/body recognized this signal.

There is still a lot of work to be done and it sounds like this isn't foolproof (ie: what if the liver is whats broken? unsure, and what if the immune system flags things wrong again?) but this is literally so amazing. i was tearing up reading it, and i hope that everything goes well in clinical trials.

*theres like a lot medical science doesnt know about the immune system

Thank you for this explanation/synthesis of the article! It's important for us to understand that they're still in early development and testing of these methods, but also that they've seen it work in mice and primates (rather than just petri dishes of human cells). I hope this goes well.

Hi! I'm a microbiologist and I've done work in academia, pharma, and clinical trials.

So the most exciting thing about this article is the last paragraph tbh (working on getting the actual paper, it's not up on sci-hub yet).

The company mentioned, Anokion, has four registered clinical trials for both Celiac and MS patients. The trial for Celiac just submitted data from their phase 1 trial (meaning there's good data it is safe) and are recruiting for a Phase 1/2 trial (meaning they are now testing efficacy). After that, the big hurdle is phase 3, which looks at whether or not it is better than a current treatment. The projected completion date is spring 2025. They are also preparing for a Phase 2 trial but are not yet recruiting.

The phase 1 MS trial is currently active, estimated completion in summer 2024.

I checked the company website and it looks like they are in the process of submitting an investigational new drug (IND) application for Type 1 diabetes. This is the first step to starting clinical safety and efficacy trials.

Now clinical trials can get delayed for a variety of reasons, but this is a really good sign! It's way further along than I initially thought when seeing the news. If the treatment does well, we could see new drugs on the market for Celiacs as early at 2030ish and MS as early as 2035.

I literally just burst into tears and woke up my partners.

Holy shit. The idea of not having celiac disease anymore is so completely overwhelming.

Update: I have registered for the trial and if you also have celiac and want to register the link is here.

What'd K-pop Twitter do?

Dallas PD set up this app to submit videos of “rioters” and kpop people just sent live-streams of them dancing until the servers crashed

Okay, very begrudging critical support for the K-pop stans

https://www.newsweek.com/kpop-spamming-fancams-grand-rapids-police-department-protest-evidence-1508043?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true

We have really fallen into another dimension. They're also currently flooding #bluelivesmatter they basically successfully shifted the energy they used to bring to legit hashtags. Appreciated.

Do not forget they took over the # wh*tel*vesmatter

https://alphaweeb.tumblr.com/post/619940581271027712

Things K-pop fans have done that is mentioned by everyone in the notes:

-  They started on #bluelivesmatter which others joined with blue themed or blue colored fictional characters. There was a site another pd set up for videos like dallas, and they crashed that one too.

-  It seems like they're taking to other snitchlines and submitting fancams there too.

-  Flooding "#whitepride" and "#alllivesmatter" tags.

-  There was also a trending tag on Twitter today of #WhiteOutThursday as a racist response to #BlackOutTuesday and the Black Lives Matter movement and K-pop stans tweeted K-pop gifs and tagged them with #WhiteOutThursday so no one could find the actual information.

- Oh yeah! Tags like #WhiteOutTuesday and #WhiteOutWednesday on Instagram was also flooded by K-pop fans.

-  They're also giving tips for properly streaming videos where the ad revenue is being used to donate to charities (so that youtube doesn’t discount it as spam). Streaming is really important in the success of kpop songs, and people that are really into it know how to make the most of their views. 

-  Replying hundreds of fancams to all the tweets made by Spanish fascist politicians to the point where the press has had to talk about it and they said that the k-popers were paid by the left parties.

-  Their fanbase has been doxxing and getting racists fired from jobs for a long time now. Actively ruinning those assholes lives and careers.

K-pop fans really have done more for BLM movement than anyone out there.

MY PEOPLE.

i need a himbo

i’m holding out for a himbo til the end of the night

He’s gotta be strong. And he’s gotta be fast. And he’s gotta be dumb and polite

Moving out of the apartment

This is, without a doubt, the saddest photo I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE.

STORY TIME!

So in undergrad, my bestie lived in a true shithole of an apartment. When he moved in, he threw a housewarming party and brought out a bunch of washable markers and let us all draw on the walls. Being a tribe of feral assholes, we started competing to see who could draw the most obnoxious/offensive things. IIRC, there was George Bush frenching Ronald Regan, a skeleton with tits, some very rude portraits of the pope, etc etc.

now one of our friends who I hope to god has gone to therapy since then shut himself up in the walk in closet and painted the entire back of the door. He wouldn’t let anyone see it til he was done, and guys, I had nightmares about it. He’d driven a lovecraftian monster like you wouldn’t believe. It had eyes where it shouldn’t have eyes, teeth where it shouldn’t have teeth, and no matter where you stood it looked at you. We were all suitably impressed and horrified.

Anyway four years later bestie moves out and repaints the entire apartment.

Years and years later, I was talking to him and brought up the closet door monster. he visibly paled and confessed “oh god, I forgot to paint the inside of the door”

A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.

!!! ok but that’s legitimately what it’s doing!! That’s a corvid right there (looks like a hooded crow, to be precise), which means it’s intelligent enough to recognize, a) cars are dangerous and streets should be treated with a certain degree of caution, b) this car’s slowing down for them–cars do that sometimes–which means they’re not in imminent danger, so it doesn’t have to fly away just yet, c) that hedgehog’s still gonna get killed if it doesn’t MOVE, FAST (cars can change speed very quickly and the hedgehog’s still in the way), and almost certainly also d) if the bird does nothing it gets a free lunch.

Y’all, Y’ALL. This bird is consciously deciding to put itself in danger in order to save the life of a very stupid creature. A creature which, if the bird did nothing, could be free food. 

i can’t - look if you follow me you know I have a thing for corvids, but this is - like!!! People are always saying “ah yes they have sub-human intelligence and don’t consider anything that isn’t immediately necessary for their own survival/pleasure,” but! Whether or not it can do philosophy, this crow is clearly demonstrating compassion. Even if it’s just the kind of compassion a toddler shows to a snail, a social creature that instinctively recognizes the potential for emotion in other beings, that’s still huge and cool and important and corvids!!! are! neat!!! 

do you ever have second-hand obsessions

like one of your friends is super obsessed with a thing so whenever you see something about it you’re like “YES THIS THING” but you’re not the one obsessed with it. they are. you know very little about this thing and yet it still excites you because it excites your friend

WILL NEVER NOT REBLOG

Remembering the episode of Galavant where Kylie Minogue is The Queen of a medieval gay pub and sings this absolute bop.

i feel that it’s important to note that the guy with him NEVER at any point realizes that they’re in a gay bar/club

I think it’s also important to know that the guy that’s with him that’s clueless is a king. Galavant is the BEST and it’s a shame it was cancelled.

change of hairstyle 

sophie version

has this been done?

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Tumblr fangirl and you cannot convince me otherwise

the most overdramatic person alive

Mood

I CAN’T BELIEVE😭😭

10 years ago High School Musical 2 was released.