#Many a sleepless nights have been spent thinking of how much wasted potential was in this stupid jackal and his stupid shiny rock. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

romanticchemacademic · 4 years ago

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Dear future health professionals and stem professors,

We need a revolution of thought. Only through a renaissance of pure and genuine passion towards medicine and other sciences will we have competent doctors, nurses, other healthcare workers, and teachers. We live in a world where people pursue noble professions for the sake of social and economic advancement. However, we lack individuals who love the process of learning and their career.

I recollect quite a marvelous excerpt written by one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, Albert Einstein. In his book, The World As I see It he writes:

ACADEMIC CHAIRS ARE MANY, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice is small. Nature scatters her common wares with a lavish hand, but the choice sort she produces but seldom.

We all know that, so why complain? Was it not ever thus and will it not ever thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives a society its particular tone. Each of us has to do his little bit towards transforming this spirit of the times.

Compare the spirit which animated the youth in our universities a hundred years ago with that prevailing today. They had faith in the amelioration of human society, respect for every honest opinion, the tolerance for which our classics had lived and fought.

I believe that one of the faults lies within education institutions. Educators rely on testing, textbooks, and detached memorized lectures. Lectures lack passion and another essential factor: the real practice. The theory is important but the practice is necessary to understand the theory. But without passion, nobody will learn to love the material being taught. Ibn Sina is known for being one of the greatest physicians and teachers of Islamic medicine. I am not completely sure whether what I am about to mention is true. But I read that when he lectured theory to the medical students at the Madrassa (University) he would show them how it worked. Besides medical history and theory. He also taught physics, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. However, he is also famed for being an excellent teacher duly because he would take his students to test out the theories and practice what they have been taught. If they were learning medical theory, they were taken to the hospital to observe patients and their cases. If they were learning astronomy, they would all gather in the evening to look up at the heavens to look at the constellations. Lastly, his passion for his vocation was the final touch. Educators without the drive cannot teach. Learning is about understanding oneself, others, and the world. Learning evolves our minds and our spirits by making us get in harmony with the universe. I believe this ties in with Aristotle’s famous saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Though my interpretation may be a wee bit off, I translate it as thus; we can gather all textbook knowledge as possible but if we do not put into practice the knowledge learned, what is the point? I yearn and I pine to experience all that I have learned. I want to see why the theory makes sense in reality. I want to conduct experiments. So much potential is being wasted. Biology is the study of life. However, when I took the course, it was so cold to a point that it did not even feel like I was studying the human body but something alien instead. There is also such a rush to memorize material within a couple of weeks because of exams that the material ceases to be interesting and becomes more of an arduous chore instead. Our sense of time-shifted completely after the industrial revolution. Perhaps this is a reason why we feel the need to rush through everything and not take our time to study profoundly.

We need another Scientific Revolution, curious minds thirsting for the acquisition of knowledge and unanswered questions. However, I believe that the leading force behind this is a necessity. I would like to mention an example to illustrate what I mean from a novel I read a while ago called, The Physician by Noah Gordon. A boy from Medieval Europe lost his mother from an unknown disease leaving him orphaned. He then grew up with the necessity to learn what the disease was and how to prevent other similar deaths, so that others do not suffer what he has suffered. He then worked with Barbers (people who performed medical procedures in Medieval Europe). But the medical knowledge these professionals had was not enough to answer his question. Thus, he traveled to Persia where there was a quite renowned and exclusive medical school. He did not have the economic means or previous schooling to attend but he impressed the headmaster with his passion and knowledge. Thus, the headmaster admitted him into the Madrassa. The European boy then invested all his time doing research, dissections and treating patients until he finally found out what ailment caused his mother’s death, side sickness (appendicitis). He figured out a way to treat this illness, removal of the appendix. From his initial necessity which was the driving force for him to pursue a medical career, he became a famous physician and felt that all his suffering and odyssey were worthwhile. The sense of necessity leads to the feeling of passion. It was his love for his mother that made him follow such a journey full of obstacles. I am beginning to apply that to my own life. I want to figure out my necessity which will be the driving force to power through university and medical school without ever feeling burnt out. I want to feel fulfilled. I believe this is what all pre-medical students and teachers should think about. What is your necessity? We are going to be dealing with human life, someone’s mother, father, friend, sister, uncle, lover, husband, or child...It is not something to be taken lightly. I know so many doctors lacking empathy because they went into the medical field with just the intention of being acknowledged as “Doctors” and getting rich. But I feel that even the most apathetic healthcare workers can become great empathetic professionals the moment they realize that something was triggered deep inside them, perhaps a loved one having an unknown disease. This would lead the apathetic doctor to do mass amounts of research to try to find a cure. This feeling becomes a necessity. A necessity to not lose the loved one. A necessity to save lives. Thus, finding passion, purpose, and becoming a better person. Though each person is different, we all share a selfish feeling. Most of the time we do not truly care about other peoples’ suffering until it happens to us. Once we are affected by something, we drive all our time and attention to find a solution or a way to deal with a problem. We become consumed and completely obsessed by it. I regard this as passion. I do not think passion subsides, it lingers on inside us. It is a fire that never burns out. I remember my high school teacher writing in my yearbook:

Remember a few things, BE PATIENT. You are eager and you will accomplish so much. But take your time, you are always rushing. Life is a journey, it is not about the destination. Be picky. You love everything with enthusiasm but enthusiasm can burn out. Find a fire inside yourself that burns for a long time.

-V

We cannot rush our personal legend. I believe it comes to us. It is Maktub (it’s written). But we also have to do something. Imagine you are on a stranded island but you have a machete, a fishing rod, coconuts, a cave for shelter, wood for a fire, an ocean full of fish. Everything required for survival is there, but you simply have to cut open the coconut with the machete, go fishing for food, fire to cook, and warmth. The fish isn’t going to swim right into your hands and the fire will not light itself. We must use our resources and do our bit. The Universe has a lot going on, we must help out a bit.

If you ever think about quitting, try to remember what made you start your odyssey in the first place. I do not know what my necessity is yet but that is okay. I believe it will come to me eventually. So for now, I simply love to romanticize academia. I like to imagine the: earthy tones of the universities archways, cobblestone paths, laboratories with clean Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers, pristine white lab coats, bunsen burner flames changing colors as different salts are added, Bromothymol Blue pen stains, elegant calculations inside a worn leather-bound notebook, formulas scrawled over the blackboard, forgotten cold Irish breakfast tea on the desk, academics discussing theories, applause from a successful experiment, gray rainy days spent inside the lab, Whitman, Hemingway, et Sir Arthur Conon Doyle being read during break, intellectual conversations with professors, chemistry reports being written, molecular models built, volumes of ancient words, fire slowly burning in the stone fireplace, trying to understand, looking at the constellations on a clear night in the astronomy tower, reciting poetry, Tchaikovsky playing whilst completing a long lab report on Lê Chatelier’s theory of Equilibrium, curious minds, sleepless evenings in the library, beautiful anatomical illustrations...Just imagining these things motivate and inspire me to continue my path. Though it may seem superficial, it awakens something inside me. I yearn and I pine to become a Chemistry Romantic.

I want to conclude this letter by saying that pupils and educators keep ideals alive and can change them accordingly as well. We have the power to become excellent professionals or simply exist and do nothing for the human race. But if you plan on becoming a physician or educator, you must find the trigger which brings your passion to life, your necessity. Once you find that, you are guaranteed greatness and fulfillment. However, do not rush. Perfection takes time. A couple of obstacles should not hinder you from persevering. Many will tell you to give up but do not. That is the Universe testing you. Do your best until you master the topic. Once you know better, you are then able to do better.

Regards,

Confessions from a Chemistry Academic

#stem dark academia #dark academia #academia #stem #philosophy #academic universitylife #unilife #chemistry #medicine

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taentedmess · 3 years ago

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sleepless nights

summary: a year is a long time, isn’t it? you’ve spent yours stuck in an eternal, monochrome winter. a surprise encounter derails all of your plans: feelings fade… or do they, really?

pairing: taehyung x reader

word count: 5.4k

warnings: swearing, terrible terrible angst (im sorry!), heartbreak, implied smut, angsty flashbacks :(

a/n: hi everyone! this is my very first fic on tumblr and i really hope you enjoy! please listen to spring day and scenery to really get into the feels - i hope you lose yourself in this little slice of a seoul winter :’) also i do have a storyline planned if you enjoy this little piece and could potentially even make this a series aah! please leave comments and constructive criticism - i’d love to grow as a writer! (@chateautae i finally did it!!!!!!)

[ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ]

09:17am, december 17, 2020

It’s been a year since you last saw him. A year of emptiness, hollowness, blankness. A year since you turned your back, leaving without a goodbye. It’s been a year since you’ve walked out his front door, the same one that you’d find yourself visiting and revisiting when you knew he wasn’t home.

It’s been a year since you last felt some semblance of happiness, a year since you’ve let out a genuine laugh, smiled from cheek-to-cheek. It’s been a year devoid of warmth: you shivered under the embrace of the summer sun, no longer noticed the blooming flowers that you had once loved so much. The world lost all its color. Fading into a bleak grayscale so far away, unreachable. No longer did you walk with a spring in your step, no longer did your eyes glimmer with galaxies that you’d once built with him. You were empty, a ship lost in the depths of the dark oceans. Floating, barely surviving, with no set destination. All you saw were never-ending, infinite oceans in all directions. No escape, no lighthouse. Just you. Alone. Pointless.

Your heart aches for him, the echo of a honeyed baritone, the ghost of his warm, muscular arms wrapped around your shoulders.

It’s for the best, you had thought. It’s for the best.

You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the thoughts out of your mind. There was too much, too many feelings, pent-up emotions. You weren’t a woman of emotions, never were, swore to never be, until you had met him. And he had changed everything.

Stop. This is getting ridiculous.

You needed to get on with your life, you think. There are too many things to think about, so many better thoughts requiring your attention. What were you doing, wasting your energy on him? It was time, you had decided, to end things once and for all.

The ticket machine snaps you out of your reverie, demanding it get paid. How much did the trip cost? You’ve forced yourself to forget, holed up all the memories too far into the shadows of your mind in your sheer desperation to evade the pain. You slot in a W10,000 bill, way too much, but better than having to remember. The machine happily eats up the cash, returning your card and sending you on your way.

You navigate the platforms, seeing the brightly-lit signs: Incheon line, Suin line, Bundang line. Then you see it, Platform 6, Gyeongwon line. South-bound to Soyosan, stopping at Iryeong. Your heart thumps, stomach twists, and you feel like throwing up. How many times had you once ascended these very steps with him, hand-in-hand, smiling to one another? How many times had you raced up these stairs, trying to get to the platform first? It’s too much, and you want to run. Run away from this place, from the thoughts and feelings.

No. You need this.

The winter air roughly brushes against your cheeks, hurrying you along.

What are you so afraid of?

Everything, you think. Everything. You’ve bound your heart in chains and locks, plastered it with thousands of bandages, one on top of the other. You’ve holed it away, willed it out of existence. You’re afraid of the memories, the emotions. You’re afraid of yourself.

Go. Just go. Get it over with.

You force your feet to move, one after another. You don’t think, you just move. Move onto the platform, move onto the train. You don’t realize that you’ve boarded the machine until you hear an all-too-familiar voice on the loudspeaker.

“This is the Special Rapid Train, on the Gyeongwon line, headed for Sosoyan. We will be stopping at Seokgye, Wolgye, Dobong and Iryeong. Please stay clear of the sliding doors!”

You vaguely see the blinking of lights and hear the shutting of the doors. The train picks up speed, clicking against the railroads. You are blank, a passenger on an endless journey. You sway when the train sways, stop when it stops. You don’t know how many stops have passed, having lost yourself in the familiar nothingness that had hollowed you out for the past year, until the speakers announce something about the next station being Dobong. You’re near, you realize. Too near.

Too soon does the train halt, birthing out and collecting new passengers as seats empty and taken once more in a matter of seconds. You watch this interchange with a bitter smile: how quickly he must have replaced you after you’d left, how he must’ve taken in another in your place.

Stop it.

Too engrossed in your thoughts, you don’t notice the closing of the doors and the blinking of the lights until you hear the loud system once more as the train starts to accelerate.

“Iryeong, Iryeong. Our next stop is Iryeong, please get off on the right side of the train.”

You are left suddenly hyper aware of your surroundings, watching as snow paints the ground white. The houses blur into trees and back into villages as you stare out the window, and you start to remember. You remember your hands intertwined, dancing in the snow, the click of a camera as the melodies of your laughs twirling in the air. You remember the snugness of his embrace, his earthy cologne, his smile, his lips pressed against yours…

Stop.

You tear your gaze away from the glass, staring down at your gloved hands fiddling in your lap. It’s been a year. It’s laughable how much and how little has changed. You’re different, yes, but yet so painfully similar to the girl who ran away. It’s funny how much of a difference, or lack thereof, a year can make, you think. It’s certainly been hard on you, and you find yourself wondering about him, about how maybe the year has changed him, how he’s doing, if he’s eating well, if…

Stop.

You’re hopeless, aren’t you?

You sigh and shut your eyes. You’re going crazy. Or maybe you’ve always been crazy. Your thoughts are feverish, a maelstrom in your mind. Involuntarily, you notice your feet rapidly tapping the metal bar to your side, vibrating against the pole. You feel the ghost of a touch on your thigh, hear the empty shell of his words, breathe, Y/N, breathe. What’s got you all worked up? And for a moment, just a moment, you feel his presence to your side, capture the warmth radiating off of his figure, and smile. Because it’s all okay when he’s here.

But he’s not.

You decide to focus on the sound of the railroads, staring down at the speckled floor of the train as the carriage undulates gently, side to side. You ride along, the train’s movements easing your own and you begin to lose yourself once again in the clacks of the rails, mind going blank, until you start to notice the slowing of the sounds. The train’s dance comes to a slow, inviting people to start getting up and shuffle towards the doors. Your heart sinks to your stomach. Not yet, not yet. It can’t be. It’s too soon.

The loudspeaker crackles to life, confirming your worst fears. “Arriving at Iryeong, please stay clear of the doors and exit on the right side of the train.”

Your legs move on their own accord, pulling you to a standing position as you grip the metal post with your life. The train continues to slow, eventually, painstakingly coming to a halt. You wish it never will, that it will continue on with its journey ahead. But it’s too late. The doors slide open, the sounds of the outside world whistle for you, calling you, urging you out of the comfort of the train. You don’t dare move, standing still as passengers trickle out, as the flashing lights start to appear, as the minute at the station starts to come to an end. The doors are closing in five. Four.

You twitch.

Three. Two.

“Wait!”

You rush out the doors, barely escaping the iron clasp of the metals that would’ve devoured you had you been a second too late. Behind you, the steel hisses as the vehicle exits the station, leaving you alone. So utterly alone.

You’re blessed with a moment of solitude, feeling nothing but the cold air chilling your face, until you realize where you are and why you’re here.

The bliss of being alone rapidly evaporates, and you’re hit with a speeding truck. The memories flood in; you’re winded, gasping for breath as you’re stormed with images, short clips of him, you, the pair of you. His smile, his laugh, his cheeks, eyes, nose. His breath tickling yours before he leans in for a kiss, his gentle, large hands cupping your face as you close your eyes…

Stop. Get a fucking grip, will you?

You force the color out of your mind as you make your way around the platform, empty now that everyone has gone. Your eyes graze against the pathetic, run-down station: the signs are only partially lit, the electricity having worn out. Your fingers run against the peeling, dirtied paint of the walls, dust bunnies catching onto your gloves. You scoff. This is pathetic. The floor is littered with plastics and old soda bottles, as if nobody’s been here to clean in too long. Graffiti smiles sadly back at you as you scan the fading walls, losing their life by the second. The bricks have faded into a musty brown, drab and uninteresting. Everything is so run down, so tired. You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you make your way to the minimart to your right, wanting a beverage to help warm your insides up.

The doors slide open with a gentle clink, altering the store of your presence. The cashier at the counter looks up at you through half-lidded eyes, barely acknowledging you, before returning to the drama playing on his cracked phone. The shelves are well-stocked, however, in stark contrast to the beaten-down appearance of this whole ordeal. You glide along the aisles, and everything is the same. Your favorite tea is still on the same shelf as it was all those months ago, his favorite gimbap in the bottom left corner of the chiller. Beef and sesame, he’d get, while you’d get a tuna for yourself, clinking your drinks and hearing the hiss of his cola opening, laughing as you made a mess of yourselves, two young fools madly in love. You’d talk, drink, eat for hours, whispering, dreaming and wishing, wondering what was going to come in the future, what you’d name your first puppy, whether you wanted a girl or a boy for your first child. Never would you have ever imagined that it would all end this way.

Stop it.

You grab your bottle of tea violently, almost knocking it over in your hurry to leave. You could no longer stay, not here, suffocating in your memories of him. You erased the gimbap out of your vision, ignoring it as you made your way to the counter, paying for your drink as the half-hearted employee handed you with your change. You mutter a thank you, unsure if he had even heard, and mindlessly make your way out of the store, too focused on keeping someone out of your head. You nearly bang into the glass doors in your haste, looking down and walking as fast as you can. Until your heart stops, that is.

You don’t dare look up, not now. The whole world slows to a stand-still, your gaze sharpening on nothing. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, your lungs stop working. Electricity charges through the air and you’re left reeling, not knowing what to do.

Slowly, painfully, your neck raises, muscles straining with all their might. You already know what you’re going to see, who you’re going to see, but the sight of him still shocks you all the same. You nearly spill your drink all over yourself when you finally look up, and your brain goes into overdrive. You’re sure that your mouth is hanging open, jaw slack, but you can’t do anything about it. Your knees buckle, you can’t breathe, suffocating, wanting the ground to swallow you up at this very moment. You want to fall, tumble into an eternal tunnel. You are dizzy, light-headed, going crazy, you swear. You’re going crazy, aren’t you? This can’t be real, can it?

You can’t believe it. You’re drowning, drowning in those chocolate eyes, sinking into his pupils, losing yourself in his gorgeous features. You drink him all in, his own face mirroring yours, in no doubt absolute shock or maybe even despair, his deadly stare making your breath hitch as it once did so long ago. He’d never lost his power over you, after all. The world is suspended around you, all operations ceased as you both continue to stare into each other’s eyes, the tension so palpable that it threatens to devour you whole. Your larynx seems to be glued shut, your tongue a stone in your mouth. There are no words, no way to express this feeling that washes over you upon seeing him again.

“Y/N…”

His voice. Your ears ring with his deep baritone, honey to your ears. You can’t help it: you quite literally swoon, despite the circumstances. His voice: it ignites a fire within you, warm tendrils of heat rising up from your stomach. Vibrations send throughout your core, making you lightheaded and sure that you’re about to fall. You remember his timber next to you in the dead of light, comforting you, whispering sweet nothings into your ear, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, you’re here with me.

You hug your arms around yourself, trying to keep it all in, retain the strange feeling that was now foreign to you after months of cold. It’s been too long, after all - you’ve gone too long deprived of this humanness, comfort that radiated off of him.

Things are different now, Y/N.

Yes, they are. Your mind goes berserk once more, considering all of the scenarios. Why is he here? He probably just needs to go to the minimart - no, why would he come all this way, he lives pretty far as well, or maybe he’s waiting on a friend, no, maybe he’s brought a new girlfriend, maybe she’s with him right now waiting to jump out of the shadows. Maybe they’re both exchanging looks right now when I’m not looking, laughing, taunting me, this girl from the past who doesn’t deserve to be here, maybe they all think I’m a joke now, what am I doing, why, why, why?

You’re so lost in your thoughts that when Taehyung addresses you once more, you’re violently jolted out of your mind and nearly fall backwards, body forgetting everything but the sound of his voice.

“Y/N…” he says again, forcing you to look up at him. Your name splinters through the air from his lips, cutting through the frost and straight into your chest; you notice now that his voice seems tired, that he seems tired.

You finally regain some semblance of control over your frozen tongue, lips moving in an attempt to emit a sound, any sound. Your lips wrap around the sole syllable that comes to you like muscle memory, the only one that you manage to choke out.

“T-Tae…”

Your voice cracks, unable to continue. The prolonged eye-contact has got you weak, his pupils boring into your soul. You look into his eyes, reciprocating, and you notice that maybe they’ve lost their golden sheen, that they no longer twinkle with constellations of stars. And it’s then that you realize: maybe the year has taken a toll on him too.

Look at what you’ve done to him.

“T-Tae, I, I, I…” you sputter out, guilt flooding your system like a drug. There was nothing you could say, nothing you could tell him to cheat yourself out of the situation or paint yourself in a better light like you’re so used to doing. You’re not used to feeling this powerless, this weak. Taehyung was the only one who saw through the facade, the only one who allowed you to feel vulnerable. You couldn’t lie to him, you knew you couldn’t; there was no wheedling, no bullshitting, no lying yourself out of any sticky situation, which had caused you this whole trouble in the first place. You ran because you were too much of a coward to talk to him, to confide in him. And look where that’s gotten you.

“Why are you here?” he asks, burying his head in his hands. “Y/N, why are you here?”

Why am I here? You don’t really know as well, there’s nothing that you can say to him. Why am I here? To get over him? How are you even going to tell him? He has to think that you’re over him, that it’s done. Stop torturing yourself, and stop dragging him through this mess of your life. Tell him that it’s done.

“I… I came because…”

Y/N, say something?

“I came because I… I was looking for you.”

What the fuck?

His head snaps up, his piercing stare catching your gaze once again. “You were looking for me?”

You feel your heart stop.

“Umm… well, I mean, no, but, no, well actually if I think about it now, yeah, yeah I was looking for you,” you stammer, unable to produce a single cohesive line of thought. “I was looking for you because I wanted to tell you that it’s over.”

Your own words are like a dagger twisting into your own heart and vaguely hear a choked sound breaking the awful, awful silence. Until you realize that it’s come from your own mouth, a sob that you hadn’t even realized that you were holding in.

A moment of charged silence goes by, yet louder than any noise that either of you could’ve let out. Never in your life has silence felt so utterly deafening, and you wish to cover your ears and scream it all out.

“You’re telling me this now?” Taehyung manages, features distorted in pain. “You’re telling me this now, a whole fucking year after you walk out the door without a single word to me?”

You look down at the ground, hating, blaming your traitorous mouth for saying something that you hadn’t fully thought through.

No, Y/N. You have to stop bringing everyone down.

You’ve lost all rational thought when you say, “yes, Taehyung. Yes. I had nothing to say to you then and nothing to say to you now. It’s done and it’s over.”

You couldn’t even say sorry?

The frosty wind brushes over the pair of you, causing you to shiver in your boots. You want nothing more than to curl up into a ball and disappear, pretend that this never happened, that this was all a bad dream.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a security guard watching the whole exchanged with piqued interest. It’s none of your fucking business, you want to scream. It’s none of your fucking business. And yet you’re so humiliated, embarrassed at this whole mess that you’ve made of not only yourself but the situation in its entirety that you cannot muster up any words to merely defend yourself. You want to cry, sob, yell, scream.

“Fine, Y/N, it’s okay. You know what? It’s okay, you don’t owe me an explanation, you don’t owe me anything, not an apology, not a reason, not your love. It’s okay. It’s fine. Maybe you never loved me, saw me in the same way. Maybe I just assumed, maybe it was wrong of me to assume. Maybe I was too optimistic, too in love with you that I had forced myself to believe the story that I had made up in my head, that you were in love with me too. Maybe I had wanted it, wanted you so bad that I had made myself believe it. Made myself believe that you were in love with me.”

Your heart instinctually reaches out to him, drumming feverishly against your fragile ribcage. No, you want to scream. No, Taehyung, you couldn’t be more fucking wrong. He doesn’t know the way your heart beats for him in the dead of night, how the mere thought of him sends shivers down your spine, how every cell in your body, every thread of your being aches, yearns for his presence with every hour, every minute, every second.

You feel your heart breaking, splintering into thousands, millions of tiny little fragments raining down like shards of glass. It hurts, it hurts like hell.

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t force yourself into anything. There’s no need to anymore. There’s no more need to lie, no more need to pretend that you’re happy.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

It’s not the truth, you want to cry. It’s not. It’s the farthest from it. But you return his look, tight-lipped. You nod, despite the swell of emotions that are threatening to cut you in half at this very moment.

“You’re welcome.”

He reciprocates your nod and slowly, painfully, tears his eyes from yours. He stands up, gingerly, as if hesitating, and you want to tell him to stop, to sit back down, that you’re lying to him, that you want him, that you want him more than anything in this world. But you don’t, and he continues onto his feet, sparing you one last gaze.

“At least I get to say goodbye,” he says, wistfully. “At least I now have the chance to say goodbye.”

You’re sure that tears are streaming down your face at this point, little trails of ice making their way down your blushed cheeks. Your lips are tight, and you cannot, for the life of you, return his look.

Before you can fully comprehend what’s happening, you know he’s here, the familiar hold of his arms, your face finding itself nestled on the same spot on his chest, right above his heart. You feel it beat, gently, slowly, under your ear, a comforting rhythm that you’ve too often fallen asleep to, whispered to. Your arms instinctually wrap around his waist, and his head settles on the crook of your neck, the curve of his nose gently kissing your delicate skin. His warmth radiates from under his coat, and you soak it all in, collecting as much as you can. You are two puzzle pieces, a perfect fit, and you will this moment into eternity, searing it into your memory, wishing for the world to stop, stop right now and leave you in this moment forever. You’ve been lost, wandering, and have finally come home.

But forever doesn’t exist.

You’re struck with a blast of cold at his loss, feeling horribly empty. He steps away from you, and you’re almost certain that you see moisture in his eyes, tears threatening to break free. Every fiber of your being yearns for him, you want to reach out to him, extend the hug, shower him in kisses, make up and forget that this all even happened, but you’re too prideful. You can’t let yourself do this.

“Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for everything.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

[ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ]

11:42am, March 12 2021

[taehyung]

I miss you.

I miss you as the seasons come and go, I miss you as I watch the world going to shit, losing all hope. I miss you when the wind blows, taking me along like a pointless man, destined for nowhere. I’ll miss you eternally; I’ll miss you when all the ice melts into the ocean, I’ll miss you when everything’s finally disappeared and there’s utter nothing left for me.

I miss you in the brightest mornings and the darkest nights, when the sun comes out to play and the rain starts pelting down like there’s no tomorrow. I’ll miss you in the loneliest winters and the blooming springs.

Everything reminds me of you. I am stuck in this eternal frost without you here; your loss has trapped me into this winter forever. I am slowly losing feel of my limbs as they succumb to the cold around me - everything has frozen into place, trapping me into the confines of this perpetual season. The world is closing in, I have nowhere to go, nothing to do. No longer do I have you to lead me out of this snow, no longer do I have you to hold my hand and bring me warmth through it all.

Why did you have to go?

Baby, did you know how much pain I’d be in when you’d left? Did you know how much it would hurt, how you’ve trapped me into this never-ending arctic, leaving me behind to freeze?

Did you know when you chose to go?

You’ve left me in ruins, my love. I can’t continue without you. I’m struggling to breathe, suffocating, as the world collapses inwards, threatening to bury me alive. I wait for you everyday, through all of the grief, the pain. I still wait for the day that you come back, that I get to see your face again.

Or maybe I’m a dumbass. I don’t know. Have you changed? Or is it I who has? Or perhaps, us both? I’m still a lovesick fool for you, Y/N, that I can tell you for sure. I can’t stop thinking of you, as the days pass, sun and moon taking their turns in the sky. I’m left, suffering in this darkness, bleakness without you here. I wonder if you’ll still be there at the end, when all ceases to exist. I wonder if I’ll see you again; how much more do I have to wait? How many more sleepless nights will have to pass before I can lay my eyes upon you again? How many days, months, years do I have to hold back before I get to feel you, touch you, kiss you, one more time?

Or maybe I’m being optimistic. You know what, Y/N, I’ll never see you again, maybe you’re better off without me. Maybe it’s all for the best, maybe it’s time for me to move on, maybe it’s time for you to move on. Maybe it really was not meant to be, maybe you really weren’t the one for me.

Then why can’t I get you out of my head?

Y/N, I wish I could just forget you. I wish you never existed, I wish I had never gotten to know you. Then it would be so much easier for me. I wish that you had ignored me, that you had turned me down when you had the chance. It would’ve been the most pain that I’d feel at the time, but believe me, it’s nothing compared to this.

Now I can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard I try. You’re there, you’re there when I lie down and close my eyes for the night, you’re there at work, hiding behind my papers and my laptop, waiting to take me out to lunch. You’re everywhere, baby, you’re in the car, riding shotgun and racing to connect to Bluetooth first, singing at the top of your lungs as we speed down the highway like the reckless teenagers that we were. I see you, hair tangled by the wind, belting out your favorite lyrics out of the roof of my convertible. And I remember thinking, for the hundredth time that night, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. Damnit, Y/N, you’re standing by the mirror every morning when I get ready for my meetings, dainty fingers straightening my tie and planting a kiss on my lips. You got this, lover boy.

You’re there, and then you’re not. You flicker between reality and imagination, I cannot discern whether I’m living in a fever dream or simply hallucinating. You’re slipping through my hands like grains of sand: I’m losing more of you by the second, can’t seem to hold on to you. You’re disappearing, getting further and further away as all I can do is watch helplessly as you fall through my fingers.

Where are you now, Y/N?

I worry about you, I worry whether you’ve eaten well, whether you’ve slept well, whether you’ve had a good day at the office. Have you seen your parents lately? Have you had some time to yourself over the past days, have you overworked yourself as you often tend to do? Are you taking care of yourself?

Is it selfish of me to be wishing for you, thinking of you after all this time? Tell me, Y/N, is it wrong of me to be wanting you despite it having been over for so long now? You’ve probably moved on by now, considering how long it’s already been. Maybe you’ve met someone new, maybe you’re in love with someone else, maybe I’ve already been replaced with another man in your life.

Maybe I treated you wrong, maybe you didn’t feel like I loved you enough, maybe I didn’t make you feel special enough. I wish, Y/N, I wish that I could turn back time for you, I wish I could go back and be better for you, that I could fix all of the mistakes that I’ve made, wipe all of the tears that you might’ve cried for me, swallow up all of the pain that must’ve been plaguing you, to suck up the hurt that you were feeling back then. I wish you could give me all of the pain, I wish that I could’ve carried it all for you, shielded you from it all like how I should’ve done.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

You’ve met someone else by now, you’re laughing, smiling, whispering with another, kissing someone else’s lips, in love with your new man. And I’m still here, trying to get over you like the pathetic loser that I am. There are so many regrets, so many things that I wish that I could still tell you, so many errors, mistakes that I made. It’s all my fault. I want nothing more than to be able to get on my knees in front of you and apologize for everything. There are so many more words, so many moments that I want nothing more than to be spending with you.

I’m still in love with you.

I think I always will be, Y/N. I know it’s selfish of me. I really can’t help it. I’m sorry.

You came into my life like a whirlwind, taking all of me along for the ride. And now that you’re gone, I don’t know what to do with myself no longer. I’ve been swept away with you and my fate will forever be left in your hands. There’s nothing left for me here, not in my work nor art. All that’s left is you. You are the only thing keeping me going now - I live another day, endure another night hoping for you, waiting for the day that I will finally see you again. I open my eyes for you in the mornings, in hopes of laying them upon your figure once more.

Maybe it’ll all be for nothing, I know. Maybe I’ll never see you again. But there’s nothing left for me, remember? I’m willing to take my chance. For when I finally do see you once more, it will all be worth it.

I miss you, Y/N. I miss you so fucking much. My heart beats for you, my lungs breathe for you. My every cell in my entire being aches so desperately for you, for you and you only. And so I’ll wait for you. I promise. I’ll be here for you, waiting for the day that I get to catch a glimpse of you, to be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, for when you need even the littlest, tiniest thing. I’m ready to give you the world, baby. I’m ready to right all my wrongs, to treat you like the fucking queen that you are. I’m going to treat you the way that you deserve.

When that time comes, my heart will be happy. When the time comes that I see you again, that I hear your voice again, your laugh again, it’ll be okay. All this pain will fade away to nothing. Don’t worry about me, darling, I’ll always be here, waiting. Waiting for you, until the end.

I promise.

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙

an: i hope you liked it!!!! <3 please please please leave feedback my loves!

#taehyung #taehyung x reader #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts smut #bts angst #taehyung smut #taehyung angst #taehyung fluff #taehyung imagine #bts imagine #bts taehyung

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sereineity · 4 years ago

Text

how many more sleepless nights?

genre: nonidol!au, ANGST, slight fluff

summary: a year is a long time, isn’t it? you’ve spent yours stuck in an eternal, monochrome winter. a surprise encounter derails all of your plans: feelings fade… or do they, really?

pairing: taehyung x reader

word count: 5.4k

warnings: swearing, terrible terrible angst (im sorry!), heartbreak, implied smut, angsty flashbacks :(

[ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ]

09:17am, december 17, 2020

Your heart aches for him, the echo of a honeyed baritone, the ghost of his warm, muscular arms wrapped around your shoulders.

It’s for the best, you had thought. It’s for the best.

Stop. This is getting ridiculous.

No. You need this.

The winter air roughly brushes against your cheeks, hurrying you along.

What are you so afraid of?

Go. Just go. Get it over with.

“This is the Special Rapid Train, on the Gyeongwon line, headed for Sosoyan. We will be stopping at Seokgye, Wolgye, Dobong and Iryeong. Please stay clear of the sliding doors!”

Stop it.

Too engrossed in your thoughts, you don’t notice the closing of the doors and the blinking of the lights until you hear the loud system once more as the train starts to accelerate.

“Iryeong, Iryeong. Our next stop is Iryeong, please get off on the right side of the train.”

Stop.

You’re hopeless, aren’t you?

But he’s not.

The loudspeaker crackles to life, confirming your worst fears. “Arriving at Iryeong, please stay clear of the doors and exit on the right side of the train.”

You twitch.

Three. Two.

“Wait!”

You’re blessed with a moment of solitude, feeling nothing but the cold air chilling your face, until you realize where you are and why you’re here.

Stop. Get a fucking grip, will you?

Stop it.

“Y/N…”

Things are different now, Y/N.

“T-Tae…”

Look at what you’ve done to him.

“Why are you here?” he asks, burying his head in his hands. “Y/N, why are you here?”

“I… I came because…”

Y/N, say something?

“I came because I… I was looking for you.”

What the fuck?

His head snaps up, his piercing stare catching your gaze once again. “You were looking for me?”

You feel your heart stop.

“You’re telling me this now?” Taehyung manages, features distorted in pain. “You’re telling me this now, a whole fucking year after you walk out the door without a single word to me?”

You look down at the ground, hating, blaming your traitorous mouth for saying something that you hadn’t fully thought through.

No, Y/N. You have to stop bringing everyone down.

You’ve lost all rational thought when you say, “yes, Taehyung. Yes. I had nothing to say to you then and nothing to say to you now. It’s done and it’s over.”

You couldn’t even say sorry?

You feel your heart breaking, splintering into thousands, millions of tiny little fragments raining down like shards of glass. It hurts, it hurts like hell.

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t force yourself into anything. There’s no need to anymore. There’s no more need to lie, no more need to pretend that you’re happy.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

“You’re welcome.”

“At least I get to say goodbye,” he says, wistfully. “At least I now have the chance to say goodbye.”

But forever doesn’t exist.

“Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for everything.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

[ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ ]

11:42am, March 12 2021

[taehyung]

I miss you.

Why did you have to go?

Baby, did you know how much pain I’d be in when you’d left? Did you know how much it would hurt, how you’ve trapped me into this never-ending arctic, leaving me behind to freeze?

Did you know when you chose to go?

Then why can’t I get you out of my head?

Where are you now, Y/N?

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

I’m still in love with you.

I think I always will be, Y/N. I know it’s selfish of me. I really can’t help it. I’m sorry.

I promise.

�� ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙

an: i hope you liked it!!!! <3 please please please leave feedback my loves!

#taehyung #btsimagine #taehyungfic #btsfanfic #taehyungfanfic #taehyungangst #btsangst #btsfluff #btssmut #taehyungsmut #kimtaehyung #taehyungimagine #taehyungscenario #taehyung x reader #bts x reader

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ddearddigitalddiary · 4 years ago

Text

folklore: Stoned Favorites

It’s been just about 48 hours since Queen Taylor surprised us with TS8 entitled folklore. This album was born out of quarantine and is becoming her highest critically acclaimed album yet. She’s fucking amazing, magical, powerful, etc. I’ve had a few listen throughs to digest it, but I’m still processing all of its beauty. It has quickly become a favorite. Taylor somehow has this power where she drops an album that is lined up perfectly to the events I’m going through in my personal life. Maybe I’m just finding how it relates to me and seeing myself in the album, but that’s the beauty of it anyways. Going through a tough breakup, living through a global pandemic, society is literally never going back to something we knew... It’s all a bit much. And Ms. Swizzle has put words to my deepest feelings, and as always helped me feel and heal.

Here are my favorite parts of the beautiful, whimsical, mystical album that is folklore:

the 1: (this one hurts a little much for me right now...) we never painted by the numbers baby, but we were making it count, you know the greatest loves of all time are over now / in my defense i have none for never leaving well enough alone, but it would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one

cardigan: (first of the love triangle, Taylor freaking Swift. this entire song is so beautiful. one of my faves and i cried the first time i heard it) i knew you stepping on the last train, marked me like a bloodstain I, I knew you tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy I, I knew you leaving like a father, running like water I, and when you are young they assume you know nothing, but I’d knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what if’s, the smell of smoke would hang around this long, cause I knew everything when I was young

the last great american dynasty: (a sweet little bop. i love this one. Taylor’s voice is so pretty. this guitar is *chefs kiss*) she had a marvelous time ruining everything / [the entire bridge!!!!] there goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen, i had a marvelous time ruining everything

exile: (again, this one hurts right now. a bit relevant.) you’re not my homeland anymore, so what am i defending now? / (pretty much Taylor’s whole verse because freaking ouch - it’s describing my heart space right now) i think i’ve seen this film before, so I’m leaving out the side door / cause you never gave a warning sign - i gave sooo many signs

my tears ricochet: (hearing this song with the framing of it being about B*g M*****e is so sad, heartbreaking, powerful) cause i loved you, i swear i loved you, til my dying day, i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace (and then really the whole entire rest of the song.) / WHEN I’M SCREAMING AT THE SKYYY... YOU HEAR MY STOLEN LULLABIIIIES

mirrorball: (this one feels like 80′s prom or something, i’m in love) *hushh* when no one is around my dear, you’ll find me on my tallest tip toes, spinning in my highest heels love, shining just for youuu

seven: (this one makes me feel like i’m in a grassy meadow, while of course swinging on a tree, with a light summer breeze) sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart won’t tell no other / love you to the moon and to saturn / (STRINGS)

august: (another love triangle song, and it’s my favorite of the moment i think... i think. it also hurts a little bit because of my love life heart space ): ) i remember thinking i had you, but i can see us lost in the memory, august slipped away into a moment in time, cause he was never mine, and i can see us twisted in bed sheets, august sipped away like a bottle of wine, cause you were never mine / (and the fact that there’s beautiful flutes noticeable to me and beautiful saxophone is just super convenient for my feelings as well. also, beautiful fade out, *chefs kiss*)

this is me trying: (this beat going into the song goes hard. guess what - song again hits me like a truck. it’s like what i would want him to say to me. i picture it’s fairly similar to what he’s going through. who knows.) so i got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when i’m mad, i have a lot of regrets about that

illicit affairs: (these guitars are like hugging my ears) take the words for what they are, a dwindling mercurial high, a drug that only worked the first few hundred times (that line in particular hits) / don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby, look at this idiotic fool that you made me, you taught me a secret language i can’t speak with anyone else, and you know damn well for you i would ruin myself a million little times

invisible string: (again, guitars hugging the ears :). and of course, this song gives me hope for whatever, whoever could be out there for me. her runs are angelic) bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to la / time, mystical time, cutting me open then healing me fine~ / one single thread of gold tied me to you / hell was the journey but it brought me heaven / give me the blues and the purple pink skies, baby it’s cooool with meeeee! (so many Lover references in these lines! I’m in love!)

mad woman: (i’m in love with this song as well. like another version of the Man, aka don’t fuck with me. i’m in love with the entire chorus and her voice and the piano) what do you sing on your drive home, do you see my face in the neighbor’s lawn, does she smile or does she mouth fuck you forever / no one likes a mad woman, you made her like that... / women like hunting witches too, doing your dirtiest work for you

epiphany: (the production of this song is so angelic and peaceful yet the lyrics are haunting and i get sad every time i listen to it. the parallel between the war and the pandemic is rough and sad. this song is a different kind of hurt) hold your hand through plastic now, doc i think she’s crashing out, and some things you can’t speak about *and then the moment of silence with horns*...

betty: (the last of the triangle. this is the one that is so beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful? maybe not hopeful it’s more the nostalgia factor of it all for me that just because of the breakup stage i’m in right now is what makes it heartbreaking... one day it will be more beautiful and i can smile to it with a longing and gratuitous embrace... also a bop, ALSO reminds me of country Taylor and it’s so *hugs my heart and teen me*) but if i just showed up at your party, would you have me would you want me? would you tell me to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden / i don’t know anything but i know i miss you / the only thing i wanna do is make it up to you / (KEY CHANGE !!!) / kissing in my car again, stopped at a streetlight you know i miss you

peace: (another favorite!!!! and apparently the first take she did of this song IS THE ONE THAT’S ON THE ALBUM. artist.) the devils in the details, but you got a friend in me, would it be enough if i could never give you peace, your integrity makes me seem small, you paint dreamscapes on the wall, i talk shit with my friends, it’s like i’m wasting your honor *piannooooo* / and you know that i’d swing with you for the fences, sit with you in the trenches, give you my wild, give you a child...

hoax: (a hauntingly beautiful one, a favorite, love that it’s the closer. it HURTS me right now but i’ll take it. it’s a beautiful song and it’s helping the heal. can’t wait to hear the lakes on the deluxe! - also i just so happen to be re-reading the twilight series right now and it’s the exact vibes i get from this song - the level of love, the cliff sides, the sleepless nights, the piano, eclipsed sun) stood on the cliff side screaming give me a reason, your faithless love’s the only hoax i believe in.... don’t want no other shade of blue but you, no other sadness in the world would do.

Taylor announced it and I woke up to the news. I spent the whole day obsessed with the thought of the album and the fact that she literally surprise dropped and shook the whole swiftie kingdom as well as it’s surrounding communities. I had no idea what to expect with it but I said it would be my new favorite Taylor album, i just had a feeling. And I think that this album proved that statement was true. This side of Taylor is the storytelling side I absolutely fell in love with. Her power and creativity and pen are just top tier and she’s the freaking artist of my lifetime. This album will be helping me heal, just as rep did, just as 1989 did, just as Speak Now, Fearless did. I love you Taylor. Thank you for the beauty that is folklore.

#Taylor Swift #folklore #the 1 #cardigan #the last great american dynasty #exile #Bon Iver #my tears ricochet #mirrorball #seven #august #this is me trying #illicit affairs #invisible string #mad woman #epiphany #betty #peace #hoax

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 5 years ago

Text

CSUAPR PRT 17 START.. middle... nearly end?

"Get up!"

Waking with something rudely smacking into his face, Keith groaned miserably as he peeled his sleepy dust riddled eyes open and glared at the offending object that had hit him in the face. Pants... Why in quiznak's name was he being hit in the face by a pair of pants, when his head was throbbing like a base drum and some kind of alien fur creature had set up residence in his mouth? Blinking himself to full consciousness as he yawned, Keith had no idea why he was in the bathtub, or how he'd ended up being filled with the desire to burrow back down into the bath and try for another several vargas worth of sleep. Not when the tub was so damn uncomfortable

"What happened?"

Trying to gather spit in his mouth, all he seemed to do was make the taste lingering there worse. His stomach was making rumbling noises, yet the mere thought of food was enough to drain the colour from your face

"I'm not surprised you don't remember. You got yourself wasted doing shots with Krystaal, before sending Lance into a panic attack. He's fine, thanks for asking. Already up and at the festival with Coran. We have a Paladin panel in 15 doboshes, so time to shower and get your shit together"

Groaning, Keith closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the rim of the bathtub

"I'm allowed to have a drink or two"

"Tell that to your pregnant husband"

Now, he may just be remembering things wrong, but Lance was the one who told him to go

"I'm not having this fight with you. I feel like shit"

"Good. I wanted to take him out and cheer him up. Instead he ended up going to bed alone"

The coldness coming from Shiro wasn't entirely unexpected. Maybe he had over indulged. It certainly felt like he had

"Don't throw that back at me. You're not his husband"

"No. I'm not. He was in a vulnerable..."

"He's always in a vulnerable state. He had a damn nightmare and ended up in the air vents yesterday..."

Hurled up out of the bathtub suddenly, Shiro dropped him. Keith barely keeping from falling over backwards

"What the fuck!?"

"Lance is your husband. The man you spent years in love with. The man who is absolutely crazy about you"

"I know that!"

"Then why aren't you getting your shit together!? You're going to be a father!"

"I know!..."

Screaming at Shiro, Keith's world swam. Sinking on to the edge of the bath, he buried his face in his hands

"... I know. But I don't know how to be a father. I don't know how to be a father, Shiro. I don't know how to care for a baby. I don't know how to change a nappy. I don't know what to do for a fever. I don't know... I don't know what to do!"

Shiro's sighed heavily as he sat down next to him

"Is that what this about? You're scared about being a dad?"

"Wouldn't you be? I'm a mess. I'm turning 26 and my life is a mess. My husband won't take his medication. He keeps having panic attacks. He keeps testing me without me knowing it's a goddamn test until I fail... and... Shit, Shiro. I don't know what I'm doing. We can't even make a marriage work. How do we make a marriage and kids work? What does that even look like? He lives for his job. It's more important to him than the health and safety of our babies. Maybe he was right about having an abortion? He's not well. He's not mentally well. He's not physically well. He's hallucinating or his nightmares are out of control. He's got it in his head that the same people who raped him are back. What the quiznak am I supposed to do with that? And mum... God... She made it seem like having kids was awful. Really awful. Vomiting. Fevers. Teething. Sleepless nights. Shit storms... I can't take twins on missions. I don't know how to sit still. I don't think we're ready for this. I don't think I'm ready for this... it's such a big thing. These two tiny lives are going to be dependent on us. An ex-junky as he calls himself, and a Blade member. When things get hard... Lance doesn't have that drug crutch anymore... I don't know what to do if he won't listen to the doctors. If he's not going to try. Why am I going to try?"

A very long and pregnant silence hung in the air when he was finished. With each passing tick it was like Shiro was readying himself to explode, then his voice came out dead level, not relieving Keith of his anxieties

"Have you tried talking to Lance?"

"He doesn't want to listen. He thinks he got this letter yesterday. He thinks we're all in danger and he got mad at me for saying it was probably a nightmare. It was right after Curtis left. He was freaking out because Curtis being cautious on the other side of the door scared him. You know how he gets. You know he gets paranoid. There was no evidence of anything like that..."

"It's not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you... You raised the same issue with something happening at the awards ceremony. Now that it has happened, you're rejecting it because you can't control it"

"I can't control anything... I don't know what I'm doing and talking to mum only made it worse. I love him, but she... She made me see how... How far I have to go"

"Rather than getting drunk with Krystaal, yes, you got drunk with Krystaal as in shot for shot, you should talk to your husband. Lance is feeling all these same anxieties. He loves you, but you're running from him. Talk to him. He might not have been up for talking yesterday, but try. Try until he doesn't have any other option but to answer. I was scared when I took you on, but we turned out alright, didn't we?"

He'd gone drinking with Krystaal? Keith could very very vaguely kind of remember running into him... He'd been feeling bad about leaving Lance, but he was sure that Lance had imagined the whole thing. His husband was mad at him, and he was mad at him for being mad at him. He'd been so happy to see the twins, and now he was terrified. Absolutely and completely terrified... He didn't Lance being danger from someone new and unknown. He also didn't want their lives together to suddenly be upheaved. The twins would change everything. The twins would change everything and he didn't know how to have a family. Shiro was right, they'd done alright, but Shiro hadn't needed to wipe his arse or had to go through hours of potentially life threatening labour...

"I don't want to hurt him"

"You already are, by running"

"Running is all I know how to do... Running after him. Running into battle. Running after you"

"It take two to make a baby, or twins in this case. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who can never have what you two are going through. Don't take any of it for granted. If you're scared, or if you don't want this, you need to talk to him. You need to let him know where you stand. And you need a shower. You reek like you bathed in that stuff you were shooting. We've probably got about 5 doboshes to be there. Best get a move on"

Running to make the panel on time, Keith and Shiro we're both confused by the sight before them. There were five chairs, for five Paladins, except... in the place of Allura a photo of her sat, occupying one of those spaces. Behind the chairs was a series of banners featuring the faces of the Paladins framed by a thick band of colour responding to the lion they flew. Black for Shiro. Black and Red for Keith. Yellow for Hunk, then Green for Pidge. Allura was in the place of the Blue Paladin... and no signage for Lance. None... It wasn't Voltron without Lance. Lance was the heart and soul of Voltron. They'd never come together if not for him.

Joining Hunk, Pidge and Lance, Coran was a few feet away yelling at some event coordinator who'd failed their job over the lack of Lance's presence. At least that was what Keith thought at the time. Opening his mouth to greet his husband, Lance seemed to have prempted the move as he'd disappeared over to Coran's side silently. Elbowing him, Pidge had mischief in her eyes

"I hear someone got drunk yesterday"

"Shut it, Pidge"

"Oooh. Touchy. Yelling about how you and Lance were married... Galactic social media is buzzing with it"

Keith frowned at Pidge. If he was yelling how much he loved Lance, or was married to him, then why was he so mad at him

"I did what?"

"Yep. Right in the middle of your drinking match. You lost me GAC. I expect you to pay up"

"You were betting on me?"

"I would have put all my GAC on Lance, but he wasn't there to bet on"

"Whoa! Hold up. You would have bet on Lance? I'm so confused right now"

Pidge rolled her eyes at him with enough sass that the eyeroll didn't seem limited to her eyes alone

"Lance works in bar! How many times do you think his customers challenged him to drinks!? How many times has he partied himself to sleep? You can't work in a bar and be a light weight!"

"I tried to tell her that Lance doesn't drink that much anymore, but Lance sided with her. Are you ok, man?"

Joining in on their conversations, Hunk ignored Pidge nodding enthusiastically, most probably because Lance had agreed, or so he gathered by her gesturing to Lance

"I'm fine. I have no idea what we were drinking, but it wasn't that all pleasant to wake up to. Why is there no place for Lance?"

Hunk sighed

"Lance said that Allura should be on the panel, as it was her sacrifice that saved us all. He said he didn't need a place, but Coran wouldn't let him back down from this. Now they're trying to make a spot for him, despite the fact he doesn't want to be here"

Playing it cool, Keith raised his eyebrow, hoping to make the action seem natural

"Did he say that?"

"Not in so many words... I thought he liked his time being a Paladin..."

"That's stupid. He's obviously having too much fun being a bounty hunter. Plus, he's probably struggling with this whole situation. I mean, this is a festival to celebrate his dead girlfriend"

Hunk gaped at Pidge, his face loosing some of its colours as his cheeks turned a faint pink

"Pidge! You can't say that in front of Keith, he's his husband"

Shrugging, Pidge wasn't fazed

"Minor detail"

"No. No. No. Major detail!"

"Keith isn't complaining"

"Because Keith loves him. Right, buddy?"

"Yeah..."

Keith didn't want to be roped into this argument. Pidge started laughing, the noise grating on his throbbing head, her arms wrapped around her waist as she struggled out

"You could sound more enthused! What? Trouble in paradise? Are you in the doghouse for getting drunk without him?!"

"Ok, guys. That's enough..."

By standing behind him, and placing his hands on Keith's shoulders, Shiro drew their attention

"We're here to be Paladins, which means putting our game faces on. Do we have any details of what were actually doing? Coran forgot to fill us all in..."

Pidge pulled herself together, sounding almost disinterested as she related

"He forgot to tell all of this. They ran a "question" box for us the past couple of days. We're going to be given a tablet with questions for each of us on it. We don't have to answer all the questions, buuuuut it's going to be broadcast live across the universe. I've got Matt filming it. I can't wait to see how Keith acts with all this attention"

Crossing his arms, Keith scowled at Pidge

"I know how to do my job"

"Just because you know how to, doesn't mean you won't be awkward as hell..."

"Pidge, why do I feel like you've bet GAC on my performance"

"Because I have. Ooooh, look. It's Lance and Coran. What a convenient excuse not to continue this conversation"

"Pidge!"

Pidge was the picture of innocence as Coran and Lance joined them. Lance standing half behind Hunk, refusing to meet Keith's eyes, as Coran filled them in on what was happening. Space had been made for Lance, by squashing them all slightly. The table was made for 5, not for 6. Lance wouldn't hear of Shiro not being on the panel, despite the fact that Keith had ultimately spent more time as the Black Paladin than Shiro had. Before he was ready, Keith was falling into line with the others, a holopad pushed into his shaky hands then the next thing he knew he was walking on to the stage where camera flashes blinded him.

Panels were horrible. Panels were horrible enough when sober, doubly so when hung over, and triply so when your husband was sitting beneath a photo of his dead ex-girlfriend, at the opposite end of the panel where he had no chance of talking to him. They were married. They were married and the whole quiznakking universe knew it... So why weren't the happily married couple together? Lance didn't seem to mind. All of their group were already laughing and deep in a four way conversation that had gone right over his head. Keith was out his depth completely. He had no idea that their questions were being screened behind them as they answered, he had no idea that the question time had hit him, and he had no idea of the words on his holopad were actually English because his eyes felt ready to fall out his head. In his own way, Keith was developing a new appreciation for functioning alcoholics.

Keith was in trouble. With the eyes of thousands staring in the direction of his husband, several long ticks had passed since Keith's holopad had started to glow around the sides. Sitting in front of a crowd and answering questions was not how Lance planned his day going. He wanted to sit down and discuss what had happened the previous day with his husband. That was the only way he was going to find some form of mental relief from his racing mind. Despite feeling angry each time his gaze moved to his husband, Lance cleared his throat

"Sorry, guys! My husband isn't great with crowds, but that's just something else about him that I love. Now, his question is..."

Craning his head back to read the question he made a goofy show of it. It was probably for the best Keith wasn't on the ball

"What was the worst part of being a Paladin?"

Moving his right thumb and pointer to his chin as if stroking an imaginary beard, Lance hummed. He loathed this attention. He loathed playing at niceties, but knew he had a job to do. He Lance playing Leandro, who was playing Lance. It was the only way he could cope with the public spotlight

"The worst thing... Oh, boy! Coran's cooking... the first time he cooked for is... I thought he was trying to kill me! Then there's the time in the middle of the night when Allura would run practice emergency drills... I guess the worst thing of all is that despite Allura's sacrifice, the fact that if she hadn't given her life none of us would be here right now... The worst thing is that we're still fighting while we're trying to recover. And all the little people we couldn't reach in time... but when living on the Castle, it was definitely the time Coran tried to cook for us. I'm sorry Coran! You're our awesome adopted Uncle, but us humans have a weird diet... I think we all would have gone crazy if it wasn't for Hunk's culinary prowess"

Flashing the crowd his best smile and finger guns, Lance hoped he'd done enough. Pidge was agreeing now, Keith's holopad was no longer glowing, Shiro leaned back to give him an approving nod, and Hunk was blushing. Reminding himself that each question moved them closer to the end, he looked down to his own holopad.

After half a varga, they were all sweating. Pidge was being an angry little gremlin, at the point of threatening to murder the sun because she was done with this heat. Everyone knew the best way to store their little anger muffin was to sit her in a cool dark corner with her tech. Lance was feeling it too. His head felt sinus headache gross, his body suit might keep him cool for the most part, but worked best when his mask was up, which it wasn't, so the rest of him wasn't feeling that great either. No matter how much water he'd drank down, he only felt more and more dehydrated. Feeling his holopad grow warmer as it started to glow, he nearly dropped the device on the table as he vomiting into his mouth. His question being "How did it feel to work for Ambassador Klearo? What do you do now?". It was a simple question. Any number of fans would have seen the broadcasts of him standing behind the man. It didn't mean that he wasn't panicking. It didn't mean simply seeing the image of the man didn't bring all the memories flying back. Lance couldn't do this... Leandro... Channel Leandro

"Well..."

God. His heart was hammering so fast it felt as if it was going to flying out his mouth

"I own a club now, out on Erathus. It's pretty nice there, and safe. The place is called "The Gilded Cage"... We wanted to create a safe place for travellers in the area. My friend Th'al runs it... Um... other than that... I'm Keith's husband and it's pretty much a full time job keeping up with him... it's simple and nice"

That funny feeling was spreading through him. His holopad cooled as the colour left. Thumbing through the message list, every message submitted was listed, then chosen at random. That one message soon turned to half a dozen... of Klearo... and the look on Lance's face as the abuse had begun. The fear in his eyes. The disgust. The loathing of every piece of bullshit sprouted from the piece of shits mouth. Then blank emptiness. The change in his expression was almost haunting. It was as if you could see the time it crossed the line. When his whole being had shattered beneath the man, and the men who'd sexually abused him. As he scrolled up, in the hopes of finding evidence that he was being targeted, blood dripped onto the screen. Wiping at it, a second drip landed on his finger. Raising his hand to his nose, drops of blood rolled down his fingers. The holopad falling from his fingers to land on the table, the screen glitching before turning black.

"Lan..."

Starting to say his name, Pidge realised his nose was bleeding. The woman fishing out a handkerchief from nowhere and pushing it up against his nose so hard Lance was actually pained by the action. Sitting next to him, it was only natural she'd notice. She'd no doubt been caught in a cloud of his stenched up emotional scent, causing her to be more focused on her surrounds

"Sorry folks! Even us Paladins are only human! How about this heat!?"

Covering for him, Lance was immediately grateful to Pidge, she didn't need to whisper to him to get out of there as she put herself out her comfort zone, it went unsaid like a silent agreement, Lance hightailing it off stage and straight into Coran's waiting embrace.

Led away from the stage, and into the background work space where the transmission was being monitored, Coran sat him down on a flimsy fold out chair, forcing his head down between his knees as his nose bleed steadily worsened

"One tick my boy. I do believe you're the one who taught me that trick with the cold compress"

Lance didn't think that placing a cold compress on the back of the neck was much of a trick, but with how overheated he felt, he'd take a cool anything right now. It was strange how he'd longed to feel something more than cold all the time, his condition had forced him to pay constant attention to his body. Knowing that even if he couldn't feel the effects of the heat internally, the rest of him could. It was like his soul had been frozen, then disconnected from his body, causing a strange disharmony between the pair. It was another reason he'd found himself wondering, more than once, if he was a clone. Returning with a cold bottle of water, Coran held it against his nape. Lance shuddering as his body rejected the cool relief it offered

"How's that?"

Lying smoothly, Lance nodded

"Better..."

"Ah... We'll give it a tick to kick in. I'm sorry about what happened out there, my boy. We left the questions open..."

"Coran..."

There was a gentle plea in his voice

"You're right. Perhaps now isn't the time"

Now wasn't the time. Never was the time. Those memories were fucking with his head enough. What he saw as clear evidence between the photos he was sent, and the messages on the holopad, he feared bringing up with anyone. As he'd reasoned, the others would too. A fan could have meant no offence, though a fan wouldn't have sent as many messages as they'd had. Hopefully when he had the holopad back in his hands, he could prove to his husband he hadn't been lying... Not that he should have to... No. No. He wasn't going there. He'd briefly bumped into Krolia who'd apologised for Keith's drunken behaviour, explaining how she and Keith had had the "baby talk", and explaining how Keith felt displaced by her coming child. Lance didn't need the talk to know that. It was hard for Keith. Keith didn't know what or how to deal with it. Still. He knew from personal experience that alcohol wasn't the answer. Not that he would turn down a stiff drink, or a dozen right about now.

Opening his mouth to reply to Coran, Lance was on the ground before he knew what happened. One tick he was there, feeling quiznak, the next Coran's face was peering into his and Lance felt as if something had zapped every ounce of energy from his body. Neither of them had thought about the sudden and drastic change in body temperature triggering a seizure. Tasting vomit and blood, he wished that was the end when it came to bodily fluids, only... down his legs was wet and cool. His suit catching the mess he'd made, while he'd been out of it long enough for his piss to cool. Blinking sleepily at Coran, Coran smiled softly at him as he tucked a stray hair back from Lance's face. This wasn't the first, second or third time he'd thrown up. The first and second because of his pregnancy, the third because he'd worked himself up simply opening his medication bottle

"Seizure?"

Slurring heavily, Lance's voice failed to reach his own ears

"Yes, my boy. A little over 45 ticks... Keith will be here soon"

Coran sounded like he was speaking through fog. He was kind of blurry. His neat orange hair blurred like a fire on his head

"Sorry..."

"Enough of that... rest..."

He didn't want to rest. He was ashamed of his body betraying him in a tent full of strangers. It didn't matter that they were towards the back, mostly out of the way. He was supposed to be a Paladin, which meant staying stronger and never letting the public see your weak side. His mind might have felt like a sludge sundae, but his thoughts had to get that final blow in.

"What kind of an idiot puts something ice cold against their skin when they overheat! You're lucky your heart didn't stop!"

Cleaned up by Shiro and Keith, mostly Keith with Shiro's support, Pidge was the first to scold him as she and Hunk joined them in his and Keith's room. Laying with a cold towel folded over his forehead, Lance had agreed he was an idiot in a series of "mhmm" and "uh huh" until she finally ran out of appropriate questions. Shiro stopped her when she started to tease he and Keith, and given he was tired and somewhat sooky, he didn't feel like admitting how nice it felt to have Keith holding his hand. Having spent the last half varga chilling, Lance was ready for a nap, but Pidge and Hunk had decided that hanging around and scolding him needed to morph into a group hang. So Lance contented himself holding Keith's hand, and feeling Shiro's solid presence on the other side of him. There was a feeling that he'd forgotten something, but for now he was happish... or okish... scared, yet safe. Everyone in the room with him knew he was deeply scared by Klearo, each of them in their own trying to be there for him without making it too obvious.

When Kosmo teleported into their room with a bark, his fur son decided that the best way to greet them all was to let out the most horrendous silent fart, that sent Pidge and Hunk scrambling off the bed as they gagged. Pulling the wet towel over his face did very little to diminish the stink as Keith echoed the others movements and deserted him. The loss of his hand felt immediately. Whimpering at the connection between him and husband being broken, Shiro stuck his hand under the towel and pinched his nose as if Lance wasn't perfectly capable of doing so himself. Dimly he could hear Keith scolding Kosmo, Pidge laughing and Hunk still gagging. Yet they all felt so far away from him that he and Shiro may as well have been stranded on an island. Kosmo, immune to his own stench, laid happily over Lance's legs. His tail thumping in time with the throbbing of Lance'd head. Unable to stank the stink, Pidge and Hunk only lasted a few moments before opting to bail, Lance deaf to their leaving as he was hyperfixating on the feeling of Shiro's hand against his nose. His trauma well aware that a hand to the nose meant soon water would be poured down his throat until he nearly drowned, or did and they were forced to revive him. He was starting to panic, his body too sleepy and leaden to fight off the man's hand, his hands weakly gripping at the sheets beneath him. Gasping like a reeled in fish, his body finally decided it had reached its limit, allowing him to pass out.

The moment Lance's gasping met Keith's ears, the half-Galra was abandoning his futile attempts to scold Kosmo over the fart bomb he'd dropped, and rushing to pull the towel from Lance's face. Who needed Lions or Bayards, when your cosmic wolf could clear a room with just a simple fart. As Shiro released Lance's nose, Lance lay deathly still, his chest barely rising as Keith held his hand above Lance mouth to check his husband was still breathing

"Keith?"

"Shut up..."

With a gentle exhale, an inhale didn't follow. Keith placing his head against Lance's chest to find it wasn't rising

"Fuck! Don't you dare, you stubborn arsehole"

Lance was vulnerable. He was vulnerable and Keith hadn't thought that Shiro's touch would send his husband into a panic. Not with the way Shiro was sitting right next to him as if he rightfully belonged there. Not with the way Shiro had supported Lance's weight while Keith peeled off the layer of his husband's clothes then wrestled him out his stupid body suit. Lance was so out of it, he wasn't sure that Lance had any physical strength to protect himself, and usually when in that state would only allow him to touch him, yet his husband didn't seem to care he was naked in front of Shiro. He didn't shy away from Shiro's supportive hand on his hip. No. His husband had leaned into Shiro's touch, sending bitter jealously blooming. He was the only one who was allowed to touch Lance's body. Him. Lance had said so. And despite Shiro being happily in love with Curtis, Keith couldn't barely keep down his instincts. He could barely keep himself from taking a swing at his own brother. Lance had ignored him all morning, then Coran had sent some aid rushing to tell him that Lance had had a seizure. By the time he'd gotten off the stage, and down to communications tent, his husband was slurring as Coran reassured him. Blood and vomit were across Lance's fair and hair. His eyes glassy and unfocused. Pidge being the genius she was, had been the one to realise it was the temperature change that had triggered it, yet they all know seeing Klearo again had hit Lance hard. Each of them hated him in varying degrees, but none as much as him. He'd been all for it when Pidge angrily grumbled about hacking the holopad Lance had been using to find out who had sent that photo in, only when the holopad had been retrieved, it'd fallen wrong against the table and fried the memory chip in it. Ropeable, and concerned for Lance, they'd all kind of felt like being there by his side, even if he was sleeping off the effects of his seizure.

Interlacing his fingers, Keith pumped down on Lance's chest, Shiro springing into action when he realised Lance wasn't breathing, moving to give Keith the space to work. Keith gave a dozen panic driven pushes before Lance sucked in a breath, his back arching as his marks glowed brightly. Gasping and coughing, Shiro helped Keith sit Lance up, Lance shaking as Keith grabbed him by the chin

"Lance?!"

"Mnmm?"

"Keith, maybe you should give him some space to breathe?"

"Don't tell me how to handle my husband!"

Snapping at Shiro caused Lance to whine. Keith feeling like a dick for it the moment the words came out his mouth. But... quiznak!

"Sorry. Sorry... something scared him so badly he couldn't breathe..."

"It must have been my hand over his face... when Kosmo farted"

Shiro looked exactly as Keith felt. His face devoid of colour, and clouded with guilt. Guiding Lance into his lap, Shiro helped getting Lance straddled with his nose against Keith's neck. His favourite secure position

"That with having Klearo shoved in his face... Shiro, was I wrong? Did someone send him those photos? someone actually after him again?"

"I don't know. I know he was scared and hurt that you didn't believe him"

"We keep... not connecting..."

"Getting drunk and bottling it up like an idiot will do that. When he comes too properly, talk it out. Or if you still need time to think things out, we can watch him again..."

"I don't know... I don't know how to be a dad. I though we'd have more time"

"No one's ready to be a parent. And it's not as if these are usual circumstances. He'll listen"

"I know he will... that's the problem isn't it. If I repeated anything I said this morning, he's going to bolt"

"At least he wouldn't be stuck wondering about how you feel and if you still want this marriage"

Keith held his tongue. He still loved Lance. Lance was the air to his lungs... but Lance, kids, and work... He didn't know how to juggle it all.

Getting a few vargas sleep with Lance still in his lap, Keith woke with a start. His thoughts spilling into his dream, his mind tormenting him over everything he stood to lose. Starving and thirsty, Keith was surprised to find Lance awake as he carefully untangled his husband's hold on him. The moment their eyes met, things felt all that more awkward between them

"I'm... I'm going to get us something to eat, and a drink. Then I think we need to talk"

Climbing out his lap, Lance nodded. Settling himself into a ball on Keith's side of the bed, his husband rested his chin on his knees, his voice soft

"I'm leaving"

Opening his mouth, Keith closed it just as quickly before giving a half shake of his head. Lance wanted to leave? Walk out on their chance to talk? Or... was there something more to this?

"Stay here for a tick"

To Keith it felt as if Lance was watching his every move as he grabbed up a couple of ration bars, and two glasses of water. Returning to their bed, Lance was at least willing to take the ration bars from him. His glass of balanced near his bare feet. Opening the ration bar, Lance tore off the end with his teeth, eating quietly and ignoring the way Keith watched him. Sighing to himself, Keith did the same, forcing himself to eat half the tasteless bar. They weren't that great, but it wasn't goo

"I think we need time apart to think"

Dropping those words with dead calm, Lance stole his breath

"I think there's some things you need to work out, and I don't want to be on Altea anymore. I talked a little with Krolia. I wish it'd been you who'd explained to me what happened between you and her. Kids. Hey. I get it. It's a huge thing. I can't concentrate on them, me, and walk on nails around our friends. I'm tired of yoyoing more than I was when I was alone. I'm going to ask Krolia to lend me a ship and head to the next training planet"

"I know we haven't been connecting... but we just haven't had the chance. You spent most of yesterday sleeping!"

Quiznak. He sounded far more accusatory than he meant to

"And you spent it getting drunk..."

"Only because you were testing me! I don't know how it turned so shit so fast!"

"I wasn't trying to test you. I reached out and you made me feel stupid. I'm going to give you a chance to think. About what you absolutely truly want. Me. Me and the twins. If you want to take the out. My head is a mess. I don't want to be here. You're still wanted here. You still have things to work out. You should take the time to think it through"

"Don't I get a say? You had a seizure, then a panic attack so severe you stopped breathing. I have to pump your chest until you finally took a breath... We've only been here a few days. You're not taking your medication..."

"No. I've been forcing myself to drink enough water that I go to sleep needing to pee and wake up nearly wetting myself. I've been scoffing down these bars because they're like the only thing I don't throw up. So don't say I'm not trying. You knew I messed up, you told me I could trust you. You made me trust you. And I thought you actually saw me. Now I don't want to fight. I want to think. You don't think I'm scared? I know all the risks with pregnancies because I come from a huge family. It doesn't get that big without things happening... I'll keep your twins safe until you make a choice. I don't know how to be a dad. A little brother and an uncle. A drunk and druggie. I've got that covered. A dad. A mother. I don't know what to call myself other a freak. You make the choice. I can't trust myself anymore, apparently"

The last part was definitely a jab at him. It was the only part where Lance's voice had held any emotion. His husband sounded like Leandro. Leandro when they'd first crossed paths again

"That's not what I want"

"Then what do you want?"

"I don't know"

Lance sighed

"Exactly. We have all this festival stuff happening while trying to fix this mess of a marriage. I hate being in the crowds. I hated being on the panel. I..."

Lance frowned as his sentence stopped abruptly

"You, what?"

"I... no. It's better I talk to Shiro. You should enjoy the festival"

"What can you say to Shiro, that you can't say to me!?"

"I don't know what I can say to you anymore. I love you. I love you more than anything, but that doesn't fix our marriage. I know you're stuck lying to everyone because of me again... I don't want to be a burden on you... but I'm scared. Everything that makes us "us", is going to change. I'm scared. I don't want a life of just... just sex... sleep... eating... and what? I don't know how to settle down anymore. I thought... I thought us having our own home would... we would have... That we'd be together more than we were. I don't know where we're going to live... I'm such a fucking screw up... I can't even keep my husband happy... I was proud... maybe that was it. I was proud of our room and our space. I tried my hardest to make it as relaxing as I could for you. I wanted you to feel at home, but you don't"

Lance wiped at his face, Keith biting the insides of his cheeks. It was his fault. He hadn't spoken up to his mother. He'd thought himself capable of handling everything. He'd thought himself agitated and annoyed, yet he hadn't sought his mother out sooner. He hadn't sat down with her and asked his hours to be cut or to be rotated off the training roster. Even when he thought about it, or grumbled, he hadn't sat down with Krolia and said it sooner. Maybe that had been his pride? Krolia kept giving him work because she was proud of him. It seemed to him that their combined pride had led to things winding up as they had.

"Let me come with you. We can go ahead. We can figure out how we're going to conduct our training exercise. Krolia doesn't really tell us about the planet... so we could think up something before the others come?"

Lance sighed at him

"That's not going to work"

"Why not?! Things only became complicated because of the others. We didn't see them the day of our date... and I thought we had good time?"

"You were practically high on seeing your twins for the first time. Being responsible for these two lives hadn't sunk in... I think it was... it was the best day of my life. You're so quiznakking sweet to me. You treat me amazingly... then... you get stuck in your own head. It wasn't my... I was not trying to test, or you drive you to drink with Krystaal. I wanted to cuddle without talking seriously... I wanted you to tell me how things went with Krolia... I want you to be able to rely on me, Keith. I know my seizures have been hitting frequently, but... sometimes they don't hit for weeks..."

Of course he was high on seeing their twins. Their tiny little noses. Their tiny hands. Their tiny bodies. Their children. Half him. Half Lance... They were barely more than a bunch of cells caused by their lack of sense with contraceptives. But... would they even survive if Lance kept having seizures?

"The pills would help with that"

"I can't, ok! I know they're not the same, but thinking about them... I can't! I'm eating these bars. I'm forcing myself to keep eating!"

Holding his hands up in surrender, Keith knew he should have expected the backlash

"Right. Fine. I'm sorry for worrying. Did you at least eat last night? How did you know I was drinking?"

"Shiro, Curtis, and I had a pizza and beer night. Shiro was trying to make me happy, so we were going out for drinks. He wanted to invite both of us to celebrate his win, but couldn't find you. He made me get dressed up. Anyway, Curtis was waiting outside the tent you were drinking in. I had a panic attack, then begged Curtis to go grab beer and pizza, we came back to their room and watched his win while you slept in their bathtub"

"I don't remember that"

Opening his second ration bar, Lance nodded

"I'm not surprised. You were going shot for shot with Krystaal. I don't know what you were drinking, but when you saw me you started yelling about me being your husband, then got kind of mad... not mad, annoyed? when I was panicking... This is why... This is why I think we should take a few days apart. That way you can get your thinking straight"

Now they were back on that... He didn't want to leave Lance alone. He only needed... a few vargas...

"I know I quiznakked up... but... we're supposed to be talking this out!"

Lance wasn't one to talk with a mouthful, yet the way he was tearing into the ration bar, his husband had seemingly forgotten swallowing and chewing was a thing

"Keith, I can smell the confusion on you! You smelt of fucking rejection yesterday. I've already got a plan for the next planet. Krolia will ok it once we talk it out. I'll be there for like 4 quintants..."

"You'll be alone! I get that you don't want to be a... that you don't want an easy life or whatever, but what if... What if you get so scared that you stop being again? Then what? No. You're not going alone"

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lowcarbnutrients · 6 years ago

Text

If You Sleep Less Than 8 Hours, This is What`s Happening to Your Body Right Now

According to the docudrama, Sleepless in America, coproduced by the National Geographic Channel, 40 percent of Americans are sleep deprived. Many get much less than five hrs of rest each night. Percentage-wise, teens are among the most rest deprived.

The consequences are dire, not simply for the individual that isn't really getting sufficient rest, yet for those around them. While most individuals do not provide lack of rest much thought, there are in fact lethal consequences.

Notably, "professionals currently believe that sleep deprivation might have played a role in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Staten Island ferry crash, and also the Three-Mile Island nuclear meltdown," the film states. Numerous individuals have actually also lost their lives to worn out vehicle drivers who merely fallinged asleep behind the wheel.

It's essential to understand that getting less compared to six hours of rest each evening leaves you cognitively hindered. Rest deprivation has actually additionally been connected to wellness results such as weight problems, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, 1and cancer. Anxiety as well as anxiousness conditions are likewise adversely influenced by absence of sleep.

The Importance of Staying in Sync with Nature

Maintaining an all-natural rhythm of exposure to sunlight during the day and also darkness in the evening is one critical fundamental element of sleeping well.

This was attended to in a previous interview with researcher Dan Pardi. In it, he clarifies how direct exposure to intense daytime functions as the significant synchronizer of your master clock-- a group of cells in your mind called the suprachiasmatic cores (SCN).

These centers integrate to the light-dark cycle of your atmosphere when light enters your eye. You likewise have other body clocks throughout your body that are integrated to your master clock.

One reason why many individuals get so little sleep, and/or such poor sleep, can be traced back to a master clock disturbance. In other words, a lot of individuals invest their days indoors, protected from intense daytime, then spend their nights in too-bright fabricated light.

As a result, their body clocks obtain out of sync with the all-natural rhythm of daytime and also nighttime darkness, when that happens, corrective rest ends up being elusive.

An approximated 15 million Americans also function the evening change, as well as the damaging health and wellness impacts of functioning evenings are well documented. As just one instance, 3 years of periodical graveyard shift job can raise your threat for diabetes by 20 percent, and also this risk continuouslies climb with time.

What Takes place When You're Rest Deprived?

What makes rest deprivation so detrimental is that it doesn't just impact one aspect of your wellness ... it impacts several. Among them are 5 major dangers to your psychological as well as physical wellness:

1. Reaction time slows: When you're sleep-deprived, you're not going to react as quickly as you normally would, making driving or various other potentially unsafe tasks, like making use of power tools, unsafe. One research even located that sleepiness behind the wheel was virtually as dangerous as drinking and driving.2

2. Your cognition suffers-- both brief- and long-term: A single night of resting just 4 to 6 hours can influence your ability to think clearly the following day. In one animal study, 3 rest deprived mice shed 25 percent of the nerve cells found in their place coeruleus, a nucleus in the brainstem related to cognitive processes.

Hence, if you're sleep-deprived you will certainly have difficulty refining information as well as deciding. This is why it's so vital to get a great evening's sleep before crucial occasions at the workplace or home.

For example, study reviewed in the film located that diagnostic blunders soared by 400 percent among medical professionals that had actually functioned for 24 successive hours.

Sleep denied clinical residents likewise reported a 73 percent rise in self-inflicted needle sticks and scalpel stabs, and also when driving home from work, they had a 170 percent boosted threat of having a significant automobile accident.

Research4 also suggests that individuals with persistent sleep problems might create Alzheimer's illness quicker compared to those who rest well. Among the reasons for this is due to the fact that rest is crucial for brain cleansing-- a procedure throughout which damaging healthy proteins linked to Alzheimer's are removed out.

3. Memory and discovering decreases: The procedure of mind growth, or neuroplasticity, is believed to underlie your mind's capability to manage behavior, including discovering as well as memory. Rest and sleep loss change the expression of a number of genetics and also genetics products that may be important for synaptic plasticity.

Furthermore, specific forms of lasting potentiation, a neural process linked with the laying down of learning and also memory could be evoked in sleep, suggesting synaptic links are strengthened while you slumber.

4. Emotions are heightened: As your reaction time and cognition reduces, your emotions will certainly be kicked into high equipment. This means that debates with colleagues or your partner are most likely, and you're probably reallying going to be at mistake for blowing things out of proportion.

The amygdala controls fundamental feelings like worry and anger. As talked about in the movie, an additional location of your brain called your frontal cortex, plays an essential part in the policy of feelings, and also rest is crucial for its function.

When you're well relaxed, your frontal cortex is well connected to your amygdala-- that deep emotional center-- and also functions virtually like "a break to your emotional gas pedal."

Sleep starvation triggers a detach between these two brain centers, permitting your emotions to run amok. Sleep deprival likewise plays an important role in mental disease, and has the tendency to cause even more negative psychiatric outcomes.

5. Immune function and also health wears away: Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical anxiety or disease, 5 which could aid describe why absence of sleep is linked to an increased threat of countless chronic diseases.

For instance, research study shows that resting much less compared to six hours per evening greater than triples your danger of hypertension, as well as females who get less than 4 hrs of slumber per evening double their chances of dying from heart disease.6

You Need Around Eight Hrs of Rest Every Night

The research studies are rather clear and most experts concur, you are seriously deceiving on your own if you believe you can do great on less compared to eight hours of rest. Eight hours of sleep is not 8 hours in bed. If you go to bed at 10 pm and also rise at 6 am, you might claim you've slept for 8 hrs. Actually, you probably spent a minimum of 15-30 mins going to sleep and also might have woken throughout the night several times.

With the development of fitness-tracking devices nonetheless, we now have accessibility to actual sleep information (as well as much more) from wristband customers. The data is rather beneficial on an individual level as well as they assisted me understand that I have to start obtaining to rest around 9.30 PM if I intend to obtain a full eight hours of sleep, which I currently normally do.

The Glorification of Sleep Deprivation

According to the 2013 International Room Survey by the National Sleep Foundation, 7 25 percent of Americans report having to reduce down on rest due to lengthy workdays. Typically, Americans obtain only 6.5 hours of sleep on weeknights, yet report needing 7.25 hrs in order to operate ideally. As noted in a previous article in The Atlantic: 8

" For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, an indication that they don't require the eight-hour biological reset that the remainder people softies do. Others feel that maintaining up with peers needs sacrifice at the personal level-- and at least in the short-term, sleep is an undetectable sacrifice."

Modern male's propensity for equating sleep with unproductiveness (if not outright laziness) can be traced back to the heyday of Thomas Edison, that was understood for working around the clock. According to the highlighted post: 9

" Edison spent considerable amounts of his very own and also his team's energy on in publicizing the idea that success depended in no little part in staying awake to remain in advance of the technological and also financial competition." No one ... did even more to frame the problem as a simple choice in between efficient job and also unsuccessful remainder ...

Over time, kids's books as well as journals started to promote this sort of Edisonian asceticism ... Edison encouraged all Americans to follow his lead, asserting that resting 8 hours a night was a waste as well as also hazardous. "There is truly no reason why guys need to go to bed in any way," he stated in 1914."

This society of sleep deprival began with the innovation of the light bulb, and has just worsened with the proliferation of light-emitting electronic devices, which disrupt your all-natural waking-sleeping cycle. The complying with infographic, developed by BigBrandBeds.co.uk, illustrates just how your electronic gadgets damage your sleep when recruited before bedtime.10

The Importance of Attending to Rest Apnea

As gone over in the film, sleep apnea is another usual reason of rest deprival. Rest apnea is the lack of ability to breathe properly, or the restriction of breath or breathing, during sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea consists of the constant collapse of the air passage during rest, making it hard to take a breath for periods lasting as long as 10 seconds. Those with an extreme form of the disorder contend the very least 30 interruptions per hr. Not only do these breathing disruptions conflict with rest, leaving you uncommonly tired the following day, it additionally lowers the amount of oxygen in your blood, which can harm the feature of interior organs and/or intensify other health problems you may have.

The condition is closely connected to metabolic illness such as excessive weight as well as type 2 diabetes mellitus, and also according to research, 11 also a small weight decrease can stop the development of obstructive rest apnea. Shedding excess pounds could also cure it, according to one five-year lengthy study.12 That claimed, you do not have to be obese to suffer from sleep apnea. As discussed by Dr. Arthur Strauss, a dental medical professional and a diplomat of the American Board of Dental Rest Medication, factors such as the sizes and shape of your mouth, and the positioning of your tongue, can additionally play a substantial role.

If your rest apnea is associated to your tongue or jaw placement, specialized qualified dental professionals could design a customized dental appliance to deal with the issue. These include mandibular rearranging devices, developed to change your jaw ahead, while others help hold your tongue onward without relocating your jaw. Relief could likewise be discovered through speech therapy treatment called oral myofunctional therapy, which assists to re-pattern your dental and also facial muscle mass. To learn more about this, please see my previous interview with Joy Moeller, who is a leading professional in this form of treatment in the US.

How to Support Your Circadian Rhythm and Rest Better for Optimum Health

Making little changes to your everyday program as well as sleeping area can go a lengthy method to make sure undisturbed, relaxing sleep and also, therefore, much better health and wellness. I suggest you review my full set of 33 healthy and balanced sleep guidelines for all of the details, however to start, take into consideration implementing the complying with adjustments to make sure even more shut-eye:

Avoid seeing TELEVISION or recruiting your computer system in the evening, at least an hour or so prior to visiting bed.These gadgets give off blue light, which techniques your brain right into assuming it's still daytime. Generally, your mind starts secreting melatonin in between 9 as well as 10 pm, and these gadgets discharge light that could stifle that process. You can likewise download a cost-free application called F.lux13 that automatically lowers your monitor or screens in the night, which can assist decrease the damaging results if you have to recruit them in the evening.

Get some sun in the early morning, and also at the very least HALF AN HOUR of BRIGHT sunlight direct exposure mid-day. Your circadian system needs brilliant light to reset itself. 10 to 15 mins of early morning sunlight will certainly send a solid message to your body clock that day has arrived, making it much less likely to be perplexed by weak light signals during the evening. If you work inside your home, make a point to get outdoors for at the very least an overall of 30-60 minutes throughout the brightest part of the day.

Sleep in a dark room. Also the slightest little light in your room can interrupt your body's clock as well as your pineal gland's melatonin production. I recommend covering your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or using an eye mask.

Install a low-wattage yellow, orange, or red light bulb if you require a source of light for navigating during the night. Light in these transmission capacities does not closed down melatonin production in the means that white as well as blue transmission capacity light does. Salt lights come in handy for this purpose.

Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees F. Many individuals maintain their homes too cozy (especially their upstairs bed rooms). Studies reveal that the optimal room temperature for rest is between 60 to 68 degrees F.

Take a hot bathroom 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This raises your core body temperature level, and when you obtain out of the bathroom it abruptly goes down, signifying your body that you prepare to sleep.

Avoid magnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom. EMFs can interrupt your pineal gland and also its melatonin manufacturing, and also might have various other adverse organic impacts. A gauss meter is called for if you wish to determine EMF degrees in various locations of your residence. Preferably, you must switch off any type of wireless router while you are resting. You don't need the Internet on while you're asleep.

Use a health and fitness tracker to track your sleep. Chances are you're not getting almost as much rest as you think, and using a physical fitness tracker that monitors your sleep can be an useful device to assist inspire you to obtain to bed previously so you can get 8 hrs of sleep. When I initially began making use of a fitness tracker, I was striving to obtain 8 hours of sleep, but my Jawbone UP commonly tape-recorded me at 7.5 to 7.75. Part of the equation too is going to sleep earlier, as the majority of us have to obtain up at a predetermined time.

#diet #health and wellness #lemonade diet #wellness

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tancong · 7 years ago

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Gency Week: Day 7

And the fic is finally finished along with gency week. I forgot how good it feels to finish a multi-chapter fic. It’s been a really fun week, thank you to all those involved for hosting this wonderful week with all its wonderful prompts. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did~

And now, I return to hell in college with my 5 classes ;u; Perhaps one day, I’ll return to work on my next fic series.

Title: Four Halves Make A Whole Theme: Family Word Count: 1873 Rating: G (for God there’s fluff everywhere)

It would not be for another half-decade or so that they would finally consider starting their own family. Angela was all too busy with the ascension ceremony and her studies about magic, along with learning about everything else that was needed for ruling a kingdom. Her husband was fortunately gifted with the knowledge of the inner workings of the streets, allowing him to appeal to the people rather easily. He had that going for him at least.

She felt bad for making him sit in on so many conferences that he hardly had a clue about, with the council people very purposefully using big words and archaic terms to mess with him. However, Genji was not one to surrender easily, or at all. He studied books after books through the nights with his wife snuggled up to him, knowing that he shouldn’t be a useless burden to her forever.

The day that he very offhandedly dissed a counselor’s use of resources and casually suggested a solution that would eventually come to reform the entire system for the better, he was showered with a lot of kisses after the meeting and rewarded for his cleverness with yet another sleepless night, only without the books.

Eventually, there came a day when they found themselves with a king declaring war on them. Or more specifically, Genji for stealing his wife. It was probably one of the potential suitors she had met who got his head so far up his ass that it actually came back out of his neck again.

That being said, the issue of having a significant kingdom declaring war with them, no matter how opposed their people may be, was still rather serious. There would undoubtedly be a battle or two and might end up ruining both their reputations, not to mention their trade routes and any casualties during the battle.

As such, Genji offered to go there in person and talk the man down. While many of the counselors opposed, having finally gained a respect for their king, he left anyway without regardless of what they had to say. Angela was also left behind, left to pout and mope at being left behind and all alone for the first time in a whole year.

It only really took her three days to recall what exactly her husband was and what he could do. But by then, it was much too late to stop him. However, it was not as if she needed to. In the single day he spent in the capital under disguise, he had found out that the previous king had a much more capable heir who was unfortunate enough to be female and younger than the prince. All that remained was for him to cause the prince to look out the window one night and accidentally fall off. His fault for living in such a high castle.

He was very promptly chastised and met with very angry yelling in their room, before Angela hugged him tightly and told him to never leave her without telling her again. Realizing that the problem was not in his plan for the fact that he abandoned his wife, Genji took all the necessary measures to reassure her that he did love her and that he would do it again. A candlelit dinner, a long bath, and even a new set of undergarments which she very generously modeled for him that night.

They had various problems in the following years, some of which they dealt with peacefully and some which were strangely dealt with by some unfortunate accident or another. He had to do some freelancing assassination for other friendly kingdoms as well, to ensure that everyone didn’t connect the dots between the relation of conflict towards his kingdom and a random death of his adversary.

Eventually, things settled down enough that they began to think more about themselves. They had many advisors and trustworthy men and women helping with every aspect of running the country. While their opinion still greatly mattered as the rulers, having others to contribute different ideas and views was very useful. It was an idea that Genji proposed to the council in an attempt to get people more specialized in different fields as to have a better system of balancing power around the throne. Just one of the many things that he used from his time of being an assassin.

Actually, Reinhardt found himself with a new partner, the retired knight turned assassin. They ended up working together as instructors and advisors of the army. With them and Genji, Angela had never felt the need to fear for her life. There was only one occasion when an assassin tried to hurt her. In the time it took for her magic to detect the hostile presence, her two veteran bodyguards had already drawn their swords and her husband was already busy pinning the culprit against a wall to interrogate him about his employer.

And so, they decided to have a child. Actually, they ended up having two. After their first child had been around for a year, they realized how wonderful it was and wasted no time in having another one. The elder one was female, who had a talent for finding her dad despite him utilizing various assassin skills to hide during hide-and-seek. Eventually, he resorted to climbing on top of the roof, much to the amusement of his wife, only for them both to realize that their daughter had inherited flight. Even if only temporarily.

After a near accident that gave them a nostalgic reminder of their past, they began to teach her how to use her skills in earnest. Much to her mother’s disappointment, she took more to her father, opting to learn various combat skills after seeing him practice.

As such, the castle staff soon found out about Genji’s past, something that he had kept hidden from them all that time. It was inevitable that they would question how the eldest child of the Shimada bloodline managed to evade etiquette lesson and got access to the kitchen 24/7.

As for their second child, he was the opposite. Somewhat reserved and opting to be more studious, he stayed by his mother’s side and watched as she used various magic to restrain her rampant daughter and heal up wounds. They soon found that he had a large potential for magic, being able to use the same magic as his mother despite still being quite young.

The two children got along as well as any siblings would, with bickering and bullying aplenty. However, they looked out for each other. Before the younger would gain his confidence as a magician as a young man, his older sister did not hold back a punch to defend him. They were allowed to go to a public academy under the watch of Reinhardt’s friend, though he was hardly needed for their protection. It turned out that the kingdom loved the two children to death, so much so that talking badly about them in the slightest at a bar would be enough to start a brawl. No one wanted to harm them and they got to enjoy the academy as anyone would.

Angela was glad that they got to experience life as kids, not as royalties. She had always been sheltered and felt that life was always so empty before Genji came along. Their children got to experience it all. Crushes, bullying, terrible education rectified by superb tutoring at home, shitty food, and most importantly of all, friendships. It only took their parents a talk with the academy administrator, a close friend of Angela’s father, and the kids proving their own worth for others to see them not as the children of the throne but as children.

Eventually, they grew up and became close to being adults. They began to learn more about their parents' jobs, though it was obviously the younger one who was more studious and diligent in learning about everything.

“Sis, I thought I would find you here. I didn’t even have to use magic this time. Now, will you come to the lesson?”

She simply pouted, flipping backward off the rafters to hang upside down to look at her younger brother. “But it’s so terribly boring. It’s the weekend and I want to go out to see my old friends. I bet they’re out doing something fun, like uhm .. preparing for the festival!”

At the excitement of recalling the upcoming festival, she found herself falling off, only to be caught inches from hitting the ground with a sigh from the brother. “Isn’t it the elder one’s job to watch out for their sibling, not vice versa?” he thought to himself.

“In any case, I’m aware that you have some poor innocent soul that you somehow convinced to go with you but you should ask mom and dad first, should you not?”

“They said it would be fin- Wait what do you mean poor innocent soul? What’s wrong with me asking my best friend to come to the festival with me?”

“Because I know for sure that even if the fireworks went off a million times, you’d never confess your feelings to her.”

There was a silence before the older sister’s cheeks would heat up, punching her sibling’s chest repeatedly (albeit gently, at least by her standards). “H-How do you know about that?? You better not tell mom and dad.”

The younger brother simply smirked, “I took a wild guess. Oh boy, she is really going to suffer isn’t she? The poor girl has been hopelessly in love with you for what … a year now?”

She simply sat there brooding for a bit over that thought before her eyes regained their fire. “Oh, as if you’d be making a move on that girl you like. What was her name again … Elenia?”

His eyes widened, looking around in panic before grabbing his sister by the collar, “Where did you get that name? I was sure we never even talked anywhere near you.”

“Your diary could use a slightly better magical lock and a better hiding place than under the false bottom of your desk drawer.”

Genji would later relay all this information to his wife, who would laugh and hug him tightly, talking with each other through the night about their memories. About all their secret meetings and endeavors, their strange meeting, and that wonderful festival that they could never forget.

Theirs was a strange life led by a strange fate. A princess whose life felt dictated by a single path by her heritage, all but resigned to her fate as being a pretty face for some unworthy prince to claim. An assassin whose life existed in only absolutes, kill or be killed, and the cold, merciless solitude of his path. In a single failed assassination, they found themselves in a brand new life that they could have never imagined. A life of happiness and fulfillment. One where they would never have to spend another night alone or afraid. A life where they could live with their children, watching them grow and become the next chapter of their family’s story.

The love story of a princess and her assassin.

#gency week #gency #emergenji #genji #mercy #gency fic #gency fanfic

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roeniusfitness-blog · 7 years ago

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The importance of sleep and how it affects you

Sleep. Sleep is something that most people enjoy and look forward to, but yet, don’t get very much of, especially if you’re a college student like myself or are a matured adult. Sleep is a critical part of everyone’s life, and about one-third of a person’s life is spent sleeping, provided you are getting the adequate amount of sleep. According to the American Sleep Association, 50 to 70 million U.S. adults experience symptoms of a sleep disorder. About 30 percent of the population will experience insomnia at some point in their lives, and about 10 percent of adults will deal with chronic insomnia. Therefore, if you find yourself struggling to get sleep, you’re not alone. Sleep plays a crucial role in every single person's health and well being, but yet sleep is the one thing that most people, especially Americans, are willing to compromise even more than food and money. Most people have probably heard from some successful entrepreneur, business owner, doctor, lawyer, [you name it], that achieving success takes hard work, which may require many long hour days and sleepless nights. While it may be true that achieving success takes hard work, one should actually avoid sleepless nights if they want to achieve their full potential, be successful, and be healthy. Instead, people should place a high priority on getting a full night of sleep. According to sleepassocation.org, it is estimated that 35.3% of adults get less than 7 hours of sleep during a typical 24-hour day, which is hurting their overall health. Sleep is undoubtedly one of the most crucial and essential requirements for the human body to function properly. Sleep plays a vital role in the health and well being of the human body both physically and mentally. Not only does sleep help humans maintain their physical and mental health, sleep can actually save you from many serious diseases and illnesses. Sleep also plays a vital role in your ability to achieve your fitness goals. Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist, professor at UC Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, states that sleep is “probably the greatest performance enhancing drug that most people are probably neglecting in sport, especially in terms of physical performance, skill learning, memory, and recuperative benefits.” Without the proper amount of sleep each night, one will suffer consequences to their body that will drastically lower the quality of their life. The following is how sleep affects our bodies physically and mentally, and how it relates to fitness.

How lack of sleep affects your physical performance:

Trying to accomplish your everyday tasks while also trying to get into shape is a tough thing to do on it own, but factoring in inadequate amounts of sleep to that equation makes it even harder of a task for anybody to accomplish. Sleep plays an integral part in one’s ability to get in shape. A study done by a Matthew Walker shows why and how sleep affects one’s ability to perform in any athletic environment. Walker states: “In terms of motor skill performance [the movements’ related to large muscles such as legs, arms, etc. that are critical for athletic performance], lack of sleep drastically worsens your peak muscle strength, peak vertical jump height, peak running speed, build up of lactic acid, and decreases the ability of your lungs to expire carbon dioxide and inhale oxygen.” All of these factors play a crucial role in your body’s ability to lose weight and get fit; thereby, slowing your body’s ability to achieve your desired results. The fast production of lactic acid causes more muscle fatigue and post-exercise muscle soreness, thus making it harder to complete workouts consistently. Also, when you’re sore and tired, you may find yourself making more excuses as to why you shouldn’t go to the gym and eating unhealthy foods, which will make your workouts and your progress limited. Not being able to perform every day at peak performance with any exercise limits your body’s ability to get the most out of your workouts, and when you add in not being able to get the needed amount of oxygen, you’re going to drastically lower your ability to perform at a high level during your workouts. Walker states that “practice does not make perfect, practice with a night of sleep makes perfect because you are 20-30% better in your skilled performance compared to where you were at the end of your workout session the day before.” This amount of skilled performance could drastically lengthen or shorten the time it takes for you to start seeing results. Sleep is so important that if someone gets 6 or fewer hours of sleep during one night of sleep, your time to physical exhaustion will drop by up to 30%. So for example, say you are preparing for a marathon and are able to run 20 miles before noticing physical exhaustion. You can spend all your time training to run that marathon and be in great condition, but if you get 6 or fewer hours of sleep the night before the marathon race, you will likely be more noticeably physically exhausted by mile 14 compared to mile 20. Not only will sleep limit your ability to perform but if you are getting inadequate amounts of sleep, you are much more prone to injury. Walker found that in the difference of 9 hours versus 5 hours of sleep, there is a 60% increase in the probability of injury risk throughout a season of any sport. Lack of sleep affects all of us with negative side effects, but it affects each gender differently. When males experience lack of sleep, their testosterone is lowered to the level of someone ten years older than them. When females experience inadequate amounts of sleep, their fertility-related hormones are negatively affected.

How sleep affects your mental performance

Have you ever noticed that the less sleep you get the crankier you are throughout the day, and the more sleep you get the happier you are? This testament of crankiness versus happiness in itself is proof of the importance of sleep in our lives. According to a study from UCLA, sleep deprivation disrupts brain cells and their ability to communicate. While sleeping, your body’s cells are being reenergized, waste from your brain is being cleared out, and your memory and ability to learn are being supported. How many times have you been suffering from headache and then you slept for some time and wake up feeling 100% better? This is the effect that a sound sleep session has on your mind as well as body. Sleep is also essential for learning. A person needs adequate amounts of sleep after learning to essentially hit the save button. Sleep “future proofs” the facts in the brain. Without sleep the memory circuits in the brain become waterlogged and essentially makes it extremely hard to absorb the information. A study was conducted on a number of healthy adults who were placed into two groups. One group was a sleep-deprived group, and the other group got the adequate amount of sleep. The next day, they were placed in an MRI scanner and were presented the task of trying to learn a whole list of new facts that they have never seen before. The MRI results showed that the sleep-deprived group had a 40% deficit in the brains ability to make new memories without sleep. This is difference between getting a 100% on an exam versus failing the exam, which brings me to the importance of sleep and education. In today’s academic world, students are becoming accustomed to getting no sleep so that they can study for exams or do homework. The U.S. National Institute of Health found that about 70% of college students are attaining insufficient sleep. This inadequate amount of sleep is then reflected during their day. As a student myself, I want to emphasize the importance of sleep to any student who thinks that staying up late for an exam is going to better their likelihood of passing. Inadequate amounts of sleep are also related to many diseases as well. If someone get less than 6 hours of sleep per night on average, they are 200% more like to get some type of cancer, inadequate sleep produces more beta-amyloid which is a protein that is a precursor to Alzheimer’s, and lack of sleep can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Although all of these facts may be scary, there are ways to prevent inadequate amounts of sleep.

What you can do to make sure you are getting enough sleep

The best practices to avoid inadequate sleep: 1. Avoid Caffeine/energy drinks caffeine after 2 pm 2. Go to bed at the same time, and wake up at the same time. 3. Surround yourself with darkness before bed, and limit screen time to allow for melatonin hormone to build up. 4. Make your room colder to around 65-67 degree because your brain actually needs to cool down before sleeping 5. Avoid Alcohol. Alcohol is a sedative, which deprives of getting naturalistic sleep. 6. Avoid naps in the evening as it releases some of the sleepiness that is built up during the day. If you find yourself wanting to take a nap, the first question you need to ask yourself is “why do I need a nap?” Naps should not be taken in the afternoon as it releases some of the sleepiness that is built up throughout the day. Sleep is not like a debt where you can pay it off by sleeping extra long on the weekend.

#mkt400uwl

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angeltriestoblog · 4 years ago

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Unnecessary life update

I have officially made it to the halfway point of this quarter. And I don’t mean to sound morbid but I didn’t expect to at all!

It’s just that I’ve recently learned that chronic sleep deprivation actually does lead to premature death and I’ve slept at three in the morning everyday since I started online schooling. (Though actual scientific evidence has always been available on the Internet, I found it easier to believe that this was a hoax.) But concerning as it may be, the past two weeks have been so demanding of my time and energy, resting didn’t seem like an option.

ii.

Much to the dismay of Freshman Angel, most organizations in Ateneo require an interview as part of the application process. I remember signing up for three departments in my home org back then: I sweated my way through one screening, completely flunked the other, and ghosted the last. I also applied to be part of our hosting pool and made a run for it at the last minute: despite having spent only two weeks on campus, I easily found a secret passageway leading to the nearest exit just so that I wouldn’t have to run into the officer in charge of my audition.

Given the unfortunate display of cowardice, it’s hard to believe that this year, I found myself on the other side. I conducted several ICs (rebranded to individual conversations) in an attempt to welcome freshmen, give them a picture of what awaits them in ACTM, and hopefully serve as one of their first friends, if I built enough rapport with them.

The week after, I had to conduct interviews and screen all hopefuls who wanted to make it into my department. I only spoke with 13 of them through a screen but I had to go through three times more application forms, interview footage, and assessments to determine who would make it to our final line-up. One night, I binge-watched the recordings of all the interviews I conducted in chronological order and I didn’t know if I found my waning energy levels depressing or funny. Toward the last few, I refused to turn on my camera because I had gotten a sudden allergy attack.

iii.

And as if the load I bear as an associate vice president in ACTM wasn’t heavy enough, I joined five other orgs last recruitment week. I wouldn’t go and call the quarantine a blessing because I’m not an asshole but these past few months have made me realize that I want to do and be so many things in life and I missed the opportunity to start on them earlier, since I spent the first few years of college hanging around with no end goal in mind. So in a fit of impulsiveness, I signed up for:

The Development Society of the Ateneo, where I will be working either as an advocacy or consultancy trainee under the research and development department (depends on how my interview this Thursday fares);

Ateneo Education Geared Towards Empowerment, where I will be gathering data from our partner communities to help the organization provide quality education given the online setting;

Ateneo Association of Communication Majors, where I will be under the research and development department yet again of MIRLab, their documentary production house;

Ateneo PEERS, where I will be part of a peer support program intended to help in my self-improvement, and that of others as well;

Project Kabuhayan, where I will be participating in initiatives geared towards empowering micro, small, and medium enterprises

I had general assemblies for most of them: had to ditch two for a midterm, and will be watching the recordings tomorrow. I didn’t even have to talk in any of them; simply watch the officers speak about their projects for the year then head on over to my designated breakout room. But the mere idea of being perceived by hundreds of Zoom call participants was already enough to drain my social battery.

iv.

To top it all off, my major tasks for all three subjects I’m taking this quarter were due last Friday. I had a group podcast for Philosophy class which we had to shoot twice on the busiest day of my week. I wanted nothing more than to get it over with, so when we wrapped up our first attempt, we were ready to let it go through some rushed post-production and submit it without giving it a second look. But I couldn’t stomach the thought of submitting subpar work when the task is supposed to be easy, given enough discipline.

Another group I was a part of had a marketing plan (you’ll never guess which subject it was for) that proposed the rebranding of Adidas Originals to cater to an older target market, or “the active ageing”, as we liked to call it. We only found out a couple of hours before the deadline that our professor was not accepting anything over 10 pages just when we had hit the 40-page mark. All of our well-researched, comprehensive parts had to be cut down significantly, which was the equivalent of flushing many sleepless nights down the drain.

And of course, I had a case study and midterm to accomplish for Law. The minute I received the message confirming the submission of my answers, I plopped down on my bed and napped. Later on that night, I released all the pent-up tension in me by going on my first ever e-numan. I never got the logic behind drinking alcohol in front of my computer: I always thought it was a sad attempt to replicate the bustling nightlife of Katip or the intimate energy of barkada chillnumans in condominiums. But I guess all I needed was the right company, and some sweet-tasting Novellino.

Anyway, before this turns into a full-on advert for a brand that isn’t even sponsoring this post, let me move on.

Reading that probably exhausted you. As the one who had to live through all that, I can tell you: it was even more hectic than you think. Before this pandemic was a thing, my schedule was clear-cut. I could tell the days of the week apart, and appreciate the endless possibility brought by Friday evenings. I could wake up at eight on Saturday morning, smile to myself because of how early it is, and go back to sleep without any feelings of guilt.

Now, the line that separates work and home has been completely obliterated. The Internet promotes that I have to be at the top of my game all the time. Every moment spent in rest and recreation is a moment wasted when there’s so much to do, always somewhere to be even if I’m technically not allowed to leave the comfort of my own home.

I would sometimes report to my friends that I threw my circadian rhythm out the window, which would be met with the same well-meaning outcries. “What the hell! Drop all your commitments! Pace yourself! Sleep early!”. I think they know by now that this often falls on deaf ears. Ironically, whenever I observe or hear of friends falling into the same patterns as me, I’m often one of the first to reprimand. I sentence them to early bedtime like a stressed suburban mother of two, and check in on them constantly to see if they’re doing alright. I tell them not to pressure themselves to perform at their very best, while working myself to the bone, writing this ~2,000 word essay at half past two in the morning.

But one conversation I had with one of my friends stood out. He told me how proud he was of me: that even if I’m so busy juggling so many things, it all pays off in the end because I’m genuinely happy and fulfilled. I get to see the fruits of my labor and share it with the world.

Which is so true. I honestly enjoy the success that comes from this hyperproductivity, and take pride in the output that I manage to churn out. I’m willing to give up hours of sleep if it means getting to do what will help me make my pipe dreams a reality, or create something that sets my soul on fire.I don’t mind going out of my comfort zone if it’s to talk to new people who have the potential of being some of my greatest friends in the future, or advocating for causes that I’m passionate about.

In fact, I am so willing to prolong my period of working to welcome the new members of my department or create even more articles to talk about pressing cultural phenomena. It will be hard as hell while the sacrifice is still ongoing but I always know that it will lead to something greater and bigger than I am.

Besides, when I feel like I can no longer take it, I don’t think I’ll have it in me to force myself. It might not look like it but I am afraid of the serious health risks and will try to slot in more time for sleep if need be. But I have no plans of backing out of anything right now since I’m still on top of everything. Guess I’m fueled by a genuine desire to give/be/do as much as I can, while I still can.

Where did this post even go, honestly… This was supposed to be a simple life update, complete with a pop culture recommendation to supplement my experiences. I did not expect it to spiral the way it did so now I have no idea how to transition from one part to the next in a way that isn’t entirely awkward. Oh well.

I managed to preserve my sanity these past two weeks by listening to only one artist. Anyone who follows me on Spotify must think that their Friend Activity tab is glitching but the rumors are indeed true: I have been listening to chosen songs from The Boyz’ discography on a constant loop, like an actual zombie. Count on me to get into a new K-Pop group during the busiest week of the quarter as a coping mechanism.

I was an anti of this group when they first debuted because they are home to a former Produce 101 contestant whom I hated. (Still do, up to now. Don’t know how to reconcile my conflicting feelings.) So you could say I was heavily biased from the start and refused to give them a chance. Thankfully, one of my best friends recently converted after watching them on Road to Kingdom and sent me some of their performances to reel me in. Since I am a girl with a working brain and pair of eyes, I was easily impressed. When they came back recently with The Stealer, I officially fell and made no active efforts to get up.

If there are any Deobis reading, (1) congrats, you are a person of taste; (2) please be my friend. My current favorite songs other than their latest title track are No Air, I’m Your Boy, and Break Your Rules. I’ve also started most mornings with their Danger live stage. Who needs caffeine when you have acrobatic stunts and good-looking men?

I also have a lot of exciting things coming up, which I just felt the need to share:

I’m going to be a panelist at a talk for Developh, an organization I’m a part of which leverages technology for social good. This Friday, October 16th, I’ll be joining three brilliant go-getters from different fields to talk about my internship at makesense Philippines (which warrants another blog post) as well as my experience as a freelance writer.

I have a couple of published pieces in the pipeline right now that I absolutely cannot wait to share! I honestly think they’re some of my favorites. Over the past few weeks, I have written about Internet study communities, the Subtle Asian Dating Facebook group, and unpaid internships. I’ve also pitched a couple more to my bosses and they’ve given me the green light at the same time so yes, once again, I am running on tight deadlines.

I’ll be applying for internships once this quarter is over and I’m already considering a couple of start-ups as good prospects. I’m making my personalized CVs for each company and saving the contact details of the designated point people in a neat little Notion spread for easy access.

Feels weird to end this post with stay safe and healthy, and don’t forget to rest. Maybe I’ll just make that a note to self.

Love and light,

Angel

#angeltriestoblog #life updates

0 notes

concussed-to-pieces · 7 years ago

Text

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Two

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Welcome aboard, Thirsty Crew! It is another random fandom Saturday, where we return to the Commonwealth. Spoiler warnings for essentially every early Brotherhood questline. Tagging @toxiicpop naturally, as is my custom. Enjoy!

Part One

“Well Danse, you’re not going to like my answer.” Cade said finally. Danse noted with confusion that the knight-captain was smiling. Surely his suffering couldn’t be that funny? “You’re fine. It’s not a wasting sickness or an infection. Or rad poisoning.”

“What is it then?” The paladin asked, hating how his voice wanted to shake. He wasn’t a child .

“You are being emotionally affected by that civilian.” Cade replied simply.

Danse scoffed. “Excuse me, sir?”

“This is the first time you’ve come to me with a civilian-related issue, Paladin. Which leads me to believe this is the first time you’ve had an issue with civilian relations.” Knight-Captain Cade flipped through his clipboard. “You’re a model soldier, Danse. This changes nothing. You lost over half your squadron from skirmishes, you were in a certain-death situation earlier in the day and you reached out for comfort in the anonymous because they would not judge your actions. There’s no shame in that. But…” Cade trailed off.

“Fraternizing with that civilian obviously transferred some type of illness via the exchange of saliva.” Danse filled in bleakly, staring down at his hands and waiting for Cade to prescribe him one of his infamously terrible-tasting medications.

Cade made an annoyed noise. “ No , Paladin. Christ, you can be thick sometimes. Your alleged ‘ symptoms ’ are just manifestations of…listen to me, Danse. There is nothing wrong with you. You’re mentally and physically sound. All scans are coming back negative. Granted, I would have preferred for you to keep your mouth to yourself instead of swapping the bodily fluids of an unknown, but you mentioned that this woman was in a stasis, in a Vault , no less. As far as potential partners go, obviously there are worse paths to take. This wasn’t your first time kissing someone, correct Paladin? You’ve done that before?” There was no judgment in Cade’s tone, merely mild teasing.

Danse did his best not to be offended. He just couldn't comprehend why Cade was treating him like this was a joke. The nights he spent at the police station were sleepless. More often than not he got back into his power armor and just patrolled the perimeter of the property, tried to keep the fire barrels well-supplied in case of another feral horde descending upon the location.

He also checked across the river frequently for lights at Graygarden, not just the dim thrusters of those robots but actual lights , some proof that she might have returned. Rhys had caught him squinting into the dark more than once and Danse was a terrible liar, always had been. He knew the knight and scribe must be conspiring because when Haylen would return from her chats with the various supervisory bots, she would make a point to loudly relate any tidbits she might have gleaned from the odd machines across the way. Ones that related to Backhand, anyway.

Civilian Vega.

Danse just couldn't fathom why everyone was so entertained by his strange behavior. Behavior that he couldn't explain. Why was no one concerned about this? This was highly irregular! “I know my body, Cade. There's something wrong with me!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, quickly getting himself under control again. “Look, I told you everything I’ve noticed out of the ordinary. Are you certain there’s no disease I could have picked up?”

“Paladin Danse, you are fit for duty. Dismissed.” Knight-Captain Cade said curtly. At that, Danse knew better than to try and argue, simply shutting his mouth and saluting. “Did the civilian accept your proposal to join the Brotherhood?” Cade asked out of the blue while Danse was putting his uniform back on.

Surprised, Danse shook his head. “I woke up to a note that said she would think about it, sir.” A look of understanding crossed Cade’s face and Danse wished that the older man would just tell him what the hell was going on instead of being cryptic. It would serve him right if he got some kind of deadly disease after surrendering to his urges and fraternizing with a civilian. But Cade said he was alright, and the knight-captain wasn’t known to lie to his charges. Danse just wished he could understand why he felt so miserable.

...

His answer came in the form of an out-of-breath squire over a month later.

Danse hadn’t even noticed the boy hanging off the arm of his power armor, so total was his distraction, until he heard a frantic yelp when he tried to go through the doorway to the outer deck. The squire dropped to the floor, sketching a salute at the paladin. “Paladin Danse, sir, Proctor Ingram requests your presence on the ground!” The squire relayed, looking very pleased with himself.

Danse nodded, unable to hide his grin when the squire quickly climbed back up on his arm. “I take it you’re to accompany me, Squire?”

“The Proctor said that I’m to defend you at all costs, sir!” The boy answered, saluting again.

“Proceed, Squire.” Danse sidestepped through the door to the outside of the massive zeppelin, feeling the stiff breeze whip over the loading scaffold. He was still leery about squires being on their warship, all of them were very young. But Elder Maxson insisted that they 'learn under fire'. “Vertibird or jump?” He asked cordially, entertained by how large the squire’s eyes went.

“Oh I dunno’, sir. P-Probably the vertibird.” The small boy answered, puffing out his chest a little from the power of being offered a choice. Danse headed for one of the docked vertibirds, nodding to the engineer piloting it.

There was nothing quite like flying. Danse had grown to love the sensation over his many years of service. The powerful roar of the dual propellers, the swooping feeling in his stomach when the aircraft disengaged from the Prydwen…and nothing could match raining fire and death upon their enemies via minigun.

The flight was over much sooner than the paladin would have liked and he disembarked from the craft, the squire proudly attached to his shoulder as he made his way across the airfield. Due to her modified power armor frame Ingram towered over the scribes and aspirants, which made her very easy to locate in a crowd. “Proctor Ingram!” Danse called, his brow furrowing when he heard an odd noise. It seemed to be coming from the cluster of soldiers behind Ingram. She just looked worried, beckoning him to hurry up.

“Danse, we have something here that I believe belongs to you.” She said once he was within earshot.

“Something of mine, Proctor?” Danse queried, confused.

“It’s a dog!” The squire said helpfully.

“Yes, but more than that, it’s a dog that’s guarding the paladin’s laser rifle like it’s the most important thing in the world.” Ingram corrected the squire, scooping up the small child and placing him on her own shoulder.

Danse’s mouth went dry. “My…my laser rifle, ma’am?”

“ Yes , Paladin. What, you gone deaf all of a sudden?” Ingram asked testily. “You know, the one that you named via screwdriver chisel. Pretty sure I’d recognize that weapon anywhere.”

Danse felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach. The odd noise was howling . The crowd of aspirants and scribes parted before him to reveal a dog that was very different from the usual wasteland mutts. His brown and black coat was glossy, pointed ears flat against his skull as he bayed and carried on. He looked like the spitting image of a pre-war German Shepherd. At his feet was Danse’s laser rifle. The stock of the rifle was coated liberally with slobber, but there was no mistaking the messy scrawl of ‘ Righteous Authority ‘ on the side of the barrel.

The dog caught wind of Danse and those pointed ears pricked up, the animal whining and barking at the paladin who just stood there, frozen. He had given that rifle to the civilian. He had given that rifle to Backhand . The dog barked at him again, spinning in a tight circle and then facing off towards the coast.

“Did something happen, boy?” Danse found his voice, crouching to get on the dog’s level. He didn’t really care that he probably looked like a complete lunatic , talking to a dog. The mutt howled mournfully, putting up an absolute racket . “Where is Scribe Haylen?” Danse asked, picking up the rifle gingerly.

“She and Knight Rhys are out on a research patrol for Proctor Quinlan. Paladin, what’s going on?” Ingram asked curiously.

“I’m not sure. Only one of us knows and he’s not exactly talking.” Danse replied wryly, nodding towards the dog who had taken off across the airfield the second Danse picked up the gun. “Keep your comms cued in case I need an evac. I’m going to see where this leads, Proctor.”

The dog kept looking back to make sure the armored man was following him, halting and barking furiously if Danse fell too far behind. “I’m coming, dammit.” Danse grumbled, worried at the animal’s urgency. “We don’t all have four legs and light bodies, mutt.”

He was led along the coast, the dog giving the actual beach a wide berth. The sand was crawling with mirelurks. It ensured there was no shortage of field rations, but at the cost of one’s nose. Danse followed the mutt’s lead, wishing that he’d had the presence of mind to pick up his helmet before leaving the Prydwen. There was nothing quite like being armored except for your most vulnerable spot.

Past the high, crumbling walls of what Danse dimly recalled Maxson pointing out as Fort Independence, the dog bolted through the main gate of the fortress. The paladin had to take a moment to regroup, startled and confused at the sight of a massive mirelurk queen corpse. Acid still bubbled thickly on the ground around it amongst the piles of dead hatchlings and broken eggs; the air stank of brackish water and mirelurk droppings.

Fort Independence had been turned into a hive for these filthy creatures. No wonder the Minutemen had abandoned the location as a lost cause. Having a beast that size able to rise from the ocean to savage their fortress any time it desired?

There were burn marks on the creature’s thick shell, laser rifle marks. Oh no . Danse’s eyes snapped up to the doorway the mutt had vanished through. “Dog?” He called cautiously, trying his hardest to keep his emotions under control. For some reason he didn’t care to examine he felt panicked, his heart pounding in his chest as he ducked to enter the archway. He followed the dog’s sad whines to a shadowy corner across the corridor, where he found the crumpled body.

Danse stood there silently for a moment, then dropped to one knee and propped himself up with the rifle. “Dammit.” He swore softly, reaching a gauntlet out to raise her chin off her chest. The dog whimpered, licking her face. Danse shooed him away gently.

“G’boy, Dogmeat.” Backhand suddenly choked, her hand twitching at her side. Danse barely kept from recoiling. He’d thought she was dead! “S’ a good boy. Shh, m’fine.” The pool of half-coagulated blood she was resting in seemed to contradict that statement, never mind the chest and shoulder of her combat armor being partially dissolved to reveal the acid-ravaged skin beneath. Danse noticed her glasses cracked and bent beside her on the ground. She’d fallen hard, then. “It’ll be over soon, pup. You go back to Preston, okay? He’ll take care of you.” She winced in pain. “Ah, shit. Didn’t even make it to the…to the…” She paused, her breathing jerky. “The airship. Told those guys at Cambridge that I was…”

“Backhand.” Danse addressed her firmly, tipping her chin up. Her head lolled to the side and he watched as she tried to open her eyes, struggled to focus on him.

She squinted. “Well well, f’it isn’t the paladin!” She actually mustered up a smile, despite her grievous injuries. “Never got the chance to join you guys…today was the day I’d hoped…” Her voice hitched. “Didn't expect that big cunt t' come out the fuckin' sea. Garvey said the place was destroyed by a...monster. I...I think m' dyin', Paladin. Sir.” She admitted, her shaky words making Danse feel sick to his stomach for the second time that day.

He glanced around wildly for something, anything that could help, and his eyes finally landed on an ancient first aid box attached to the wall. When he moved to stand though, she started crying. Gasping sobs that shook her body and made Danse's hands strangely clumsy and indelicate; he ended up ripping the whole box off the wall instead of just popping the lid. He swore under his breath while he fumbled the box open, nearly crushing the precious Stimpack inside it. “Listen to me, soldier.” He tried his hardest to keep his voice steady, kneeling and taking her chin in his hand again. Her eyes were full of tears, wide-open and staring blankly forward. “ Soldier , stay with me.” He jostled her head and she jerked, groaning in pain. “Just listen to my voice, you're going to be alright but you need to stay awake.”

Danse pulled up the remains of the plaid shirt she had on beneath her armor, cringing inwardly at the state of her skin. It looked like she'd been bathed in the acid, patches and holes eaten away in her stomach and shoulder to expose raw tissue. The fact that she had regained consciousness was a miracle in and of itself. “Danse, m' gonna' die, need you t' find my baby,” she slurred while he uncapped the Stim and carefully injected the majority of it into the intact area of her stomach. He kept some in reserve. If her heart stopped he would need to buy the time to get out of his power armor to do compressions.

“Still with me?” He asked, taking her hand. “You're not dying. The Brotherhood needs you, civilian. I doubt you want your second military career to start with a sternal rub.”

“Give it y’best shot, kid,” Backhand coughed, squeezing back on his gauntlet. “Y’dun't scare me.” She squirmed after a minute or two, struggling to sit up a little. “Fuck, fuck fuck.”

“Be still , let the meds do their work.” Danse ordered. “Once you’re stabilized I’m bringing you straight to the Prydwen. No more sidetracks, understand soldier?”

“Not gonna’ look too good if I show up draped across your arms like you’re The Paladin From The Black Lagoon .” Backhand pointed out. The dog curled up beside her, not seeming to care about the blood and mirelurk muck on the ground. “How did you find me, anyway?”

Backhand’s eyes were focusing better, Danse noted. She was coming out of it. “That dog of yours has a hell of a nose. Mutt carried the rifle I gave you all the way to the airport and put up a fuss until Proctor Ingram fetched me.”

Backhand’s fingers dug into the ruff of fur around the dog’s neck. “What a lifesaver you are, Dogmeat!” she praised, scratching the animal behind his ears. “I’ve got a bit of brahmin meat all wrapped up in my pack just for you.” She squinted up at the paladin. “Sir, can I trust you?”

“I mean, if you have to ask me civilian, you probably don’t.” Danse grunted.

“Dogmeat didn’t rip you apart, which means you’re good people. But can I trust you?” She leaned forward a little, fingers scrabbling at one of the handles on his breastplate. “I found a way in,” she whispered.

Danse felt lost. “You found a way in...?” He repeated after a beat.

“Into the Institute.” Her tone was still hushed, like someone could be listening in.

Danse raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And just how did you manage that?” He didn’t mean to be quite so suspicious, but news of the Institute was slim and none around these parts. It would be just like those shadowy bastards to feed the Brotherhood bad intelligence.

“You don’t believe me. I’ve got...I need… sir , I need to deal with people who know what the hell they’re doing. I need resources.” Backhand sounded desperate. “You said the Brotherhood of Steel safeguards technology to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Well kid, this could be some of the baddest tech you tin cans could get your gauntlets on. Interested?”

“Maybe.” Danse allowed, quickly continuing with, “First things first civilian, we need to get you some legitimate medical attention. Stimpack plugged the holes but you’re far from out of the woods. If you don’t consent to being brought aboard the Prydwen, at least let me bring you to the airport where one of our scribes can look you over.” Danse hoped he didn’t appear as panicked as he felt. She was deathly pale, freckles standing out prominently across the bridge of her nose and here she was babbling about the damn Institute instead of focusing on staving off her imminent shutdown due to blood loss and shock. Normally, any information about the Institute would take absolute priority, regardless of how patchy or suspect, but at this point in time Danse was entirely disinterested in the matter.

She clung tighter to the handle on his power armor and Danse gathered her up carefully, doing his best to adjust his grip so he didn’t chafe or pinch her exposed skin with his plating. The laser rifle was slung over his shoulder. It would be difficult to carry her and fend off any attackers, but if it came down to a no-win situation he could call for a vertibird. “Follow, Dogmeat.” Backhand said weakly, clicking her tongue. The dog whined, bolting forward to stick to Danse’s leg like glue. “Good boy, it’s okay.” She assured him.

“That’s a very… unusual name, civilian.”

“Hey, I didn’t pick it,” she retorted. “He came with the name, s’ the only thing he answers to. I would have gotten real stereotypical and named him Rex or some German shit.”

“I would have thought Champion. He is a very handsome animal.” Danse suggested. The small talk was a tactical choice. He could easily monitor her speech for slurring or further signs of cognitive failure, indications that she was going into a shock state.

She puffed out a breath. “I’d have taken you for the type to call a dog Oscar Mike. Did you seriously name your rifle, by the way?”

Danse shrugged as best as he could. “It allowed me to be a much more effective soldier. Righteous Authority just seemed…appropriate.”

“That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard for naming a weapon.”

“Excuse me, civilian?”

“You heard me.” She grimaced. “Not everything needs to be so noble . You oughta’ name it Mirelurk Masher. Feral Fryer. No! Feral Fricassee . Sounds fancier.” She squinted when she grinned. “Oo, what about Chattanooga Choo-Choo? Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” The paladin asked, legitimately confused at this point.

“Glenn Miller, you uncultured twit. Try to keep up.” She chided.

Danse mouthed Chattanooga , the word strange to his tongue. Dogmeat barked, as if to agree with his mistress. “Oh no you don’t, mutt.” The paladin grumbled. “I’m not about to be mocked by something that slobbers more than its body weight.”

“Gosh, you sound a little defensive sir.”

“Me? Defensive? I…” Danse paused, his eyes narrowing as he spotted a mirelurk that seemed to have noticed them. “Hold tight if you can.”

“Why am I oh fuck-! ” Backhand gripped the handles on his chest as Danse pulled the rifle forwards with one hand. “Little warning next time, Danse!” The paladin began to stammer out an apology, trying to keep an eye on the quickly-approaching crustacean, but Backhand interrupted him by unbuckling her old army helmet and plopping it onto his head. “Go forth!” She proclaimed over Dogmeat's loud growling.

Danse snorted. “Not exactly up to spec, but it’ll do.” He hoisted her up a bit higher to get her out of claw range, tucking her frame into the crook of his elbow and brandishing Righteous Authority .

“Worst knight in shining armor ever .”

...

The news that Paladin Danse had returned with the dog (and a civilian ) spread through the base like wildfire. He was relatively certain this might lead to some disciplinary action, possibly for an abuse of resources.

He still found one of the medical scribes. Backhand started protesting that she needed to ‘ report in ’ and he silenced her by passing off her helmet. “I’ll talk to the Elder. You let the scribe look you over. Keep your mutt close so he doesn’t distract the squires.”

Paladin Danse feared no man. His elder could be difficult, there was no other way to say it, but he had been a competent soldier when he served with Danse. The paladin was fairly confident that he could convince the other man of Backhand’s usefulness, with or without the wild tale of a way into the Institute.

It was easier said than done though, as he stared at Arthur Maxson’s back. “Elder,” he intoned respectfully, saluting with his fist on his chest.

“Paladin Danse. I’ve heard a troubling rumor.” There was always an undercurrent of danger when Maxson spoke. He was a young elder, with a fuse to match someone of his age and pride. Maxson appeared to already be in a bit of a mood. Danse knew he would have to tread carefully here.

“What is the rumor, Elder?”

“A civilian. A woman, carried boldly into our compound in your arms, with a dog at your leg. We simply bring strays back to our camp now, Paladin?” Maxson snapped.

“Permission to explain myself, Elder.” Danse understood that this wasn’t his friend he was talking to. It pained him to resort to such formality but he knew it would only infuriate Maxson further if he broke protocol.

Elder Maxson grunted, his shoulders rigid. He still hadn’t turned to face Danse, continuing to stare out the window. “Permission granted.” He finally muttered.

“That civilian is the one who came to the aid of my team at the police station. The woman from the Vault. She is… familiar with power armor and military protocols.” Danse was a rotten liar, and he wasn’t much better at telling half-truths. “She had expressed interest in joining, but her circumstances prevented it at that point in time.”

“What was she doing at Fort Independence?” Maxson asked.

“A reconnaissance mission for the Minutemen while en route to join us, it uh…there was a mirelurk queen.”

Maxson whirled and Danse was startled to see how nervous he looked. “A mirelurk queen? ”

“Yes…Elder.” Danse replied slowly.

“The acid from one of those creatures could knock us out of the sky, Paladin. Cripple our operations. It was so close to here and we didn’t even know.” Maxson pounded his fist into his palm. “I’d thought our teams of knights were doing thorough sweeps, but I guess I was wrong.”

“You’ll have to speak with her, but from what I could tell it emerged from the ocean. It may be a deep-sea animal that wanders inland when it needs to lay eggs.” Danse suggested. “With all due respect, I doubt our knights could easily overlook something of that size, Elder. I would advise sending out a research team to document the creature before it rots away.”

“An excellent idea, Paladin Danse.” Maxson’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “What was it that you needed to ask me?”

“The civilian would like to join our ranks, Elder.” Danse inhaled, bracing himself. “I am formally recommending knight status.” Arthur’s eyes narrowed and he clasped his hands behind his back. Danse could feel the proverbial ice he was treading on grow thinner beneath him, so he hurried to say, “Elder Maxson, she’s already trained. It would just be a question of familiarizing her with the advances made in power armor technology. When we engaged in combat together, she followed orders and displayed considerable skill.” Which you would know if you read my field reports .

“That’s all well and good, Paladin Danse, but you of all people should know that we don’t let just anyone suit up around here.” Maxson snapped. “You vouching for her will certainly be taken into account if she reports for duty, and should I deem her worthy of joining our ranks, you will be relieved of your duties with Gladius to take up your new mantle as her sponsor. Any mistakes she makes will have swift and dire consequences. For both of you.” Maxson was not a subtle man. The threat in his words was blatant but Danse refused to be cowed, simply nodding and then saluting again. “I’ll be counting on you, Paladin. Don’t disappoint me.” Arthur finally let a little warmth seep into his tone. “It’s good to see you again, Danse.”

“It’s…It’s good to see you as well, Arthur.” Danse floundered a little, always caught off-guard when Maxson swapped back and forth. He wanted to shout I’ve been here for over a goddamn month, Arthur! Don’t act like you didn’t know I was around! but instead he asked, “How have you been?”

Arthur shrugged. “It’s a heavy burden. As ever.” He paused. “It seems like you’ve been avoiding me, Danse.”

“Proctor Ingram and Proctor Quinlan have been keeping me busy.” That wasn’t a lie, between resource and research patrols the paladin had been stretched thin. Danse shifted warily when Maxson sighed.

“I had assumed that was the case.” Arthur murmured. “I wasn’t sure if our conversation from before you departed was still grating on you.”

Conversation? That’s a lofty term. “With all due respect, Arthur, you told me that my squadron had been assigned to an almost certain-death reconnaissance mission and then proceeded to dismiss me from your private quarters without my uniform.” Danse was a bit stunned that Maxson had even brought it up, honestly. “It’s not a… conversation I enjoy recalling.” What the hell is wrong with you, Arthur?

“Mind your tone , Paladin.” There was the Elder again, all sharp words and protocol.

“I meant no offense Arthur, I just…” Danse’s words trailed off at the irritated look on Maxson’s face. “I-I apologize for my overstep, Elder Maxson.”

“See that you remember your place. I won’t be so lenient next time.” Maxson saluted curtly. “Ad Victoriam, Paladin. Send me the civilian.”

“Yes, Elder.”

Danse wasn’t a man prone to fuming or brooding , he found these useless time leeches that clouded one’s judgement. It was much more prudent to be the bigger individual in most circumstances. Unfortunately in this instance, that was easier said than done. He was so angry he could hardly see straight and he knew that he certainly wasn’t going to be able to think straight until he cooled off.

He made his way out to the scaffolding. Entirely forgoing the vertibird this time, the paladin simply walked off the edge of the deck and plummeted to the ground. The Prydwen was a fair distance up but the drop was easily managed in power armor. Mostly, it was irresponsible because he didn't exactly have the jet mod to correct his trajectory lest there be some errant scribe wandering around in the drop zone beneath him. Danse hit the dirt with a teeth-rattling impact, the force creating a shallow crater that he emerged from unscathed. Some of the fury had eased out of his body just from the hard landing and he took a steadying breath.

A squire running by stopped to stare up at him with their mouth open and Danse seized the opportunity to ask, “Has the civilian been moved?”

…

Backhand straightened up when the paladin entered the old airport waiting area, noticing his tightly-clenched fists immediately. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Danse was pissed . “Whoa, I take it this elder guy was not in a gaming mood?”

“What makes you say that?” The armored man asked curtly. The confusing part was that he didn’t seem to be replying sarcastically.

“Because you’re all tense? You’ve got total gorilla posture right now, look like you want to pulverize a wall.”

“You’re mistaken, civilian. I’m fine.”

Backhand grunted but decided that it would be in her best interest to change the subject. “What do you guys do with holotags?”

“I…Excuse me?” Danse cocked his head to the side. “You picked up a set of holotags? Where? When?”

“I told you, I did a lot of salvaging. More than one set. Soldiers in gear with that crest.” She pointed at the mark on the chest of his power armor. “Some tapes too, but I…I stopped listening to most of the tapes I find a while ago.” The sounds of Shaun gurgling and making happy noises in the background while Codsworth rambled about how exciting it was to be an official part of her family sprang to the forefront of her mind every time she reached for a new tape. “They’re in my pack. I wrote down where I found each one, too. I know how this shit works, sir. Next of kin will want everything they can get.”

Danse looked like he’d been punched in the stomach when Backhand had collected every little envelope in her gear and passed them to him. He cleared his throat several times before managing to say, “I…thank you. These…they were good soldiers.”

“I’m sorry, Paladin.” Backhand said quietly.

“There was nothing anyone could have done,” he muttered, sounding like he believed exactly the opposite. “These are from the recon team before us, Squad Artemis. They were the second team that’s been issued out here, and they went dark so fast. My team…” Danse paused. “Well, it’s a good thing you came along.”

Backhand knocked her metal-plated knuckles on his chest armor, making him raise his eyes again. “Don’t look so sad, huh?” She said softly. “You and I both know the risks.”

“Of course.” Danse’s voice was quiet, the tension gone out of his shoulders. He seemed exhausted now. “When you’re able to move, the elder would like to speak with you as soon as possible. He was thrilled that you killed the mirelurk queen,” he continued in a monotone.

Backhand squinted and got to her feet, happy that her legs barely shook. Dogmeat barked, prancing around her legs and almost tripping her up. “Oh Jesus, you furball.” She rummaged through her pack again, dragging the carefully-wrapped packet of brahmin meat out. “I know, I promised. You’ve been very patient.” She laughed, scratching Dogmeat behind his ears before ripping a chunk off the steak and tossing it to him. “Don’t suppose you grabbed my glasses when you came to scoop me up, didja’?” She asked the paladin hopefully.

Danse clicked open the side compartment in his left gauntlet, shocking her when he actually pulled her glasses out of the space. “They are badly damaged.” The armored man warned as he handed them over.

“Doesn’t matter, two half-functional eyes are better than none!” Backhand shook some of the crusty gunk off her frames and plopped them back onto her face. “You’re much uglier than I remember.” She teased, startled when the paladin chuckled.

“Oh, very funny civilian. Come up with that all by yourself?”

One vertibird ride later Danse ushered her onboard the massive airship, promising a stern-looking man ( Lancer? Captain Kells? Lancer Kells? ) the tapes Backhand had from Squad Artemis to quell his questions for the time being. The paladin then took his leave after showing her the command deck. It also appeared to double as an observation deck, with a semicircle of thick windows that looked out on Fort Strong, the open ocean and Fort Independence.

Elder Maxson seemed… young . Backhand got the feeling he’d been thrust into the position and now he was trying his hardest to make someone proud. His appearance, despite his obvious youth, was rather imposing. He was tall, almost as tall as the paladin though not as broad, and sported a thick beard with a long scar over his cheek. Sharp blue eyes peered out at her from beneath his heavy brow. He looked, for lack of a better term, stiff .

That was why she found it so strange that the first words out of his mouth to her were an admission of praise. “Civilian Vega, the paladin has informed me that you performed far above and beyond a normal individual’s level of expertise while out on field maneuvers.”

“I performed to the best of my abilities, sir. As did the paladin.”

“Tell me civilian, what’s your opinion on Paladin Danse's performance?” Elder Maxson queried, watching her narrowly.

Backhand was a bit unbalanced, the question striking her as incredibly odd. She was the one trying to join up, not the paladin. “Sir?”

“You heard me, civilian.”

“He...it’s been ages since I’ve given an oral report, sir, I apologize.” Backhand straightened herself out, her arms rigid at her sides. “The paladin seems incredibly skilled. Dedicated to your cause. I haven’t met anyone else from the Brotherhood except the surviving members of Recon Squad Gladius but they are a fine example for your…organization.” She raised an eyebrow. “Unless of course, they’re the exception instead of the rule.”

“Absolutely not. But Paladin Danse and his squadron have been through hell. Before this last maneuver there were seven of them. Good soldiers died on that mission, soldiers we could ill-afford to lose.” Maxson cleared his throat. “You believe that the paladin is competent, I assume?”

“I’ve seen no evidence to indicate the contrary, sir.” Backhand could already tell that her and Maxson were not going to be on great terms, so she silenced the part of her brain that queried what about when he charged into that room full of synths, hollering about the Brotherhood with his guns fucking blazing?

Maxson sighed heavily. “That’s good to hear. Paladin Danse was always an incredible... soldier . I’d hoped his edge hadn’t dulled while in the field.” He squared his shoulders, fixing her with a suspicious look. Those icy blue eyes made her nervous and that pause had been a little too long, but Backhand had dealt with many a young, posturing officer in her day. “The paladin has graciously suggested that you be immediately pushed up to knight, due to your prior experience. I’m curious as to what that prior experience is . Gunners?”

“No sir. The United States army.” Apparently Danse hadn’t told his superior that much about her. Maxson looked irritated, like he suspected her of having a laugh at his expense. “I was cryogenically frozen in a Vault for two hundred years. One of the incentives offered to kids to get them to enlist was being bumped up the waiting list on Vaults if they were honorably discharged.”

“That’s quite the fantastic story you have.” Maxson snapped. “Had I known I’d be letting you aboard the Prydwen to listen to lunatic ramblings, I’d have forbade your entry and had you escorted off our compound. Do you take me for some kind of bumbling idiot?”

“No one knows better than I do how wild and crazy this is. I’ve lived it, after all.” Backhand retorted dryly. “I have pre-war power armor training. I have pre-war military training. I woke up in a goddamn refrigerator to an absolute nightmare and quite frankly, I’m a little exhausted of having to prove myself to every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along. But you do what you have to. Put me through a combat exercise. Pit me against one of your tin men. I can guarantee not to disappoint in or out of power armor. Sir .”

“The paladin has clearly lost his mind if he believes the story you’ve fed him.” Maxson scoffed, turning his back on her. “I can't say I'm surprised though, he's always been too trusting.”

“I took down a mirelurk queen, sir. I need no paladin to validate my story with a carcass that big.” Backhand could feel her satisfied grin settle into a furious smirk. “There’s a Vault out by Concord.” Triumph surged through her as Maxson slowly rotated enough so he could look at her over his shoulder. “I’d invite you to check it out, but I’m sure the Commonwealth would eat someone like you alive. Send one of your squishy scribes to the location if you really feel like this is a worthwhile usage of resources.”

“I’m a bit perplexed by what you mean when you say ‘ someone like you .” Maxson growled, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“A wise man once told me that a leader who permits his pride to impede his decisions is doomed to failure, sir.”

“ Civilian- ”

“Sir, I have intimate knowledge of the Commonwealth. I lived here. This was my home before everything went to hell. If there’s a chance that I can be useful, even after everything has been destroyed, if there’s a chance I can use what I’ve learned over my time serving…I would ask that you give me that chance.” She wasn’t begging, but she was sure it would sound like she was to this blustering child.

“ Christ , you’re serious, aren’t you? By your account I should already have you fitted for power armor.” He mocked her, obviously off-kilter.

“I don’t know why the paladin suggested knight status, aside from faith in my capabilities. He offered me initiate ranking when he first asked me to join.” She could hazard a guess that initiate was maybe a step or twelve beneath knight.

“Initiate is the only rank he’s allowed to grant. It evens out to your army’s recruit or private.” Maxson explained grudgingly. “Only an elder can grant higher ranks.”

“I guess all roads lead to Rome around here, huh.” Backhand muttered. No wonder this guy acts like a brat, every promotion on this bucket passes through his hands .

“ However , when suggestions are made by my paladins, lancers, proctors, et cetera, I listen. Because I value the input of individuals who have years of experience and dedication.” Maxson faced her fully again, his gaze fixed thoughtfully on the floor. “You understand that if I grant you the ranking of knight like Paladin Danse has suggested, you would have a probationary period where the paladin will accompany you on fieldwork.”

“That’s understandable, so yes I understand.” Backhand replied, barely resisting the urge to raise her eyebrow. This kid really seemed to think he was impressive. “If I mess up, I assume he’ll put a bullet through my skull to save you the trouble, sir?”

“Your flippant attitude is noted, civilian.”

“Will there be any sort of disciplinary action for the paladin if I screw up, since he’s sponsoring me?” Backhand had noticed an uncanny pattern of trouble following her like a little black rain cloud, and the last thing she wanted was to ruin Danse’s career if something went awry.

“No.” Elder Maxson said after another suspiciously long pause. “It’s hardly the paladin’s fault that he’s determined to fatten our ranks.”

“Have you tried recruiting the locals? I’m sure a lot of the Minutemen would-”

“The Minutemen .” Maxson interrupted her with a snort of disbelief. “Did they sincerely send you out alone to clean out that mirelurk nest?”

“To be fair, I was only supposed to be scouting the area. A one-person job.” Backhand grimaced. “There was a large gap in the wall facing the open water and I had a few landmines, so I-”

“ Mines? ”

“Yes sir, mines.”

“Christ.”

Part Three

#paladin danse #paladin danse smut #Fallout #Fallout Four #thirst party saturday #video games #behold all my weaknesses in one post #paladin danse/f!sole #paladin danse/sole survivor #Combat Veteran!Sole #because screw you bethesda I said so #this is so long and I'm not sorry #enjoy!#also Dogmeat #Elder Arthur Maxson #You little punk

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stephenfeltonastro · 4 years ago

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Mindful Astronomy

Image: Seen above a doorway in Kingston-upon-Thames

Most of my 40 plus years of astronomy have been about pretty serious observing. I always considered myself to be an amateur scientist, and much of the observing work that I have done has been research-based. This is what I have come to describe as results-oriented astronomy, and as this title would suggest, it has all been about outputs; be they images or data for writing research papers. Success in this endeavour is measured in terms of the number of images published online, and the number of research papers produced, as well as the accumulation of volumes of observational records. In this way, a good observing session is one that produces plenty of output. If this sounds familiar, it is because it sounds like a job!

When you practice results-oriented astronomy, it means that you are focused (no pun intended) entirely on the end result, and the actual process of getting to that end result is reduced to a series of tasks undertaken solely for that purpose. The telescope and other equipment become tools, and malfunctions, weather and the neighbour’s security light become obstructions, (or at least variables) to obtaining results. Time becomes the enemy, and the many frustrations of performing practical astronomy become stressors.

Imaging is a particularly good example of this. Anyone who images on a regular basis will agree that most of the observing session is spent managing equipment and processing outputs. The fact of being outside at night while everyone else is asleep becomes merely an inconvenience worth tolerating for the sake of the end result - a nice picture of some astronomical object. Success seeds the need for further success, and before long the whole experience becomes more about producing better and better images than about the astronomy itself.

Ask an astro-imager when they last actually looked through their telescope other than to check an object is centred, and they will struggle to answer the question, before jumping to the defence of their art by pointing out to you that they can see far more by imaging than by visual observing.

So this was the stage that I was at when I began to struggle with astronomy, and to find it stressful. Partly it was driven by improving and more affordable technology that now allows the amateur to work to a pseudo-professional standard, and partly it was driven by my own self-importance. I had a reputation to maintain as an experienced astronomer, and the maintenance of that reputation required constant output.

The infamous Yaqi sorcerer, don Jaun Matus used to talk about personal power and energy, and the fact that certain routines in a person’s life could preserve or even increase their available energy, while others were deleterious and drained energy. The difference was largely dictated by whether the routine was driven by self-importance, and he advocated keeping an inventory of personal routines in order to analyse where personal energy was being wasted.

This got me thinking - what was I doing to my beloved vocation of astronomy? Why was I allowing the joy to be sucked out of it by the need for results? Why did my heart sink whenever I looked outside and saw a clear sky? It was because I knew that I had to get out there and get results, with all the frustrations and stress that came with that!

For a while I lost heart with astronomy - before I really understood what was going wrong. I thought that the stress was coming from not having enough time in my life for doing astronomy. I could sense the clock ticking all the while I was outside with my telescope, which caused me to rush and get frustrated when things conspired against me. So, I decided to all but give up observing, and began a process of ‘rationalising’ astronomy - selling a lot of my equipment, and actively stepping away from it all - trying to focus my attention on other more wholesome activities, one of which was Mindfulness meditation.

I had reduced myself to one good telescope and astronomy would become a wholly casual affair from now on - something to be done rarely when I had some spare time and the weather was right, and there would be no imaging, and no obsessive record-keeping.

All went according to plan. I was now spending no more than perhaps a couple of hours a month observing, mostly only during those sleepless nights that we all have every so often, and my life became centred around Mindfulness practice and a more spiritual existence. Observing became more enjoyable, and as I found myself taking only brief notes, then need for outputs faded away, and I found myself becoming far more engaged in the actual experience of observing. I noted in my journal that I hoped for a more spiritual experience of astronomy going forward, and it was at this point that I had something of an epitome.

Mindfulness teaches us to be fully present in the here and now. In our busy modern lives we spend most of our time living in the past - remembering a time when everything seemed so much better, or ruminating about a time when we were wronged in some way - or in the future, living in fear of what may be, or planning for some mythical ‘better day’. While we are doing this, our activities of daily living are basically running on autopilot, so we are seldom fully present in what we are doing. If you doubt this, then try being fully present for the whole of ten deep slow breaths. Try this now...

...Your mind likely started to wander by about breath three.

This failure to be present in the moment, leads to stress and anxiety, dissatisfaction with Life, and a lack of appreciation of the beauty and joy of the present moment, whatever we may be doing.

You might say that when I was doing results-oriented astronomy, I was living outside the present moment, focusing on the future of results, with perhaps a smattering of reliving the past, when things didn’t go to plan. Otherwise I was probably thinking about things that had happened at work that day, what was likely to happen tomorrow, and how quickly my observing time was running out. Seldom, if ever; was I fully present in the doing of the astronomy! Astronomy was being reduced to a process, carried out largely on autopilot, in a hurry, with only the end result in mind.

So this gave me the idea of Mindful Astronomy. I thought that if I can only let go of the need for results, and return to observing for the sheer joy of doing so, it would surely be a better experience. If I could let go of self-importance while observing, and the need to tell others of my accomplishments at the eyepiece, then I could fully enjoy the wonderful sights to be beheld. And if I could be fully present in the doing of the astronomy, then time would stand still instead of racing by.

So that is what I did, and more. I got rid of my computerised mount and reverted back to using a manual mount. This put me back in touch with the telescope and made me acutely aware of the rotation of our planet as I tracked objects across the sky manually - I became a part of the telescope. I took more time to stop peering through the telescope, and just look up at the sky, to fully realise what I was looking at, and the breathtaking distances across which I was looking.

If I had a wise Buddha sitting by my telescope when I became stressed about the time running out, and I asked him ‘What’s the time?’ he would calmly reply ‘The time is NOW!’ and we as astronomers should realise perhaps better than anyone, that time is actually irrelevant in space. It is an invention of Humankind, originally designed to track the movement of the Heavens, the planting and harvesting of crops and of travellers upon the Earth's surface. Only in recent times has it been put to work to order our lives, and drive us to try to cram more and more ‘doing’ into each unforgiving moment.

When you do astronomy mindfully, there is no need for time. You can immerse yourself fully in the moment, and in the Universe itself, and just be! You can make time stand still. All of this makes me wonder - is there a place for astronomy as therapy? For people who suffer with anxiety or depression, the all-consuming, immersive nature of astronomy could indeed be therapeutic.

The Royal Astronomical Society are doing pioneering work with astronomy in prisons as a means to rehabilitate offenders, and I believe that we are only just dipping our toes into what could be a huge reservoir of potential to use astronomy to make a positive contribution to society. I will certainly be looking into this idea in more detail over the coming year.

Of course, I have slowly lapsed back into some of my old habits, and during lock-down, astronomy has certainly become more of a focus in my life again. I have been imaging, and posting on social media, but my time spent practicing mindful astronomy seems to have changed something in me forever. I know I can always return to this practice if I become miserable again, but now I stop what I am doing at my telescope often, and just sit back and look at the sky, and this seems to keep things in a much better and healthier perspective. I have also learned not to rush, but instead to take my time, and really appreciate the joy of doing astronomy.

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allianceinternational-blog · 6 years ago

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 5 years ago

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CSUAPR prt 17 full draft

"Get up!" Waking with something rudely smacking into his face, Keith groaned miserably as he peeled his sleepy dust riddled eyes open and glared at the offending object that had hit him in the face. Pants... Why in quiznak's name was he being hit in the face by a pair of pants, when his head was throbbing like a base drum and some kind of alien fur creature had set up residence in his mouth? Blinking himself to full consciousness as he yawned, Keith had no idea why he was in the bathtub, or how he'd ended up being filled with the desire to burrow back down into the bath and try for another several vargas worth of sleep. Not when the tub was so damn uncomfortable "What happened?" Trying to gather spit in his mouth, all he seemed to do was make the taste lingering there worse. His stomach was making rumbling noises, yet the mere thought of food was enough to drain the colour from your face "I'm not surprised you don't remember. You got yourself wasted doing shots with Krystaal, before sending Lance into a panic attack. He's fine, thanks for asking. Already up and at the festival with Coran. We have a Paladin panel in 15 doboshes, so time to shower and get your shit together" Groaning, Keith closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the rim of the bathtub "I'm allowed to have a drink or two" "Tell that to your pregnant husband" Now, he may just be remembering things wrong, but Lance was the one who told him to go "I'm not having this fight with you. I feel like shit" "Good. I wanted to take him out and cheer him up. Instead he ended up going to bed alone" The coldness coming from Shiro wasn't entirely unexpected. Maybe he had over indulged. It certainly felt like he had "Don't throw that back at me. You're not his husband" "No. I'm not. He was in a vulnerable..." "He's always in a vulnerable state. He had a damn nightmare and ended up in the air vents yesterday..." Hurled up out of the bathtub suddenly, Shiro dropped him. Keith barely keeping from falling over backwards "What the fuck!?" "Lance is your husband. The man you spent years in love with. The man who is absolutely crazy about you" "I know that!" "Then why aren't you getting your shit together!? You're going to be a father!" "I know!..." Screaming at Shiro, Keith's world swam. Sinking on to the edge of the bath, he buried his face in his hands "... I know. But I don't know how to be a father. I don't know how to be a father, Shiro. I don't know how to care for a baby. I don't know how to change a nappy. I don't know what to do for a fever. I don't know... I don't know what to do!" Shiro's sighed heavily as he sat down next to him "Is that what this about? You're scared about being a dad?" "Wouldn't you be? I'm a mess. I'm turning 26 and my life is a mess. My husband won't take his medication. He keeps having panic attacks. He keeps testing me without me knowing it's a goddamn test until I fail... and... Shit, Shiro. I don't know what I'm doing. We can't even make a marriage work. How do we make a marriage and kids work? What does that even look like? He lives for his job. It's more important to him than the health and safety of our babies. Maybe he was right about having an abortion? He's not well. He's not mentally well. He's not physically well. He's hallucinating or his nightmares are out of control. He's got it in his head that the same people who raped him are back. What the quiznak am I supposed to do with that? And mum... God... She made it seem like having kids was awful. Really awful. Vomiting. Fevers. Teething. Sleepless nights. Shit storms... I can't take twins on missions. I don't know how to sit still. I don't think we're ready for this. I don't think I'm ready for this... it's such a big thing. These two tiny lives are going to be dependent on us. An ex-junky as he calls himself, and a Blade member. When things get hard... Lance doesn't have that drug crutch anymore... I don't know what to do if he won't listen to the doctors. If he's not going to try. Why am I going to try?" A very long and pregnant silence hung in the air when he was finished. With each passing tick it was like Shiro was readying himself to explode, then his voice came out dead level, not relieving Keith of his anxieties "Have you tried talking to Lance?" "He doesn't want to listen. He thinks he got this letter yesterday. He thinks we're all in danger and he got mad at me for saying it was probably a nightmare. It was right after Curtis left. He was freaking out because Curtis being cautious on the other side of the door scared him. You know how he gets. You know he gets paranoid. There was no evidence of anything like that..." "It's not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you... You raised the same issue with something happening at the awards ceremony. Now that it has happened, you're rejecting it because you can't control it" "I can't control anything... I don't know what I'm doing and talking to mum only made it worse. I love him, but she... She made me see how... How far I have to go" "Rather than getting drunk with Krystaal, yes, you got drunk with Krystaal as in shot for shot, you should talk to your husband. Lance is feeling all these same anxieties. He loves you, but you're running from him. Talk to him. He might not have been up for talking yesterday, but try. Try until he doesn't have any other option but to answer. I was scared when I took you on, but we turned out alright, didn't we?" He'd gone drinking with Krystaal? Keith could very very vaguely kind of remember running into him... He'd been feeling bad about leaving Lance, but he was sure that Lance had imagined the whole thing. His husband was mad at him, and he was mad at him for being mad at him. He'd been so happy to see the twins, and now he was terrified. Absolutely and completely terrified... He didn't Lance being danger from someone new and unknown. He also didn't want their lives together to suddenly be upheaved. The twins would change everything. The twins would change everything and he didn't know how to have a family. Shiro was right, they'd done alright, but Shiro hadn't needed to wipe his arse or had to go through hours of potentially life threatening labour... "I don't want to hurt him" "You already are, by running" "Running is all I know how to do... Running after him. Running into battle. Running after you" "It take two to make a baby, or twins in this case. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who can never have what you two are going through. Don't take any of it for granted. If you're scared, or if you don't want this, you need to talk to him. You need to let him know where you stand. And you need a shower. You reek like you bathed in that stuff you were shooting. We've probably got about 5 doboshes to be there. Best get a move on" * Running to make the panel on time, Keith and Shiro we're both confused by the sight before them. There were five chairs, for five Paladins, except... in the place of Allura a photo of her sat, occupying one of those spaces. Behind the chairs was a series of banners featuring the faces of the Paladins framed by a thick band of colour responding to the lion they flew. Black for Shiro. Black and Red for Keith. Yellow for Hunk, then Green for Pidge. Allura was in the place of the Blue Paladin... and no signage for Lance. None... It wasn't Voltron without Lance. Lance was the heart and soul of Voltron. They'd never come together if not for him. Joining Hunk, Pidge and Lance, Coran was a few feet away yelling at some event coordinator who'd failed their job over the lack of Lance's presence. At least that was what Keith thought at the time. Opening his mouth to greet his husband, Lance seemed to have prempted the move as he'd disappeared over to Coran's side silently. Elbowing him, Pidge had mischief in her eyes "I hear someone got drunk yesterday" "Shut it, Pidge" "Oooh. Touchy. Yelling about how you and Lance were married... Galactic social media is buzzing with it" Keith frowned at Pidge. If he was yelling how much he loved Lance, or was married to him, then why was he so mad at him "I did what?" "Yep. Right in the middle of your drinking match. You lost me GAC. I expect you to pay up" "You were betting on me?" "I would have put all my GAC on Lance, but he wasn't there to bet on" "Whoa! Hold up. You would have bet on Lance? I'm so confused right now" Pidge rolled her eyes at him with enough sass that the eyeroll didn't seem limited to her eyes alone "Lance works in bar! How many times do you think his customers challenged him to drinks!? How many times has he partied himself to sleep? You can't work in a bar and be a light weight!" "I tried to tell her that Lance doesn't drink that much anymore, but Lance sided with her. Are you ok, man?" Joining in on their conversations, Hunk ignored Pidge nodding enthusiastically, most probably because Lance had agreed, or so he gathered by her gesturing to Lance "I'm fine. I have no idea what we were drinking, but it wasn't that all pleasant to wake up to. Why is there no place for Lance?" Hunk sighed "Lance said that Allura should be on the panel, as it was her sacrifice that saved us all. He said he didn't need a place, but Coran wouldn't let him back down from this. Now they're trying to make a spot for him, despite the fact he doesn't want to be here" Playing it cool, Keith raised his eyebrow, hoping to make the action seem natural "Did he say that?" "Not in so many words... I thought he liked his time being a Paladin..." "That's stupid. He's obviously having too much fun being a bounty hunter. Plus, he's probably struggling with this whole situation. I mean, this is a festival to celebrate his dead girlfriend" Hunk gaped at Pidge, his face loosing some of its colours as his cheeks turned a faint pink "Pidge! You can't say that in front of Keith, he's his husband" Shrugging, Pidge wasn't fazed "Minor detail" "No. No. No. Major detail!" "Keith isn't complaining" "Because Keith loves him. Right, buddy?" "Yeah..." Keith didn't want to be roped into this argument. Pidge started laughing, the noise grating on his throbbing head, her arms wrapped around her waist as she struggled out "You could sound more enthused! What? Trouble in paradise? Are you in the doghouse for getting drunk without him?!" "Ok, guys. That's enough..." By standing behind him, and placing his hands on Keith's shoulders, Shiro drew their attention "We're here to be Paladins, which means putting our game faces on. Do we have any details of what were actually doing? Coran forgot to fill us all in..." Pidge pulled herself together, sounding almost disinterested as she related "He forgot to tell all of this. They ran a "question" box for us the past couple of days. We're going to be given a tablet with questions for each of us on it. We don't have to answer all the questions, buuuuut it's going to be broadcast live across the universe. I've got Matt filming it. I can't wait to see how Keith acts with all this attention" Crossing his arms, Keith scowled at Pidge "I know how to do my job" "Just because you know how to, doesn't mean you won't be awkward as hell..." "Pidge, why do I feel like you've bet GAC on my performance" "Because I have. Ooooh, look. It's Lance and Coran. What a convenient excuse not to continue this conversation" "Pidge!" Pidge was the picture of innocence as Coran and Lance joined them. Lance standing half behind Hunk, refusing to meet Keith's eyes, as Coran filled them in on what was happening. Space had been made for Lance, by squashing them all slightly. The table was made for 5, not for 6. Lance wouldn't hear of Shiro not being on the panel, despite the fact that Keith had ultimately spent more time as the Black Paladin than Shiro had. Before he was ready, Keith was falling into line with the others, a holopad pushed into his shaky hands then the next thing he knew he was walking on to the stage where camera flashes blinded him. Panels were horrible. Panels were horrible enough when sober, doubly so when hung over, and triply so when your husband was sitting beneath a photo of his dead ex-girlfriend, at the opposite end of the panel where he had no chance of talking to him. They were married. They were married and the whole quiznakking universe knew it... So why weren't the happily married couple together? Lance didn't seem to mind. All of their group were already laughing and deep in a four way conversation that had gone right over his head. Keith was out his depth completely. He had no idea that their questions were being screened behind them as they answered, he had no idea that the question time had hit him, and he had no idea of the words on his holopad were actually English because his eyes felt ready to fall out his head. In his own way, Keith was developing a new appreciation for functioning alcoholics. * Keith was in trouble. With the eyes of thousands staring in the direction of his husband, several long ticks had passed since Keith's holopad had started to glow around the sides. Sitting in front of a crowd and answering questions was not how Lance planned his day going. He wanted to sit down and discuss what had happened the previous day with his husband. That was the only way he was going to find some form of mental relief from his racing mind. Despite feeling angry each time his gaze moved to his husband, Lance cleared his throat "Sorry, guys! My husband isn't great with crowds, but that's just something else about him that I love. Now, his question is..." Craning his head back to read the question he made a goofy show of it. It was probably for the best Keith wasn't on the ball "What was the worst part of being a Paladin?" Moving his right thumb and pointer to his chin as if stroking an imaginary beard, Lance hummed. He loathed this attention. He loathed playing at niceties, but knew he had a job to do. He Lance playing Leandro, who was playing Lance. It was the only way he could cope with the public spotlight "The worst thing... Oh, boy! Coran's cooking... the first time he cooked for is... I thought he was trying to kill me! Then there's the time in the middle of the night when Allura would run practice emergency drills... I guess the worst thing of all is that despite Allura's sacrifice, the fact that if she hadn't given her life none of us would be here right now... The worst thing is that we're still fighting while we're trying to recover. And all the little people we couldn't reach in time... but when living on the Castle, it was definitely the time Coran tried to cook for us. I'm sorry Coran! You're our awesome adopted Uncle, but us humans have a weird diet... I think we all would have gone crazy if it wasn't for Hunk's culinary prowess" Flashing the crowd his best smile and finger guns, Lance hoped he'd done enough. Pidge was agreeing now, Keith's holopad was no longer glowing, Shiro leaned back to give him an approving nod, and Hunk was blushing. Reminding himself that each question moved them closer to the end, he looked down to his own holopad. After half a varga, they were all sweating. Pidge was being an angry little gremlin, at the point of threatening to murder the sun because she was done with this heat. Everyone knew the best way to store their little anger muffin was to sit her in a cool dark corner with her tech. Lance was feeling it too. His head felt sinus headache gross, his body suit might keep him cool for the most part, but worked best when his mask was up, which it wasn't, so the rest of him wasn't feeling that great either. No matter how much water he'd drank down, he only felt more and more dehydrated. Feeling his holopad grow warmer as it started to glow, he nearly dropped the device on the table as he vomiting into his mouth. His question being "How did it feel to work for Ambassador Klearo? What do you do now?". It was a simple question. Any number of fans would have seen the broadcasts of him standing behind the man. It didn't mean that he wasn't panicking. It didn't mean simply seeing the image of the man didn't bring all the memories flying back. Lance couldn't do this... Leandro... Channel Leandro "Well..." God. His heart was hammering so fast it felt as if it was going to flying out his mouth "I own a club now, out on Erathus. It's pretty nice there, and safe. The place is called "The Gilded Cage"... We wanted to create a safe place for travellers in the area. My friend Th'al runs it... Um... other than that... I'm Keith's husband and it's pretty much a full time job keeping up with him... it's simple and nice" That funny feeling was spreading through him. His holopad cooled as the colour left. Thumbing through the message list, every message submitted was listed, then chosen at random. That one message soon turned to half a dozen... of Klearo... and the look on Lance's face as the abuse had begun. The fear in his eyes. The disgust. The loathing of every piece of bullshit sprouted from the piece of shits mouth. Then blank emptiness. The change in his expression was almost haunting. It was as if you could see the time it crossed the line. When his whole being had shattered beneath the man, and the men who'd sexually abused him. As he scrolled up, in the hopes of finding evidence that he was being targeted, blood dripped onto the screen. Wiping at it, a second drip landed on his finger. Raising his hand to his nose, drops of blood rolled down his fingers. The holopad falling from his fingers to land on the table, the screen glitching before turning black. "Lan..." Starting to say his name, Pidge realised his nose was bleeding. The woman fishing out a handkerchief from nowhere and pushing it up against his nose so hard Lance was actually pained by the action. Sitting next to him, it was only natural she'd notice. She'd no doubt been caught in a cloud of his stenched up emotional scent, causing her to be more focused on her surrounds "Sorry folks! Even us Paladins are only human! How about this heat!?" Covering for him, Lance was immediately grateful to Pidge, she didn't need to whisper to him to get out of there as she put herself out her comfort zone, it went unsaid like a silent agreement, Lance hightailing it off stage and straight into Coran's waiting embrace. Led away from the stage, and into the background work space where the transmission was being monitored, Coran sat him down on a flimsy fold out chair, forcing his head down between his knees as his nose bleed steadily worsened "One tick my boy. I do believe you're the one who taught me that trick with the cold compress" Lance didn't think that placing a cold compress on the back of the neck was much of a trick, but with how overheated he felt, he'd take a cool anything right now. It was strange how he'd longed to feel something more than cold all the time, his condition had forced him to pay constant attention to his body. Knowing that even if he couldn't feel the effects of the heat internally, the rest of him could. It was like his soul had been frozen, then disconnected from his body, causing a strange disharmony between the pair. It was another reason he'd found himself wondering, more than once, if he was a clone. Returning with a cold bottle of water, Coran held it against his nape. Lance shuddering as his body rejected the cool relief it offered "How's that?" Lying smoothly, Lance nodded "Better..." "Ah... We'll give it a tick to kick in. I'm sorry about what happened out there, my boy. We left the questions open..." "Coran..." There was a gentle plea in his voice "You're right. Perhaps now isn't the time" Now wasn't the time. Never was the time. Those memories were fucking with his head enough. What he saw as clear evidence between the photos he was sent, and the messages on the holopad, he feared bringing up with anyone. As he'd reasoned, the others would too. A fan could have meant no offence, though a fan wouldn't have sent as many messages as they'd had. Hopefully when he had the holopad back in his hands, he could prove to his husband he hadn't been lying... Not that he should have to... No. No. He wasn't going there. He'd briefly bumped into Krolia who'd apologised for Keith's drunken behaviour, explaining how she and Keith had had the "baby talk", and explaining how Keith felt displaced by her coming child. Lance didn't need the talk to know that. It was hard for Keith. Keith didn't know what or how to deal with it. Still. He knew from personal experience that alcohol wasn't the answer. Not that he would turn down a stiff drink, or a dozen right about now. Opening his mouth to reply to Coran, Lance was on the ground before he knew what happened. One tick he was there, feeling quiznak, the next Coran's face was peering into his and Lance felt as if something had zapped every ounce of energy from his body. Neither of them had thought about the sudden and drastic change in body temperature triggering a seizure. Tasting vomit and blood, he wished that was the end when it came to bodily fluids, only... down his legs was wet and cool. His suit catching the mess he'd made, while he'd been out of it long enough for his piss to cool. Blinking sleepily at Coran, Coran smiled softly at him as he tucked a stray hair back from Lance's face. This wasn't the first, second or third time he'd thrown up. The first and second because of his pregnancy, the third because he'd worked himself up simply opening his medication bottle "Seizure?" Slurring heavily, Lance's voice failed to reach his own ears "Yes, my boy. A little over 45 ticks... Keith will be here soon" Coran sounded like he was speaking through fog. He was kind of blurry. His neat orange hair blurred like a fire on his head "Sorry..." "Enough of that... rest..." He didn't want to rest. He was ashamed of his body betraying him in a tent full of strangers. It didn't matter that they were towards the back, mostly out of the way. He was supposed to be a Paladin, which meant staying stronger and never letting the public see your weak side. His mind might have felt like a sludge sundae, but his thoughts had to get that final blow in. * "What kind of an idiot puts something ice cold against their skin when they overheat! You're lucky your heart didn't stop!" Cleaned up by Shiro and Keith, mostly Keith with Shiro's support, Pidge was the first to scold him as she and Hunk joined them in his and Keith's room. Laying with a cold towel folded over his forehead, Lance had agreed he was an idiot in a series of "mhmm" and "uh huh" until she finally ran out of appropriate questions. Shiro stopped her when she started to tease he and Keith, and given he was tired and somewhat sooky, he didn't feel like admitting how nice it felt to have Keith holding his hand. Having spent the last half varga chilling, Lance was ready for a nap, but Pidge and Hunk had decided that hanging around and scolding him needed to morph into a group hang. So Lance contented himself holding Keith's hand, and feeling Shiro's solid presence on the other side of him. There was a feeling that he'd forgotten something, but for now he was happish... or okish... scared, yet safe. Everyone in the room with him knew he was deeply scared by Klearo, each of them in their own trying to be there for him without making it too obvious. When Kosmo teleported into their room with a bark, his fur son decided that the best way to greet them all was to let out the most horrendous silent fart, that sent Pidge and Hunk scrambling off the bed as they gagged. Pulling the wet towel over his face did very little to diminish the stink as Keith echoed the others movements and deserted him. The loss of his hand felt immediately. Whimpering at the connection between him and husband being broken, Shiro stuck his hand under the towel and pinched his nose as if Lance wasn't perfectly capable of doing so himself. Dimly he could hear Keith scolding Kosmo, Pidge laughing and Hunk still gagging. Yet they all felt so far away from him that he and Shiro may as well have been stranded on an island. Kosmo, immune to his own stench, laid happily over Lance's legs. His tail thumping in time with the throbbing of Lance'd head. Unable to stank the stink, Pidge and Hunk only lasted a few moments before opting to bail, Lance deaf to their leaving as he was hyperfixating on the feeling of Shiro's hand against his nose. His trauma well aware that a hand to the nose meant soon water would be poured down his throat until he nearly drowned, or did and they were forced to revive him. He was starting to panic, his body too sleepy and leaden to fight off the man's hand, his hands weakly gripping at the sheets beneath him. Gasping like a reeled in fish, his body finally decided it had reached its limit, allowing him to pass out. * The moment Lance's gasping met Keith's ears, the half-Galra was abandoning his futile attempts to scold Kosmo over the fart bomb he'd dropped, and rushing to pull the towel from Lance's face. Who needed Lions or Bayards, when your cosmic wolf could clear a room with just a simple fart. As Shiro released Lance's nose, Lance lay deathly still, his chest barely rising as Keith held his hand above Lance mouth to check his husband was still breathing "Keith?" "Shut up..." With a gentle exhale, an inhale didn't follow. Keith placing his head against Lance's chest to find it wasn't rising "Fuck! Don't you dare, you stubborn arsehole" Lance was vulnerable. He was vulnerable and Keith hadn't thought that Shiro's touch would send his husband into a panic. Not with the way Shiro was sitting right next to him as if he rightfully belonged there. Not with the way Shiro had supported Lance's weight while Keith peeled off the layer of his husband's clothes then wrestled him out his stupid body suit. Lance was so out of it, he wasn't sure that Lance had any physical strength to protect himself, and usually when in that state would only allow him to touch him, yet his husband didn't seem to care he was naked in front of Shiro. He didn't shy away from Shiro's supportive hand on his hip. No. His husband had leaned into Shiro's touch, sending bitter jealously blooming. He was the only one who was allowed to touch Lance's body. Him. Lance had said so. And despite Shiro being happily in love with Curtis, Keith couldn't barely keep down his instincts. He could barely keep himself from taking a swing at his own brother. Lance had ignored him all morning, then Coran had sent some aid rushing to tell him that Lance had had a seizure. By the time he'd gotten off the stage, and down to communications tent, his husband was slurring as Coran reassured him. Blood and vomit were across Lance's fair and hair. His eyes glassy and unfocused. Pidge being the genius she was, had been the one to realise it was the temperature change that had triggered it, yet they all know seeing Klearo again had hit Lance hard. Each of them hated him in varying degrees, but none as much as him. He'd been all for it when Pidge angrily grumbled about hacking the holopad Lance had been using to find out who had sent that photo in, only when the holopad had been retrieved, it'd fallen wrong against the table and fried the memory chip in it. Ropeable, and concerned for Lance, they'd all kind of felt like being there by his side, even if he was sleeping off the effects of his seizure. Interlacing his fingers, Keith pumped down on Lance's chest, Shiro springing into action when he realised Lance wasn't breathing, moving to give Keith the space to work. Keith gave a dozen panic driven pushes before Lance sucked in a breath, his back arching as his marks glowed brightly. Gasping and coughing, Shiro helped Keith sit Lance up, Lance shaking as Keith grabbed him by the chin "Lance?!" "Mnmm?" "Keith, maybe you should give him some space to breathe?" "Don't tell me how to handle my husband!" Snapping at Shiro caused Lance to whine. Keith feeling like a dick for it the moment the words came out his mouth. But... quiznak! "Sorry. Sorry... something scared him so badly he couldn't breathe..." "It must have been my hand over his face... when Kosmo farted" Shiro looked exactly as Keith felt. His face devoid of colour, and clouded with guilt. Guiding Lance into his lap, Shiro helped getting Lance straddled with his nose against Keith's neck. His favourite secure position "That with having Klearo shoved in his face... Shiro, was I wrong? Did someone send him those photos? someone actually after him again?" "I don't know. I know he was scared and hurt that you didn't believe him" "We keep... not connecting..." "Getting drunk and bottling it up like an idiot will do that. When he comes too properly, talk it out. Or if you still need time to think things out, we can watch him again..." "I don't know... I don't know how to be a dad. I though we'd have more time" "No one's ready to be a parent. And it's not as if these are usual circumstances. He'll listen" "I know he will... that's the problem isn't it. If I repeated anything I said this morning, he's going to bolt" "At least he wouldn't be stuck wondering about how you feel and if you still want this marriage" Keith held his tongue. He still loved Lance. Lance was the air to his lungs... but Lance, kids, and work... He didn't know how to juggle it all. Getting a few vargas sleep with Lance still in his lap, Keith woke with a start. His thoughts spilling into his dream, his mind tormenting him over everything he stood to lose. Starving and thirsty, Keith was surprised to find Lance awake as he carefully untangled his husband's hold on him. The moment their eyes met, things felt all that more awkward between them "I'm... I'm going to get us something to eat, and a drink. Then I think we need to talk" Climbing out his lap, Lance nodded. Settling himself into a ball on Keith's side of the bed, his husband rested his chin on his knees, his voice soft "I'm leaving" Opening his mouth, Keith closed it just as quickly before giving a half shake of his head. Lance wanted to leave? Walk out on their chance to talk? Or... was there something more to this? "Stay here for a tick" To Keith it felt as if Lance was watching his every move as he grabbed up a couple of ration bars, and two glasses of water. Returning to their bed, Lance was at least willing to take the ration bars from him. His glass of balanced near his bare feet. Opening the ration bar, Lance tore off the end with his teeth, eating quietly and ignoring the way Keith watched him. Sighing to himself, Keith did the same, forcing himself to eat half the tasteless bar. They weren't that great, but it wasn't goo "I think we need time apart to think" Dropping those words with dead calm, Lance stole his breath "I think there's some things you need to work out, and I don't want to be on Altea anymore. I talked a little with Krolia. I wish it'd been you who'd explained to me what happened between you and her. Kids. Hey. I get it. It's a huge thing. I can't concentrate on them, me, and walk on nails around our friends. I'm tired of yoyoing more than I was when I was alone. I'm going to ask Krolia to lend me a ship and head to the next training planet" "I know we haven't been connecting... but we just haven't had the chance. You spent most of yesterday sleeping!" Quiznak. He sounded far more accusatory than he meant to "And you spent it getting drunk..." "Only because you were testing me! I don't know how it turned so shit so fast!" "I wasn't trying to test you. I reached out and you made me feel stupid. I'm going to give you a chance to think. About what you absolutely truly want. Me. Me and the twins. If you want to take the out. My head is a mess. I don't want to be here. You're still wanted here. You still have things to work out. You should take the time to think it through" "Don't I get a say? You had a seizure, then a panic attack so severe you stopped breathing. I have to pump your chest until you finally took a breath... We've only been here a few days. You're not taking your medication..." "No. I've been forcing myself to drink enough water that I go to sleep needing to pee and wake up nearly wetting myself. I've been scoffing down these bars because they're like the only thing I don't throw up. So don't say I'm not trying. You knew I messed up, you told me I could trust you. You made me trust you. And I thought you actually saw me. Now I don't want to fight. I want to think. You don't think I'm scared? I know all the risks with pregnancies because I come from a huge family. It doesn't get that big without things happening... I'll keep your twins safe until you make a choice. I don't know how to be a dad. A little brother and an uncle. A drunk and druggie. I've got that covered. A dad. A mother. I don't know what to call myself other a freak. You make the choice. I can't trust myself anymore, apparently" The last part was definitely a jab at him. It was the only part where Lance's voice had held any emotion. His husband sounded like Leandro. Leandro when they'd first crossed paths again "That's not what I want" "Then what do you want?" "I don't know" Lance sighed "Exactly. We have all this festival stuff happening while trying to fix this mess of a marriage. I hate being in the crowds. I hated being on the panel. I..." Lance frowned as his sentence stopped abruptly "You, what?" "I... no. It's better I talk to Shiro. You should enjoy the festival" "What can you say to Shiro, that you can't say to me!?" "I don't know what I can say to you anymore. I love you. I love you more than anything, but that doesn't fix our marriage. I know you're stuck lying to everyone because of me again... I don't want to be a burden on you... but I'm scared. Everything that makes us "us", is going to change. I'm scared. I don't want a life of just... just sex... sleep... eating... and what? I don't know how to settle down anymore. I thought... I thought us having our own home would... we would have... That we'd be together more than we were. I don't know where we're going to live... I'm such a fucking screw up... I can't even keep my husband happy... I was proud... maybe that was it. I was proud of our room and our space. I tried my hardest to make it as relaxing as I could for you. I wanted you to feel at home, but you don't" Lance wiped at his face, Keith biting the insides of his cheeks. It was his fault. He hadn't spoken up to his mother. He'd thought himself capable of handling everything. He'd thought himself agitated and annoyed, yet he hadn't sought his mother out sooner. He hadn't sat down with her and asked his hours to be cut or to be rotated off the training roster. Even when he thought about it, or grumbled, he hadn't sat down with Krolia and said it sooner. Maybe that had been his pride? Krolia kept giving him work because she was proud of him. It seemed to him that their combined pride had led to things winding up as they had. "Let me come with you. We can go ahead. We can figure out how we're going to conduct our training exercise. Krolia doesn't really tell us about the planet... so we could think up something before the others come?" Lance sighed at him "That's not going to work" "Why not?! Things only became complicated because of the others. We didn't see them the day of our date... and I thought we had good time?" "You were practically high on seeing your twins for the first time. Being responsible for these two lives hadn't sunk in... I think it was... it was the best day of my life. You're so quiznakking sweet to me. You treat me amazingly... then... you get stuck in your own head. It wasn't my... I was not trying to test, or you drive you to drink with Krystaal. I wanted to cuddle without talking seriously... I wanted you to tell me how things went with Krolia... I want you to be able to rely on me, Keith. I know my seizures have been hitting frequently, but... sometimes they don't hit for weeks..." Of course he was high on seeing their twins. Their tiny little noses. Their tiny hands. Their tiny bodies. Their children. Half him. Half Lance... They were barely more than a bunch of cells caused by their lack of sense with contraceptives. But... would they even survive if Lance kept having seizures? "The pills would help with that" "I can't, ok! I know they're not the same, but thinking about them... I can't! I'm eating these bars. I'm forcing myself to keep eating!" Holding his hands up in surrender, Keith knew he should have expected the backlash "Right. Fine. I'm sorry for worrying. Did you at least eat last night? How did you know I was drinking?" "Shiro, Curtis, and I had a pizza and beer night. Shiro was trying to make me happy, so we were going out for drinks. He wanted to invite both of us to celebrate his win, but couldn't find you. He made me get dressed up. Anyway, Curtis was waiting outside the tent you were drinking in. I had a panic attack, then begged Curtis to go grab beer and pizza, we came back to their room and watched his win while you slept in their bathtub" "I don't remember that" Opening his second ration bar, Lance nodded "I'm not surprised. You were going shot for shot with Krystaal. I don't know what you were drinking, but when you saw me you started yelling about me being your husband, then got kind of mad... not mad, annoyed? when I was panicking... This is why... This is why I think we should take a few days apart. That way you can get your thinking straight" Now they were back on that... He didn't want to leave Lance alone. He only needed... a few vargas... "I know I quiznakked up... but... we're supposed to be talking this out!" Lance wasn't one to talk with a mouthful, yet the way he was tearing into the ration bar, his husband had seemingly forgotten swallowing and chewing was a thing "Keith, I can smell the confusion on you! You smelt of fucking rejection yesterday. I've already got a plan for the next planet. Krolia will ok it once we talk it out. I'll be there for like 4 quintants..." "You'll be alone! I get that you don't want to be a... that you don't want an easy life or whatever, but what if... What if you get so scared that you stop breathing again? Then what? I can't fucking lose you, you idiot! No. You're not going alone" Lance had stopped fucking breathing! He'd needed CPR! Now he was sitting there, filling his face and acting like him nearly dying was a perfectly acceptable thing! Like quiznak he was letting his husband do something silly and dangerous without him... In order to be two halves of the same idiot, both idiots needed to be present. Besides. With everyone filling his head with so much information, hadn't it occurred to Lance that maybe Keith needed a break from everyone? Krolia had given him the baby talk. Shiro's was telling him to talk to Lance, but not to, then to. Lance was still melting down. His husband had even had to cover him at the panel. Surely he'd fulfilled a centuries worth of Paladin duties sitting there under the sun. He'd even gotten sunburnt for his troubles. Fiddling nervously with the ration bar wrapper, Lance talked to his hands "Keith. How are you supposed to think things through between us, if I'm there with you?" "You said you had plans for the next planet... if I put you in charge of the training exercise... you and Kosmo can set it up or whatever. I promise I won't interfere... I'll stay back... just... I feel like if you leave right now, it's only going to get worse between us... I don't want to lose you, but... you're right. I am kind of freaking out over it all. Kids... I know we're not the same kids that were sent into space, but when I think about being 27... I don't feel my age..." "And you think I feel 24? I still remember everything that happened like it was yesterday... all of it. That's why... I need to go" They lost three years to the void, and he was gone for two with his mother. 6 phoebs had been all it took for Voltron to nearly break. For Lance to break... All their time together had failed to keep Lance sustained through his absence. Then there was Kuron, who'd physically harmed Lance... Pidge and Hunk who'd abandoned him. Lotor who'd weaselled his way in... Lance might have made peace with them, but he still hadn't made peace with his memories. "We'll go together. The three of us. You, me, and Kosmo. We'll work it out together. It'll be like a family camping trip..." "Keith..." Lance was wavering. Lance was wavering and he could see it! "You can boss me around. Whatever. As long as I'm with you, I can do anything..." "That's not fair..." "I don't care if it's not fair. Just don't leave me behind" Lance sighed deeply, flopping back on the bed and spilling his glass of water everywhere as he did. Groaning as he craned his neck to to stare at the reason why his feet were wet "Fiiiine. Dios. I'm an idiot for agreeing, and you better do what I say. No arguments. I have a plan to fix your team work and individual skills, and I won't let you stop me. Don't treat me differently. I'm fucking pregnant, not dying. Don't forget the difference. And do not think for one quiznakking moment that I will not have Kosmo teleport you to the other side of the planet if you get in my way. Plus. You're sleeping in the wet spot... and don't even think about touching me until I give you permission. I'm still hurting, and I'm still livid at you" "Ok..." "So you better figure out the hell is going on with you, and you better stay away from me until you do. I'm going back to sleep. I want to get a few vargas before your kids have me on the bathroom floor again" Keith hadn't taken into account Lance's morning sickness, but it was just another reason for Lance not to be left alone "I..." "Don't. Not until you've done the think" There was no mistaking that. Keith may have just won the battle, but Lance... Lance was the the final boss and he had a long long quest chain to go...

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rumbelleshowdown · 8 years ago

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For A Moment

by Rumbellicious

Prompts: Capture, Dance, Post office

It had happened so quickly, it should have been something he dismissed and never thought about again. He was the infamous and feared Mr. Gold and he didn’t have time to waste on romantic notions and absurd fantasies, but he couldn’t get the memory of Belle French’s smile out of his mind.

The moment happened one Sunday, right on the sidewalk outside of the library. She had only moved to Storybrooke two weeks before, and he thought surely that was enough time for the residences of the town to warn her of what a monster he was. Yet as he walked by, she had looked him straight in the eye and gave him a dazzling smile that had warmed him in a way that shook Mr. Gold down to his very core.

It was like, for a moment, there was only her light, her beauty, her goodness washing away all the dark, ugly, evil things lurking in his soul and making him something better than he was before. It was preposterous, of course, to think such fantastical things, but it was how he truly felt when he examined the feelings she evoked in him. And he craved more.

Gold went to the grand re-opening of the library, dressed in his best suit and tie, hoping to capture her attention again by his finery alone. He stood in the back as she made her speech and appreciated the lilt in her voice, the conviction of her words, the passion in her tone. Soon after, Miss French was surrounded by a throng of people wanting to wish her well and he thought for sure his chance to spend just a moment in her presence would be lost. So, it took him quite by surprise when she purposefully made her way over to where he stood and introduced herself to him. This time not only did he receive a dazzling smile, but he was also afforded the honor of getting to shake her lovely hand.

Then, this amazing creature engaged him in intelligent conversation about books, the town, his pawn shop and Gold struggled to keep his astounded brain working so that clever-sounding words could come out of his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded completely, but more than one citizen of Storybrooke gaped at the site of the beastly Mr. Gold not only engaged in a lively conversation with the town’s new, beautiful, sweet librarian, but actually smiling while they conversed.

Too soon, Miss French had to return to her duties and Gold left the library feeling buzzed with the bliss of their interaction. She had looked at him with respect, spoke to him with no sign of fear or want of reward, and genuinely seemed interested in him as a person. By the time he made it back to his shop, he was completely besotted with Belle French and set about learning all he could in regards to this goddess who appeared in his life.

A few days later, a dossier from a private detective told him all about her childhood and education in Australia, the loss of her mother when she was a teenager, a broken engagement to a wealthy boy while she was in college, her and her father’s immigration to America, and the fact that she moved to this small town only because her father ran the local flower shop and his health had been failing the past few years. She had a few friends in Storybrooke she spent time with like the adventurous Ruby Lucas, the bubbly Ariel Triton, the stoic Mulan Fa, and the very eccentric Jefferson Hatter. Gold devoured all these facts, but he still yearned to know more about her.

He decided the best possible way to engage her in conversation again and get to know her better was to go to the library as if it were something he did all the time. Over the next few weeks, Gold checked out several books he already owned in his own collection at home attempting to impress Miss French with his selections or spark some conversation about his literary choices. She didn’t disappoint and was always quick to comment on his book choice or a theme from the story. It was during the first conversation that he memorized the exact shade of blue in her eyes. He was intoxicated by her lovely scent as she leaned towards him to point out something in the book he was holding during their second conversation. By the third conversation, she insisted that he call her ‘Belle’ instead of ‘Miss French’ and he couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome. And so, they began this strange dance of getting to know each other in little snippets of conversation that left Gold turning over each new piece of information about her as if it was some great treasure for him to hoard.

Yet, there was never enough time for the two of them to talk for long. Someone was always interrupting their exchanges with some pesky question or need and Miss French… Belle, being the excellent librarian that she was, would always apologize to him before her attention was diverted away from him to help Henry Mills find a new book of fairy tales or to assist the Nolans in locating books on parenting or to find the most current edition of a cooking magazine for Regina because it had the most ‘delightful recipe for apple tarts.’

During this time, Gold warred with himself over his near obsession with the town’s new librarian. He would remind himself he was old, ugly, set in his ways, and certainly had nothing to offer such a young, beautiful, sweet girl except for his wealth and taste. Gold knew he should leave Belle alone and let her find some younger, better looking, friendlier man in town to become involved with. Yet, her responses when she saw him at the library fueled him on. She always looked pleased to see him, gave him that amazing smile, and was quick to engage him. And when they were speaking, for a moment, he felt younger, more handsome, and someone who could be so good if only she would be in his life.

Gold had so many things he wanted to say to her, to let Belle know she had changed his life, to make her understand how much he wanted to be a part of hers… but he knew that he would never be able to get these things out during their casual conversations at her workplace. After several sleepless nights, Gold set down at his antique desk and wrote his feelings, his questions, his hopes in an old-fashioned letter. Surely someone who loved to read as much as Belle would appreciate a missive of this sort. As much as his doubts and fears and insecurities told him otherwise, he couldn’t believe she would laugh in his face or shun him once she had read what he’d written.

The next morning Gold walked down to the post office clutching the letter tightly in his hand as he decided he wasn’t brave enough to deliver it to Belle in person. He spent several agonizing moments in front of the mail slot before he took a deep breath and pushed the letter inside. Gold felt immediate panic and wondered who he would have to bribe to get the letter back. But, he knew the matter was now out of his hands and he decided to walk back to the pawn shop to await his fate.

For the next twenty-four hours his stomach was in knots, his fingers twitched, he couldn’t eat, sleep, or concentrate on anything except for wondering what Belle felt when she read the letter. He couldn’t bring himself to go to the library and see her reaction. Gold convinced himself that would put pressure on her and possibly cause public humiliation for him. Instead, he waited inside his shop, his feelings vacillating between agony and ecstasy at the potential outcome of his actions.

By the time he closed his shop, Gold felt like an utter fool. How could he possibly believe that someone as magnificent as Belle French would be interested in him romantically? He now saw their conversations for what they really were. She was just a sweet girl who was being polite to the old, creepy man who was hanging around demanding her attention. His delusional brain had contrived a fairytale romance between him and Belle, but men like him didn’t get happy endings. Now, he was going to have to sell off his home, shop, and property and move out of the state for sending such a ridiculous letter to the poor girl.

Gold was contemplating his extreme life change when there was a knock at the door. He moved sluggishly, not wanting to deal with whoever was foolish enough to be unable to read his ‘Closed’ sign. To his utter shock and amazement, Belle French stood at his door, his letter held in her hand… and that dazzling smile on her face.

He had no idea what she was going to say, but for a moment, Mr. Gold was the happiest man in all the world.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #rumbelle showdown

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dailyshoping-world-blog · 7 years ago

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IF YOU SLEEP LESS THAN 8 HOURS, THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOUR BODY!

According to the documentary, Sleepless in America, coproduced by the National Geographic Channel, 40 percent of Americans are sleep deprived. Many get less than five hours of sleep per night. Percentage-wise, adolescents are among the most sleep deprived.

The consequences are dire, not just for the individual who isn’t getting enough rest, but for those around them as well. While most people don’t give lack of sleep much thought, there are in fact life-threatening consequences.

Notably, “experts now believe that sleep deprivation may have played a role in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Staten Island ferry crash, and the Three-Mile Island nuclear meltdown,” the film states. Countless people have also lost their lives to tired drivers who simply dozed off behind the wheel.

It’s important to realize that getting less than six hours of sleep each night leaves you cognitively impaired. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to health effects such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s,1and cancer. Depression and anxiety disorders are also adversely impacted by lack of sleep.

The Importance of Staying in Sync with Nature

Maintaining a natural rhythm of exposure to sunlight during the day and darkness at night is one crucial foundational component of sleeping well.

This was addressed in a previous interview with researcher Dan Pardi. In it, he explains how exposure to bright daylight serves as the major synchronizer of your master clock—a group of cells in your brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN).

These nuclei synchronize to the light-dark cycle of your environment when light enters your eye. You also have other biological clocks throughout your body that are synchronized to your master clock.

One reason why so many people get so little sleep, and/or such poor sleep, can be traced back to a master clock disruption. In short, most people spend their days indoors, shielded from bright daylight, and then spend their evenings in too-bright artificial light.

As a result, their body clocks get out of sync with the natural rhythm of daylight and nighttime darkness, and when that happens, restorative sleep becomes elusive.

An estimated 15 million Americans also work the night shift, and the adverse health effects of working nights are well documented. As just one example, three years of periodical night shift work can increase your risk for diabetes by 20 percent, and this risk continues to rise with time.

What Happens When You’re Sleep Deprived?

What makes sleep deprivation so detrimental is that it doesn’t just impact one aspect of your health… it impacts many. Among them are five major risks to your mental and physical well-being:

1. Reaction time slows: When you’re sleep-deprived, you’re not going to react as quickly as you normally would, making driving or other potentially dangerous activities, like using power tools, risky. One study even found that sleepiness behind the wheel was nearly as dangerous as drinking and driving.2

2. Your cognition suffers—both short- and long-term: A single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day. In one animal study,3 sleep deprived mice lost 25 percent of the neurons located in their locus coeruleus, a nucleus in the brainstem associated with cognitive processes.

Hence, if you’re sleep-deprived you will have trouble processing information and making decisions. This is why it’s so important to get a good night’s sleep prior to important events at work or home.

For example, research discussed in the film found that diagnostic mistakes shot up by 400 percent among doctors who had worked for 24 consecutive hours.

Sleep deprived medical residents also reported a 73 percent increase in self-inflicted needle sticks and scalpel stabs, and when driving home from work, they had a 170 percent increased risk of having a serious motor vehicle accident.

Research4 also suggests that people with chronic sleep problems may develop Alzheimer’s disease sooner than those who sleep well. One of the reasons for this is because sleep is critical for brain detoxification—a process during which harmful proteins linked to Alzheimer’s are cleared out.

3. Memory and learning declines: The process of brain growth, or neuroplasticity, is believed to underlie your brain’s capacity to control behavior, including learning and memory. However, sleep and sleep loss modify the expression of several genes and gene products that may be important for synaptic plasticity.

Furthermore, certain forms of long-term potentiation, a neural process associated with the laying down of learning and memory can be elicited in sleep, suggesting synaptic connections are strengthened while you slumber.

4. Emotions are heightened: As your reaction time and cognition slows, your emotions will be kicked into high gear. This means that arguments with co-workers or your spouse are likely, and you’re probably going to be at fault for blowing things out of proportion.

The amygdala controls basic emotions like fear and anger. As discussed in the film, another area of your brain called your frontal cortex, plays a key role in the regulation of emotions, and sleep is vital for its function.

When you’re well rested, your frontal cortex is nicely connected to your amygdala—that deep emotional center—and works almost like “a break to your emotional gas pedal.”

Sleep deprivation causes a disconnect between these two brain centers, allowing your emotions to run amok. Sleep deprivation also plays an important role in mental illness, and tends to result in more adverse psychiatric outcomes.

5. Immune function and health deteriorates: Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or illness,5 which may help explain why lack of sleep is tied to an increased risk of numerous chronic diseases.

For example, research shows that sleeping less than six hours per night more than triples your risk of high blood pressure, and women who get less than four hours of shut-eye per night double their chances of dying from heart disease.6

You Need Around Eight Hours of Sleep Every Night

The studies are quite clear and most experts agree, you are seriously fooling yourself if you think you can do fine on less than eight hours of sleep. But eight hours of sleep is not eight hours in bed. If you go to bed at 10 pm and get out of bed at 6 am, you might say you’ve slept for eight hours. In reality, you probably spent at least 15-30 minutes falling asleep and may have woken during the night one or more times.

With the advent of fitness-tracking devices however, we now have access to actual sleep data (and more) from wristband users. The data is quite useful on a personal level and they helped me understand that I need to start getting to sleep around 9.30 PM if I hope to get a full eight hours of sleep, which I now typically do.

The Glorification of Sleep Deprivation

According to the 2013 International Bedroom Poll by the National Sleep Foundation,7 25 percent of Americans report having to cut down on sleep due to long workdays. On average, Americans get only 6.5 hours of sleep on weeknights, but report needing 7.25 hours in order to function optimally. As noted in a previous article in The Atlantic:8

“For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, a sign that they don’t require the eight-hour biological reset that the rest of us softies do. Others feel that keeping up with peers requires sacrifice at the personal level—and at least in the short-term, sleep is an invisible sacrifice.”

Modern man’s penchant for equating sleep with unproductiveness (if not outright laziness) can be traced back to the heyday of Thomas Edison, who was known for working around the clock. According to the featured article:9

“Edison spent considerable amounts of his own and his staff’s energy on in publicizing the idea that success depended in no small part in staying awake to stay ahead of the technological and economic competition.” No one… did more to frame the issue as a simple choice between productive work and unproductive rest …

Over time, children’s books and magazines began to promote this type of Edisonian asceticism… Edison encouraged all Americans to follow his lead, claiming that sleeping eight hours a night was a waste and even harmful. “There is really no reason why men should go to bed at all,” he said in 1914.”

This culture of sleep deprivation started with the invention of the light bulb, and has only gotten worse with the proliferation of light-emitting electronics, which disrupt your natural waking-sleeping cycle. The following infographic, created by BigBrandBeds.co.uk, illustrates how your electronic gadgets wreak havoc on your sleep when used before bedtime.10

The Importance of Addressing Sleep Apnea

As discussed in the film, sleep apnea is another common cause of sleep deprivation. Sleep apnea is the inability to breathe properly, or the limitation of breath or breathing, during sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea consists of the frequent collapse of the airway during sleep, making it difficult to breathe for periods lasting as long as 10 seconds. Those with a severe form of the disorder have at least 30 disruptions per hour. Not only do these breathing disruptions interfere with sleep, leaving you unusually tired the next day, it also reduces the amount of oxygen in your blood, which can impair the function of internal organs and/or exacerbate other health conditions you may have.

The condition is closely linked to metabolic health problems such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, and according to research,11 even a modest weight reduction can halt the progression of obstructive sleep apnea. Shedding excess pounds might even cure it, according to one five-year long study.12 That said, you do not have to be obese to suffer from sleep apnea. As discussed by Dr. Arthur Strauss, a dental physician and a diplomat of the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, factors such as the shape and size of your mouth, and the positioning of your tongue, can also play a significant role.

If your sleep apnea is related to your tongue or jaw position, specialty trained dentists can design a custom oral appliance to address the issue. These include mandibular repositioning devices, designed to shift your jaw forward, while others help hold your tongue forward without moving your jaw. Relief may also be found in the form of speech therapy treatment called oral myofunctional therapy, which helps to re-pattern your oral and facial muscles. For more information about this, please see my previous interview with Joy Moeller, who is a leading expert in this form of therapy in the US.

How to Support Your Circadian Rhythm and Sleep Better for Optimal Health

Making small adjustments to your daily routine and sleeping area can go a long way to ensure uninterrupted, restful sleep and, thereby, better health. I suggest you read through my full set of 33 healthy sleep guidelines for all of the details, but to start, consider implementing the following changes to ensure more shut-eye:

Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed.These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 and 10 pm, and these devices emit light that may stifle that process. You can also download a free application called F.lux13 that automatically dims your monitor or screens in the evening, which can help lessen the adverse effects if you have to use them in the evening. Get some sun in the morning, and at least 30 minutes of BRIGHT sun exposure mid-day. Your circadian system needs bright light to reset itself. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight will send a strong message to your internal clock that day has arrived, making it less likely to be confused by weaker light signals during the night. Also, if you work indoors, make a point to get outdoors for at least a total of 30-60 minutes during the brightest portion of the day. Sleep in a dark room. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your body’s clock and your pineal gland’s melatonin production. I recommend covering your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or using an eye mask. Install a low-wattage yellow, orange, or red light bulb if you need a source of light for navigation at night. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue bandwidth light does. Salt lamps are handy for this purpose. Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their upstairs bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees F. Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This increases your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you are ready to sleep. Avoid electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other negative biological effects as well. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home. Ideally, you should turn off any wireless router while you are sleeping. You don’t need the Internet on while you’re asleep. Use a fitness tracker to track your sleep. Chances are you’re not getting nearly as much sleep as you think, and using a fitness tracker that monitors your sleep can be a useful tool to help motivate you to get to bed earlier so you can get eight hours of sleep. When I first started using a fitness tracker, I was striving to get 8 hours of sleep, but my Jawbone UP typically recorded me at 7.5 to 7.75. Part of the equation too is going to bed earlier, as most of us have to get up at a preset time.

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