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timextoxhajima · 4 years ago

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HOSTIS, Chapter XVI: Adsumo, Claim

Previous Chapter (XV: Vetus Flamma)

Member: Lee Hyunjae (tbz) ft younghoon and eric

Genre (by chapter): drama, angst

Category: Short Novel/Long Series

“i knew i wasn’t the person you needed”

kim young hoon.

you remember the way he always offered to carry your bag or books, though you were well aware he’d rather not.

younghoon was always known for his cold, aloof demeanor.

that is, until you start talking to him.

the first time you met younghoon, this strange feeling of queasiness and anxiety wrapped itself around your stomach, and it really wasn’t great timing when it was right after a full meal you decided to stuff yourself before extra class.

being at a buffet just a few days earlier had literally poisoned your blood and your system; it was just hidden for this period of time.

so when the food you had for lunch poured out through your lips because of the food poisoning you were yet to be made aware of, only to land on younghoon’s shoe in school, it would’ve been the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you.

if you hurled on lee hyunjae, you would’ve been happy to be be diagnosed with food poisoning.

but this was kim younghoon.

his popularity was matched with lee hyunjae though he was nowhere near as intelligent -- or scheming.

girls around him started shooting you looks of disgust and low whispers of you being inappropriate or inconsiderate began to drown your senses out.

the regurgitation also forced out a lot of your energy, and your legs were slowly turning into jelly with every passing second.

but before you could make a second stumble that would’ve allowed gravity to pull you into the concrete floor, younghoon holds your arm and keeps you upright.

watching him crane his neck down and lower his back to see your vomit painted chin was both reassuring but terribly harsh on your pride.

“are you alright?”

the loss of ego keeps your head hung low, and he takes it as a sign that you really weren’t feeling well.

ignoring all the girls staring at him dragging the smartest girl in school across campus to the medical bay was such a sight to behold, even for lee hyunjae.

you wish you could’ve seen it for yourself from a third person perspective.

not many people were aware of your little crush on younghoon, but you were always too busy trying to outdo lee hyunjae to even spare a second to day dream about him.

sometimes you felt shallow and materialistic for choosing younghoon to wear your emotions on, since you haven’t really spoken to him.

but if he didn’t know, it didn’t matter.

there was an expectation for younghoon to stay clear of you, especially when you were already known as one of two areses in school. yet younghoon found reassurance in that, in the way you stood out from the crowd against your will.

younghoon’s face and personality did it for him.

your competitiveness and ability to be the only person who could stand up against lee hyunjae did it for you.

lucifer had the best of both worlds, which made him all the more hate-worthy.

younghoon’s choice to invest in your friendship with him came as a surprise, but it felt like sunrise after a long night.

for six years you’ve been wasting your energy on proving yourself better than lee hyunjae, so having younghoon becoming both a source and and outlet for your energy to channel to and from...

it was nothing short of magical.

there was absolutely no way you could’ve forgotten the satisfaction that filled your lungs and your heart when the school found out you were dating the kim younghoon.

you never really figured out why it was such a shocker, though you were pretty sure the school was just surprised you chose kim younghoon, a not-so-smart student, in comparison to your must-top-the-class persona.

most of the time spent with younghoon was either spent tutoring him or having nonsensical conversations with him before you slept. those were the times you felt relaxed, you felt loose, you felt like you didn’t really need to win.

there was nothing to win anyway, not with younghoon at least.

you had convinced yourself that younghoon was sick and tired of your never-ending battle with lee hyunjae, one that drove a scandalous picture of you and the lab teacher all over the internet like it was a freeway.

younghoon must’ve known that the picture was just edited, for the teacher never got into trouble for it, only mild investigation.

but at least he was smart enough to save himself from the walking fire of fury, that was you, and he used this chance to run.

love was never really a priority in your life until younghoon came along, so even when that beautiful, flowery garden part of your life had gone, your priority naturally fell back on beating lucifer at his own game.

or a game that the both of you thought was a great idea to start.

love was just a fickle thing, and all it did was to make you weak.

and if you were fighting ares himself, you had to be your best ares.

ares is not weak.

ares is brutal and cruel and you had to be just that in order to beat another.

sitting across younghoon, five years later, in your favourite cafe with the evening sun disappearing behind the buildings of the city, felt like a fever dream.

a dream you yearned had happened five years ago, not now.

two bowls of soup and a bowl of truffle fries get served to your table, and younghoon thanks the waitress with a slight nod. the waiter recognises you, so she just gives you a small smile.

younghoon being the gorgeous man he is, catches her attention again, and you smile at your food when you felt her reluctance to leave the table.

“i must say,” he hands you a soup spoon after checking it for shitty cleaning. “i have high expectations for this chowder.”

“i just had this yesterday,” the pepper bottle shakes in your hold. “surely that must mean something?”

the slightly amber lamp dangles above your table, and the heat from the lightbulb was making the skin on your nose and forehead feel warm despite the early autumn wind gushing about outside.

the pillars inside the cafe make it feel like you were in a warehouse, so every time someone appears behind a pillar and walks somewhere in your sight, younghoon would always look up to see if you were looking at anybody you knew.

there was a bell hung on the door of the cafe near the cashier’s counter; which was located behind the wall you were sitting against.

the sound makes you wait for someone new to show up in your span of vision, and if nobody appeared, you’d know that they ordered takeaway.

“how’s working at the hospital? i heard you say you’ve been working with uncle for about a month?”

“i think it’s about five weeks or so, yeah,” the tiny circles of oil on the soup gets pushed around while you stir it, and younghoon adds pepper to his serving after tasting the truffle fries. “it’s alright... i mean, it’s just everything i expected.”

“so, no surprises?”

surprises.

“oh,” a snort runs through your throat as you take one mouth of your soup. “there was one big surprise--”

“lee hyunjae?”

the name strikes a chord in you, and you weren’t too sure why.

“god must hate me to put me in the same room as him... we started working for the hospital on the same day, and his office is right next to mine.”

“huh,” younghoon hums, blowing on his spoon of soup before having it. “you must’ve been really upset when he showed up.”

“‘upset’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe how much i wanted to shove a pen down his throat. consider disgusted, angry, furious, disappointed, resentful, hateful--”

“should i be worried you work in an environment where those feelings should not be involved in--”

generous laughter escape your lungs and younghoon’s smile encourages you to return to your food.

“but otherwise, it’s a blast. i love my patients, i love my mentors and the nurses and the colleagues-- they are all so endearing and patient.”

he nods while chewing on the ingredients in the chowder.

“what about you? what are you doing now? i mean, we haven’t spoken in five years.”

“i’m a salesman, guess i figured out a way to use my face to the best of my ability.”

“oh, god,” a chuckle rings in the air between you as you dip your spoon into the bowl again. “that must’ve worked in some magical ways. has anybody tried to get your number?”

“do i really want to answer that when you already know?”

a cheeky smile greets you when you look up from your food, and you shake your head when you realise you could still read his eyes the same.

“i don’t suppose you’re romantically involved in anybody now?” he asks. there was an absence of... care and concern he used to have back then.

he wasn’t nonchalant about it, but you could tell that five years was adequate for your relationship with younghoon to turn completely stagnant.

there was no longer any hint of love in it, even if he did still care for you.

he could still love you, but if he was, he was doing a damn good job at hiding it.

but that question.

what does ‘romantically involved’ really mean to you?

on one hand, you believed your heart belonged to the lovable, enthusiastic intern who was going to leave in about three weeks.

yet your body resigns itself to another man, one whom you’ve hated nearly half your life, the same man who took younghoon away from you, even if it wasn’t completely his doing.

“uh... define ‘romantically involved’.”

younghoon looks at you with slightly furrowed brows and confused eyes, sending one piece of truffle fry into his mouth.

“...it worries me that you had to ask that. i’ll rephrase it; do you have anybody you’re interested in?”

“well, there’s this really cute intern working at the neuro-research department.”

“intern? he’s younger?”

“age is just a number.”

“fair play.”

the jingle of the bell hanging on the entrance door rings gently, and your eyes travel down to the soup.

“he’s super enthusiastic and there’s just something about him that’s so... comforting. i see him and i think about nothing but sunshine and warmth and laughter. he’s just... so cheerful, compared to whatever i’ve been used to.”

a pause, and you look up at younghoon, your peripheral vision not seeing anybody walk out from the wall you were sitting against.

“he sounds like someone you really want in your life. i’ve known you long enough to know what kind of person you’d might be attracted to. i guess the man’s lucky enough to have attracted someone with a complete opposite personality.”

eric’s face comes to mind, and your heart starts to do tiny flips when you recall the way his eyes fold when he smiles. the warm rumble of his voice when he speaks. the harmony that he sings when he laughs.

“that sounds strange, doesn’t it? we kissed at a party once and--”

“you kissed the intern?”

“it was at a party and we were all slightly drunk--”

“i don’t recall the last time you had enough to be drunk--”

“let me live, younghoon!” you feign a hit across the table, and he chuckles softly, dodging your little attack.

the bell rings again, and a teenage couple walks in this time.

“frankly, i am surprised about one thing,” half his bowl was empty now, and you reach over to jab at some fries with a fork.

“what is it?”

he pushes his air out from his eyes and presses his fingers into his cheek, leaning one elbow on the edge of the table.

“that you didn’t end up with lee hyunjae.”

the scoff that came out garnered the attention of that young couple, but you couldn’t care less.

“lee hyunjae? of all people, why would you think--”

“because he’s the only one who was ever able to be on the same... pedestal as you.”

pedestal. potential. day one.

“without him, i don’t know if you would’ve pushed yourself so hard. i know you always had a thing against your parents not spending enough time with you, i thought you’d break the tradition of becoming a doctor because of that.”

“yeah, well...” the chowder calls out to you. “hyunjae or not, i would’ve become a doctor anyway.”

silence.

it drags on long enough for younghoon to finish nearly the rest of his soup, and there was a weighted feeling of... fear in your chest.

your heart was thumping, though not at a fast pace.

eric’s smile was floating around in your head, but the way younghoon looked at you when he said that name planted a seed inside you.

you worry for awhile if that seed meant anything at all.

“y/n, i have to be honest with you about something...”

the truffle bits melt in your mouth as you sit back.

“i didn’t dump you because i believed you were with the teacher.”

“oh,” a gentle giggle exits through your lips as you lean forward to get another fry. “i know that. you dumped me because you were sick of me always at lee hyunjae’s throat and we were always fighting--”

“no, i dumped you because i knew i wasn’t the person you needed.”

the muscles and nerves in your body halt, and your eyes slowly travel up from the fries to his.

“and i highly doubt this intern is going to be it either.”

the words come together in your head, but they felt so alien on your tongue.

“but you just said that he’s someone i want--”

“i was not what you needed, and he isn’t either. you want him, but you need someone else.”

a gulp pushes itself down your throat and your temples tighten as you pull away from the bowl of fries, and your eyes return to the bowl to finish whatever was left in it.

“i’ve got no clue how neither of you saw it, but there’s literally nobody else better for the two of you than each other.”

your lips either remain entertaining the spoon that was travelling in and out of your mouth, or pursed so tight, you cut off the blood circulation to them.

“the only reason why the two of you could do so well in school was because you had each other to push both ends. i had my fair share of interactions with lee hyunjae, i’m well-aware of the kind of person he is when he’s not trying to get one score higher than you, even when you’ve already scored full marks.”

“do you still want the rest of the fries? i--”

“y/n,” he pulls the leftover fries away from you, and you hiss childishly at his move.

“so don’t listen to me, but you’ve been avoiding talking about lee hyunjae for the last twenty four hours and believe me when i say this, if this was five years ago or any time before that, you wouldn’t have missed a second trying to convince me that he’s the shittiest person on earth.”

“maybe i just decided he’s not worth my time--”

“so why were you wearing a male’s dress shirt yesterday?”

oh, fuck.

“it could’ve been someone el--”

“and the foundation on your neck doesn’t do much under this lighting, especially since it’s been a long day for you.”

your face was heating up not because of the lamp above the table, but the fact that younghoon was able to see right through you.

even you couldn’t see through yourself.

“but whoever said it was him who di--”

“there’s literally nobody who would have the damn guts to do things like that to you besides him. i’m pretty sure not even your sunshine intern would do it if he’s as cheerful as you make him to be.”

stop.

“if it’s anything i learnt about you, it’s that you wouldn’t let a man do anything to show that he claims you.”

please stop talking.

“but someone’s gone ahead and did just that... and when i heard uncle talk about a doctor lee yesterday, it just... hit me.”

stop. talking.

he finally stops and returns you the fries that you no longer had the appetite of finishing.

“so, it wasn’t hyunjae. you haven’t said one bad thing about him since i saw you yesterday. tell me that if this was you five years ago, you would’ve done the same.”

i wouldn’t. because i hated him.

the silence starts to eat you out when the confusion sinks in even further.

why must he say all those things to mess you up even more?

there was nothing he said that wasn’t true, though you wished you could flat out deny everything.

but he’s seen it all without even telling him anything, and you start to wonder if it’s been there all along, but you chose to ignore it.

all you wanted was an aphrodite, but why does she seem like she’s drifting further and further away?

by the time younghoon returns you back to the safety of your house, he was well-aware that the conversation from before had some effect on you, for he pulls you into a tight hug after walking you to your door.

his scent wafts through your nose and you shut your eyes to take it all in.

what would it have been like had hyunjae not torn him away from you?

then again, younghoon was the one who tore himself away from you on his own accord.

“call me if you need anything. anything at all.”

he releases you, hands still on your shoulders.

“i’ll still love you the way i always did, but i know for a fact that i’m not the one you need in your life.”

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

Chapter XVII: Et Universum Parallel

A/N; welcome to hell guys this is where shit starts to roll i hope you guys are ready cause my ass isn’t LMAO.

#the boyz fanfic #the boyz #hyunjae #younghoon #timetohajima hostis

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of-another-broken-heart · 4 years ago

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I’m just going to copy/paste this because it took me hours and I’m drained.

I guess I have to format it again if I want it to show up at all...

I couldn't even make it back home before breaking down crying again.

Driving while chronically sleep deprived, exhausted, fatigued, and dissociating is bad enough. Doing it with all that AND without being able to see? How special.

I barely had time to sit down, my phone rang. I answered it, begging for someone to hear me. For thirty straight seconds. "Hello? Hello? Hello???" Finally someone spoke, but they couldn't hear me. I'm sobbing. They hung up. I scrambled to call back, from my computer, because at least then I'm not fighting a lack of reception as well as my anxiety. They called again. I didn't answer. I waited for my computer to ring through instead. I'm put on hold. I'm sobbing. It was just to ask what my pharmacy is. Which I already answered on my paperwork. Which I answered, again, at check-out. And I was forced into a third confirmation via a pointless, needless, anxiety-attack inducing phone call hazing. For something I already answered.

It's not fucking fun. People don't choose this. I didn't choose this. But does it matter? "Call," the command comes. "Just call." "Call to confirm." "Call to ask." "Call." "Call." "Call."

I want you to think of something that takes physical hold of your body and brings to you to tears. I want you to hold that and sit with it until it does those things. I want you to choose to reduce yourself to a sobbing mess, struggling to breathe, alone. And I want you to picture a world where you are commanded, demanded, required to do this. For virtually everything. Imagine needing help - but you must first re-traumatize yourself with your most painful memories until your nose is running and your eyes burn from crying. And you're exhausted for the rest of the day, too. Maybe multiple days. Absolutely exhausted. So fucking depleted that taking yourself to the bathroom is almost impossible. Feeding yourself - even eating something out of a can, or microwaved - is a herculean effort. Does that sound fun? Of course not.

As for the appointment itself: It's the same. Much better bedside manner. But it's the same underlying capitalism-serving "care" system. It's my fault. I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not blacking out alone on the side of the road enough. I haven't dissociated hard enough and/or blacked out while driving yet, so it can't be that bad, right? Not until I'm maimed or dead, right? Why address the root of a problem when we can just plaster on endless band-aids instead? When we can blame you for hurting, instead of the environment that's poisoning you? I'm not medically sedating myself into an obedient little wage slave, and that's the real problem. I should aspire to produce capital for someone with most of the remaining hours of my life. That's the purpose of living, that's the reason for "health"care - not to care about health, no, just to keep the wheels of capitalism well-oiled with wasted human life. Inherent human value? Quality of life? Nah.

They refused my medical history. I brought the 72-page pdf on a flash drive. Because that's how I was given it. Because I can't afford to buy and operate a personal fax machine and/or print out a chapter book's worth of pages of medical records. I went through the trouble of getting the files, and it took over a month - only to be told "we can't take anything but paper or fax." I filled out a file release form as best I could. But I didn't have the phone number or address memorized. Not even before that place became synonymous with medical neglect and trauma for me. So now they're going to go through the ancient months-long ritual of requesting the self-fucking-same documents from LISH, either by mail or fax, because they "can't" access a flash drive or a pdf or use email. Welcome to 2021. We're back to "normal" and teleheath never existed and the internet is fake and technology is a myth and why do anything efficiently when you can waste time and do damage to people instead? My Aunt called to check in on me during her lunch break. (Thank you again) She offered to get the file printed and try to hand it in for me. I'm too tired to hope. I'm too exhausted to think they'll accept it without fuss. Anything and everything to make things harder.

Top priority order of business is the whole "diseased for life" thing. Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hypothyroidism. Daily hormones for every day of the rest of forever, gatekept behind eternal doctor visits and prescriptions and pharmacies and copays and and and and did I mention this is forever? I've got a referral to have a thyroid sonogram done. Haven't ever had one of those before. Need to make that appointment. I was able to have my blood drawn for the thyroid testing without needing an additional appointment, which was a nice change of pace. Normally you're supposed to fast for that, but I wasn't expecting that could be done during the visit. Three years of having to make additional trips to the lab for blood work. I ate immediately before getting there, so hopefully nothing had a chance to metabolize and skew the results. Even though it was great not to have to juggle yet another appointment for health shit, it was stressful. The nurse took three tries before she had all the supplies she needed in the room. I already have anxiety spikes (which also raise my blood pressure and heart rate) for all doctor visits now. (White Coat Syndrome, I learned, it's called) I didn't need to have a rubber cable tied around my arm, popped off, tied again, popped off, and tied a third and final time to make it worse. A pro to that con: she was incredibly accurate and gentle. I normally have sub-dermal bleeding and some bruising after having blood drawn, and keep the bandage on for a day or two. The bandage didn't last even an hour after I got home - but there wasn't a single spot of trapped blood, and I almost couldn't even tell where she stuck me.

I have another new diagnosis to add to my growing collection. Hypertension. High blood pressure. I used to have slightly low blood pressure. It stunned the first doctor I ever saw (you know, because I'm fat, so that sort of thing is supposed to be ~impossible~) and it frustrated my last doctor at first, too. But now, with years of building stress and anxiety? It's almost like living with your most basic human needs barely provided (food, shelter, healthcare - let's not bring up social needs LMAO those don't count anyway, right?), and at constant risk of being taken away, for months (years, in some cases) on end, is some form of stress. It's almost like being constantly dismissed and told "you're just not trying hard enough" (WHILE TRYING YOUR BEST JUST TO SURVIVE EACH DAY) is some form of stress!It's almost like perpetual, ongoing, worsening stress has a negative impact on your heart! It's almost like there are decades of data that spell this out, plain as day!It's almost like I noticed my elevated heart rate back in NOVEMBER and mentioned it out of concern to my last doctor - who dismissed it outright because my reading in-office wasn't *that* bad, and also shouldn't I be on 5487 psych meds instead? If I was sedated out of my mind, I wouldn't be physically capable of feeling stress in my body despite the presence of real-world stress factors. That's healthy, right? Don't bother to solve the stressors, just neuter the body's response to them. Super healthy response. (Not) My GYN took note of my concern in December, when my vitals DID show as high in-office. Not that my GYN had the jurisdiction to do anything about it. I'm being put on another medication to try to mitigate this, and potentially also address some anxiety. I haven't picked it up yet. I don't know the name. I don't know if I'll be able to afford it. "Your copay is only a dollar!" Yes well, when you don't have a dollar, you can't afford a dollar, can you?

I was given a list of psychiatrists. To "Call!!"Precisely none of them are a reasonable distance away. Nearly half aren't even in my insurance network. Some explicitly exclude Medicaid. Others are exclusively for children. I was suggested a medication for depression and anxiety. I can't remember which one. Either Abilify or Lexapro? I declined it for now, either way. I wanted to be able to research it. Lexapro is just another SSRI and I already know those don't work for me. Adding a chemical bouncer to my brain to make sure the happy chemicals stay out to play doesn't help when there are no happy chemicals in the first place. A quick search for Abilify doesn't address anxiety at all so it was probably Lexapro. In which case, I am not interested in repeating a different-flavor-Prozac experience. It was not good. I didn't get any notes with that medication, regardless. I got a sticky note with "Valerian Root Extract (tea or tincture)" and "Magnesium Glycinate 2 capsules" scribbled on it, instead. Out-of-pocket home rem-maybes. I can't afford to experiment with snake oils, so mostly I'll probably just spend a bunch of time looking for data and research and studies for those substances, and that's it. If I get around to psychiatric care, I will have to start from scratch in my insurance's shoddy search tool, again. And, frankly, it's not a priority. My mental health struggles are the result of a lot of physical factors and external/social factors, and no amount of artificial chemicals bullying my brain is going to solve any of it. When your car starts leaking oil, you don't just commit to buying more oil forever and dribbling it all over, wherever you go. You fix the fucking leak. If your house has a gas leak, you don't invest in gas masks. You fix the fucking leak. If you end up with a burst pipe, you don't commit to wasting water and money and damaging your environment. You fix. The fucking. Leak. But in these comparisons, I'm getting prescribed oil and gas masks and infinite water damage/waste/bills as long-term care.

I mentioned my fatigue. It was the final straw that made me give up with the last doctor. It just keeps getting worse. It's been getting worse for over 3 years. And I'm so, so fucking tired of it getting pinned fully on the fact that I'm not on psych meds. I WAS on psych meds during part of those 3 years with my last doctor. And it didn't fucking make any difference! A daily chemical lobotomy does not address or restore my lack of physical energy. My decades-old medication-resistant insomnia has never vanished with psych meds before, and it's not likely to do it now. Especially not with yet another of the same family of chemicals that I already know don't work. I want my concern to be taken seriously. I don't want it just brushed into the mental health corner, again. Being too tired to even do the things you used to enjoy - no one fucking wants this! I don't want this! I miss being able to go for walks. I miss going to the gym. I miss seeing how much I could do, and feeling good, and feeling strong. And I can't do any of that now. Not without risking harming myself in the process.

No one wants this. I keep talking, but it feels like no one listens. At the earliest opportunity, we're back to repeating the same tired old shit that doesn't work. I try to come prepared, and the stress and time and system make sure I fail to stand up for myself anyway. I didn't get to document my disordered eating history. The relapse this year. Restricting, sometimes to the point of not eating at all. I declined to be weighed, because I want my care to be based on relevant data, vitals, blood results - not the shape and size of my body. But I was too tired to realize I needed to dodge a verbal ask for the same information. Which, it turns out, is nearly as bad a trigger as having the scale spit it out for me. Being your own advocate for equal care, when you're already tapped out? I'm not winning that challenge.

I'm frustrated. I'm not giving up, but I am frustrated and beyond tired. I don't really expect anyone to read this mess. But it's here.

#personal

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the-awkward-outlaw · 4 years ago

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A New Adventure - Pt. 8

Okay, y’all I know I been super absent on this piece. It’s not for lack of desire or care, I promise! It’s because when I started this, I was planning on using activities I did over this summer to inspire this, but then covid happened and I been stuck in my house all summer. K, excuses over. This one is extra fluffy with a side serving of even more fluff, so enjoy!

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Silver Lingings

Things have been different between you and Arthur. Since you told him some of your insecurities and he comforted you, things have been better.

You’ve never been able to easily open up to people but with Arthur, it’s different. Perhaps it’s because he’s the first person who’s told you to your face that he cares.

Arthur has been warmer towards you. Not that he wasn’t before. But he’s even moreso.

One day you come home from the store. You’d offered him to come, but he said he wanted to stay home, take a shower maybe.

You haul in the few sacks of groceries, remembering the one that has the refill on Arthur’s meds.

You’ve been doing some research on TB lately, as a way to try and help Arthur in his recovery. It’s not pretty to know that even today, well over a million people die a year from the disease, and those who recover are permanently damaged, their lungs scarred. Not only that, they suffer bouts of symptoms even though they no longer have the disease. Along with those is the fact that their immune system is greatly damaged and they’re more prone to other infections.

The moment you walk in, you hear whistling. Is that Arthur? It makes you smile.

When you get into the kitchen, he walks over and takes the groceries from you. “Let me help ya, darlin’.”

You blush at his nickname for you. How can he be so terrifying in the ways you’ve seen and even made him be in the game, and yet so sweet? He’s a complicated man, and unpredictable in the best ways.

He continues to whistle as he helps you put things away, and then he grabs the boxes of meds. You hear him give a heavy sigh.

It’s no secret that these medications have kicked his ass nearly as well as the disease itself.

“You okay?” you ask.

“Yeah. Just… don’t like these things. But I guess they’re better than the alternative.”

“I know. But hey, you’re halfway through. Only three more months.”

Arthur turns to look at you and leans his back on the counter. “These medicines have side effects, right?”

“Course. Pretty much every medication does. Why? You having some?”

He rubs the back of his neck, not looking at you. “Yeah. A few. Kind of… embarrassin’ though.”

“Arthur, it’s fine. My mother’s a nurse. She’s been a nurse longer than I been alive. Trust me, after hearing the things she saw, none of it really phases me.”

Arthur grunts and then tells you in vague details some of the things he’s dealing with. Tingling in his hands and feet, occasional joint pain, and then he mentions in an embarrassed way about how his body fluids have been colored more orange.

“Those are common, Arthur. Unfortunately nothing we can really do for most of them. You haven’t been drinking alcohol, have you?”

He grunts that he’s had a couple beers a week.

“Well, no more. That’s one reason why your body fluids have been discolored. It’s your liver doing it. And for your joint pain? That can be fixed with tylenol.”

After a few seconds, you add “You’ve been coughing less.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Been havin’ less pain in my lungs too.”

You can tell he’s a little put out by the discussion of his medical problems.

“Arthur, let’s do something fun this week. Even though covid is still strong, some places are starting to open up. We just have to reserve a spot ahead of time.”

“How do you do that?” he asks.

“Easy. Just by tickets on the internet.”

He grunts again and looks out the window. The internet, well, most electronic technology baffles him. You once caught him trying to literally pop your phone open to see what was inside. He’s been more gentle since you explained phones don’t open up unless you destroy them.

“Maybe. But… ain’t there places we can go we don’t have to reserve a place?”

“Sure,” you say. “There’s plenty of lakes and trails we can go on.”

He immediately perks up when you say that.

“Can we go to one of them places today?”

“Sure,” you say. “I know a nice little place.”

An hour later, you’re driving up one of the many canyons towards a place called Silver Lake near Brighton Ski Resort.

Arthur’s a bit baffled by your explanation of skiing. Even though you’ve lived in Utah your whole life (which reportedly has the greatest snow on earth) you’ve never been skiing or snowboarding. But you do your best to explain them.

Arthur’s mood greatly improves the further in the canyon you get. He loves how wild it is, even this close to the city. And the quiet. He loves it all.

You laugh when he gets particularly excited about seeing a moose cow standing in the marshes of a beaver’s pond, a heron sauntering nearby.

Because you know how unusual it is to see a moose, you pull over and roll down the windows so he can see.

The smell coming from the forest is intoxicating.

The drive to the lake is nearly an hour, and by the time you finally get there, Arthur’s smiling. It’s rather contagious.

However you have to catch yourself when you see how happy he is. It just makes him all that much more handsome. You’ve been trying to be so careful not to fall for him.

The air is nice and cool up here, a relieving reprieve from the triple degree heat down in the city.

Arthur’s donned his leather hat and blue shirt for this walk. It looks great out here and even though there’s some people, no one will think anything of his outfit.

The hike around the lake is very easy and is a good hour walk if you take your time. Perfect for Arthur as it won’t irritate his lungs.

The path lies right against the shores of the lake, which is not any larger than lake Owanjilla in the game, and also quite shallow.

As you walk along the boardwalk on the marshy end of the lake, Arthur stops and looks over the railing. There, you can both easily see minnows hiding in the reeds.

Once you hit the trees, Arthur looks around. There’s no one around.

He shocks you by taking your hand in his and just holding it as you both walk. You can’t help but smile up at him.

At the halfway point of the lake, there is a bench on the trail. It has a great lookout on the lake and you can even see Mickey Mouse mountain, a curious mountain with a permanent bald spot that forms the shape of the famous mouse’s head.

You and Arthur sit on the bench and say nothing. There is nothing that needs to be said here at this moment. It’s so quiet and calm, to say anything would spoil it.

Arthur unleashes your hand, to which you feel sad about. You’d really been enjoying it.

Then he surprises you. He feins scratching the back of his neck and then his arm drapes along the back of the bench behind you.

It’s getting harder and harder to control yourself around him, and you find that you’re really not wanting to anymore.

With the encouragement of the solitude and Arthur’s arm draped behind you, it’s not long before you’re leaning into his side and resting your head on his shoulder.

Only seconds after you get into this position, you feel Arthur’s arm winding around you.

Is this real? Are you cuddling with Arthur Morgan? The Arthur Morgan?

It feels real, and it feels right.

Just as you’re beginning to truly appreciate the beauty of the lake and the forest, Arthur speaks up.

“I was afraid places like this wouldn’t be around anymore.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, in that city. It’s so big and loud and… unnatural. Mostly big though. I was beginning to think man had truly driven any kind of wildness out.”

“Well, we mostly have. But we also know the value of places like this. If we destroy them, we destroy ourselves.”

Arthur sighs and falls silent for a moment. When he speaks up again, he takes you off guard.

“Thank you, darlin’. For bringin’ me here. This is the best kind of medication.”

You look up at him and are about to say “you’re welcome” when you’re stopped by his smile, the light in his eyes. That’s one thing the game failed to do despite being so detailed and lifelike. It failed to capture how truly beautiful and alive his eyes are.

Just as you’re about to speak, Arthur closes the few inches between your faces and places his lips on yours.

To say your heart stops is an understatement. How long have you thought of doing this with him? Much longer than you’ve known him, that’s for sure.

His lips are better than you could have ever imagined. They’re not chapped (though that might be because you introduced him to chapstick), but warm and alive. Your hand leaves his knee and slides up his chest and to his neck.

His free hand does the same, gently settling on your back to bring you closer.

After a few seconds, Arthur pulls away. “Sorry, darlin’. That was… unwarranted.”

You blush and smile. “Arthur, did it feel like I didn’t want it?”

He smiles back. “Then… would you mind for a second?”

You answer him by bringing your lips right back to his. This one is more fervent, more sure.

It’s during this kiss you really begin to appreciate him, his body. How he feels, how he smells.

Though a lot of his wild scent has been tamed by your home, he still holds onto some of it. That hint of leather, gun powder, tobacco. It’s like it’s been ingrained into his very skin.

You don’t know it, but Arthur is appreciating the way you smell and feel too.

He’s longed to feel you pressed against him like this since not long after he first met you. Oh, how he wished to do something like this with you during that earthquake.

When he’d held you in his arms that night, oh it had felt so right, so pure. So good that he knew he didn’t deserve it.

But this. Kissing you, holding you, bathed in the shade and the perfume of the pines. It’s beyond perfect.

He doesn’t care that he thinks he’s too bad of a man for someone as good and kind as you. He just wants to revel in this moment.

You’re both still deep in the kiss when you hear voices approaching from down the trail, and some of them belong to children.

The two of you quickly break apart, but not before the man in the family sees you both smooching.

He gives you both a hearty wink while the mother looks rather disapproving as they pass.

You can’t help but smile as you blush, still nestled in Arthur’s arm.

He rubs your back soothingly while the family passes.

After a short while, the two of you decide it’s time to head back to the car and go home.

Arthur holds your hand every second, and even sometimes brings your hand to his lips.

Towards the end of the walk, the boardwalk allows people to walk out to nearly the center of the lake to either fish or look down into the water.

You and Arthur head down it, finding yourselves alone on the planks though people can be seen on the trail still.

Once there, Arthur takes you in his arms and kisses you again. This surprises you as you always took him to be a very private man who was not a fan of pdo.

However, he doesn’t seem to care in this moment. Neither do you, so you loop your arms around his neck and press yourself into the kiss.

Arthur chuckles when the kiss ends. “Sorry, had to do that. The sun hit your hair, made it so pretty. Just… had to kiss ya.”

You smile and kiss the tip of his nose. “You can kiss me any time you want, Mr. Morgan.”

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x female reader #red dead fanfic #a new adventure #i'm awkward

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remys-lucky-franc · 4 years ago

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Asthma - Queen of Thieves (Leon x MC)

Based on a prompt from @simpsonjenna1 : Can you do a fic for QOT LI of your choice where the MC finds out she is sick- whether its few months to live or something she has to live with the rest of her life. Decides to keep it to herself and go through it on her own. How would the LI help her through it after convincing her to confide with them once they notice something is wrong?

I decided to do HC’s for this instead - I hope this is ok and you enjoy it! 💕

1100 Words

TW - medical / illness

So I picked asthma, because I have it and I know a little about it. It’s always portrayed in films as something that only nerds have (Eddie from IT, Leonard from Big Bang, Snot from American Dad - I could go on...) and always a joke? Kinda bugs me, because literally anyone can have asthma and there really isn’t much hilarity in a breathing problem that could kill you... So I’ve tried to write this in a more informative than comedic kinda way... 👌

These aren’t the only symptoms / causes / treatments of Asthma, so if you’re interested to learn more about it, I’ve added a couple of links here here here here and here

[MORE] [[MORE]]

—-

She first notices it in Paris during a bitter winter: it feels like she can’t take a complete breath in, and when she tries, her chest aches. It isn’t an extreme feeling or she’s like suffocating, but she knows it’s not right. She also notices that she’s more breathless than normal when she has to climb stairs, or if she has to run anywhere, and that she’s developed a cough.

MC decides that she wants to get things checked out, but she doesn’t want to worry Leon - at least not until she’s sure there’s something to be worried about. She makes a doctors appointment to discuss her symptoms.

The doctor sends MC for blood tests and a chest x-ray to check there’s nothing more sinister, like a growth, causing her breathlessness. She’s sure that nothing will show up, but as she sits in the waiting room, she fidgets with her phone, finger hovering over Leon’s number. There’s a tiny little part of her that’s scared ‘what if?’, and wants her husband there to hold her hand.

The doctor confirms that both her bloods and her chest are clear, as he’d suspected. He thinks that Adult Onset Asthma is the most likely explanation. MC’s face falls. ‘Asthma? Isn’t that pretty serious? People spend weeks in hospital with asthma attacks? Some people die from asthma attacks...’

The doctor gives MC some pamphlets on Asthma and asks her to keep a Peak Flow Diary - he shows her the device and how to record her scores - the best out of three puffs every morning - and makes an appointment to see her again in a month, reassuring her that it’s likely a mild case, possibly triggered by cold weather or stress.

MC hides the pamphlets and the Peak Flow Meter in her bag. She doesn’t want Leon to see them. She doesn’t want to upset him, and nothing’s even confirmed yet... When he notices she’s quiet that night, he asks what’s up but she shrugs off the question. After he’s asleep she sneaks back out to the common room to read about Asthma in the pamphlets and scares herself silly looking at WebMD.

MC checks her readings each morning, and they’re always the same - around 320. The doctor had reckoned that was on the low side, he said 400 was normal for a female her age and build, but no matter how hard she puffs she can’t move the gage any higher. She starts to worry that having a breathing problem is going to affect her position in The Poppy - what if they need to make a run for it and she can’t keep up?

Leon know there’s something bothering MC, and gives her plenty of opportunities to tell him, but doesn’t push her - he knows that whatever it is, she’ll tell him in her own time. But he’s concerned and keeping a close eye on her: she’s definitely got something on her mind, and it’s not like her to be secretive...

Around ten days later, the cat is finally let out of the bag - or rather, the cat lets everything out of the bag - when Elizabeth jumps onto the breakfast bar in the penthouse kitchen, swiping MC’s bag off the edge and scattering the contents. Leon is perched on a stool reading a newspaper and as he hops down to help MC scoop up her belongings, he sees the leaflets about Asthma, and the Meter...

At first Leon feels hurt, asking, “Why didn’t you come and talk to me about this, sweetheart? I thought we were a team, we handle things together.” But when she bursts into tears explaining that she didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily, he bundles her into a big hug, smoothing her hair and all he cares about is making her feel better. And she actually does now that she’s not hiding it anymore and can talk about her concerns!

Leon is the perfect husband between finding out and MC’s next doctor’s appointment. He provides emotional support, great hugs and breakfasts in bed. He also joins in, having MC show him how to take his own Peak Flow readings daily: of course, his consistently come in over 700, which MC shakes her head at, “What did you expect? Look at how big and strong you are!”

Leon carries out some internet research of his own, telling MC that exercise can help with asthma as it strengthens the lungs, so she’s not lying in bed avoiding joining him when he trains in future... He also finds some yoga poses that help to relieve symptoms and offers to try some yoga with together.

Leon insists on attending the next doctor’s appointment with MC, where the doctor prescribes a reliever inhaler that will relax her airways and allow her to breathe more easily, plus a preventer to calm any inflammation that’s making her symptoms worse. Leon asks if they can have a double prescription - he wants to keep a spare set in the car, just in case.

The doctor shows MC how to take the inhalers properly, tells her to keep track of her Meter readings once taking the meds, and books in a follow up appointment for two week’s time.

On the way home, MC quietly thanks Leon for being there and supporting her, which makes him laugh, because where else would he be?

Within a couple of weeks of taking the prescribed inhalers, MC’s symptoms have almost disappeared and the doctor is satisfied. She’s feeling much happier and less worried about the future than before. Her daily readings have jumped from 320 to 410 and she’s even been sticking to Leon’s exercise plan a couple of times a week. She decides that no matter what happens in the future, medically or otherwise, she’s not going to keep any more secrets from her husband...

#lovestruck headcanons #queen of thieves #leon x mc

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healthtech102 · 4 years ago

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After Hours Medical Advice

As you know, and certain have in mind every day, nursing is a career that carries a huge amount of duty. Be sure to guard your self, especially when asked for advice in an informal setting.

No, Uncle Bob has cornered you within the hallway after Christmas dinner. In trying back, I realize that not as soon as during this experience did anyone INVITE me into a discussion of what could be best for my mother.

She spent two nights in the hospital beneath remark, with IV hydration. Now, admittedly, she has varying levels of dementia even on a good day, but she reached the point of getting severe hallucinations and paranoia.

Having a whole remedy group looking out for you and preparing a discharge plan that is going to set you up for achievement. 90 days of therapy allows for the affected person to work via many of the above mentioned considerations and we treat it using an American Society of Addiction Medicine dimensional assessment.

The general size of keep in remedy that is really helpful is often ninety days. Health safety and prevention is the key to staying healthy for the long haul. From easy blood checks and vaccines now to mammograms and colonoscopies later, your doctor might help you turn into the healthiest model of you.

Although it might appear to be a problem now, one hour in a physician’s workplace now can add years of health to your life. When we have well being questions and considerations, it’s easy to show to good ol’ WebMD for answers. And even though the Internet can be a great well being useful resource, reading about your health points online can usually lead to pointless fear and fear. Remember, you might be unique and deserve a customized evaluation.

So instead of browsing the web for a generic, or even worse, incorrect answer, talk to a doctor in particular person to get the total image—and to cease dropping sleep over your questions (see reason number 5!). While I’ll be the primary to confess that a trip to the gynecologist’s workplace isn’t my favourite way to spend a day, annual pelvic exams are a important a part of any girl’s preventative health care.

Will we have to battle the battle of keyword voids at a grassroots degree, wrangling with the asymmetry of passion by tapping folks to search out these voids and create counter-content material? Do we need to arrange counter-GoFundMe campaigns to pay for ad campaigns that promote real science?

Do not rely on a form’s basic remark that “risks of leaving were discussed with the patient,” he says. That doesn't negate the value of those documents, however they should not be the sum complete of the hospital’s evidence displaying efforts to provide care.

First, the hospital must reconcile any excellent diagnostics, as a result of if any checks had been ordered, the hospital is still liable for checking the results to make certain nothing critical was identified, he says.

Despite our protests, she saved making an attempt to pull out the IV fluid line from her arm and the gizmo , and tugged at her gown. The paper-thin pores and skin on her arms was black and blue from a number of blood attracts. Successful treatment begins with an correct diagnosis, and our experts take the time to get it right.

A team of specialists will listen to your needs and evaluate your condition from each angle to make the very best plan for you. Every year, more than one million individuals come to Mayo Clinic for care.

If witnessed by RN, have them doc the time the patient left in addition to the standing of their IV. If an IV is still in place, first try to contact the affected person after which their emergency contact.

From all the information you've gathered from the Internet and your research, it's time for you to go to your physician with this data and get to know the details. It is important to decide on doctors with whom you're feeling snug.

The level of questioning I got in response to my advice was almost insulting at times. In my head, I advised these callers, “If you trusted me sufficient to name me together with your ailment, why aren’t you trusting my opinion?

Our highly specialized experts are deeply skilled in treating rare and complex circumstances. I actually have been put in this identical position so many times, that I lastly, like you, needed to tell them to contact their supplier or go to the ER/Urgent Care.

I owned a small household follow clinic and some would actually present up there quite than going to their PCP or ER. I do perceive how onerous it is to tell them to go to their PCP’s, but I believe that is the proper motion. We love our family and pals and do not need to see them ill or in ache, however we additionally want them to obtain goal care.

I actually have been practicing as a Nurse and APP for over 15 years now and have found, for me, robust boundaries come with time. You don’t have a look at them as patients, but as whomever they are to you.

YOUR ability to want them to be OK and not be as goal as you'd be with a affected person. Another disagreeable facet effect of trying to assist was the pushback I received.

doctor certification, from the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and checked performance towards historic outcomes from an independent 2015 examine that evaluated several symptom checkers. symptom checker seems as a chatbot that users can work together with by way of an app or web site. When the consumer varieties out their primary symptoms as a quick sentence or phrase, the symptom checker asks questions about possible related signs.

According to the NIH, 30-40% of Americans report having occasional symptoms of insomnia and 10-15% report persistent issue sleeping—with ladies representing nearly all of those affected.

While you could assume that a poor night’s sleep simply means you’ll need an extra cup of espresso in the morning, chronic sleep problems can actually improve the lengthy-time period threat of hypertension, melancholy, and diabetes. treatment medical disclaimer A physician’s visit can help identify attainable underlying causes for your restless nights—and get you the help you should truly get some zzzs.

Does your family have a history of diabetes, excessive cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, or another significant illness? If so, you could be at risk for these conditions, too—and there are likely issues you can do to decrease that danger. A doctor may help you find out and work with you to determine which screening exams you want.

"Casual" could exit the window, if the individual you advise feels you have triggered them harm; together with your recommendation or deeds. State legal guidelines differ greatly and litigation can truly change the legal guidelines as time passes. So as a nursing skilled, even if your action or advice was justifiable, there isn't a safety from being sued . You might prevail and be discovered "not liable" if sued, but by then you'll have gone by way of plenty of wasted time and pointless stress.

They might help detect vaginal infections, together with sexually transmitted ailments , and should often embody a PAP smear for cervical cancer screening. Although you might have heard about some current adjustments to screening recommendations, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force nonetheless wants women between the ages of 21 to 65 to get a Papanicolaou test (a.k.a. PAP smear) a minimum of each three years (or more incessantly when you’ve ever had abnormal results).

The lawsuit claimed that Dr M had failed to recognize the patient’s skull fracture and improperly released him when he was intoxicated, and that the delay in treating the fracture was attributable for approximately half of the affected person’s neurological deficits. Later that day, a hospital radiologist learn the affected person’s x-ray and famous a markedly depressed left parietal cranium fracture.

Or will the tech platforms where that is occuring start to grasp that giving legitimacy to health misinformation by way of high search and social rankings is profoundly dangerous? Getting excessive-quality, fact-based well being information shouldn’t be dependent on the result of SEO video games, or on who has extra assets for pay-to-play content promotion. few hours of a newborn’s life, medical doctors administer a vitamin K shot.

This is as a result of infants are born with out sufficient of the vitamin, and the child wants a boost to prevent any potential bleeding. The documentation also should detail the discussion with the affected person regarding potential risks from leaving AMA, Merkrebs says.

The reasons for refusing additionally may be wide-ranging, every little thing from worries about the price to concern about ache or dying, or dislike of being touched, photographs, surgical procedure, or drugs. Once a affected person is examined beyond triage and exams are ordered, a departure at that time could be classified as left without completing remedy , Klauer notes.

Patients leaving the emergency room too soon “are intentionally putting themselves at extra danger for morbidity and even mortality,” Polevoi stated — a degree echoed by other physicians. Ko stated the column will proceed as long as individuals want to study totally different health subjects. Connect with a medical skilled everytime you need one, 24/7, for customized recommendation and prescription, if deemed necessary.

At the end, the symptom checker identifies possible causes and recommends a course of action, similar to reserving a video consultation with a human physician or going to a hospital. The patient and his family consulted with a plaintiff’s attorney who agreed to take the case. Dr M was shocked to find out that he was being sued for medical malpractice.

Within each of these kinds of AMA, there may be further breakdowns when it comes to why the person is leaving, he notes. The affected person might not want any care of any type, or the refusal could also be extra limited — refusing the particular kind of care being provided, as an example, but still willing to be handled.

That's to not say all of the internet is unhealthy, it is okay to make use of Google for health questions when you use a credible supply and if it prompts you to go to your doctor should you could have considerations. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Author makes no representations or warranties with respect to any Information offered or offered within or via the Site relating to treatment of medical circumstances, motion, or software of treatment.

“When sufferers convey themselves into the ED, they are seen in about 5 minutes by a qualified registered nurse and, on common, are seen by a supplier within 30 minutes of arrival,” Thomas mentioned in a press release.

From 2012 to 2017, the variety of emergency room encounters in Fresno County elevated by nearly ninety five,000, or 37%. At Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center, about 9% of ER encounters ended with a patient leaving too quickly, greater than 3 times the statewide fee.

If no success, contact the police non-emergently to aid in finding the affected person. In this situation, the patient has not but interacted with a doctor. There isn't much to do here as long as the provider by no means met the patient, if so, they might be in a different category.

There are no known instances the place the ED, or ED Providers, have been sued and located to be at fault or responsible for an end result. We recognized people ages with International Classification of Diseases, 9thRevision prognosis codes for infective endocarditis within the National Inpatient Sample, a representative pattern of United States hospitalizations from January 2010 to September 2015.

We plotted unadjusted quarter-year developments for AMA discharges and used multivariable logistic regression to establish elements associated with AMA discharge among IE hospitalizations, evaluating IDU-IE to non-IDU-IE.

The police were notified, and the patient was taken from jail back to the hospital. At the hospital, he was monitored for a number of hours and then taken to surgical procedure where the depressed fracture fragments have been elevated. However, Mr G ended up suffering a brain injury from the fracture which affected his cognitive talents, and which prevented him from with the ability to hold down a job. The police knowledgeable Dr M that the patient, a 24-yr old named Mr G, had been the perpetrator of an assault and in the process was hit within the head with a blunt object by a bystander.

The police had been called, and found him mendacity on the street, clearly intoxicated and with a bloodied head. They took him to the ED, however Mr G was uncooperative and initially refused any treatment. When most individuals hear these words, they're whispered by an overcoated stranger on the bus or a counterfeit Prada peddler gesturing towards the trunk of a car.

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needthread2 · 4 years ago

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The Problem With Ostarine.

Glycopeptides.

Content

Puori Cp1 Pure Collagen Peptides (300g).

Key Information & Overview:.

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Peptide Highlights.

Throughout these researches no adverse effects such as testosterone reductions or estrogen conversion happened. However, some people did have mild altitudes of liver enzymes (roughly 20%) and unfavorable changes of serum lipids (HDL down 27%). With the majority of the clients these levels were still considered within normal array as well as not a high or even mild cardiovascular threat. Ostarine is one of the most prominent SARM on the planet, although it is non-steroidal it is carefully related to anabolic/androgenic in its task. As it effectively promotes most significantly the Androgen Receptor in skeletal muscle and also bone.

In one study involving postmenopausal women, a SARM called GSK triggered a breakout in one ladies as well as no negative effects in any type of other participants. In one more study on 76 healthy and balanced males, the SARM LGD-4033 caused no unfavorable effects in any one of the guys after 21 days of dosing. While there's no "safest SARM" scientists understand of, the study on LGD-4033 recommends it is among the best. When you acquire SARMs UK products, you know you're obtaining the best SARM study chemicals, with clear details concerning each SARM included. We provide 10% off your order when paying with bitcoin or bank transfer, and also we ship by Royal Mail and worldwide shipping. You can comfortably purchase SARMs on the internet no matter where you live, but not all SARMs up for sale online have the same top quality standards. To stay clear of acquiring poor-quality knockoff items, be sure to purchase from a reputable seller as well as avoid getting SARMs from basic marketplaces on the internet such as Amazon or ebay.com.

Puori Cp1 Pure Collagen Peptides (300g).

We do not supply any kind of suggestions on the usage of these items as UK Law prevents this. Consumers ought to check the legitimacy of this item in their own country prior to acquire. The manufacture and also circulation of the raw materials to make SARMs was outlawed in China from 1st January 2020. The overwhelming majority of supplement active ingredients come from China, with a particular niche like SARMs it's going to be someplace between 89-99% of raw materials. Due to this till a brand-new nation decides to get the torch the SARM items on the marketplace will become fewer and also much in between as well as may also disappear entirely. The negative effects for S4 can be taken into consideration above the various other SARMs discussed as the remarkable reported side effect is night loss of sight and/or a yellow color to your vision throughout the day.

Info on its real communications with humans is based upon observation and story and so far, it suggests that S4 does generate recognizable gains in LBM and stamina together with substantial weight loss. MK-677 is likewise most likely to boost cortisol, ACTH and prolactin levels, however most of the time this spill over is not visible to the user. The S23 SARM is a SARM, developed by GTx, Inc as a potential male birth control. Yes, the purpose of this is absolutely nothing to do with muscular tissue and stamina but to do with your sperm. It binds to the AR much more highly than the older SARMs such as Anadrine.

Crucial Details & Overview:.

Neither had Jimmy Wallhead, a Ultimate Fighting Championship competitor based in Loughborough, UK. Yet he was approved with a nine month ban after a supplement he had used was found to consist of the material. Biosci AbstractsBioscientifica Abstracts is the gateway to a series of items that provide a permanent, citable record of abstracts for biomedical and also life science seminars. I have purchased twice with this business and both times the product has actually shown up the following day, I even entered my address wrong as well as they corrected it for me without sending. I can verify that UK SARMS is the only area you should be purchasing your PDs, why is straightforward, pure quality item, as well as great price, you obtain what you pay for people, also truthful fast next day shipping.

Does peptides cause hair loss?

Hair loss, as a common problem and by age 50, pattern hair loss affects about half of all males and a quarter of all females. Scientists may have found a cure using Cu-GHK, a peptide that was discovered to regrow hair with effects comparable to that of Minoxidil in treating androgenic alopecia.

" I had only altered two items in my training before that test. I changed by BCAA amino acids, which I purchased from a store in Loughborough. I likewise got a healthy protein pancake mix, which I carry an extremely rare occasion as a morning meal choice. Wallhead is a UFC boxer, so is controlled by USADA, despite being based in the UK ... Regrettably, none of this helps Jimmy Wallhead, who was blindsided via use a supplement that really did not list ostarine as a component on the tag. Wallhead has actually been signed to the UFC, which is not a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, for regarding 18 months. USADA consented to run the UFC's anti-doping program on 1 July 2015, an arrangement that was applauded by WADA. Unless you are a drug store or an anti-doping official, the chances are that you won't have actually come across ostarine.

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Young men as well as ladies are being lured into making use of a new "secure" muscle-building medication regardless of clinical fears over possibly deadly side-effects. A supplement belonging to the SARM group with a strong anabolic result and a limited danger of adverse effects. Lauren Barnett approved a six-month sanction, after the Globe Triathlon Firm accepted that her ostarine AAF resulted from a polluted salt tablet computer. Beth McKenzie approved a two-year sanction, as although the WTC concurred that her intake of ostarine was unintentional, she could not definitively verify that her ostarine AAF was because of infected salt tablet computers. A fast search on the UFC/USADA net site exposes supports Wallhead's claim that the UFC has actually managed six ostarine situations throughout the last year and also 8 in total amount. A search on the USADA website exposes 16 ostarine ADRVs in the previous year alone-- none of which include UFC competitors. " They did offer me a nine month ban as well as I obtain it, I understand it", he stated.

AmbioPharm Opens New Shanghai Campus - Contract Pharma

AmbioPharm Opens New Shanghai Campus.

Posted: Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:20:18 GMT [source]

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A dramatically greater intramuscular fat content of the quadriceps femoris muscle mass was observed in the OVX+LG 4 team compared to the Non-OVX group. In OVX rats, the fat material of the muscle mass did not differ from that in the other groups. All four OVX groups revealed a considerably higher GM weight than in the Non-OVX group. Treatment with a high dosage of LG resulted in a considerably greater GM weight than in the OVX and also OVX+LG 0.04 groups.

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It manages the glycolysis as well as is consequently important for the cell metabolic rate of all neighboring cells under anaerobic conditions. Complicated I is the initial enzyme in the breathing chain in the mitochondrial membrane and essential for the typical cell performance. https://peptides-uk.com/bpc157/italy/ revealed that the intermediate dose of LG led to a higher task of CS than in the OVX team in the GM and also a higher activity of LDH than in the Non-OVX as well as OVX+LG 4 in the LM. OS had less result on muscle mass enzyme task, showing a higher CS task in OVX+OS 4 team than in the OVX group in the LM. Whereas, an elevated CS task is a pen for a boosted cardiovascular ability, a boosted task of both enzymes, LDH and CS, appears to be needed for a rapid muscle healing. Elevation of these enzyme activities complying with administration of SARMs could indicate an improved muscle mass feature. Additionally, the present research revealed that product CK as an indication of muscle mass damage was not impacted by either OS or LG.

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There are no researches reporting in vivo results of OS as well as LG on postmenopausal muscle framework as well as metabolism. The aim of the here and now research was to check out the impact of OS and LG on the muscle cells of ovariectomized rats as the conventional design for postmenopausal conditions. The OS effect on bone tissue and animal design as a component of Experiment I has been recently released. Hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal females is connected with extreme adverse effects, such as an enhanced threat of coronary heart problem, breast cancer, stroke, as well as venous thromboembolism. Nonetheless, it is still one of the most reliable treatment for postmenopausal signs and symptoms and for meticulously chosen ladies, benefits could exceed dangers. Careful estrogen receptor modulators have beneficial effects on the musculoskeletal system like estrogen, they have fewer unfavorable events on busts and also the womb. Nonetheless, they are still associated with venous thromboembolism and also stroke.

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Transcript - 48. A 100% Patient Fatality Rate

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Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today we're talking about medicine and medical practitioners in Star Trek.

Liz: Which turned out to be a really popular topic when you posted about it on Instagram [Liz means Twitter]. We had a lot of discussion.

Anika: Yes, I'm excited that people were interested and wanted to pick their favourite doctors.

Liz: Medicine is very much on people's mind, and it plays a very big part in Star Trek.

Anika: I have seen a lot of, you know, "which Starfleet doctor would you want to deal with the pandemic, or who's most likely to come up with the vaccine?" and stuff like that.

Liz: I'm gonna say, all of them, because we want to throw as much brain power as we can at this problem.

Anika: I mean, I think that's why I was interested in doing it. You can't avoid it, so you might as well look at it from an interesting Star Trek perspective.

Liz: Yeah! And I had proposed that we do this episode as a deep dive into the character of Christine Chapel, which I still think we should do one day, but Women at Warp did the same thing very recently. So I can have my nursing in Star Trek rant in this episode instead.

Anika: That's right.

Liz: You've set out a very nice list of doctors, the doctors from each series: McCoy, Boyce, M'Benga, Crusher, Pulaska, Selar, Bashir, the EMH, Phlox, Culber, Pollard, the--

Anika: The Rios EMH.

Liz: The Rios EMH and Agnes Jurati. And it's sort of interesting how, in modern 21st century Trek, the role of the doctor seems to have declined.

Anika: Yes! In Discovery, we still don't know who the chief medical officer is on that ship.

Liz: I thought it was Tracy Pollard.

Anika: I thought so, too, but then other people came and said that she wasn't the CMO, she was just another doctor.

Liz: Oh.

Anika: So I don't really know. But if she is, she's not a regular. Culber wasn't even a regular in the first season.

Liz: And none of his arcs are really about him as a doctor.

Anika: Medicine at all, no.

Liz: Which is not a criticism! But it would be cool to have more of his profession in the third season, and more of Dr Pollard. And the CMO, if that's a different character.

Anika: It makes sense for both Deep Space 9 and Voyager for there to be only one doctor--

Liz: Does it make sense for Deep Space 9?

Anika: Well -- okay, it makes sense for there to be only one Starfleet doctor on Deep Space 9. Because it's a Starfleet outpost on another station, a Bajoran station. It's not a Starfleet thing. And, Voyager, they all died. So those make sense. And Enterprise, they didn't even have a doctor. Phlox isn't even really a part of Starfleet. He randomly joined the crew. It's very strange.

Liz: Is he even qualified to treat humans?

Anika: Is he even a doctor?

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: As far as I can tell, he could have easily been, like, a PhD in biochemistry or something, and got on board and was like, "I wanna do research on you guys."

Liz: Yeah, "This is totes ethical, by the way."

Anika: And they were like, "Okay, sure. Here, have our sickbay."

Liz: I have a theory about the decline of the doctor as a presence in Star Trek. Because this is almost the only franchise where we can trace this development down the decades. So you start with McCoy, and Crusher, and these are sort of the eras when Americans had a family doctor, and had better access to healthcare. So as your healthcare system evolved, and changed, and became more difficult to access, the doctors reduce in numbers on the ship, and become less accessible. Medicine is less accessible to the crew, except through emergency things like holograms.

Anika: Yeah, and you have to -- so the EMHs are the only doctors we have in the most future Star Treks, right? So it's like, they've actually been replaced by holographic doctors. And this is where I bring up that, in Star Wars -- which is not -- it's futuristic, but also not futuristic, but I've always found it really interesting and odd that there are no doctors in Star Wars, they are all droids.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: Every medic is a droid. It's like they just stopped having human contact for practitioners.

Liz: Wasn't there a doctor played by Harriet Walter in The Force Awakens, who's sort of flirting with Chewy?

Anika: Yes, but I think that's a cut scene. I don't think that scene's actually in the movie. Or, if it is, it's only a couple of lines, and the full scene is in the--

Liz: It's very brief.

Anika: There is a larger scene. But that's the Resistance, and certainly, by -- once you get to The Last Jedi, they have no--

Liz: Resources.

Anika: Nothing, they have literally nothing. So in The Force Awakens, it's like, they had -- so she's like an old school actual human doctor that they convinced to join their ragtag group, that's what I get out of it. It's just interesting. I'm not saying that -- it's this weird, "In the future, we won't have doctors, we'll just have holograms or droids." And it's sort of like, now that we're in this pandemic, where you can't go see your doctor unless it's an emergency, and you just see them over the internet, I can see how teledoc is going to become droids and holograms.

Liz: I can see that!

Anika: It makes sense. Not in a good way. I think that we need to keep the human parts of doctoring. But I get it, I get why science fiction is sort of playing with that reality.

Liz: And it's in even a thing in The Expanse, where there's no doctor on the Rocinante, there's a computer system which can do surgery and dispense medicine, and then, on bases and so forth--

Anika: And WebMD is taking over.

Liz: Yeah! And so human doctors are a supplement. Anyway, that's my grand theory about the decline of the role of the doctor in Star Trek.

And you also see, kind of, the way our conception of the doctor changes, from the doctor as bartender with Boyce, and the friendly neighbourhood gruff old man of McCoy, to the much more nurturing figure of Crusher, and then sort of the male ego with Bashir and the EMH.

And then Phlox -- I love Phlox, he's actually one of my favourite characters on Enterprise, but I have so much trouble fitting him into the role of doctor. And I think it's like you said, I don't know that he is a doctor. [laughs]

Anika: I don't think he's a doctor! I think he has a PhD. And he's a research scientist. I really see Phlox as more of a research scientist than an actual medical practitioner. Which is interesting, and I agree that he's a great character, but I wouldn't want him treating me.

Liz: I think this was part of the discussion on Twitter, that a lot of these characters are wonderful, wonderful characters, but would you want them to be treating you at all? And, uh, yeah, I have a list of Star Trek doctors who I would as my doctor. And in order, it goes, Crusher, Pulaski, Culber, McCoy, Bashir, the holographic doctor, Phlox. And I didn't -- I completely forgot about the EMH on La Sirena and Agnes, because Agnes doesn't practise medicine. She has a medical degree, but she doesn't practise.

Anika: It's sort of like, she is the doctor on that show? She doesn't actually do doctoring, but--

Liz: She has a 100% fatality rate with her patients!

Anika: [laughs] So my notes for -- I wrote out the list for us, and then I put in a little bit for each person, and my note for Jurati is just, "Jurati -- LOL".

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: That's it!

Liz: It sort of annoys me that she has a medical degree, because I think Alison Pill is too young to play a character with two doctorates. But--

Anika: It could be an MD-PhD, where you get them at the same time.

Liz: No! Because she already has her medical degree when she hooks up with what's his face as his grad student.

Anika: Well, then, I agree with you, it's stupid. [laughs] It's also, like, in the future, apparently, everyone gets their college degrees when they're twelve, or whatever, and then they join -- whatever, it's fine.

Liz: I'm going to assume -- I'm going to headcanon that she finished high school at 16, went straight to the Academy, and only -- and did the whole medical thing, and then belatedly realised she did not want to be in space. And I still wonder why they let her in, but uhhhhh, I guess it's like the Sorting Hat, and people's psychology changes as they grow up?

Anika: Who knows?

Liz: Who even knows?

Anika: Imagine Jurati taking her no-win scenario test to get into the Academy. It would be a mess.

Liz: I thought that one was to graduate?

Anika: Well, no, because in -- Wesley takes that one to get into Starfleet Academy--

Liz: Oh yeah! The psychological test.

Anika: --and he has to prove that he can make a decision and choose someone who has to die. Which is like -- apparently, that is the number one way to test someone? Because that happens to Troi, it happens to Wesley, it happens to everybody in the actual no-win scenario Kobayashi Maru test. It's like, whatever!

Liz: I feel like that particular test was tailored for Wesley, like, it's different for everyone, and with the way Wesley's father died, that's what he needed.

Anika: Yes, that's what it said, but it's just interesting to me that the Star Trek writers think that that's the biggest test.

Liz: I kind of think the Federation, as a culture, values life so highly that it really must be very difficult for the average citizen, if they are faced with a scenario where they effectively have to triage -- so yeah, I can see that being a real point of division between people who are suitable for Starfleet and everyone else. I don't think I could do it.

Anika: I don't know. I would have to take the test. I can't imagine it. My existence is such that I would never be in that position.

Liz: Yeah, I don't even like killing my squad in video games. I feel bad about it. And they're pixels! And not very well animated pixels at the best of times!

Anika: Aw!

Liz: So do you have a favourite doctor?

Anika: [sighs] It's hard. It's hard because -- I think I've told this story, where I told Alexander Siddig that I loved all the doctors, and so that's why he was going to be my favourite character.

Liz: Yes, you have.

Anika: So in my head, I have this idea that I love the doctors most? But then, when I actually write down my favourite characters, they don't make it onto the list? So it's this weird -- like, medical, Starfleet Medical track is my favourite of all. I like them more than Command, I like them more than Engineering, and Ops, or whatever that one is. But the individual characters, I love them all, but I don't know. It's weird. So I guess Dr Crusher is my nostalgic heart's favourite.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: Because I loved her so much when I was a kid watching The Next Generation. I just was so drawn to her as a character. She was the first character in The Next Generation that I really connected with.

Liz: Same, yes.

Anika: So I would say that that's -- like, Dr Crusher is going to be my favourite. I have a lot of affection for Dr Bashir, because I -- [laughs] I love trash boys.

Liz: [giggles]

Anika: I just do! I have this problem!

Liz: No, no!

Anika: And I really -- he reminds me a lot of Tom Paris, in that he starts out as a really terrible person who you can't root for because he's horrible and creepy towards all women, and treats people in a very elitist "you're my property" weird way. Like, he's entitled, or something? But he grows into someone who decides not to be that. Both Tom Paris and Dr Bashir do this in this interesting arc where -- I don't know, I wrote here, "He's creepy about women and becomes a much better character when they stop doing that, it's almost like you shouldn't prioritise having a 'ladies man' in your cast".

Liz: I couldn't agree more.

Anika: All of them, they tried to do this with these characters, and it's awful and doesn't work. No one likes it. Not just me, not just women, but no one likes it, because they stop doing it and then the characters become better, you know?

Liz: Yeah, yeah!

Anika: Riker, Paris, Bashir, all go through this. It's like, maybe don't have that be important to your cast? Just a suggestion?

Liz: I've been listening to the podcast Delta Flyers, with Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill -- it's rather good, everyone should give it a go (if they like Voyager) -- but he is saying, in the first couple of episodes, he wishes that he hadn't played Paris as such an aggressive sleaze, because it's unpleasant to watch, and it's so far removed from what the character eventually becomes, which is, like, suburban space dad.

Anika: Exactly. And I see Bashir in the same way. He doesn't become the same type of character, but he does start out as a person that I don't really want to win, but in the end, I really love him.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: He never quite grows out of "trash boy", but he's not like an Archer, he's not a complete trash boy.

Liz: I think the thing is that he learns better. He stops being a creep about women, he stops being incredibly colonialist about Bajor and "the frontier". And he loses his ego.

Like, "The Quickening" is a really great episode because initially he fails, and a lot of people die, and he keeps going, and he leaves Deep Space 9 for months -- or a couple of months, at least, to leave with these people in relative poverty and cure their disease. And, in the end, all he can do is ensure that it's not passed on to the next generation. The work of curing it for this living, dying generation has to go to other people. That's an outstanding episode, and I think a lot of Bashir-as-doctor -- if I think of him in that role, I think ego. And that's sort of a story about breaking his ego.

Anika: Yes. And he comes out better for it.

Liz: Yeah, like, he was already a good character, but after that, I would trust him as a good doctor. As opposed to, like, a Dr House type, who is absolutely brilliant at medicine, but would you actually want to be treated by him?

Anika: Right. Exactly. You don't. I'm in the middle of a House rewatch right now--

Liz: Oh my God.

Anika: --and you absolutely do not. You also don't want to spend any time with him.

Both: [laugh]

Liz: My confession is that I wrote a fair -- like, not a lot, but a little bit of House fic, back in the day. It was a whole thing.

Anika: I have House fic. We can compare notes. Mine's all about Cameron, I'll be honest.

Liz: I really detested Cameron as a character--

Anika: I love her! She's one of my favourite fictional characters!

Liz: I think if I went back now, ten, fifteen years -- oh my God, how long as it been? I think if I went back now, I would really appreciate her more, but back then I found her annoying, and I wanted more Cuddy. And now I'm much older and wiser, and we can have both! But House is the origin of my great love for Lisa Edelstein.

Anika: That's fair.

Liz: Anyway! Back on topic…

Anika: So Crusher, Bashir, and I will say that I really like Culber, but I have yet to see him as a doctor at all. I don't even count him as a favourite doctor. I like his character, such as it is. I like the character that I think he is, I'll say that.

Liz: I feel like I would enjoy being treated by him because, like the women, he has a very gentle manner, and he doesn't seem to let his ego get in the way of much. And I think those are good traits to have in a personal physician. I would be open to being treated by Hugh, I think -- he's gentle. I think I like my male doctors [as characters, not as real doctors treating me] to be gentle and my female doctors to be spiky.

Because I watched "The Child", the episode of TNG that introduces Pulaski, the other day, and I'm like, (a) this is truly terrible television; (b) I kind of feel like, aside from all the reasons that Pulaski doesn't work, like, her relationship with Data is off-putting, and all of that -- I think she was just too outspoken and too ahead of her time as a character. I look at Pulaski, and I see a woman who can tell a bunch of men to cut the manlier-than-thou bullshit. And Star Trek wasn't ready for that.

Anika: Star Trek was not ready for that. And it's also -- even with the stuff with Data, I think they were trying -- she has a lot in common with McCoy. And McCoy is beloved--

Liz: Absolutely.

Anika: --and Pulaski is not. She's sort of having maybe a renaissance now. I see more Pulaski fans than I had. But she's never going to be on McCoy level of belovedness. But they have a lot in common.

Liz: She was an explicit attempt to bring in an older, female McCoy type to the show. And to bring a bit more conflict without breaking Roddenberry's rules. And I just -- the problem is that she goes after Data. And to me, watching "The Child"--

Anika: And Data's not Spock.

Liz: Yeah, Data can't fight back the way Spock does. So to me, she meets Data, and it's like me if Siri started expressing preferences, I'd be like, "That's hilarious! Who programmed that?" Like when Siri makes Skynet jokes! But the audience has known Data for a season, and knows that Data is a person. So they just cannot see it from her perspective. And so she comes in like this complete bully.

Anika: Right.

Liz: And she does get over it, to her credit, but I think it was a bad note to start off on--

Anika: Yeah, it was a terrible note to start off.

Liz: --and a lot of people -- yeah. It's like watching an adult bully a child.

Anika: And also that Picard really disrespects her a lot in that episode. He's just, like, "I'm so annoyed that you're a part of my crew, now, that I'm just going to treat you terribly." It's like, wow.

Liz: He's kind of the audience stand-in for the Beverly fans going, "Wait, what?"

Anika: Right! So, yeah. Pulaski's just never going to be my favourite because I loved Crusher so much. And it's all wrapped up in my mother, and my mother's death, which all happened at the same time. So it's like, no.

Liz: No, I understand!

Anika: I cannot. But I understand why people like her, and I think she is or could have been a good character.

Liz: I really wish Diana Muldaur had been able to stick around as a recurring character at some point, or come in on her own ship once a season, or something. Because I do think Pulaski could have been a character as popular and interesting as Ensign Ro, and I think the series would have really benefited from having that sort of strong, no-bullshit female force. But my heart belongs to Beverly.

Anika: Right. Exactly.

Liz: And Selar -- season 2 of Next Gen is like the season of missed opportunities with female doctors, because Selar only appears in one episode, and she's still being namechecked as late as First Contact. Go Suzie Plakson!

Anika: Yeah, and she's very memorable. And she also brought Suzie Plakson in. Because she's such a presence throughout Star Trek now, it's like she elevates Selar, because she played her. But I do think that just the idea of a Vulcan doctor is fun and interesting, and I want more of that.

Liz: It's also that she only appeared in one truly terrible episode, but she had so much presence.

Anika: Exactly.

Liz: And I think, to be successful as an actor playing a Vulcan, you need to have a lot going on behind your eyes. And she did that. She was brilliant. And I love Robin Curtis, but I think Selar was, like, Kirstie Alley level good. So it's a real shame that we never see her again.

Do you think, like, in terms of really obscure characters we can bring back for Picard, we could bring back Selar?

Anika: Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. They do need a doctor! Like we said!

Liz: They do!

Anika: They need a doctor!

Liz: I think that, with all of these Romulans running around, we need a Vulcan for comedy alone.

Anika: [laughing] So good! I love this idea.

Liz: But I also want Suzie Plakson to play L'Rell's mother in Strange New Worlds. Because we know she can do a Klingon, we know she can handle make-up, and she is actually taller than Mary Chieffo.

Anika: Amazing. It's so good. So good! Okay, let's make that happen. Make it happen!

Liz: Because we've established that CBS is paying so much attention to our ideas.

Anika: Obviously, they listen to us all the time.

Liz: [laughs] So do you think it would be weird to be treated by an emergency medical hologram that looks exactly like you?

Anika: Uh, yes! Yes, it would. However, this is -- okay, so it's been established that you don't have to have them all look like you. That you can buy this program, and you can choose whatever you want them all to look like. And he chose to keep it himself.

Liz: [giggling]

Anika: Which is a whole layer of interesting on Mr Rios. But I would hate to be treated or joined in -- like, okay, that's not true, I think that, for the navigation -- if I wanted to have a bridge crew, I can imagine a bridge crew of just me. And that would be kind of cool, I'll be honest.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: As I was saying it, I was like, wait, no, actually, I would like that. But for doctoring, it's like I want to trust that they are going to be able to figure it out and take care of me and stuff. And I don't. Because I have some medical training, I am certified in CPR and first aid, I have enough healthcare training to work with developmentally disabled populations in their home. So I'm a -- I forget what I'm called. Oh, I'm a nurse delegate, I'm a nurse delegate.

Liz: Oh, nice! What a good title!

Anika: That doesn't mean I have any nursing. And it certainly doesn't mean I have any medical training, actual, you know, take-care-of-a-person training. That's twelve years. So I wouldn't want the person to look like me, I wouldn't want my doctor to look like me, even if it was a computer. I would want it to look like Dr House. You know, someone I can trust to take care of me.

Liz: Yeah, I was thinking -- because I sprained my wrist on Sunday, and on Thursday, I finally went, "Hey, this really hurts, maybe I should see someone about it?" So I had to go to an actual doctor's surgery, and it occurred to me as I was walking in that I kind of have an idea of what's wrong, and I really just want someone with training and authority to say, "Yes, this is wrong, and you are doing the right thing." And that's what I want from a doctor, and I don't want the doctor to look like me, because then I won't trust them.

Anika: Exactly. That's just crazy, Mr Rios.

Liz: But I think, also, as a character note, it kind of suggests that he trusts himself more than--

Anika: Only himself. Only himself.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: And I absolutely believe that, I absolutely believe it. I absolutely believe that he only trusts himself. He's a Gryffindor. It's very much his trait, I get it.

Liz: Yes.

Anika: I am not a Gryffindor, so--

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: --therefore--

Liz: I am a very sensible Hufflepuff, and I believe in trusting people with proper training.

So after the list of doctors, we have a list of nurses. And it's a lot shorter. It's Chapel, Ogawa, Kes, Paris.

Anika: Okay, so can we start with Paris? Because I had to include him, because I find it hilarious that he is the closest thing that Voyager has to a nurse once Kes leaves.

Liz: And we never see him going through any training to improve his skills.

Anika: Yeah, there's like three episodes where he even does anything in sickbay. But the conceit, if I recall correctly, is that he got a B+ in biochemistry at the Academy, and therefore he can be the nurse.

Liz: Yyyyyyeah.

Anika: That is terrible on every level.

Liz: So this is my whole nursing rant, that nursing is not treated as a profession that requires training and qualifications. Like, Kes is being trained to be a doctor, Chapel was studying to be a doctor and then left to become a nurse and run off after her fiance, and Ogawa's professional arc is actually where Beverly goes, "Oh yeah, you're doing great, let's talk about boys."

And I think one thing that the whole Covid thing has really brought home is how much we need nurses. It's all very well that all your doctors are holograms or droids or whatever, but who is changing the bedpans and giving the sponge baths, and -- you know, even if your biobed puts out the vital signs on a little screen, who is there to read and understand them?

Anika: Right.

Liz: And I guess Star Trek takes this [attitude] of, "Oh, the doctors will do it!" But we know that that's not how real life works, and it really troubles me that we see so few nurses, and they're so relatively disregarded. And it's a joke that Paris is a man, and a ladies man, and a nurse. And Kes and Chapel are "failed doctors" or "doctors-to-be".

Nursing gets a lot of disrespect.

Anika: It's terrible.

Liz: I would like to see better depictions of nurses in Star Trek.

Anika: So I love medical dramas. I love to watch them. And my favourite is ER. So this comes up in ER, because -- so my favourite in ER is Carol Hawaway (Juliana Margulies), and she is a nurse. And she is the heart, you know, at the beginning of that series. And it's very clear that, as much as the doctors work hard and care about their patients, and take care of them, it's the nurses who really take care of their patients. They're the face of the ER. They're the people who you're going to see over and over again, the three hours that you're there. They're doing all the -- like, the doctor says, "Do this thing," and then the nurse does it.

Liz: Yes!

Anika: So Carol has this arc where she decides that she wants to be a doctor, because she never thought she could. Like, she wasn't good enough to be a doctor, so she became a nurse, but now she realises that she is good enough to be a doctor, so she takes the MCATs and she's going to become a doctor.

And then, after passing, and Kerry starts treating her like a med student, and starts respecting her in a way that she had never respected her as the chief nurse, even though she was the most senior nurse, and she was there before Kerry even began -- she realises that she wants to have that patient interaction, she wants to be the face of the ER, she wants to be the heart of everything, she wants to actually take care of people, and not be a doctor. So she decides to stay a nurse.

And then she gives up her career to go join Doug in Seattle. And, obviously, she doesn't give up her career, she just moves it to Seattle, but that's what she's remembered for? She went after her boyfriend.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: And then Abby Lockhart, who is introduced in Carol's last season, has the same progression.

Liz: Oh my God.

Anika: She is a nurse who wanted to be a doctor, but gave it up and decided to become a nurse, but she really wants to be a doctor. And she has this whole thing where she's like, no, nursing is great, and she has a whole speech about it, how it's really wonderful and important, and it's valid, and just as important as being a doctor. But then she becomes a doctor. And is a doctor for the rest of the series, and that's what she's best remembered for, as the nurse who became a doctor.

And it's like, that progression, those two storylines, the way they echo each other, and the way that Carol is remembered for her relationship with Doug, but Abby is remembered for being a nurse who became a doctor -- it just upsets me, because nothing against those characters, and nothing against a nurse who wants to become a doctor, like, sure, great. But there are plenty of people who actually wanted to be nurses. Who chose to be a nurse. And they do have that patient interaction, and they do matter as much as a doctor. And it's just sort of threatening to have this idea that (a) nurse can just become a doctor if they take a couple more years, or whatever.

Liz: If they want it enough.

Anika: Yeah, if they want it enough. And that just being a nurse isn't a good enough end goal. Like, of course it is.

Liz: Right, there's this idea that professional success for a nurse is becoming a doctor.

Anika: Exactly.

Liz: We even see it a bit in Doctor Who, with Rory -- and I love Rory, and it is so rare to see a male nurse in media, but even in "Amy's Choice", that sort of wish-fulfilment universe, he's … a doctor! And, granted, he's a gerontologist, which is, like, one of the hardest forms of medicine around, and one that requires the most care, but … you know. A nurse is a not a failed doctor.

Anika: No, it's a completely separate job. They work together as a team to take care of people. If there were only doctors, a lot of stuff wouldn't get done. Because the doctors don't even know how to do that.

Liz: Exactly. Right.

Anika: Because it's not their job. The things that the nurses do are real skills, they have real significance, and it's mindboggling. And, you know, we were saying that you could replace the doctors with the holograms, or with a droid, and it would be harder to replace the nurse.

Liz: Yeah. I know Deep Space 9 had a rotating cast of Bajoran nurses -- and that's the other thing, you know, the Bajorans aren't doctors, they're nurses. But we rarely see nurses as characters, save for Ogawa and Chapel.

Anika: And, as you said, both of their characterisations are much more about their personal lives than their nursing.

Liz: Yeah. And it's just frustrating! I would like to see more!

What I would actually like -- I was thinking, in the wake of the Strange New Worlds announcement, which we will discuss in detail at a future time -- but what I would be doing, if I was in charge of Star Trek (still waiting for that phone call), I would be looking at about two short series a year. Three to six episodes, just doing a deep dive into an aspect of the Star Trek universe. And one of them would be, like, Star Trek: Pasteur, starring Gates McFadden as the captain of a medical ship, and basically doing a medical drama in space.

Anika: That would be great.

Liz: I knew you would love the idea.

Anika: They would go to planets that were having an outbreak, and they would have to take care of them, and it would just be amazing.

Liz: Yeah! 'Cos I watched -- as research for this episode, I watched "The Child" and I watched "Ethics", so two Next Generation episodes, and both involved the Enterprise dealing with a medical emergency outside of itself. You know, there's a spaceship crash and a plague. And it would be cool to see those stories stretched out over several episodes.

Anika: I would love that.

Liz: And I don't think this concept would sustain a full 13-episode series, but I think three to six episodes, and the sort of thing where you can reuse a lot of sets for the next one, and … yeah. Again, CBS, why do you not have me on speed dial? My lack of experience is no impediment whatsoever!

Anika: We would definitely give the nurses their due!

Liz: We would! And I think it would be really cool to see, you know, are there doctors who specialise in a particular race, or a particular type of race? And what if it's the 2390s and you're a Romulan and you're serving on a Starfleet medical ship? How does Beverly adjust from being a chief medical officer to a captain?

Anika: And in "Ethics", it's almost a throwaway line, but it's really kind of incredible to me that they have this conversation about how, "Oh well, I called the Klingons to get their opinions, since Worf is a Klingon," and they were like, "Well, we would let him die." And it's just -- wow, okay! Cool medicine there, Klingons!

Liz: [giggles]

Anika: Yikes!

Liz: Yeah. My favourite fact about "Ethics" was that one wheelchair-using writer was so incensed by this depiction of Klingon ableism that he wrote the Deep Space 9 episode "Melora" because he wanted to depict a character whose use of a wheelchair wasn't something to be pitied.

Anika: Right, because it also happens with Captain Pike.

Liz: Right! Right. And I think what this guy was saying was really interesting, that it is a reasonable point of worldbuilding and detail for the Klingon culture, but at the same time, this attitude that the severely disabled deserve to die is present among humans, so it's not nice to see it in fiction.

Anika: And we talked last week about how the Romulan was like, "Oh well, you know…"

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: "...you're blind, so we'd kill you, too." And it's just, like, okay, I understand that they're trying to make a line between the humans, who are good, and believe in medicine, or something, I guess, and then these other races. But if these races are supposed to be our equals, and we have a treaty with them, and they're on par with us, and that's their attitude? It's a little -- okay, maybe we need to -- it's another one of those things where we're like, "Star Trek, you need to explore that a little bit more."

Liz: Right, it's an interesting and complicated issue, but you need to do more. And I think it's touched on in Star Trek VI, in the wonderful dinner party scene where -- I think it's Chekov who asks about the human rights violations in the Klingon Empire. And Azetbur deflects it by pointing out that the very term is racist -- which it is, in this context, and I love her for that, but the question is never answered.

"Ethics" was a really interesting episode for me to watch as an adult because, um, this is embarrassing to admit, but before she retired, my mother was a professional pro-life lobbyist?

Anika: Okay…

Liz: But this whole end-of-life, assisted suicide thing, you know, really got her fired up. So it was quite interesting to come back and watch it as an adult and go, "Okay, yes, this is not really an episode -- air quotes-- 'about assisted suicide', it's more like the clash between culturally appropriate medicine versus … not. Because -- I think this is one of the criticisms someone had on Twitter, of Beverly, that she is very paternalistic in her approach to patients from other cultures.

Anika: Which is true.

Liz: And Worf often bears the brunt of it, like that terrible episode where she's pressuring him into donating blood to a Romulan, and he straight up doesn't consent. Which is his right. So "Ethics" was a really -- I really enjoyed watching it, actually! Partially because, like Dr Toby Russell is a woman, and you so rarely see women as unrepentantly amoral scientists in Star Trek. Also, the actress bears an uncanny resemblance to Hillary Clinton in that era, and I just found that slightly funny.

Anika: She totally does!

Liz: No one talks about that time Hillary Clinton was in Star Trek!

Anika: I spent the entire episode going, "Why do I know you? Where do I know you from?" But you're right, that's absolutely true, she was very Hillary Clinton-esque.

Liz: I went so far as to look up the actress's IMDB to see what else she'd been in, and I couldn't place her after that, and then she just hit the right angle. And the way her hair sat, and everything, I was like, ohhhh, that's the first lady.

Anika: I like it. And I kind of -- she was totally a Hillary Clinton type character, too!

Liz: Right!

Anika: So I'm into this! It works!

Liz: Particularly that very '90s idea of her as this terrible woman who puts her profession above humanity. And we can talk about whether or not that's fair to Clinton, but I think it makes for a really interesting character, and a really interesting foil for Beverly. And, yeah, we rarely see that type as a woman in Star Trek.

Anika: Yeah. The story that's told in "Ethics" is similar to the one that's told in "Nothing Human" in Voyager. And what's interesting about it is that the character that she is an analogue for in "Nothing Human" is a genocidal maniac Nazi doctor. That's what he is. So it's really kind of terrible to say those are the same. Because they're not. She is not a Nazi, she is not prioritising medicine over people as a whole. There are layers to her.

Liz: She's not doing it on an industrial scale. But at the same time, she has looked at this severely disabled and deeply depressed man and gone, "Yes, that is the guy, the perfect target for my unethical experiment."

Anika: For my experimental … yeah.

Liz: Spine replicator.

Anika: It's interesting.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And then I also mentioned "Miri", which -- I don't know if you've seen "Miri" lately…

Liz: I have not seen "Miri" for quite a few years.

Anika: It's a bad episode! I don't suggest you--

Liz: I remember it being a bit creepy.

Anika: Don't watch it on purpose.

Liz: Is that the episode where a teenage girl falls in love with Kirk?

Anika: Yes.

Liz: And he handles it about as well as you could in the 1960s?

Anika: It's bad on every level. But it's an episode where there's a disease that only attacks adults. So Miri, towards the end of the episode, starts showing episodes of this disease because she's gone through puberty. So it's kind of terrifying that a girl who has not yet gone through puberty is flirting with Captain Kirk. But.

Liz: It was the '60s! [cry-laughing]

Anika: And everything about -- yeah, it's a bad episode. It's a very bad episode. But the idea is that there's this disease, and McCoy is trying to come up with a cure and vaccine. I mean, this happens a lot in Star Trek, this whole, "We're gonna come up with this cure and this vaccine for this disease, and it's gonna happen in this 45-minute episode. It's gonna be great, and it's gonna work by the end." That is not how that works. Even with time jumps, like in "The Quickening", where it's a month, it's still -- no. It takes over a year for this to actually happen. But that's fine.

Liz: And we have all become experts in the timeline of vaccine development.

Anika: Right. McCoy successfully comes up with his hypospray of magic that is going to fix it, and he injects it into himself. Because that's what you do when you're McCoy.

Liz: [literally does a spittake??? Apparently I found this really funny!]

Anika: It's like, he refuses to inject it in anyone else, because it's untested, because he has some semblance of, you know, understanding of reality, and knows that it couldn't possibly actually be the cure. But he injects it into himself. So I like to look at these three episodes, and they bring up these questions of medical ethics and how you address -- and the idea of experimentation on willing or unwilling participants. It's interesting! As a little -- like, these are the different ways that we look at it. And it's interesting that, in all three cases, they end up doing it, because they decide that the risk is worth it.

Liz: I feel like going, "Oh, we found a potential cure, but we're not going to test it because that would be really dangerous--" it just makes for a very unsatisfying story. And I don't think anyone except possibly you or me would be entertained by "The Federation Ethics Board" and "This is the paper I wrote to substantiate my research" and "Here are my test subjects".

Anika: You're right, I would be interested in that. I would be more interested in that than an argument between Beverly and -- I forget her name.

Liz: Toby Russell.

Anika: Toby Russell. Like, in the hallway of the Enterprise, you know, for, like, back and forth for three lines, and then Beverly's like, "You're fired." It's interesting for the characters, but there's a better story somewhere.

Liz: Right.

Anika: There's more to that, I want to see more of it. And, of course, I hate -- sorry to Worf, but I hate the ending, where Worf dies but doesn't die. That is-- [laughs]

Liz: I like it better now that we know just how stupidly redundant Klingon systems are, thanks to Discovery, and showing us more of them. But I do have to wonder when Klingon medicine regressed from, "Hey, we can turn this guy into a human" in the 23rd century to "Just let him die."

Anika: Yeah.

Liz: "We don't want him."

Anika: That's the other thing, like, Klingon physiology and Klingon medicine do not make sense together. It does not make sense. How can you have--

Liz: They're bodies are so sophisticated--

Anika: Right.

Liz: --that they should have much more sophisticated medicine to deal with them.

Anika: And they have less, they have more primitive medicine. It's very strange. And this is another thing, I really wish that, in all of the many, many Klingon episodes -- there are so many Klingon episodes!

Liz: There are a lot.

Anika: I wish that any of them dealt with these questions of Klingons who are not warriors, Klingons who are scientists and want to be scientists, Klingons who are engineers and want to be engineers, and how they are looked down upon in their society. Klingon society is so strange, the way that it has been presented, and this idea that only a warrior -- only a soldier has value, when--

Liz: I think we sort of see that now, where -- you know, people like grocery workers and delivery drivers, and nurses and teachers, are just completely devalued until suddenly they're "essential". And people who have spent their lives stocking up on guns, or whatever, to "protect their families" can't cope with protecting their families by staying in and wearing a mask.

So I can sort of see that, but there's also an episode of Enterprise which, I think, touches on it. I'm blanking on the title, but it's the second season episode where Archer and … someone or other … are put on trial, and it's all a big knock-off of the trial scene in Star Trek VI.

Anika: Right, yes.

Liz: But J G Hertzler plays the Klingon lawyer, and he has this speech about how the Klingon Empire is in decline because they have over-valued their warriors, and one day this is going to come back and bite them. And I think, 200 years later, that is still the problem that they're facing.

Anika: It's definitely the problem. And there are great tie-in novels about Klingons who are not warriors, that I love, and I wish that was represented. Because the Klingons that I'm interested in are the ones who poke at Klingon culture, and say, why is this like this?

Liz: Yeah! Which I think is the case with any story. And maybe Strange New Worlds will give us a bit of that?

Anika: Maybe.

Liz: I'm trying to be optimistic, because my initial reaction to its announcement was so negative. But we can talk about that next time. You have a list of counsellors here.

Anika: Yes! I like to remind everyone that counsellors are part of the medical system.

Liz: They are, and we have two psychiatrists in Dr Elizabeth Dehner and Admiral Katrina Cornwell, and two psychologists in Troi and Ezri. What do you think happened to psychiatry after the 23rd century?

Anika: [laughs] That's a good question. I guess -- I mean, it might be as simple as saying -- as you said with the doctors -- as society changed, so did Star Trek. Because I would say that, certainly in this day and age, the people that you go to see in therapy tend to not be the people who give you the medication.

Liz: Yeah, the psychiatrists dispense and the psychologists counsel.

Anika: Exactly. So I think that it's -- it used to be, it was the psychiatrist. And it was very clinical. And it's become much more about therapy, and talk therapy, and cognitive -- like, all of this stuff, cognitive behavioural therapy. It's become more than just fixing your biochemistry.

Liz: Right.

Anika: And I think that shift is the same.

Liz: I suspect there's also a reluctance to get into too much detail with the nitty gritty of futuristic psychopharmaceuticals. Because, for one thing, if someone's problem can be fixed by manually adjusting their brain chemistry, that's a very short story. But then there's things like Lorca's trauma, or Lorca's so-called PTSD, which should have been detectable -- like, it would be detectable in an MRI now.

Anika: Absolutely. Well, this is super interesting to me, as you might suggest.

Liz: I believe you literally did a thesis on it.

Anika: Yes. I did. So it's interesting to me as a student, as an academic, and it's also interesting to me as a person, like, on a personal level, as someone who was sort of raised to be -- my family wasn't really into therapy. I should -- my father wasn't into therapy. He thought that was not a thing. And I really, really needed therapy! And so did he. [laughs]

And I didn't get any until I became an adult and could get it for myself. And then I had a whole decade-long awakening, or whatever, I worked really hard to become comfortable with my mental stability, to figure out how to live in my brain for the rest of my life. Because I can't change my brain.

Yes, medication stabilises, medication can address issues that are actually chemical, which are very, very prevalent, and which anybody who has any kind of trauma, it's a part of it. Because trauma changes your brain, that's what happens. And so the medication adjusts that. But the medication doesn't help you address the trauma itself. What happens to you. You need both.

Liz: It's not a band-aid, but you need to learn new ways of thinking as well.

Anika: So I like that Troi and Ezri are talk therapists. I think that that is hugely important and vital, and we need as many representations of that as we can get in any media. Not just Star Trek, not just sci-fi. Anything. All of it. Before all conventions were cancelled this year, I was shopping around a panel that I entitled Saving The World Isn't Therapy.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: And the idea was that, if you look at -- I was focusing on young adults. Because, you know, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, look at them and they're like, these are 17-year-old people who are expected to save everything. Even Star Wars, they're all 19. It's just crazy.

Liz: Right! I'm watching The Clone Wars, and I'm going, Ahsoka is 14 years old, she should not be doing this!

Anika: It's like, what is going on?! And anime -- oh my gosh. They're all 13 through 17 years old in all of these things, and they are expected to be acting as superheroes. And even adults who are superheroes desperately need therapy. That's what Iron Man 3 is all about, which is great. I love that they're starting to realise that these things are important.

But I think that it's definitely true in Starfleet, like, you need a counsellor. And that's why I love the fact that Elizabeth Dehner exists, because at least saying, like, in the pilot of this series, we are saying we need someone who cares about mental health. Because going out to explore strange new worlds, where no man has gone before? You need someone to help you deal with what you find.

Liz: Right! And it makes sense that it would be a psychiatrist at this stage, because they can sort of do the empirical stuff and set up a baseline, and build the map on which the psychologists can travel.

Anika: I love that. I love that she exists. And I love -- I've said many times that Ezri is the character where I sat up and said, "I want to be here!" And I love that she is a counsellor. I get annoyed with people who say she only became interesting when she started caring about command, because--

Liz: No! No!

Anika: --much like the nurses, it's like, counselling is vital and important and needed.

Liz: Yes!

Anika: It's great that Counsellor Troi becomes a commander, and takes the test, and does all of that, and deals with it, and proves that she can do it, but she didn't need to. She was still super important and necessary to the show and to the ship before she did that.

Liz: Right. And I was also going to say, with the echo of the nurses thing, I love that Beverly becomes a captain in "All Good Things…", but that is not what she has to do to be successful in her career, and you don't have to go to Command. And with Ezri and Kat, it's not that they went to command instead of mental health, it's that they brought their mental health skills into Command.

Anika: Exactly. And they would be so good at it. It's like, of course you went into Command, because you had the skills, you had so much better skills than someone like -- oh, let's talk about Archer! My favourite trash captain has none of those interpersonal skills. He's super charming, but he is not good with people.

Liz: Noooooo.

Anika: So the idea that he would be valued over a Cornwell is ridiculous to me.

Liz: One of the things that made me sit up and take notice of Cornwell in "Choose Your Pain" is the way she is speaking about Starfleet morale, and the needs of the fleet -- the people within the fleet, and also about Michael, and how she draws the distinction between Michael being scapegoated for the war and Michael being actually responsible for it. And that clearly comes from her background in psychiatry and mental healthcare, and it really sets her apart from all the other admirals we've ever seen.

Anika: Right. Right. It's amazing, and I love it.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Kat, I just--

Liz: I mean, spoilers, we love Kat a lot.

Anika: I love every counsellor. I love Troi, I love Ezri, I love Kat. I even love Elizabeth Dehner, and I get upset that her only episode is, again, all about a man that she happened to fall in love with, and it destroyed her life.

Liz: Maybe she can be a regular in Strange New Worlds. Seems like a good role for Anna Torv.

Anika: Oh my gosh. I would love -- I would love -- I was really mad when Carol Marcus ended up in Into Darkness instead of Elizabeth Dehner. Because she had the haircut, and so everyone was saying that she was going to be Elizabeth Dehner, and I was like, oh my God. All I want is for Elizabeth Dehner to be a big thing.

Liz: There was a rumour going around before Into Darkness came out that the whole Khan thing was a fake-out, and that Benedict Cumberbatch was actually playing Gary Mitchell--

Anika: Gary Mitchell, right.

Liz: And I really liked the idea that Kirk's all-American best friend was now this weedy Englishman. And I really -- I don't like Into Darkness, and I really wish we'd gotten that movie instead. Once again, I like the Star Trek in my head better than canon.

Anika: Alice Eve would have been a great Elizabeth Dehner. And, honestly, I like her Carol Marcus. But it would have been so much more interesting if it was Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner than--

Liz: Right. Because, if nothing else, Khan is just done to death.

Anika: I'm tired and I don't care.

Liz: Do we want to talk about medtech? That's the final point on our list that we haven't covered.

Anika: I just think it's amazing that Star Trek has really -- there are biobeds, there are people who are working on tricorders, there are people who are working on hyposprays. All of these things, they're trying to create.

Liz: It's amazing, yeah.

Anika: That's true across all of Star Trek, but the medical technology that they are -- I have a friend who is literally working on a project that is basically a biobed. He is trying to make biobeds.

Liz: That's amazing.

Anika: It's incredible to me! Can you imagine how helpful it would be to have a biobed right now? To have someone -- you lie down, and it takes your temperature, and it tells you your vitals, without hooking anything up, and it says, you know, "These are the four diseases that are probable." It would be so incredible to have even a tenth of that technology.

So the fact that people are inspired by Star Trek to try to create it -- Gates McFadden has talked about how she is kept in the loop about medical tricorders. People just send her emails, like, "Here's the quarterly report on our research into a medical tricorder." And she's like, "I don't understand any of this, but it's amazing that you are doing it, and that they -- it's inspiring that they have been inspired by the work that I've done." It's incredible.

So I love that, and I just -- as much as I have been saying that I worry that technology is encroaching on human interaction in medicine, I think that if used -- instead of as a replacement, but as something to make doctors better at their job, to make it easier to be a doctor, easier to have the human interactions -- we should support that in every way.

Liz: Absolutely. I went to my local hospital a month or so ago, to drop off some masks we had accidentally stockpiled after the bushfires. And they just waved a thing and took my temperature from centimetres away. And it was amazing! And I was like, oh, this is so futuristic! And then, you know, you apply the hand sanitiser, and you mask up, and -- yeah.

[This is where I seamlessly cut about nine minutes of talking about Covid]

Anyway, we've gone very far off-topic, and probably I'm about to cut all of this Covid stuff [See? Seamless!] because it'll probably bring people down a bit. But! [laughs] "I signed up for a Star Trek podcast! About medicine in Star Trek! Why are they talking about a terrible disease?

Anika: This is what our life is right now, and I think it's valid. That's just my opinion.

Liz: I think it is, too.

Anika: I will say that I watched "Critical Care" for this episode.

Liz: Oh yes!

Anika: And that's an episode -- and this is true of all my -- I said that I love watching medical dramas, right? So ER is old, now, okay? And yet, in the first season, they had storylines that dealt with how terrible healthcare insurance is, and how awful the idea of some people getting better healthcare because they can afford it is.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And that's true in every medical drama. And it's usually in the first season. These are things that, if you're writing a medical drama, if you're writing about anything that has to do with it--

Liz: It's the cliche you need to get out of the way.

Anika: Yeah, you have to acknowledge the fact that our healthcare system is horrible. And "Critical Care" is literally about deciding, this person is more useful to society, and so, therefore, they will get better care.

Liz: And the thing is, it seems like a very uncontroversial thing to say, but then you have the current state of American politics with regards to public healthcare?

Anika: And it's literally happening right now. There are plenty of people who are publishing their personal stories about, "I'm a doctor in Minnesota, and I'm dealing with Covid patients, and we are deciding which ones get the ICU beds and which ones don't." Based on who they are, and what they can afford, where they are in their life -- and it's horrible to think that -- but it's also, like, I feel for these people who are in the hospital, who have to make those decisions because they don't have enough space. Because no one cared to fix it before the fact.

Liz: Yeah, or, "That hospital wasn't making a profit, so that's closed down, so all the patients in this town have to go to this other hospital, further away, that's overwhelmed because suddenly it's dealing with two populations instead of one."

Anika: And also there's the 36 million people, or whatever, who filed for unemployment. Which means that they don't have a job, which means they don't have healthcare.

Liz: Right!

Anika: It is the worst possible scenario for so many people.

Liz: No, it's terrible.

Anika: And I want to be like the -- you know, I'm not the EMH, but I can be the little guy who's in the ward, who's doing his best with no equipment and no medication, and barely minimum training to try to do the best he can do. And it's just, like, ooh. That episode was really hard to watch in the current environment. It was hard to watch back in 1998, or whatever, and it was super hard to watch today.

Liz: It's not as if anything's gotten better.

Anika: No, it's gotten much worse. And it's upsetting. And the fact that it's still controversial to say that healthcare is a right?

Liz: Yeah. And that's controversial here, too! We have a really good public healthcare system, but our government thinks we would be much better off with an American style one.

Anika: Remember earlier in this conversation, I said that I didn't get mental healthcare until I was an adult and could ask for it. I also was no longer on my father's insurance, and I was on public insurance at that point. Because I didn't have a job. And I got it. And it covered everything. That one moment in time -- and I don't think it's true of -- I think that the Connecticut Husky plan has changed since I was on it. And the fact that I was in this golden age of healthcare for two years, the one time that I desperately needed it, this is why I want to be Ezri, and I want to be a counsellor, and I want to help people, it's because I know that it's so hard to get the help you need.

Liz: And it is here, too, it is actually harder to access mental healthcare in Australia than America. Which is not usually the way we expect it to go. Anyway…

Anika: Yeah, so, sorry to get super political, but healthcare is a right, it should be free, people are terrible, especially right now, in the middle of a pandemic. You should just get to be taken care of, the end.

Liz: Star Trek is optimistic! Which is the sort of attitude that I usually rant about, but I'll let it stand for now. It's 45 minutes and we've cured a disease.

Anika: In "Critical Care", it ends with the terrible jerk doctor and the overworked, undertrained doctor working together to take down the administrator. And it's like, well, that wouldn't happen! But it's a nice story. But, of course, at the end of the episode, Voyager leaves, the Doctor leaves, what happens on that planet? Probably those three people lose their job, and then everything is status quo and it's horrible.

Liz: [heavy sigh]

Anika: I wish I was optimistic!

Liz: [laughs] Yeah.

Anika: But I'm an idealist, I'm not optimistic. There's a very big difference. There's a big difference between idealism and optimism.

Liz: That is the rant that I've been trying to articulate!

Anika: I say I'm a Slytherin, which is an idealist, I am not an optimist.

Liz: [laughs] Okay. Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod.

You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.tumblr.com, including links to our social media and credits for our theme music.

You can also follow us on Twitter at @antimatterpod. Sometimes we post cat pictures, and questions for our audience.

If you like us, leave a review on apple podcasts or wherever you consume your podcasts -- the more reviews, the easier it is for new listeners to find us.

And join us in two weeks when we’ll be discussing the newly announced Strange New Worlds.

Anika: Woooo!

Liz: Is it? Is it really?

Anika: [laughs] Look, Number One and Spock are gonna make out. It's gonna happen.

Liz: If they're going for an episodic, old series sort of vibe, then sooner or later there'll be sex pollen. That's the rules.

Anika: Exactly. There will be a reason.

Liz: And an episode where someone gets turned into a lizard. REAL STAR TREK.

Anika: REAL STAR TREK!

[end]

#star trek #antimatter pod #podcast transcripts

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the-fangirl-way · 5 years ago

Text

2: Ink

I looked up Harry's file, I had looked at it before on the FBI page, but it was the standard documents, medical history, school records, and his background.

I pulled out the access code Mr. Callahan had given me and typed it into the systems network, instantly at least thirty more documents on Harry came up, these were the very private documents that only officials such as Mr. Callahan and the higher ranked officers were allowed access to.

The newest up to date picture of Harry had been his mugshot from six months ago, back when his skin wasn't so pale it was almost gray, or when his cheeks weren't so sunken in from malnourishment. His hair was tamed, still long, but not as long as it was now.

Harry had been an attractive guy at one point, although I would never admit that to anyone.

Reports of Harry's recent run in with the law came up and I wasn't shocked to find out he had ties with several drug busts and had been caught using more than once. It was minor charges of marijuana, nothing heavier than THC.

The next few files were smaller accusations, a DUI, and a claim of property damage, the dated year was Harry's senior year of high school, no doubt a stupid high school prank.

Nothing really seemed to stand out, but I jotted down the small accounts in the file.

The next couple of pages were more or less just added information, court dates, tickets, so on and so forth.

It wasn't until about the fifth page I found the one document that could be my potential next lead.

Mr. Samuel Tracey, the owner of the handgun found in Harry's car that night.

It looked like I was going to have to pay Mr. Tracey a visit.

Samuel Tracey lived six blocks from my apartment, he wasn't hard to find.

I knocked on his door and waited patiently, I could hear shuffling from the other side. Finally a gruff voice hollered "Who is it?"

"Detective DeLaney. I'm looking for a Samuel Tracey." I said holding up my badge to the peephole, the deadbolt clicked and the door cracked open before an old man with a beard submerged from behind it.

He was wearing glasses and a sweater vest, those were the first things I noticed about Mr. Tracey.

"What do you want?"

"Mr. Tracey, have you ever seen this man?" I asked holding up a picture of Harry from the folder in my hands.

Tracey studied the picture for a second before nodding slightly.

"I've seen him. Why? What has he done?"

I looked around, his house was located on a busy street, cars and people passing by.

"It's kind of a personal matter, mind if I come inside?" I asked and he paused before slowly moving out of the doorway allowing me to step inside.

His home was warm, and smelled old.

"Have a seat." Tracey grumbled before taking a seat himself on the recliner across from the couch.

"So what's he done?"

"Well, Mr. Tracey-"

"Call me Sam." He corrected.

"He was found about six months ago with a handgun in his car, this particular handgun belonged to you." I said and he sighed a long exasperated sigh.

"Damn kids." He mumbled under his breath.

"Excuse me?" I asked and he rubbed his hands together sitting forward.

"Harry and my boy were friends, Douglas," He said gesturing to a picture of a young man about Harry's age hanging on the wall.

"Douglas was killed about two months ago in a drug heist." Tracey said clearing his throat and I instantly felt sympathy for him.

"I'm so sorry."

"No, he was always getting into trouble, hell from the time he was in elementary school I was getting calls for his behavior, I didn't expect much more out of him as he got older." He explained, I noticed then the bottle of scotch and glass sitting on the coffee table. Mr. Tracey poured himself a glass before offering me some which I declined.

"My wife Laura," He continued, "died giving birth, leaving me to raise Douglas. I tried my best by him, worked three jobs to give him the best life I could give him, but he took it for granted." He said taking a sip of his drink.

"Mr. Tra- Sam," I corrected, "You said Harry and your son were friends?" I asked and he nodded.

"Harry and Douglas went to school together, and they were friends all the way up until about six months ago when Harry disappeared. They would hang out after school and once they graduated my son and Harry would hang out almost every other day or so, no doubt both doing things they shouldn't do, which leads me to ask again, what did Harry do?"

I sighed and opened the folder containing Harry's file.

"About six months ago the police found Harry's car outside of a Mr. Wesley Langston's home, he had been waiting there for about four hours for Mr. Langston to return home, and he had your handgun in the car with him. He also had some rope, sheets, duct tape, other various items, so the intent was clear what he was planning on doing." I said and Mr. Tracey's features changed to surprised by the news.

"Harry?" He asked and I nodded.

"Harry was such a good kid, I mean, he got into trouble like Douglas but Harry would never try to kill anyone.."

"I would like to think so too Mr. Tracey, but as of right now Harry is still pledging guilty until proven otherwise." I said and Tracey sighed.

"I don't know anything about the gun. I realized it was missing about two weeks ago when I was going through my things trying to find something to sell to pay my rent," he said taking another sip, "since Douglas passed I've let myself slip, I lost all three of my jobs, of course, the government takes no pity on people like me. So I decided to try and sale some of my things to get money to get back on my feet until I could find a job, I didn't even know the gun was gone until then." He explained and I nodded sympathizing.

"Well, the gun will stay with the police for evidence until the trial is over and decided, if you want it back-"

"I don't want it back." Tracey said cutting me off.

"Tell them to keep it, I'll even sign my name over to them, I just, I don't want it back. I'm old," He started, "I'm old and I'm at the point now, my wife is gone, my son is gone, if someone breaks into my house with the intent to kill me, well, I'll be ready." His eyes were misty and I swallowed a lump, such a sad thing when someone doesn't value their life anymore after all the trials and tribulations they had been through.

"I understand." I said finally, gathering my things to leave.

"I'll let the police department know that you want to sign the title over to them, I'm sure someone will contact you within the next week or so to do it."

Tracey nodded and then he too stood up.

"I'm sorry I wasn't more help." He said and I shook my head.

"No, you were a good help, I can mark this off my list." I said and he smiled a small smile then offered to walk me out.

"Thank you for your time Mr. er, Sam." I corrected.

"You're quite welcome Ms. DeLaney."

I headed to my car, it had started to rain, shocker.

My phone began to ring and it was Lennon.

"Hello?"

"Good morning." He said from the other end and I could practically hear his flirty smirk.

"Are you off today?" I asked.

"I am, I was actually wondering if you wanted to get some lunch?" He asked and I wanted to say yes, but I knew I had far too much research to do.

"I would love to, but Callahan has me on Harry search all weekend."

"Oh, I understand." He said sighing.

There was a silence.

"So I'm guessing our dinner plans are off for tonight then?"

I felt my heart sink, I had forgotten about our date.

"Tristan I-"

"No really, it's fine." He said sincerely although I knew he was really disappointed.

I thought about it for a minute.

"You know what? How does takeout sound? My place tonight? Maybe you can help me with my research." I said and I heard him chuckle.

"Sounds great. Seven?"

"Seven." I agreed before hanging up.

I drove to the library, it was always quiet there and I figured I could get some more research done.

The wind whipped around me creating goosebumps on my arms and legs, I was glad I had chosen to wear slacks today.

As I stepped through the library door, the warmth welcomed me, I always silently adored libraries, the smell of books and the serene calm of the silence of those going into parallel universes created in their minds by the turning of each page.

The librarian, Doris, knew me well, she lived in our building for while after Devlin and I moved in and I had come to this library many times in the past to do research on cases. She smiled fondly at me as I walked over the help desk.

"Detective DeLaney nice to see you."

"Doris, I told you, call me Avery." I said smiling and she laughed.

"I'll try to remember that."

I smiled at at her and headed over to the table I usually sat at, pulling out my laptop and connecting it to the internet.

The next four hours I spent looking up every single detail I could get about Harry, his mother Anne, his sister Gemma, his father Desmond, all of the people in his life. There was nothing out of the ordinary, which only infuriated me more that I wasn't getting anything.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket and I stepped outside to take the call, it was Devlin.

"Hey Ave, I'm on lunch wanna grab something?" She asked and I thought about declining but the growl in my stomach told me otherwise.

"Where?"

I met Devlin at Wahaca, a Mexican restaurant, she was sitting in a corner booth clad in her scrubs, today was Minnie Mouse.

"I ordered you a tequila sunrise." She said smirking and I rolled my eyes.

"It's midday."

"And? You walked here didn't you?"

I started to protest but the waitress reappeared with a large glass of orange and red liquid, an umbrella and orange wedge sat on top.

"Thank you."

She took our order before disappearing again.

"So, any news on Styles?" She asked dipping a chip in salsa.

"No, and the only lead I got turned out to not really be a lead at all. Turns out the gun that was on him belonged to a friend of his father, his son, Harry's friend, was killed a couple of months ago and he doesn't want the gun back." I said and she looked sympathetic.

"How sad."

"Tell me about it."

"So what now?" She asked and I shrugged tugging on my hair.

"I have no idea Dev, Callahan wants all this information on Styles by Monday and I have nothing."

"What about the other guy? Langston right?"

"I haven't done a lot of research on him yet, but the police already talked to him and said he cleared." I said and she nodded.

"You should still do some research just in case they missed something."

"You're right." I agreed and the food arrived.

We ate and talked some more about the case and her job.

"I'm telling you, if he asks again I'm tempted to do it." She said and I laughed.

"I think you should, he's good looking, smart, he's obviously got money.."

"Yeah, yeah." She said waving her hand.

"What about you and Officer sexy?" She asked talking about Lennon, I could feel my cheeks reddening.

"He's actually coming over tonight."

Her eyebrows lifted and she smirked.

"Oh really? Should I occupy myself with something tonight and leave you two...?"

"No, it's not like that." I said rolling my eyes, "He's just coming to help me with the case."

"Mmhmm, I hope you shaved your legs."

I rolled my eyes but could feel my cheeks blazing again.

"I mean it's not like you haven't-"

I blushed even harder and avoided her gaze.

"Oh my God, you haven't slept with him yet? Seriously?"

"Shut up." I said and she burst into a fit of giggles.

"Ave! Get on it! I mean literally get on it. "

"Shut up!"

"I'm just saying!" She said throwing her hands up and then checking her watch.

"Shit, I have to get back to work."

I nodded and slid out of the booth behind her, laying a tip on the table as we walked out.

"I'll see you at home." I said and she shook her head.

"Oh no, I'm not coming home until late, I'll leave you and Officer Hot Pants to it."

I smacked her on the arm and she laughed again before hugging me and departing in the opposite direction to her car.

The walk back to the library was short, but I was freezing by the time I got there.

My muscles were stiff from sitting so long and when I checked the time I jumped in panic to realize that it was going on five thirty.

I put my laptop back in my bag and my things before waving goodbye to Doris and leaving the library.

The air outside had dropped measurably and I shivered getting into my car putting the heat on full blast.

When I got to the apartment I took a quick shower, shaving my legs I felt the heat return to my cheeks, Devlin could be right.

I was in the kitchen when I heard the doorbell buzz and I headed to the speaker.

Come on up." I said and within a few minutes I heard a light tap on the door.

I opened the door, expecting to see Tristan on the other side, but who was there instead had my heart pounding, my head swimming, and the feeling of vomit creeping up my windpipe.

He was leaning up against the door frame, his arms crossed, clad in a white tee shirt and a pair of black jeans; his inky tattoos snaked up his arms and across his torso visible through his thin tee shirt. His hair was now tamed and swirled in waves around his face, a smirk placed on his full lips, his green eyes burning dangerously into mine.

"Hello Avery." Greeted Harry.

#harry styles #harrystylessmut #harrystyles #harry styles au #harry styles smut #harry styles fanfic #harry smut #harry #solo harry #harry styles fanfiction

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jodiknappthehypothyroidism · 4 years ago

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Jodi Knapp The Hypothyroidism Solution Review

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feelingsdusk-writes · 6 years ago

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Fides

Three thousand years later... ^^; Thanks so much @esamastation for letting me play with your idea of a terrarium filled with fairies!

---

Fides: (noun, latin) faith, trust, confidence, loyalty, promise of protection.

---

Chapter 1

Stiles Stilinski is a pariah, a loser, a freak and an outcast, and he’s proud of it.

It’s been like that ever since his mother lost it and Evan Richards -big brother by one year to Jonathan (Stiles' classmate) and son to Mary, who was his doctor. All of them trash, because who shares a child's medical history like that, huh? So trash family to its fullest. Trash mother (Stiles has never liked her), trash father (he has never met him, but nothing but trash can produce such trash) and trash sons. They should make a musical a la The Sound of Music, it would be a hit for sure!- spread a lot of rumors about him sharing the same sickness and being a total psycho. Suddenly, everyone had always suspected, friends had the prefix former attached to that title, no one wanted him around. He always did this and that, didn’t you see? He had to take some kind of medication every day, didn’t you see? He was too strange, didn’t you see? What kind of boy wanted to know that much (if anything at all!) about male circumcision, huh? It wasn’t normal, didn’t you see? Blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And then, no one in Lost Hills School wanted to touch that (him) with a ten foot pole.

Stiles, after two horrific weeks of shunning and jeers and coming back to an empty home because the sheriff was god knows where, decided to prove them right and fought back by being as crazy as he could… without getting caught, of course, he's not an idiot. The final balance? No one wanted to be his friend, sure, but no one wanted to be his enemy either.

Stiles is a vicious, cunning, vengeful and grudge-holding asshole, and he’s proud of that too.

He doesn’t need anyone. He hasn’t needed anyone ever since he was eight and he had to start cleaning up the fridge and going grocery shopping and tidying up the house and doing the laundry and mending his ripped clothes and… All in all, ever since he finally acknowledged that his father wasn’t going to get away from the bottle long enough to take care of him like he should.

(His stance was proven right when his dad did get away from the bottle (changing his mere alcoholic status to functional alcoholic) enough to relaunch his cop career into being named Kern County’s sheriff. Which pretty much changed nothing for Stiles, who still had to take care of himself, but now had to cook for one instead of two, more often than not. He got really creative with his cooking, that's for sure. Now he understands why people say that cooking for one is such a pain. He has also learned that a recipe found on the internet is like walking on a minefield: it may turn out alright or blow up in your face spectacularly.)

So he doesn’t need anyone, indeed, but he’s twelve, alone, with no means of transportation out of town to see anything new (unless he wants to bike his way out), some pocket money that he’ll most likely need to spend on groceries when his father inevitably forgets about him, and the entire summer vacation ahead of him and no activities to fill it with. The Internet, for once, is not cutting it at all, and hacking into his peers’ computers to plant viruses in them seems to have lost its charm and isn’t working either. And hacking the teachers'j room’s printer to have it spit pages with Mr. Jones’ porn sporadically isn’t funny with no one there to see it. Summer work, finished. Everything is clean. Laundry is done. He has the meals for the entire week prepared already.

In other words, he’s bored as hell and about to climb the walls in frustration.

He sighs and looks to the ceiling of the living room, as if the couple of stains above him are going to give him an answer to his dilemma. He’s been sprawled like a starfish since half an hour ago, ever since he let himself fall off the couch dramatically after checking all the channels on the TV. Thrice. He contemplates the idea of binge watching Star Wars again and dismisses it almost instantly, because he did that yesterday and, he loves them, he really does, but it would be too much even for him.

He wiggles in place almost in agony after going over all the possibilities again in his head and finding none suitable. The backyard catches his eye and he thinks of getting the inflatable pool to at least stop being an asphyxiated starfish and soak for a while, escaping the almost unbearable heat.

He dismisses the idea again because he hasn’t liked spending time there ever since his dad took a look at the mess his mother’s garden had turned into and took care of it. Definitely. Stiles had tried, he really had, but he didn’t seem to have his mom’s green thumb and also he had more than enough on his plate without having to despair over the gardenias.

(Seeing the empty spaces where the flower beds used to be always made his heart constrict, so he stopped looking.)

He looks again, raising up from his sprawled position. He misses her garden and the aroma that would drift through the window in spring. She never won any contest, but it was beautiful.

And now there isn’t a single plant in the house.

Stiles suddenly wants one. The memory of her garden is a good one, along with the smiles she would throw over her shoulder at him, with dirty hands and sometimes even face, when she would forget and scratch her nose. And Stiles, unlike his dad, is past the point where he avoids all memories of her and he tries to cherish the good ones. Even though the tools she used still give him nightmares sometimes (if he ever sees the little trowel with the light green handle and the matching hand fork it will be too soon), he still wants a plant. Or many. So that's it, he's getting some.

But...

But he doesn’t want to kill it, he had enough of that with the gardenias, thank you very much. So research it is. He’s going to research the hell out of it to start easy.

He nods to himself and, somehow, three hours later, the initial idea of getting a hardy cactus, which evolved to planting lavender or snapdragons, has in turn led him to inside moss terrariums and now he’s hooked. Because, apart from the awesome plant-only creations, some even put little houses un them… and there are Star Wars terrariums. Star Wars. And now he has decided he’s going to make an entire Ewok village. Not a dupe one, but an entirely functional one with even that cage elevator they had. And the bridges. And all the furniture. And… it’s going to last.

Decision made, he makes a list of what he needs and then, he plans. The container, he has, because they never got rid of uncle Celestyn’s big as hell fish tank. The glue gun, woodworking tools and materials, gloves and pebbles, he has too. Wood he can get from the broken juniper table his dad bought to fix and then never did, and moss he can easily find. He’s missing the peat moss soil and the hygrolon. The first he knows he can find at home depot, the second, he’s not so sure. True, he could make the terrarium without it, but he wants moss to cover the walls too. If he doesn’t find it or can’t afford it (there's no way he’s going to spend all his just-in-case money), he’ll make do with what he has, though.

---

The soil he has no problem getting, but the hygrolon he finds out is only sold online and it’s pretty expensive to boot. He mourns for a moment and then moves on, already making plans on how to shape the landscape of the terrarium.

He needs to cut the table to make the fake trees for the houses and he doubts he can do that without injuring himself. Not only does he not have that kind of heavy machinery, but he wouldn’t dare to use it. Then, he remembers his father’s former partner, Anderson, who likes woodworking and, more importantly, Stiles.

“Is everything okay, kiddo?”

He’s also the one he’s supposed to call in case of an immediate emergency when his father is out of town. Besides the one time he caught a stomach bug from his classmates and couldn’t go to school, he’s never done it. Not because he doesn’t like him (nothing farther from the truth, actually) but because he’s used to always dealing with problems himself.

“Sure!” he chirps. “I was just wondering if you could help me with a project?”

“You’re supposed to do those by yourself, Stiles,” the man laughs, obviously amused.

“It’s not for school!” he protests indignant and then explains what he needs. “Do you think you can help me with the trees and making the sheets of wood for the houses?“

There’s silence from the other side of the line and Stiles can picture easily what the man is thinking. He knows that Stiles is going to do it one way or another, that his father is on the other side of the county so it’s not like he’s going to be there to stop him, that it’s better if he takes on the more dangerous parts himself and instructs Stiles on how to make the others without hurting himself. In other words, he’s thinking about danger prevention and damage control. Stiles hears a sigh and makes a silent triumphant dance.

“Well,” he grumbles and Stiles snickers, “it’s not like I have anything better to do. Damn the retirement. Time of your life, my ass. I’ll be there in an hour, kiddo. Don’t you dare start without me there, you hear me? I don’t want to have to explain to your dad why you’re missing some fingers.”

“Yes, sir,” he salutes, still snickering.

When he arrives, he brings with him a portable grinding machine, a piece of fallen wood from his own garden and sealant. “I imagine you don’t want the moss to reach the trees and the houses, do you?” He explains and Stiles grins, delighted.

(Stiles really, really likes Anderson.)

About three hours later, Anderson has made a structure that will ensure that the trees don’t fall. There is one big tree and three clusters of trees joined each by various platforms at different levels, with spaces where the houses will sit. He even went as far as to shape them as if they are made out of wooden boards (instead of flat) and to hollow the thickest of the trees at that platform level. Stiles also had the idea of making the top of each tree hollow too to put a potted plant inside, so that it won’t look bare and strange. All in all, they are ready to start the setup.

“So,” the man looks at him intently. “Where are you going to put it?”

“I want it in my room,” he answers, “near the window. On the floor.”

“The floor?”

“Don’t wanna have to take the ladder every time I have to water it.”

“Fair enough,” Anderson snickers and Stiles pouts. “But you know you’re going to have to wait to finish the house to set the terrarium, right? Unless you want to do that kind of detailed work from above and with an awkward angle to boot,” he explains and then laughs at his despairing face. “Take it easy, kiddo. Call me when you want to do it and I’ll help you, ok? How about this, if you promise to be careful and not do anything careless, I’ll make a waterfall for your terrarium.��

“I can’t…” he starts protesting.

“It will be an early Christmas present. Deal?”

“There’s no waterfall in the Ewok Village…” Stiles grumbles, “but deal.”

And they shake on it.

All in all, even if he’s a little peeved about having to wait, Stiles is happy with the progress. He still hasn’t gotten the moss, so it’s not as if waiting for a bit is going to hurt… and he got a waterfall out of it. He grins, waving at Anderson as he leaves the drive. It’s going to be awesome.

—

Once he starts, he can’t stop, focused in a way that’s unusual for him.

The bridges are easy enough so long as he follows the measurements he’s made, because he only has to shape the steps, make a hole on each side of them, use the rope to secure them and then braid the whole thing. He uses the glue gun for good measure, to make sure it’s sturdy enough.

The houses are a little more complicated because they are rounded. He ends up getting round objects to support the wood while the glue dries. There are a couple of instances when they get stuck to the object he’s using and he has to start anew, but he learns how to avoid that pretty quickly. The windows and the doors are a pain in the ass in themselves. He destroys a couple of houses trying to cut them until he finds another method for that too. He precuts the wood and uses cardboard to fill in the space while it dries and it works like a charm. As it is, he has now seven vaguely house-looking semicircles with two levels (joined by a little staircase) and even some shelves inside, that he has to stick to the main structure to be able to finish the roof. He leaves that for later, because once he does that it will be a nightmare to put the furniture inside.

He struggles for a while with the tables, seats and any other detailed work he remembers from the movie, because working at that scale, even with the tweezers, is hard. Again, he’s nothing if not stubborn and he works out a method to do those too. The shelves are easy enough because it’s just a matter of measuring, cutting the actual boards of the shelves with a c shape to fit the circular walls and gluing them, both between them and to the walls. The table, the seats and the beds are easy after that, again just taking care to measure well and struggling to not have his hands tremble when he assembles them all. He even uses one of his dad’s old furry sweaters for the beddings and old t-shirts for other things like that, carefully sewing the edges to make them look more like the ones in the movie. The drawers and the wardrobes are a pain in the ass to make and he regrets even trying almost from the very first time he tries to put the drawer in its place and it doesn’t fit and then, after trying to fix it, it gets stuck. He perseveres, though, and it gets easier the more he makes. As for its door, he follows the same method he’s going to use with the doors to the house (with holes and string, because making hinges at this scale is beyond his capabilities and he has accepted that) and it ends up looking pretty neat.

(In the middle of all this, his father comes and goes but, even if he makes sure to come by Stiles’ room every night, he doesn’t seem to notice what has his own son so busy, always too concentrated on some case or another and the room too dark to actually see anything. They make small talk and he pats his head some mornings. Stiles is kind of indifferent. He loves his dad, he really does, but he’s tired of having to be always the one who tries to make a connection.)

The day when he can finally start gluing it all to the main structure comes, and he ends up not doing it after all, because he takes a look at the houses and finds them empty. Two days later, after hours of research on how to do the cutlery and the pottery, some failed attempts and a trip to the mall, he finds himself shaping them out of polymer clay, preheated oven beside him. If that wasn’t enough, after having rows upon rows of glasses, containers and different types of plates and bowls, he adds pans and pots to the collection until he’s satisfied.

Finally, nearly four weeks after he started, he starts gluing the houses in place and securing them with extra pillars that he pins to the main structure. He makes the roofs by shaping little sticks and gluing them in place, copying the ones from the movie. They’re not exactly like them, but it’s as close as he’s going to get with his current skill level. He then sticks the stairs that connect each level and the bridges between the three clusters and the lone bigger tree, where he has attached the biggest house too. As the final touches, he decorates the main area with rustic wooden benches and stumps, all around the setup for a fire, and attaches the polymer clay pulley with the cage (which has a working door, of course) at the far end of it. He then reapplies the sealant just in case and breathes, feeling deeply accomplished.

He waits a couple of days for everything to settle before he calls Anderson again. The man sounds like he has had fun with the waterfall project and like he feels pretty accomplished too. Stiles can’t wait to see it and to show him what he’s done too. Anderson tells him he’ll come by the next day and Stiles takes the opportunity to go to collect the moss and buy the plants for the tree tops.

At the home depot, he debates between the Pothos and the Heart-Leaf Philodendron. In the end, the Pothos is an easy choice, because not only is it very easy maintenance and purifies the air, but it’s also on sale and he spends much less than what he was expecting on them. He doesn’t have much pocket money left, but his allowance day is in three days, so he’s not as wary about it as he would normally be.

He feels a little silly about having to make two trips to take the six little plants home, but nothing breaks, so all is good. He checks the space for the potted plants at the top of the trees and they fit perfectly. He cheers and dances around the room like a dork for a while before going moss hunting. By the time dinner time rolls around, he has everything in place and having to eat dinner alone again doesn’t even sting like it normally does.

---

Anderson comes pretty early in the morning and whistles in appreciation at what he sees, making him beam and grin proudly. Then he takes out of his car a waterfall as tall as the whole tank and Stiles gapes astonished. The man snickers at his face, reaching to mess up his hair, and goes inside the house again.

After placing the tank in Stiles’ room, first they install the waterfall. It fits perfectly in a corner of the fish tank, going a little above its edge to disguise the wire and the flow’s setting very cleverly. The man has also made it so that Stiles can change the water inside using a little tube or refill it from outside, without having to take the whole thing out.

After that, they place the tree structure and then they cover all the spaces and the root part of the trees with pebbles. To the ones near the waterfall they apply a layer of sealant to prevent the moss eating the poor thing alive and over the rest they put a good layer of wet peat moss soil, making sure it doesn’t lay flat. Over that, they place the moss they’ve previously trimmed to fit and parts of the fallen wood to make it look more realistic. Finally, Stiles puts the Pothos at the tree tops, fills the waterfall and turns it on.

He has his Ewok Village like he said he would. His mom would have loved it because she loved gardening just as much as she loved Star Wars. Specifically, she loved the Ewoks. She had a lot of figurines and even made an Ewok onesie (furry hat included) for him when he was a baby. There’s photographic evidence of that in one of the dusty albums in the storage room. They feature Stiles in that onesie playing with the figurines and his mom in the background laughing.

(And now he wants to cry.)

(He waits until Anderson leaves.)

---

When school starts again, the moss is growing nicely and the Pothos are still alive. Stiles is also seriously considering either braving the storage room in search of those Ewok figurines or setting some of his allowance money aside to buy them, to put them in the village.

(His dad finally takes notice of the giant terrarium in his room. First he berates him for doing dangerous things and then, sighing exasperated, he congratulates him.)

(Stiles could have done without the lecture.)

—

There are two new kids at school that have transferred from New York of all places, which means they have climbed the social ladder ridiculously fast. Stiles hopes he’s wrong about the twins, but if things go as they normally do, he thinks he’s going to have to set some boundaries soon. He’s already caught others whispering to them about crazy Stiles that is a total nutjob that will destroy your life if you cross him and, while it somehow brings him a kind of vindictive glee and pride, it also can mean three different things for him. One, they think him a bully and try to teach him a lesson; two, they try to take him down to establish themselves as top dog for bragging rights; three, they don’t dare mess with him and avoid him like the plague. Okay, there could be a fourth and they could try to find if all those rumors are true for themselves, but yeah, right.

(Is it bad that out of those four choices he’s hoping for the third?)

Well, time will tell, he supposes.

(He has to resist the strong temptation of making a pre-emptive strike quite bad, though.)

—

About a month into the school year, the newcomers seem to have settled into a mixture of the three first options, leaning mostly towards the third after Stiles manipulated things into having them banned for the rest of the year from lacrosse in retaliation for a failed attempt at teaching him a lesson. Of course, no one can prove it was him, but they know .

It’s a rainy Friday afternoon in which he’s bored out of his mind, so Stiles finally decides to search for the Ewok figurines and to do a deep clean-up of the storage room while he’s at it.

After nearly one hour full of coughs, sneezes and watering eyes due to the ridiculous amount of dust, he decides that his plans of action are flawed and that he has to change them if he wants to come out of this experience alive and with his body intact.

(The giant spider that he’s pretty sure is actually the last dinosaur on Earth may or may not have helped force him into a hasty retreat.)

Half an hour and a trip to the store later, he tries to tackle the mission impossible again. With a facemask, the longest gloves he could find, his father’s protective glasses and his head covered with an old towel, no dinosaur is going to beat him. He also has long sleeves and has changed his shorts for pants, tucking them inside his socks for good measure, so that nothing crawls up there. He shudders just thinking about it. He just can’t stand spiders.

He decides to divide it into sections. First he organizes and cleans the things in those sections, making piles outside the room, then he tidies the spot superficially before tackling another section. And rinse and repeat. When he has the whole room mostly empty (there is some furniture he can’t move), he starts cleaning it thoroughly. Afterwards, he puts the organized piles (photo albums, books, music…) inside again neatly, filling drawers and shelves. He doesn’t dare to throw anything away but, except for some toys that hold a big sentimental value to him, he does set aside some things he never uses to donate them.

Six hours after he started, he hears his father’s cruiser pulling into the drive and he debates about what to do. He’s almost done but he hasn’t touched his mom’s things yet, having left them for last. His dad still won’t talk about her and all her things have been hidden in the storage room ever since he let go of the bottle, because the sight of them made him want to track the nearest liquor store and send them into bankruptcy after leaving them out of stock.

Stiles doesn’t want to be the one to pull him into that downward spiral again. He sighs, looking mournfully at the three boxes with his mother’s things. Maybe he’ll sneak in after dinner to at least get the figurines and set them in his terrarium, when his dad has gone to bed. He frowns when he hears him talking to the neighbor. Maybe…

In the end, with his heart beating wildly in his ribcage, he opens the boxes hastily, hoping that the figurines are in first sight. And they are. He rushes to his bathroom beaming but still jittery with nerves, and cleans them under the spray of water as fast as he can. When his father calls, they are already placed inside the terrarium.

He completely forgets about his battle attire and blinks in confusion for a moment when his dad asks about it, his eyebrow raised.

“Spring cleaning,” he chirps brightly, too happy about his success to care about resentment. “Er… Autumn cleaning?”

His dad snorts and pats his head fondly, only to pull his hand back with a grimace at the amount of dust settled there.

(The next day, by the time he finishes checking, cleaning and organizing his mom’s things, he’s not crying, dammit, it’s just that he forgot to put on the facemask and the dust is irritating his eyes.)

(He squirrels away the picture of himself in all his ewok onesie glory with his laughing mother and plastifies it, hiding it inside the biggest house of the terrarium so that if you crouch and you know where to look, you can see it.)

(He's the happiest he's been in a long time, and nothing can ruin what he's accomplished. Nothing.)

—

(Or maybe something can, because really, what the hell???)

Stiles wants to know what the hell has he ever done to deserve this. Or, if that’s a thing, in any of his past lives for that matter. Did he kill puppies or kitties for fun? Or babies? Was he Hitler? Because destroying the increasingly aggressive twins’ impeccable (or not so much now, but that was the point) record can’t possibly warrant this bad karma, right? Right?

It’s not his fault, ok? He did notice something was wrong, but who would have thought about this as an explanation? He did notice that the water of the waterfall went down too fast to be normal, but he thought it was maybe because of the heat wave! And of course he noticed that sometimes the ewok figurines were slightly out of place, but he thought that maybe his dad…

Seriously.

He calls a big WTF.

Fairies.

He can’t even…

No, seriously, he can’t.

He can’t because they somehow have made the Pothos grow meters in mere seconds and he’s plastered against the wall. Upside down. Stiles feels somehow betrayed because he’s their daddy, he’s been lovingly taking care of them since they were little babies and they have attacked him after all he has done for them…

He’s not being ridiculous, thank you very much. There are fairies in his room. There are fairies in his room pointing sharp looking little things at his face and he’s so completely out of his depth that he can’t stop talking. And there’s a little one (well, smaller that the rest, that is) that sneaked around the guards (or that’s at least what Stiles assumes them to be) about three minutes ago that wants to know where did all the hair go and he’s for some reason babbling about onesies and what ewoks are and the guards keep threatening him and…

“… what the hell?” he finally snaps, fed-up. “This is my house, my room, and the terrarium you’re accusing me of invading and all that shit? It’s mine too. I built it with my own two hands, and paid for the materials, and… I call bullshit here. You’re the ones trespassing here! I should be the one demanding explanations and not the other way round. And for the last time, I don’t know any glint or beam or spark or whatever the hell you’re talking about, ok?!”

The fairies go silent. They look at each other and then back at Stiles.

And it turns out that Stiles does know a spark… and quite well at that. Because he is one. Surprise, enter confetti and crackers. And the reason he has a fairy infestation in his room? Their colony was destroyed back in August and they were left wandering for a while, until the beckoning magic that Stiles had placed in the terrarium to mark it as a safe place for passing fairies called to them.

(His what now????)

Except they haven’t been able to find a suitable place to rebuild yet, and their manpower was reduced to a sixth (if that) of what it used to be when the colony fell, and there are members that are still healing, and their ruling pair is gone (which apparently means that their power has been reduced to a facsimile of what it should be), and…

In other words, they are desperate and grasping at straws and completely at loss about what to do right now. Well, it’s not like they say it outright (in fact they actually try to cover their obvious despair at the whole situation), but Stiles is quite adept at reading between the lines and he knows desperation when he sees it.

(He has intimate knowledge of it, after all.)

So, even though he’s still plastered to the wall with his feet nearly touching the ceiling, which places his head at an intimidating height from the ground and he’s definitely not happy about that, Stiles caves in. Kind of.

“We don’t have enough dishes and stuff,“ he grumbles with a sigh. When he receives no response, clearly having thrown them off kilter, he just continues. “Dishes and glasses and all that stuff, we don’t have enough. Because you’re about twenty people, that I can see, and I only made eight or ten of each, if I remember well.”

“We’ve been sharing?” the guard with his spear-like thing nearly up Stiles’ nose squeaks finally. Squeaks, yes, because all of them have high voices, man or woman, that he has to strain to listen to. He vaguely wonders about it, because there's no way he should be able to listen to them at this distance, but he dismisses it for now, chalking it up to some kind of fairy magic or whatever, because he has more pressing matters to worry about at the moment.

Stiles is going to regret all this, he just knows it. But he’s an incorrigible softie at heart just as much as he’s a vengeful asshole. He sighs again. “Come on, let me down before my brain leaks through my nostrils. I still have some polymer clay.”

So fairies are a thing.

He knows others in his situation would never believe what’s in front of their very own eyes, but Stiles has always been able to roll with whatever life throws at him, no matter what that is. Besides, thinking logically, he has taken no drugs or drank any alcohol that could impair his senses or make him hallucinate and, although he could be starting to develop the same dementia as his mother (and it is a possibility)… well, he pinched himself not a minute ago and yep, he was still hanging upside-down, plastered to his bedroom wall by the Pothos. The only thing left for him to do on that front is to somehow buy a pregnancy test to check if it turns positive, so until he manages to do that, fairies are a thing.

And he’s a wizard.

Or a spark, whatever. What matters is that that’s a thing too. A thing that is exciting and terrifying at the same time, because what other creatures exist too then? Elves? Vampires? Werewolves? Nymphs? Are those real too? Which myths are real and which not? As a spark, which are his powers? Can he do magic? Spells? Rituals? What can he do?

He wants answers, he’s not letting them stay out of the goodness of his… well, he is, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get something out of it, right? Admittedly, if they refuse to give him answers, he’s not going to kick them out. He’ll just have to find those answers by himself, that’s all. He’s pretty self-sufficient, so if push comes to shove, he’ll do it without help, like he always does. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to try to convince them, though.

His ears ring when he’s finally let down. He sits on the rug, holding his head as he waits for the dizziness to pass and for his vision to clear. He doesn’t appreciate the wet and cold sensation at all. Well, at least they didn’t just let go to see him brain himself with the free fall, so that’s definitely a sign of goodwill... right?

He eyes the overgrown Pothos warily, thinking of a way to manage it without having to chop the whole plant off. Then he decides that it’s not his mess, so he’s not going to take care of it. “You better leave these the way they were before,” he states firmly, pointing at the plant. “I’m not gonna explain that to my dad. My house, my rules and all that jazz.”

Up until now, Stiles has never let anyone walk over him and he’s not going to start with some fairies.

Next ⭐

#fides #teen wolf fics #my writing #teen wolf

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bakagamieru · 5 years ago

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Odd things that being a 1D fan on tumblr has taught (or at least has contributed in teaching) me:

All fandoms have their factions, their fights, their discrimination, their bullying, etc. Generally one fandom isn’t much worse or much better than the next.

Each fandom has its positive aspects- joy, sharing of ideas, production of content whether it be analysis or art or charity or something else, people speaking up against bullying, people supporting near strangers through rough patches, etc.

Each fandom has its negative aspects- homophobia, racism, policing of what a “true fan” is, bullying, personal grudges and fights, etc.

Internet communities really are just microcosms of the rest of life. Any organization you can think of has its equivalents of the elements and personalities and conflicts that go on in online communities like tumblr.

School classes

School faculty

Businesses

Governments

Clubs

Teams

Sports

Gaming culture

Groups of friends

Families

Fraternities and sororities

Theater crews

etc.

Human beings are incredibly suggestible, starting to believe things simply because they’re suggested or repeated to them enough.

Unintentional false witness testimony

Implanted memories

Folk remedies that don’t actually work

The idea that McDonald’s in the US has an acceptable quality of food and is even “good food”

Health, nutrition, and exercise advice based on no real evidence that is almost always overturned within 10-20 years

Celebrity images

Propaganda is EVERYWHERE. And it’s not always straightforward or easy to understand the sources and purposes behind it.

It’s in commercials and advertising obviously, but also

in the news,

in TV shows and movies,

in research studies and how they’re reported,

in government and in the laws that get passed or don’t.

History may as well be a nice piece of fiction.

There are so many errors or misrepresentations in how both the far and immediate past are described or explained by someone else that you have to do your own fact check on every single fact to tell whether someone is representing an event accurately or not.

Since this is impractical, we tend to go based on what sounds reasonable, but just because something sounds reasonable doesn’t mean it’s what actually happened or that extra context that changes the meaning entirely hasn’t been left out.

And so picking and choosing what to fact check is impossible because you’re likely to skip right over the biggest inaccuracies without even realizing it. So we often base our opinions and beliefs off of things other people say that might be entirely wrong.

Conspiracies are real. They’re not particularly special because conspiracies are a fact of life in entertainment, in business, and in the government.

They can be small and relatively harmless like the Santa Clause conspiracy that many parents participate in, or

they can be large and extremely harmful like cigarette companies trying to get people to believe their cigarettes were actually healthy while knowing they weren’t.

You can’t pass judgment on something until you understand it, at least in part. Passing judgment on something you have no information about and no experience with often ends up meaning you find out you were wrong, often embarrassingly, later on down the line.

Scoffing at a boyband you’ve only ever heard one song from is judging something without knowing it.

Scoffing at the idea that two boyband members could be in a relationship with each other without investigating the evidence first is judging something without knowing it.

Scoffing at the idea that there could be two couples in a boyband without investigating the evidence first is judging something without knowing it.

Nothing is as organized and flawless as you want it to be.

Even top law firms make typos in official documents and have lawyers that use terrible writing grammar and send bills to the wrong clients.

Even governments run on antiquated systems that haven’t been updated to be at all effective in current society, lose documentation, and are generally so bureaucratic that it’s a miracle anything ever gets done.

Even people running conspiracies are sloppy about keeping up an appropriate facade because they only care that the conspiracy holds up under surface-level scrutiny.

Even medical professionals don’t keep up on the newest developments and give outdated advice, misdiagnose people, miss or ignore important symptoms and tell patients they’re “fine”.

Even science doesn’t know nearly as much for sure as we think it does, which is why materials are newly discovered to be toxic every year, we only recently figured out that gut bacteria might be hugely important, and it was only a few years ago that someone finally discovered that yes, there is a physical link between the brain and the immune system.

I hope these don’t come across as overly negative. I tend to have a critical mindset and I try to pull it back and balance out the negative things with the positive that ARE there.

These aren’t bad things per se; they just ARE. It’s the way things are and it’s important to be aware of these things so that we at least know what’s going on around us and what things might be influencing us.

#one direction #bakagamieru #and people are dismissive or amused or contemptuous when they find out I'm a boyband fan #but you get out of anything what thought you put into #and being a fan of 1D has coincided with a pretty big change in how much I understand about the world and how it works #and being part of the fandom is part of what taught me those things

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hollymartinswrites · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 8/? Fandom: IT - Stephen King, IT (Movies - Muschietti) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh Characters: Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Original Child Character(s) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Domestic, Light Angst, Family Feels, Childhood Trauma, Adoption, Kid Fic, Adopted Children, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Marriage, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Are Parents, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Catholicism, Richie Tozier Has Issues, Extended Tozier Family, Medical Examinations, Stephen King References

Summary:

Eddie and Richie embark on the most terrifying experience of all—parenthood. Or, the author desperately needed a domestic, family fix-it for Richie and Eddie and it turned into a much longer, angstier exploration than I expected.

Chapter VIII: Richie begins to understand his daughter a bit more and reaches out for help.

There were a lot of things Richie liked about parenthood.

He liked seeing the world through his children’s eyes and experiencing things he had long dismissed as if for the first time (watching Lydia watch Star Wars was better than watching it for the first time as a kid). He liked the structure that came with parenting. It put his anxiety in check and, like the weighted blanket Eddie had given him on their first Christmas, calmed and comforted him.

He liked making his children laugh—loved it, in fact. Making Lydia and Tess laugh was better than making an audience in a thousand-seat theater laugh. And he liked laughing with his children, and was particularly fond of their strange, nonsensical jokes.

He liked the fact that though people complained about how it hard it was to raise kids today, what with all the rampant technology and kids growing up too fast, he was raising his girls in a time and place where having two dads wasn’t that weird. Sure, most kids they knew didn’t have same-sex parents but very few people actually gave a shit about it. It warmed Richie’s heart.

Finally, he liked waking up with the knowledge that he truly wasn’t alone anymore, that there were people who loved him unconditionally.

Of course, there were things he didn’t like about parenthood. He wasn’t crazy about punishments, though he was reluctant to just let Eddie handle those for fear of their kids determining that one parent was the nice one versus the mean one. He also didn’t like extracurricular activities, but he had the sneaking suspicion Tess wouldn’t be interested in as many as her sister was.

He hated germs and the knowledge that if one kid coughed, the entire house was under quarantine. When he found himself wiping down all the doorknobs with disinfectant wipes, he realized all his teasing of Eddie was unfounded. He had turned into Mrs. K. Gross.

He also had a very low tolerance for other parents. Most of them were entitled shitheads who raised snotty-nosed idiots that ran around without any boundaries or consequences. Eddie always teased him for preening so obviously whenever they were complimented for how polite and well-mannered their daughters were in public. Whatever, a victory is a victory.

And finally, Richie definitely did not like how little time parenting left for him and Eddie. He wasn’t stupid, he knew having a family would put their romantic life on the back burner a bit but sometimes, it got rough. Sometimes he just wanted a date night without worrying about the kids with their babysitter but it wasn’t like he could shut off his brain. And yeah, when Bev and Ben flew down, spur of the moment, to visit Mike and his new girlfriend in the Florida Keys, he was a little bit jealous. But then Lydia and Tess had asked for help with building a blanket fort in the living room and he realized, this isn’t so bad.

So no, Richie didn’t regret having kids with Eddie. He loved his daughters and couldn’t imagine life without them. And perhaps it was because of what happened in Derry that made Richie so determined that nothing would threaten his girls.

And if that meant hours of research and more long nights reading than he had done while in college, then so be it. If it meant he woke up every morning exhausted because he had been up half the night digging through forums and links and hints on the internet, whatever. The only thing that irked him about it was the worried looks Eddie sometimes shot his way. But who cares? Tess needed answers.

And of course, the name scratched on the piece of paper the nurse had given him gave no real leads. Whoever this was had no social media presence, not even a LinkedIn. Was this guy a fucking 90-year-old? Even they had Facebooks, at least.

Eddie turned over in bed and groaning, blinking slowly.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he grumbled, squinting against the light of Richie’s iPad which, to be fair, was on the lowest setting.

“Reading,” Richie replied. “Go back to sleep.”

“You need to go to sleep to begin with,” Eddie yawned. “What fucking time is it?

Richie glanced at the time at the top right corner of the screen and winced.

“1:32,” he admitted.

“What the fuck,” Eddie said, reaching for his iPad. “That’s enough.”

“Eds, no, wait—”

“It’ll be there when you use it tomorrow morning,” Eddie replied, taking the iPad out of his hands and closing the cover. He placed it on the nightstand and wrapped his arm around Richie’s middle, causing Richie to wince once again. He had definitely gained some weight but stress-eating in the middle of the night will do that to a middle-aged man.

“Come on, lay down,” Eddie said softly. “Relax.”

“I can’t.”

Eddie sighed and maneuvered his head onto Richie’s chest.

“Tess has been fine,” he admitted gently. “No seizures, no bad dreams, no mentioning of anything out of our past for over a week. You can relax for one night, Rich.”

Richie swallowed and gazed up at the ceiling. He knew Eddie could easily feel his heart beating rapidly and he wondered, not for the first time, just how much he frustrated his husband. Suddenly, Eddie turned his head and kissed Richie’s chest, right above his heart. Richie looked down at him and was suddenly struck with the thought of how amazing it was to be laying here, in this house, with Eddie in his arms.

“Come on, love,” Eddie whispered, “try to get some rest with me, hm?”

Richie nodded and laid back.

“Alright,” he said gently. “Whatever you say, Eds.”

Pulling up to the preschool in the early afternoon always filled Richie with relief. Not for the first time, he reflected on how grateful he was that in their school district, kindergarten was also only a half-day. He had no idea how he would handle Tess going into first grade and having both girls gone all fucking day, the house empty and silent. What the fuck was he gonna do with his time?

Richie parked the car and stepped out, his hands in his pockets. He could write more, he guessed, maybe even take Eddie’s advice and try his hand at essays (“You could be the next David Sedaris, Rich,” Eddie had insisted one day. Richie thought he was being a bit too kind but whatever).

Maybe he’d start hanging out with those stay-at-home moms who spend their free time drinking white wine, going to Zumba, and annoying their friends with pyramid schemes. He could charm his way into that group, couldn’t he?

Richie opened the door to the preschool and was greeted by the sound of children playing, a few whining, one crying, and teachers trying to maintain a semblance of order. He greeted one or two that he knew, along with saying hi to a couple kids from the neighborhood before spotting Tess, pouting in a seat.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said happily. “What’s going on?”

She said nothing, just looked down at her hands as one teacher, Miss Lisa, approached the two of them.

“Do you want to tell your dad what color you got today?” she asked Tess pointedly.

Richie frowned. The fucking color system. Tess always had green next to her name but from the look on her face plus the tone of Miss Lisa’s voice, he knew things were bad.

“What color did you get?” he asked gently.

Tess merely looked away and wrapped her arms around her knees. He turned toward the teacher.

“Yellow,” she replied, “for not listening and talking back.”

Richie raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“That doesn’t sound like you, Tess,” he said. He crouched down to her level. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you listen?” She remained silent, still avoiding her father’s gaze. “Tess, look at me.”

She glanced over and bit her lip before looking back down at her lap. She shrugged once. Richie sighed and straightened.

“Go get your jacket and backpack. We’ll talk about this at home,” he said. She took off for her cubby. He turned back to the teacher. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright,” she said, “all kids have days like this. It was just surprising from Tess, that’s all.”

Richie nodded and ran a hand through his hair.

“I’ll talk to her,” he offered lamely.

Miss Lisa nodded and then took a step closer to Richie, lowering her voice.

“Does Tess talk about her imaginary friend at home?” she asked.

Richie froze, and he briefly wondered if she could tell that the rictus smile on his face was false.

“Sometimes,” he breathed.

She nodded.

“That’s what the issue was today,” she said. “She was too busy playing with her imaginary friend to listen and then talked back when we tried to get her to focus. She’s quite protective of this friend.”

“Right.”

She must’ve thought Richie was upset because she quickly explained, “Most of the kids here have imaginary friends, it’s totally normal. It’s just that when they use them as an excuse to break the rules, we have an issue.”

“Of course,” Richie said blankly.

Miss Lisa smiled reassuringly as Tess arrived with her jacket and backpack and a pout still on her face.

“Come on, kiddo,” Richie said, leaning toward to take her hand. “Say goodbye and apologize.”

“Bye, Miss Lisa,” she muttered, looking down at her shoes. “Sorry.”

“Thank you, Tess,” the teacher replied gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Richie and Tess walked out of the preschool silently.

He sat at the kitchen table beside his daughter. She was in a much better mood now that she was home and eating apple slices coated in peanut butter. Richie took a moment to memorize how content she looked before opening his mouth.

“Listen, kiddo, I gotta ask, why weren’t you paying attention in school today?”

Tess shrugged and munched on another slice.

“You know you’re not supposed to do that,” he continued. “And you’re such a good student. You know better.”

She frowned briefly and nodded. Richie wiped a hand over his face as he sighed. Fuck, this was harder than he thought.

“Your job at school is to listen to the teachers,” he explained, feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite, positive that when he tells this story to his parents, they’ll laugh for hours. “You know that. And you don’t talk back. That’s not like you at all.”

“I know,” Tess mumbled, sounding very near tears and sending a stab through Richie’s heart.

“Baby, you’re not in trouble,” he said quickly. “You just...learned a lesson today, right?”

She nodded and sniffed.

“Oh, come here,” he murmured, immediately taking her into his arms and pulling her onto his lap. He kissed the top of her head repeatedly. “It’s okay, kiddo. You had an off day. It happens to everyone. Even me.”

“Yeah?” she asked, muffled from hiding her face in his chest.

“Yeah,” Richie insisted. “I have them all the time.”

She turned her head and rested it against her father’s heart. Richie tightened his arms around her and allowed himself some time to just enjoy. But he had to find out more.

“Tess, baby,” he said softly, “do you have an imaginary friend?”

She hesitated every so slightly before nodded.

“She’s real,” she insisted.

“I know,” Richie replied, swallowing. “What’s her name.”

“Abracadabra,” she admitted after a moment’s pause. Richie frowned. Sounded like a regular imaginary friend’s name. Maybe this had nothing to do with...everything else.

“Sounds cool,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “Do you guys play together a lot?”

“No, only sometimes.”

“But you guys played today?”

“Yeah,” Tess admitted, wiping at her nose. “She only stayed for a little.”

“What do you guys like to play?”

Tess shrugged.

“She just shows me stuff.”

Richie tightened his grip on his daughter.

“Like what?” he whispered.

“My shine.”

“Shine? What’s that?”

Tess sat back in her father’s lap and gazed up at him, confused.

“My magic,” she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Your magic that...helps you see things? Like me and Daddy as little boys?” Richie asked slowly.

She nodded.

“What does she show you?”

Tess hesitated, then tilted her head to the side, and raised one hand to rest along her father’s face. All at once, the air rushed out of Richie’s lungs, as if he was in a vacuum. He was no longer in their kitchen, but everywhere at once, flashes of memories and images swirling past his eyes like trees when you speed down the highway.

He caught glimpses of himself as a child, Eddie with his broken arm, Bowers shouting at him in the arcade, stepping on stage and bombing, Edding kissing Myra in City Hall, Neibolt collapsing, Eddie pale and coughing up blood, screams and tears and laughter, Tess as a baby—before he had ever known her, Lydia pushing her sister to the ground in frustration, Richie and Eddie arguing—unaware that both girls could hear them, the Losers overwhelming Tess with their hugs and kisses when they first met her, Richie floating, the MRI machine. All of it streamed past in a dizzying smear of color and sound until, like water in a drain, it circled into a box and abruptly, a hand came down and slammed it shut.

Richie blinked. He was back in his kitchen with his daughter in his arms, her hands folded delicately in her lap.

He gasped, his chest heaving, tears running down his face. He gazed down, slack-jawed, at his daughter, who suddenly looked so much older and wiser beyond her four years.

“She shows me how to stop it,” she said plainly.

“Mikey, I need your help,” Richie said quickly, barely able to catch his breath.

“What? What is it? Are you okay?” Mike responded just as quickly.

“I’m fine, we’re all fine,” Richie replied. “I just need your help in doing some research.”

Mike hesitated. Richie bit his lip and tightened his grip on the phone.

“Is this about Tess?” Mike finally asked.

“Yeah.”

“Richie, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Mike admitted softly. “I mean, I’ve been doing some thinking and maybe Eddie’s right. Maybe this is all crazy.”

“It’s not, though,” Richie said firmly. “It’s not because I fucking saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“Everything,” he blurted out. “Her ability to see things that have happened fucking years ago. I saw it. She showed me.”

“How?” Mike asked and Richie could just picture the cautiously curious look on his face.

“She fucking put her hand on my face and, I don’t know, transferred it,” he said, realizing quickly how insane he sounded. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Mike was silent once again but Richie didn’t have time for it.

“I need your help finding the girl in the articles you sent me,” he continued. “They protected her identity but I need to find her.”

“Richie, how the hell am I supposed to—”

“I don’t know, but that’s what you do, right? Research,” Richie reminded him.

Mike sighed.

“And what are you gonna do if I find her real name and info?” he asked tentatively.

“Talk to her,” Richie said. “I’m not gonna show up at her house but maybe I could at least email her or something.”

“Rich, I think you’re working yourself up a bit,” Mike said gently.

“No shit I am,” Richie exclaimed. “Mikey, this is real. And I need your help. Please. For my daughter’s sake.”

“Oh, for fuck...” Mike groaned. “Why’d you have to go and say that?”

“Please.”

“Alright, alright,” Mike sighed. “I’ll do some digging but I make no guarantees.”

“Yes, thank you so much, man. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Rich.”

Richie jumped when he heard the front door open and close and both girls rush to greet Eddie with squeals of “Daddy!” He turned back to the stove and began stirring the pasta for no apparent reason. Stay calm.

Eddie walked into the kitchen, loosening his tie and smiled.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted, stepping up to Richie to kiss him on the cheek, “how are you doing?”

“Fine,” Richie answered quickly. “You?”

“Tired, but what else is new,” Eddie said. “The girls have a good day?”

“Yeah, fine,” Richie lied. The water in the pot suddenly boiled over, splashing onto his hand. He hissed and snatched his hand back.

“Oh, Rich,” Eddie sighed, grasping his wrist and rushing him to the sink and running cool water over Richie’s hand.

“I’m fine,” Richie said, wincing. “Lower the heat on the stove, would ya?”

Eddie nodded and reluctantly let go of Richie’s hand to lower the burner.

“Do you want some ice?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine. Not a big deal,” Richie said quickly, turning off the water.

“Rich, I think you should hold some ice on it,” Eddie insisted, gazing at the angry burn on his hand.

“I said I’m fine,” Richie repeated, drying his hand on a dishtowel and trying not to wince at the pain.

Eddie gazed at him, a hurt look on his face.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly. “You seem jumpy. Did something happen? Something with Tess?”

“Nothing happened,” Richie lied again. “I’m just tired and headachey.”

“Okay,” Eddie said slowly. He turned towards the cabinet where they kept the first aid kit and took out a bottle of ibuprofen. He poured two in his hand and handed them to Richie. “Take this for your hand and your headache. I’m gonna go take a shower before dinner, alright?”

“Fine,” Richie said, swallowing the pills dry. He turned away as Eddie walked out of the kitchen.

Richie hated lying to Eddie. He also didn’t think he was particularly good at it, which was quite funny considering he had lied all throughout his career and most of his adulthood. You’d think he’d have this down perfectly but now, lying to Eddie’s face, it sucked. He didn’t mention what Tess had showed him and probably wouldn’t have discussed her behavior at preschool but they were somehow raising two oddly honest children and she blurted it out at dinner.

“How was school today, girls?” Eddie asked as he served them both.

“Okay,” Lydia said, more interested in her food than anything else.

“I got yellow today,” Tess admitted sadly.

Richie flinched as he watched Eddie try to decipher just what on earth she meant by that cryptic statement before he remembered.

“Oh,” he said, mildly confused, “why’s that, sweetheart? You’re always on green.”

Tess shrugged and looked down at her plate of spaghetti sourly.

“Had some trouble listening today,” Richie said quickly. “I talked to her already.”

“I see,” Eddie said, nodding. “Did the teachers and Papa explain why it’s important to pay attention?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“I always pay attention,” Lydia pointed out.

“I know you do,” Eddie replied before glancing back at his youngest. “You okay, Tess?”

She nodded and gazed up at her father as if wanting to say more.

“I think she’s just embarrassed,” Richie said suddenly.

Eddie frowned but dropped the subject as Tess began eating. Richie relaxed, guilt nevertheless rising in his throat.

Later that night, as they laid side by side in bed, Richie wondered if he should just tell everything to Eddie—about Tess’s imaginary friend, the visions he saw, asking Mike for help. What’s the big deal? The worst he could say was that he was crazy...again.

Suddenly, Eddie reached for his hand and held it gently in the dark.

“How’s the burn?” he asked softly.

“Fine,” Richie said blankly, having completely forgotten about it.

Eddie brought his hand to his lips and kissed it gently in the general area of the burn before trailing kisses up Richie’s arm in an exaggerated imitation of Gomez Addams. Normally, Richie would laugh, but this time, he just pulled it out of Eddie’s grasp.

“Not now,” he sighed, staring up at the ceiling. He could feel Eddie’s eyes on him and just knew they probably looked ever sadder than usual.

“What’s going on, Rich?” Eddie implored. “You’ve been weird all evening.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Richie lied again. “I just got a lot of things on my mind.”

“So tell me about them,” Eddie asked, rolling onto his side to fully face his husband. “That’s what spouses are supposed to do. Share issues.”

“You do that with Myra?” Richie snapped, horrified even as the words tumbled out of his mouth.

Eddie tensed and stared at him, shock written plainly on his face.

“Fuck you, Richie Tozier,” Eddie said after a moment’s pause. “I don’t know what the fuck your problem is but fuck you. I haven’t done shit to you.”

He rolled over onto his side, away from Richie, and pulled the blankets up over his shoulders. Richie clenched his eyes shut and took a deep breath, wondering just what the fuck was his problem.

The email wasn’t very long.

I can’t find the girl from all those studies. They did a solid job protecting her identity. But I did find more about the guy she mentioned as her mentor a couple times in the articles. It is the same name that nurse gave you. I recognized it from a story an old-timer once told me back in Derry. I did some digging and found out that he works in a hospice in New Hampshire. The number’s below. I hope this helps.

Richie typed the number into his phone, his thumb hovering over the call button. He took a deep breath and put his phone down. He turned his gaze to the laptop screen, Mike’s email staring back at him.

If he called, he could possibly get the answers he needed for Tess. Or he could literally be opening Pandora’s box, if the vision she had showed him had any truth to it. He dropped his face into his hands and groaned and before he could second-guess himself, he picked up the phone and called the number.

Richie’s stomach was ice as it rang several times and he was about to hang up when a cheery voice answered, thanking him for calling the hospice and asking where to direct his call. Richie licked his lips and opened his mouth.

“Dan Torrance, please,” Richie said.

#reddie #it chapter 2 #reddie fanfic #richie tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak

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thecradlerocks · 5 years ago

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