#and i think the way that neurological illness and injury works into the whole thing is great | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

evesaintyves · 11 months

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trick or treat 👻🎃❤️

thank you @whinlatter 💕

you get a snippet of my shitty first draft of the Beasts tribute fic i started. for non-whinlatters, Beasts is her absolutely astonishing Ginny & the Weasley family fic that follows her postwar seventh year at Hogwarts, intertwined with glimpses of her development as a child & teenager, and there's a brief mention of a care facility where recipients of the Dementor's kiss live out the rest of their lives. Highly recommend this fic - it's just such a rich portrayal of the whole Weasley family, the fraught rebuilding process after the war, and Ginny's emotional & intellectual life.

tw: illness, death, and very unpleasant hospital stuff

this idea of what happens to people after they've been kissed by a dementor really spoke to me for a few reasons - i couldn't help but think about some of the things i've seen in my professional life. i work in a healthcare specialty i can't really name without potentially doxing myself (it's a small world) and early in my career i occasionally participated in testing to determine death by neurologic criteria - essentially, flat lines on an eeg, which is a really terrible thing to see if you know what you're looking at. it's a difficult thing to even comprehend, especially for a parent - that a child who was splashing in the pool a few hours ago, now seemingly asleep, will not wake up, is damaged so profoundly that they they will never take another unassisted breath. i also regularly worked with people who were incarcerated in the state prison system. it taught me a lot about - let's keep it short and just say inhumanity: in the american healthcare system and especially where it intersects with the criminal justice system, and, unfortunately, in some of my colleagues and the way they cared for their incarcerated patients.

in my current role i work with a lot of patients who just aren't going to get better, who are entirely dependent on caregivers to keep them alive and maintain their quality of life. and it is - i hope you'll understand when i say this i say it as someone who is devoted and privileged to do it - often difficult and demoralizing work. for families and for staff.

my youngest sister was one of these people: she suffered a hemorrhage in infancy which resulted in serious damage to her brain. she never spoke, walked, fed or bathed herself. it was difficult to know what she understood, perceived, felt, wanted. she was a beautiful, calm, sweet-natured child who was easy to love; not every family in our position is so fortunate. it was also easy for us to project on her an interior life that may or may not have really been there, which was a great comfort to my mother. but her daily care needs were enormous, taxing, frustrating, and her inevitable deterioration and death were devastating to witness.

obviously i don't really want to equate people with brain injuries and whatever other special needs with people in the hp universe who no longer have souls - that's part of the reason i've struggled with this fic. there are a lot of potentially-unanswerable questions about the humanity and interiority of victims of soul-removal in this fictional context, but i think the only responsible practice for a clinician working with such patients would be to assume that they still feel, experience, and need what any other person who cannot care for themselves would. including not just nutrition, hygiene, etc. but also company and touch and positive regard. and that whatever crime, even atrocity, they might have committed is irrelevant to my duty to them as a caregiver. but that is easier to say than to do, consistently, every day, at home or in a medical facility, and i know from experience that it won't always happen that way.

anyway, if for some reason you have read this far, here's an excerpt from the story, complete with first-draft placeholders where i decided to rethink some dumb on-the-nose character names, lol. it needs to be rewritten from scratch, honestly. it's set at the end of GoF, when Madame Pomfrey is tasked with removing the house-elf Winky from Barty Crouch, Jr.'s side after he has received the kiss, and I've decided for the purposes of this silly little fic that she has experience in the care facility where he'll end up.

working title is My Beautiful Dead Friends.

Minerva saw the whole horrible thing and it was all over her face, what it had done to her. Poppy has never seen it happen, and neither had [supervisor], which seemed to irritate him; he'd read about it in books. The soul emits a colourless glow as it exits, he said, visible for an instant before it is consumed. For some time in the eighteenth century the Kiss was performed in public, on a platform raised above Diagon Alley. People would bring their children. There were woodcuts depicting the moment, dementors in swirling curlicues, the bound hands and dark mouth of the convicted, and the soul, represented as a star or sometimes a tiny naked man, caught in the moment of transit. It was striking how carefully, how delicately, the little soul was etched, with lines of light coming off it. Even the soul of a murderer, a beautiful shining thing. Minerva had marched Barty to the infirmary dozens of times in his schooldays. Sometimes because Horace wasn't fond of the long walk, nor of standing up to his own students, but often because it was one of her Gryffindors who'd done it to him. He was there all the time, hexed, cursed, punched in the face. It seemed, at first, simply the lot of the delicate-featured son of the head of law enforcement to be regularly trounced. He gave at least as good as he got and sometimes there'd be an entire queue of students behind him covered in boils, missing or extra limbs, pinching their nostrils to stop the bats from flapping out. Barty might chuckle through a mouth of blood while she saw to him, or he might writhe and moan as if in agony; Poppy had a suspicion that it depended on whether there was a Hogmeade weekend or an exam coming up. It wasn't only the usual interhouse skirmishes with Barty—Once, he limped to the hospital wing on his own, so badly beaten she had to put him out for a while and repair his perforated intestines with dozens of tiny movements of the tip of her wand. When he came to, she asked him what had happened, who had done this. He grinned at her with half his teeth gone. "Jusht the cosht of doing businesh, Madame," he said. Bubbles of red on his lips as he spoke. She found out later from Filius that he'd scammed a bunch of Ravenclaws into a sort of pyramid scheme, buying and reselling junk from Zonko's to each other. She was sure he didn't need the money: his robes were clasped with real-silver fasteners in the shapes of snakes. His mother came to take him home for the weekend after that one. He pressed the side of his face into the bosom of her robes and sobbed pitifully while Poppy left them to it behind a screen. On his way out the door, later, he waved to her, like, see you soon! Now he looks content, drowsy, like he's just had a meal. It was always hard to square the faces of the Kissed with what they'd done. Barty could almost be his seventh-year self, resting in the lull of a potion—though he might have already been a murderer by then, she realised. His hands, which had once aimed waves of pain so brutal they'd evicted poor Alice and Frank Longbottom from their own minds, are laced together at rest on his stomach. His thumbnail picks occasionally at the wand-callus on his forefinger. Some unlucky trainee healer will be alarmed by that one day. The Kissed do those little things. Their eyes follow you, sometimes, across the room. They smack their lips when they swallow the bubblemint-flavoured nutrition potion. They sit up in bed. "Look—he's doing it—I've told you—" Llanzo's mother had once cried, summoning the whole staff to come and see. She was tickling Llanzo's ribs with her fingers, and his lips had pulled back, his chest was jerking with spasms of laughter, no sound but a sort of clicking in his throat. "It's a reflex," [supervisor] told her. Llanzo's younger brother slumped in his bedside chair and stared sourly at his mother. She got angry, understandably, and shouted a bit before storming out.

"A rat will make a rhythmic sound if you tickle its belly," [supervisor] told Poppy in private. "You can call it laughter, if you like."

Llanzo was the only one who ever got visitors. He'd been accused of leading a nine-year-old witch away from her parents at Gray's beach and leaving her face-down, strangled, in the shallow mud of the Thames. His mother had given an alibi, which wasn't enough to keep him from being arrested, and he'd been shipped off to Azkaban to be held pending trial. As they'd approached the jagged rocks of the island he'd broken his bonds somehow and heaved himself over the side of the boat. Escape, suicide, or just some motiveless panic, it wasn't clear, but when they'd caught him and hauled him onshore the Dementors had fallen on him at once. He was seventeen, on his summer holidays. Lying in bed on the ward a year later he still looked like a child. Poppy wasn't sentimental, as a rule, but at the end of shift after those visits she'd sometimes have to have a little cry in the car park before she apparated home. "If you ask me I think she's on to something," Catherine told her once, in low tones, eyes on [supervisor]'s office door. "I've seen things. The way they look up at you. You can leave them on the pot for an hour, they won't do a thing, then as soon as they're back on the bed, haven't even had time to get a nappy out—" she made a squelching sound in her cheek. "Pure spite, I swear."

His mother came back the following week, brother in tow, and sat with him reading from Quidditch Through the Ages, turning the book to show him the moving illustrations. Sometimes his gaze moved to land on them and sometimes it didn't. "He was a Chaser," she told Catherine, who'd come to give him a bath. "Fast as anything. His Dad and I were both hopeless on a broom, but he's—" She swallowed hard. Llanzo was smiling faintly, as he often did when he got his bath. His breath came in soft vocal sounds that were almost sighs. "—he's my superstar," she finished. When they left, she made his brother say goodbye to him. Poppy was scrubbing up at the bedside sink to do his skin integrity assessment. Llanzo's brother gripped his hand, and leaned down as if to kiss him on the cheek. "Fucking die," he whispered, lips almost touching Llanzo's motionless face.

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werevulvi · 3 years

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You know how often I ask myself, why can't I just be normal? It's quite a lot. I wanna talk about something I've never told anyone before, aside from a few strangers online. I've suppressed this my whole life, since childhood. I've acted with anger towards others with the same thing as me, told them how it's offensive and awful. Refused to allow myself to even think about my own urges and desires. It worked for a long time, until I wrote my book this summer, a fiction story about a couple who end up disabled from their dangerous work as assassins. My intentions were just... to try to give good representation and explore something I knew very little about.

So I did a lot of research into my characters' disabilities, and even briefly pretended to have those specific disabilities at home alone, just to get an idea of what it's like to manage daily life with them. It was just a writer's thing, just being a dedicated writer, I told myself, as I researched those disabilities far more in-depth than I did about assassins...

At one point, I would cover my eye with a makeshift eye patch, as one of my main character's loses an eye, and I... it brought forth what I had suppressed my whole life, and I can't suppress it anymore as a result of that. The bottled feelings have escaped and I can't put them back in again.

I think I have Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID.) There, I said it.

It's a very rare mental illness that makes you want to become disabled, usually in some very specific way. Most are males, and most desire amputation, but it can pertain to wanting blindness, deafness, or I guess, any conceivable disability. There's only been a few thousand reported cases, but it's also said to be a very secret disorder, so numbers are probably not accurate. It's very poorly researched, poorly understood, and still not recognized as an actual disorder. So you can't be diagnosed with it currently, and there are no set criteria for it. However, it will be in the upcoming ICD-11 (the International Classification of Diseases.) It will then also be re-named to Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID) as it's being recognized as a form of dysphoria, and as a neurological condition.

And now for the obligatory life story:

I don't remember when it started, but as a child, I'd say roughly age 5 or 7, I was obsessed with fictional characters that had a distinct scar over one eye, and either blind in that eye or entirely missing it. I would on occasion play around with a hand covering one eye, and wished I could have that for real. For a long time, I didn't know why I was so obsessed with that. If I was just admiring that kinda physical feature, or wanted it myself, or both. Throughout my teens and adulthood thus far, I've made a lot of drawings of people with only one eye, and scarred faces. I wrote another book back in 2013 with one of the main characters being a woman with a large scar across half her face. I've always been a little too fascinated with facial deformities, having only one eye, and facial assymmetry. And I've tried to express it with assymmetrical makeup looks (not made to look like I'm injured) throughout my teens and 20's.

So it's been with me for a very long time, even though I've tried super hard to suppress it, and tried to tell myself that I should just be happy to have a mostly abled body. But that wish/urge/whatever it is, has never gone away.

When I first heard of BIID, back in 2016 or so, I was angry, and thought of people with it as despicable. I was in deep denial of how much I could relate to them. Didn't want to think of that. But since learning more about the condition, and listening to others who have it, and learning it is actually a real condition... I guess that has helped me eventually come to this point that, well fuck... it me.

Up until recently, I thought it was just a self-harm desire, as I used to be a cutter, but now I understand that the self-harm was not the intention behind what I want with that, but merely the means to achieve it. Kinda like how I wanted to cut my own tits off before I had my double mastectomy. It wasn't about specifically wanting to injure my chest, but to not have tits anymore, and I much preferred the much safer way of doing it, through proper surgery. However, wanting half my face re-arranged is a little bit harder to achieve through elective surgery, even if surgeons were allowed to treat BIID through surgery. So I do not think my desire to get rid of my left eye and surrounding tissues is about wanting to harm myself. It's about wanting to have and live with the result of such an injury. Although I get that might be very unimaginable.

So then, have I ever made any attempts?

Yeah... I have. Once, I think it was when I was 22, I took a blade to my face, but chickened out, and ended up only making a very superficial cut on my cheek, which I was then extremely ashamed of. I didn't want for people to find out I had made it myself. Since then, I've stopped self-harming and have no desire to make a second attempt. I'm scared I'd fuck it up and cause damage I don't want, or... not enough damage. And I'm worried I'd be beyond myself with shame if I would take out my own eye and then other people would show sympathy for my injury, knowing I'd have caused it myself. I just kinda wish it would happen accidentally somehow.

So, to clarify, my BIID targets my left eye and left side of my face. Why left? Honestly because I'm deaf since birth on my left ear, so it would be extremely inconvenient to be deaf on one side and blind on the other. Much more manageable to have one side be blind-deaf and the other fully seeing and hearing. But at first it didn't matter to me so much which side of my face would be affected. I have no desire to become an amputee or fully blind. I also don't have a fetish for disabled people.

Would I date a disabled person?

Yes, but that's because some attractive people just so happen to be disabled, and I wouldn't think I'm particularly judgemental, not that I find their disabilities in and of themselves attractive.

I try to quell this desire, to lose an eye and half my face, by on occasion wearing an eye patch in secrecy. I know it can worsen my vision, but why on Earth would I mind that? It's kinda what I want. But my mom almost caught me wearing it today as she came by for a quick visit, and I have worn it at the grocery store, and out and about in my village. It feels so damn right, yet so fucking wrong...

Let's tackle this question as well: Do I feel like an ass towards disabled people?

Yes and no. Thing is, I'm already disabled myself. I'm not an abled person to begin with. I live on permanent sickness compensation, classified unable to work, for life, with little to no chance at improvement, due to my autism and adhd. I have the energy levels of an old cellphone that drops to 2% battery ten minutes after being fully charged every time. And I hate it. I hate that there's so much in life that I'll probably never be able to do. So disability, is already part of my life, and always has been. So why then would I want to become more disabled, instead of less? Well, yeah that is what I want...

I've faced a shit ton of ableism since childhood, and I actually think that's why I got BIID. Because my actual disability is invisible and not taken seriously in society. And I think that's what I deep down want: to just have my disability be visible and taken seriously. Physical disabilities are taken more seriously. I've even heard that straight from the mouths of people who have both mental and physical disabilities. How often have I not been called lazy for something I've been literally unable to do, just because I "look" capable? How often do I get to hear I "don't seem autistic?" How often do I get told that autism is not even a disability, but merely a personality trait and being socially awkward? How often do I get told I would be able to work if I just tried harder? All. The. Fucking. Time.

I think that's why, ever since I was a child, I've wanted to have a physical disability, which is fully visible, and cannot be ignored. And what's more visible than the face? We interact with it the most. Because I don't really want to be less capable or lose a lot of movement, I just want for my already disabled existence to be visibly disabled.

So that's a big reason for why I think I have BIID. Which is to say, I don't feel like I'm being an ass towards disabled people, because I'm already disabled to begin with, merely wishing I was more disabled and in a more visible way. Had I been abled to begin with, I think that would have been different, but even abled people with BIID don't choose to have this condition. I read a quote from a person with BIID, who got the amputation he wanted, and he said basically that he didn't know what's worse, having BIID or being disabled. I can relate to that. And I think that is the irony here, that simply having BIID is like being disabled in and of itself already.

That said, however, I do understand why disabled people would be greatly offended, angry, or otherwise insulted, by people with BIID. Honestly I cannot understand why they would not be. I'm greatly offended by people who say they wish they were autistic! And I'm offended at myself for wishing I had a facial deformity and only one eye. Why do I want this!? I keep trying to shake sense into myself. It's what's causing my shame and wishing I could just be normal. No disabilities, and no wish for disabilities I don't have. That'd be great.

There is one more aspect I also feel the need to tackle: Transabled.

BIID has recently been rather often labeled as "transabled" in the same vein as "transracial" (wanting to be another race) and transgender. As a transsexual, this comparison is of course something that I have not missed. I'm painfully aware. This is how I see it, alright: Although I do feel like my body integrity dysphoria is incredibly similar to my sex dysphoria, I feel like it would be extremely rude and tone deaf to identify as for example vision impaired, deaf or an amputee, without actually having those disabilities. And I do not know if anyone actually does this. As far as I've seen, some people with BIID may pretend to have the disability they want (like with me walking around with an eye patch despite having no medical need for it) but they don't lie about it, or they try hard to avoid ending up in a situation where they'd feel pressured to lie. So I dunno how much validity there even is in anyone with BIID genuinely identifying as transabled. But regardless of that, I think it's absolutely abhorrent to identify as disabled in ways you are not. And I'd never tell anyone that I'm missing an eye when I do not.

So, I really do not like the term "transabled" and much prefer the BIID and BID terms. I do not like BIID being conflated with being transgender, although I want to very carefully say that the two conditions are so incredibly similar, that... I think that's another big reason I ended up with both. That I've always felt a strong disconnect from my body, which has merely expressed itself in a wide array of ways, ranging from sex dysphoria to body integrity dysphoria, dissociation and even having previously identified as otherkin. I don't think that's a coincidence at all. But then what caused all of that? I don't think there is a simple answer, but a multitude of reasons, and it may even connect with my autism as well as my trauma.

So, I'd say most likely it's caused by a cocktail of neurological and social issues. I was just clearly meant to be a broken person, making the most of my life with the sucky cards I was dealt, and on good days... I guess I'm kinda okay with that. At least it's not boring. Let's end on that not super tragic note. Feel free to ask me anything, if you’ve got any questions.

#biid #body integrity dysphoria #body integrity identity disorder #finally accepting i probably have this #im not happy about it but it is what it is i guess #ok to rb #transabled #im only adding that tag bcos i know many dont know what the condition is actually called

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docholligay · 4 years

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Pharah / Mercy: Surprise date while working late

Cute Pharah/Mercy fluff, about 1400 words! All of HON HON HON is here!

The Oasis

Her mice weren’t cooperating.

Well, they were as cooperative as mice could be, but this was to say, she had utterly failed to fix the problem she had caused in them. Pradeep wasn’t even sure she had managed to break the mice the right way.

“Not your fault, Angela,” He said, looking over their tiny scans, “It’s just such a weird injury, and it’s hard to say if it’s along the same lines. Presentation is the nearly the same, though, so, there’s hope.”

He’d sent her that hope, along with a huge bundle of suggestions on moves he might make, and things he might do, to try to stop or reverse the degeneration. Pradeep was one of the best neurologists in the world, and he was, at core, a kind man, however much his blunt approach made him better for the lab. He’d probably spent plenty of his own late-night hours trying to think of something for Mercy’s sake.

But still, her mice took the same path, in their abbreviated little lives, and even when she managed to slow it, it always came to the same end. It had for months.

Bent over her notes and a few books on chemistry and neurology, Mercy entered hour seven of her today’s work. There were things she utterly preferred about field medicine, no matter how many times people told her it was a waste of her immense talents, and one of those things was the immediacy of every problem and solution. It took a quick, agile mind, dextrous hands, and answers, whether they were good or ill, came quickly in medical tents. This was a chess game, played against an opponent she did not understand with pieces she loved dearly. It played out in slow, aching moments, as she tried to think and consider every move it might make, play out every puzzle and endgame in her mind.

She hadn’t looked at the clock, and the lab lacked a window. For her, it may as well have been late morning, the lunch Pharah packed for her still tucked in the fridge down the hall. Her hair hung in her face, the looping script of her handwriting uneven on the page as she took another drink of coffee. Just a few more pages. Just another journal article to read. Just one more idea.

It wasn’t until she heard the knock at the laboratory door that it even occurred to her to look down at her scrub watch. It was nearly eight o clock, and, more horrifyingly, the date on it told her tonight she was meant to be dining with Pharah. She had planned the whole thing, even reminding Mercy this morning, and here she sat---

Mercy quickly began to put things back on the shelves, even as she yelled for whoever it was to come in. She put her notebook back in the drawer and spun around to see her wife standing there, a picnic basket in one hand, wine bottle in the other.

“Fareeha,” Mercy’s eyes filled with tears, frustration and sorrow and love all building up, “I am feeing so--I’m sorry, It was only--”

Pharah shook her head with a soft smile. “You have been so distracted lately. I planned for it.”

Mercy wiped her eyes and looked at Pharah, her strong bearing hiding the kindness of her eyes for all but those brave enough to look her in them. She had worn a crisp collar under one of Mercy’s favorite sweaters, pants neatly pressed, and shoes shined. The basket was large, and Mercy noted the label of the wine bottle as one of her favorites.

“This, of course,” Pharah gestured, “is very scenic, but I thought we might at least try for somewhere else. A change of view, for you.”

Mercy nodded and tucked her hair behind her ear. “The roof? I could--”

Pharah chuckled. “You are distracted. It is London, and it is February, and so, there is a horribly cold rain, like every day in this city. No,” she extended her hand, “I’ve planned. With help, of course. Your techs very much believe you work too hard, Angela.”

She put up the last of the books and walked over to Pharah, tucking herself under her arm. “It is not the first time I am hearing that.”

“Or the last.” Pharah kissed her cheek. “The workday is done, for now.”

She led Mercy down the hallway, and popped open what at one time Mercy had known to be a large closet where the residents sometimes napped, but there was a thick wool blanket thrown over the small bed, and a few candle lit on the table Pharah had set in front of it, complete with a tablecloth and napkins. Two crystal wine glasses awaited, a few stems of flowers in a little vase. She had draped over the supplies with some dark fabrics and tapestries, twinkle lights found up the side, making the effect much more of a latter-day take on an Arabian palace than the sad medical closet it had been in all of Mercy’s memories.

“Oh, Fareeha,” she nuzzled her face against her chest, “Beautiful.”

“I hoped you would like it,” She hugged Mercy and then set down the basket on the table, “And so much cheaper and less busy than going out.”

Mercy sank into the bed as she sat, suddenly realizing just how tiring her day had been, and just how happy she was to be in Pharah’s presence again. She closed her eyes a moment, and felt the clip come out of her hair, a brush running through it slowly as Pharah smoothed it. It was so nice, to be so cared for. Mercy loved her work, and loved that she could help people, and make their lives better, and heal them. But with Pharah, there was the feeling of also being cared for. Of knowing there was someone to catch her when she fell.

Her hair was carefully placed back in it’s every present clip, her lab coat slipped off, and a soothingly soft sweater put in its place. It was such a small shift, but suddenly Mercy was no longer at work, but admiring the spread Pharah began to lay out on the table, fruits and olives and cheeses, complimented by beautifully cut and arranged breads and crackers, some lovely small cakes tucked into the corner of it, an extra bottle of wine in deference to what might have been a hard day for Mercy.

It would always be difficult for Mercy to articulate how very much she loved her wife. How much her calm, still, reliable demeanor absolutely filled her with a peace she had never known elsewhere. When Pharah did something, it would always be done well, just as this. When Pharah promised something, it was an oath on her life. When the world was so unpredictable, Pharah was always a safe harbor. They did not make love stories about things like that, about people like her, for the world did not understand the remarkable gift of her. Even Pharah herself might not understand that she was a rare treasure indeed.

Mercy felt the tension leave her shoulders in the candlelight, as Pharah pressed a glass of the deep red into her hand.

“Thank you, for all of this.” Mercy smiled as she took a sip. “You did so much work, Schatzi.”

“Oh no,” Pharah shook her head, and poured her own small glass of wine, “It was this, or I sat in the office and listened to Tracer make ridiculous arguments about the plans for the new headquarters. This was much more productive, as a use of my time.” She smiled to Mercy. “You saved me.”

“You have saved me,” Mercy looked at her beautiful, powerful, wonderful wife, “in every way a person can be saved.”

Pharah stopped a moment. “I love you. That’s everything you need to know. I always will.” She took Mercy’s chin in her hand, and kissed her gently. “Now. I can guess that you have eaten exactly nothing today.”

Mercy didn’t even try to argue, simply shook her head as Pharah, not needing a response to know what was true, began to prepare her a plate. Mercy took the napkin into her lap, continuing her sips of wine and enjoying the warm and loving glow surrounding her, a magic she never could have imagined for herself.

The mice weren’t cooperating. But somehow, surrounded by twinkling lights in the warm coziness of everything Pharah had managed to make in a forgotten closet in a research wing, everything seemed possible. The world and whatever its truths might be could lay outside the door all they wanted, but in here, Mercy only needed to know one thing:

Pharah loved her, and she loved Pharah.

#valentine's prompts #HON HON HON #seolh

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sadclownkingg · 4 years

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A Scene-by-Scene Joker (2019) Analysis: Part 1/?

The first part of what I wrote in my Cursed Notebook™ instead of sleeping/doing my schoolwork a month ago. Basically what I did is I watched the movie one time through, then started it over from the beginning and stopped after every scene to recap and infer what Arthur’s inner thoughts/motivations are. I went through an entire pen writing all this down and I was also very sleep-deprived so prepare yourselves. (I’ve also seen this movie 12 times now so I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about, but if you have any concerns, just message me!)

Before the Movie (+ Diagnosis):

Arthur Fleck is completely alone in this world, with no one to lean on except for his mother. And he is forced to take care of her due to her old age and fragility, all the while facing near-total isolation and societal backlash for just trying to do his job or his neurological condition/mental illness.

Given the abuse he faced as a child, at the hands of his mother's boyfriend, and the head trauma explicitly mentioned later in the film, that could be the origin of his Pseudobulbar affect (pathological laughter). Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) "is a condition that's characterized by episodes of sudden uncontrollable and inappropriate laughing or crying. Pseudobulbar affect typically occurs in people with certain neurological conditions or injuries, which might affect the way the brain controls emotion," and has "traumatic brain injury" as a common cause. The way I see it, the "severe trauma to his head" he experienced as a kid is the direct cause of his pathological laughter, meaning that he has spent the vast majority of his life dealing with this condition and it is mainly his own mother's fault. This makes the fact that his "mother" is the only person he has left even more frustrating and tragic. Pseudobulbar Affect is also known to cause/amplify anxiety, depression, and social isolation, meaning his obvious depressive symptoms may stem from the rejection he feels due to his laughing condition.

Also, although I know that even the writers behind the film say that diagnosing Arthur is pretty much useless, I still feel it is important to mention some possible diagnoses. Due to his severe depression throughout the majority of the movie, one could assume he simply has Clinical Depression. However, when paired with his transformation into the Joker at the end of the film and his obviously manic state, this leads one to believe that Bipolar Disorder could be the culprit. But then there is also his hallucinations and delusions, which suggests the presence of some type of schizophrenia. Psychosis, or loss of touch with reality (exhibited by the aforementioned hallucinations and delusions), is a symptom commonly linked with schizophrenia and similar disorders, and is typically caused by trauma and extreme stress. The psychotic episodes we see in the film, from his relationship with Sophie to the audience reactions we hear when he's practicing for the Murray Franklin Show, all center around either erotomanic delusions or grandiose delusions. Erotomanic delusions are when the disordered person believes someone is in love with them with no real evidence (Sophie), and grandiose delusions are when the person believes that they have much greater worth and power than they do, and that they may be famous with a bunch of adoring fans (the Joker persona).

With the presence of psychotic episodes, this narrows the amount of possible diagnoses. It is unlikely that Psychotic Disorder or Paranoid/Hebephrenic Schizophrenia are responsible due to their explicit tendency to completely disrupt the sufferer's life and negatively affect communication/speech patterns (which isn't noticeable in Arthur's case). Delusional Disorder seems likely, but he meets too many of the criteria of another disorder for it to be his sole diagnosis. This disorder is Schizoaffective Disorder, and is "a chronic mental health condition that involves symptoms of both schizophrenia and a mood disorder like major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder.” This diagnosis seems much more apt for Arthur, due to the heavy emphasis on his depressive and manic states and the delusional/hallucinatory symptoms. Schizoaffective Disorder is also likely caused by extreme stress (which Arthur faces a lot of) or structural brain issues (head trauma can cause structures in the brain to be damaged).

Sorry for the long tangent, but I felt it was necessary to set the scene for how Arthur processes the events that happen to him throughout the film.

His mental illness and condition make his life incredibly difficult and emotionally draining. Even his job, which is something he seems to really enjoy, only causes more problems for him, and pushes more people away. And even though he loves his job, he dreams of being comedian rather than just a party clown, probably hoping for more respect while still doing the thing he loves: making people laugh. His sense of humor is rather off-beat, focusing on self-deprecation, dry humor, and sometimes revolving around morbid subject matter, so he instead changes it to better fit what style of humor is generally accepted by those around him. He really tries to do what he wants to do in life, but everyone around him seems to just want him to sit and stay quiet. No matter what he does the people around him are never satisfied. He's doing too much and too little at the same time. He's trying to gain recognition, and people stop that from happening, then he just tries to lay low and let life happen and people look on him with disdain, as he's just another poor person who "isn't trying hard enough" to escape his current life of near-poverty. His job pays the bills, and is the sole source of income as Penny is obviously to ill to work.

No one wants to stop and give him a chance. He feels as though the world is getting more and more incompatible with every aspect of who he is. The city he's lived in his whole life is getting buried in trash from the garbage strike. His mother is getting sicker. The therapy he’s getting is sub-par and the social programs he relies on are gradually being defunded, another way people are shoving him aside. His dreams are as far away as they've ever been, or maybe even further away, and it feels like he is going nowhere but down. He's grown disillusioned with the idea of socializing in order to solely get to know someone because no one ever does the same for him. People ignore his existence, and his mother, the only person he has, is only there because she's too old and sick to have a choice. He's trying so desperately to be happy but it's painful.

(Next Scene: Opening)

#long post #joker 2019 #joaquin pheonix joker #arthur fleck #joker analysis #joker headcanons #film analysis #joker movie #welcome to the first (of many) circles of hell #my post #hopefully i'll have the next scene typed out and posted by tomorrow but we'll see #i gotta come up with a tag 4 this if i ever want to find this again #cursed notebook #there thats my tag #idc anymore

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katehuntington · 5 years

Text

Title: Changes - part five Word count: ±4000 words Summary “Changes”: Huntress Zoë Sullivan (OFC) crosses paths and swords with the Winchesters, when the brothers stumble on a case she’s already working. When complications arise, they are forced to work together. Summary part five: While Dean catches up on some sleep after being shot, Sam goes over Zoë’s research, curious to find out more about the case and the intriguing huntress. A whole lot more is revealed, however, once Zoë wakes up. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures. Demon possession, supernatural creatures/entities. Smut, swearing, alcohol use/addiction. Kidnapping, mentions of torture and murder, illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Music: Down By The River - Neil Young, Look But You Can’t Touch - Poison, Changes - Black Sabbath. Author’s note: I couldn’t be more excited to share Supernatural: The Sullivan Series with you. There are quite a few people I want to thank: @coffee-obsessed-writer, @soupornatural & @mrswhozeewhatsis, who edited the early drafts, and my girls @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish & @winchest09 who are deciphering the recent version. Everyone who encouraged me to go for it, you are awesome!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist 01x01 “Changes” Masterlist

Sunshine peeks through the red curtains, like a little kid playing hide and seek. The beams of light illuminate motes of dust, which playfully dance in the air. Thunder and rain have moved on and made room for the sun to brighten the Northern state. It’s past noon and Sam is seated at the table, which is entirely filled with papers, books, files, and both his and Zoë’s laptops. Concentrated, he goes through documents on Zoë’s Macbook, preparing for the next encounter with the shapeshifter. Neil Young is singing Down By The River on the radio, so softly, that he has to listen carefully to make out the words.

Besides traffic rushing by on Route 52 right next to the motel, it’s peaceful. Dean stirs in the double bed, but settles again and continues to sleep while snoring softly, causing his brother to look up and grin. He’s not sure what’s funnier; the fact that Dean is neither sleeping on the floor nor on the couch as Zoë persisted earlier, or that she’s actually the one sleeping next to him. Just before 8 o'clock she finished up the last stitch on Dean. Sam still doesn’t know if Zoë actually knew what she was doing, but she did great. After a night like last night, neither of them gave a damn who slept next to whom.

He thought Dean was hard-headed, but Zoë takes the cake, which is without doubt the reason why they can’t stand each other. It is unimaginable now, but they must have gotten along fine before, otherwise Dean wouldn’t have remembered her. Hell, he doesn’t even remember some of the girls he hooked up with, not to mention the girls he didn’t. If Sam may believe his brother, she was this fun, sweet and caring student, living the good life. A typical Californian girl, loved to surf and hang out on the beach. Also quite a musician; apparently she’s pretty good with a guitar. That’s what Dean told him on their way over to the motel anyway. She worked hard to become a surgeon, aiming for neurology. Then that demon came along and fucked it all up.

Sam sighs, sympathizing with the young woman. Why do bad things always happen to good people? Now look what she has become. She's a hunter, one that is damn good at her job, but still. She could have ended up with so much more. It turns out that everyone in this line of work needs history to get lost in the world of monsters. He hasn't heard the whole story yet and Zoë doesn't seem to feel like sharing, but one thing is for sure; she uses her intelligence that got her into med school to her advantage as a hunter. The supernatural database she’s built is outstanding, especially taking into account that the first file dates from 2001, a little over four years ago. She is dedicated, that’s for sure.

He looks over at the young woman, who is sleeping peacefully, curled up on her right side, eyes closed and breathing calmly. It’s weird to see the huntress like that; she seems so vulnerable now. Not entirely, though, because even in her sleep, the huntress seems to have the upper hand on Dean. She has claimed the covers and is comfortably cocooned by them, not leaving much for Sam’s brother. He doesn’t seem to be bothered, though. It will take a lot to wake Dean up after what went down this morning. He was in agony during the procedure, probably wishing he had taken her offer for a sedation when he had the chance. The pain took its toll, knocking him out soon after Zoë ran the last stitch through his skin. After he had his burger, of course.

The light from outside shines a graceful glow on Zoë’s pretty face; she seems to be smiling slightly. Their roommate for the night might act like a total bitch, especially to Dean, but Sam finds her attractive. It isn’t just the fact that she’s a beautiful woman; it’s her attitude, too. Zoë has proven already to be incredibly intelligent, not to mention independent. She stands her ground and doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. Since they have met, he saw both fire and ice in her eyes; she’s a force of nature to be reckoned with. However, he has to be honest with himself. After what happened to Jess, he can’t think of her like that, not now.

His eyes are taken over by sadness as his thoughts go back to that moment, almost a month ago. He shifts in his chair, causing it to creak. He doesn’t have time to dwell in his sorrow, because out of nowhere, Zoë bolts up startled and pulls a gun from under her pillow. “Whoa!" Sam shows his hands in innocence. Puzzled, the huntress stares at him, then aside at Dean, only then lowering the gun. “Guess it wasn’t a weird dream,” she mutters with a raspy voice. “No, I guess it wasn’t. Holy shit.” He relaxes again when Zoë flips the safety switch of the gun and puts it back under her pillow. “I’m not used to having people around, that’s all,” she excuses as she intends to get out of bed. “I think paranoid is a better description,” Sam comments. “Shut up,” Zoë sneers, clearly not in a good mood. “What time is it?” “Almost one,” Sam replies, concentrating on the computer screen again. Not even five hours, she realizes; although it’s past midday, she didn’t get much sleep.

She licks her lips and swallows thickly, trying to get rid of the bad taste in her mouth. Not a great way to wake up, she still feels like roadkill. The amount of whiskey she drank last night, followed by fries and a burger, didn’t help either. Thankfully, it’s still pretty dark in the room. Her eyes can’t handle the bright light from outside just yet. A moan escapes her mouth as she gets up, her hand covering her painful abdomen. God, it seems even worse than last night, but she’s not worried. It’s normal to feel sore, unfortunately this is not the first time she’s been shot. Slowly, she shuffles to the bathroom while Sam watches her. “You alright?” he wonders, surprised by her condition. “Yeah, just a bit hungover,” she lies.

Sam decides not to ask any more questions. They may have only just met, but he’s under the distinct impression that he won’t get far if he goes at her with the third degree. He turns back to his laptop, watching an installation program proceed. The county website of Rochester is hidden in the lowest toolbar, and finally the slow moving progress bar hits a hundred percent. A program opens and asks for a password. “Damn it!” Sam curses. How on earth is he gonna crack this? He is pretty skilled with a computer, but he’s not a hacker. “What?” The voice comes from the bathroom, it’s just now that Sam hears the shower running. “Nothing,” he responds, absently. Zoë decides not to ask again. Besides, it’s not like she actually cares. The cleansing water coming from the showerhead feels like acid on her stitched up bullet wound, but at the same time it’s relieving. She rakes her fingers through her hair and lets the water rain down on her face. The silence bothers Zoë, she could use a little music to start her day. “Could you turn on the radio?” Silence. Sam is so focused on his work, that he doesn’t hear her. “Sam!” Zoë shouts over the noise of the shower. He snaps out of it. “What?” “Could you turn up the radio?” she repeats. “Dean’s asleep,” he reacts, typing strenuously. “So?” Again, Sam fails to respond. “Hello?!” “What? No, I can’t work with music,” he mutters thoughtlessly.

Zoë doesn’t ask again. Dean - knowing her better - would’ve probably noticed that unusual fact, but it’s not until Zoë walks by, completely naked and dripping wet, that she catches Sam’s attention. “Holy sh--" He swallows down the last word and quickly snaps his head away, almost falling off his chair. Not even a bit uncomfortable, the huntress elegantly parades to the table, leaving footprint shaped puddles in her wake. She bends over to turn up the volume, getting into Sam’s personal space. Look But You Can’t Touch by Poison blares from the radio once she gives the button a spin, but she doesn’t leave just yet. Amused, she turns to face him, leaning against the table, provokingly. The younger Winchester brother awkwardly tries to keep his eyes from wandering; it’s obvious he’s ill-at-ease.

“Never seen a naked woman before, geekboy?” “You could have warned me,” he responds, his voice slightly higher than usual, still looking away with wide opened eyes. “You could have turned up the radio,” she counters. Only when Zoë moves away from him again, he breathes out. When he’s pretty sure it’s safe to turn his head, Sam carefully glances at the bathroom. Thank God, she’s back in the shower. Again he rubs his face and stares at his brother for a moment, who’s still asleep. “Dean, you have no idea what you just missed,” he mumbles, before the huntress’ voice startles him again. “What’s that?” Sam shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares back at the bathroom. “N-nothing!” he responds, too fast. Not a sound.

She’s not gonna come back out again, is she? Sam swallows apprehensively and tries to concentrate on his work, but he finds it difficult to do so. Whoa, I mean, really… Whoa. She might behave like a total bitch, but she’s breathtaking. He only had a glance, but the image is carved in his memory. Curvy, yet muscular; it’s clear she’s fit. He hits himself in the head; he cannot think of her like that. She’s a bitch, not sexy. Bitch, not sexy. Suddenly, he hears her voice echo from the bathroom. At first it scares Sam, because for a moment, it sounds like she’s right behind him, but then he’s pleasantly surprised as she joins in during the chorus of the song playing on the radio. “‘cause you can look but you can't touch, cause the best things in life ain't cheap. You can look but you can't touch, cause baby I ain't for keeps,” she sings, teasingly. Again, he peeks at the bathroom. He can see her pretty much perfect silhouette through the blurred glass, and he quickly turns his head. Sam Winchester, keep it together! He’s disgusted by the fact that he can’t keep his eyes off her, but then again, any man who could, isn’t interested in the opposite sex.

The song fades into a new one, this time an easy listener: Changes by Black Sabbath. Not particularly a happy song, and it changes the mood in the room. “What’s up with the whole vampire lifestyle?” Zoë asks out of nowhere, after a long silence. Apparently, she doesn’t feel like singing anymore. She closes the faucet and the sound of the water falling down on the ivory colored tiles stops. “What?” Sam looks over at her, puzzled, although he can’t see her behind the glass. “There are about half a dozen empty coffee containers on the table.” Her voice sounds hollow in the empty bathroom, but Sam can hear her loud and clear. She opens the shower door and grabs her towel. It takes Sam a while to answer her question, as he’s trying to decide whether he should tell her or not. “I can’t sleep,” he answers shortly, choosing the latter. “Sure you’re not craving for human blood?” she jokes. Behind the blurred glass she shimmies in a pair of jeans and puts on her bra. “It’s nothing like that, really. It’s--” He pauses, scratching his chin, finding it difficult to talk about it, “- it’s Jessica.”

His thoughts wander as he folds his hands together and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at a single pixel on the screen. Suddenly, it’s not that difficult to disregard the attractive Zoë. For a moment he pictures her, his pretty Jess. Long, curly blonde hair, that beautiful smile. God, she was gorgeous in every way. He was in love with her, he still is. “Girlfriend?” Zoë assumes. “Yeah, well… She was,” he answers with difficulty. “Oh, I see,” Zoë grins, thinking she got it figured. She enters the main room while she buttons her white-grey plaid blouse. “She dumped you, huh?” Sam remains quiet and leans back in his chair. He takes a sip from his coffee, still staring into nothingness. Meanwhile, Zoë sits down on her side of the mattress and takes a bottle of painkillers from the nightstand, popping two pills to dull the pain. She pulls a pair of socks and black leather ankle boots out of a backpack underneath her bed, putting them on while she glances at Sam. “You dumped her and regret it?” Zoë tries again.

He swallows thickly, trying to get rid of the lump that is building in his throat. Then he looks her straight in the eye, only for a few seconds, before he averts them down to the carpet again. It spooks her, the sudden and penetrating gaze, and she pauses her actions. But Sam is not angry with the huntress, who is shocked by what she sees in the depths of his pupils. So much sorrow, so much guilt. She knows that look, she knows it way too well.

“She’s dead,” she realizes. Sam doesn’t need to tell her, but he confirms with a nod, almost unnoticeable. She looks down at her boots, feeling sorry for him for the first time since they’ve met. Showing those feelings isn’t something she’s comfortable with, so she keeps it plain. “Because of something we hunt?” she asks carefully. “Yeah,” he answers shortly, looking at the empty coffee container in his hand.

An eerie silence falls over them, as the image of Jessica returns to his thoughts once again, the vision clear as a bell. This time he doesn’t see her smiling, he sees her in the state that he found her. He grinds his teeth, trying to ban the haunting memory from his mind. While Sam struggles, Zoë observes him, noticing something about the youngest Winchester that feels familiar, something she recognizes. He’s grieving, trying to cope with the impossible. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says, pronouncing the words somewhat like a doctor would do, monotone and distant. It’s about as compassionate as Zoë gets these days, and although Sam only encountered her a couple of hours ago, he seems to realize it. When he looks up, his eyes glisten. He doesn't say a word, but gives her a thankful nod. Although this is a painful moment, she cannot drop the question that led to the reveal. “I can’t help but notice, though, that you’re not completely honest with me.” She gets up from the bed and shoves the curtains aside, letting the bright sunlight in. Dean, facing the window, groans and turns his head. He breathes in deeply and lets out a sigh, but doesn’t wake up. When Zoë’s sure he’s still out, she continues. “You see, you say you can’t sleep. I think you can, but just don’t want to. Otherwise you wouldn’t need six large cups of coffee to stay awake,” she analyses smartly.

Sam glances at the empty containers on the table and scoffs; someone’s observant. Seems like she’s figuring him out in record time. Strangely, he doesn’t feel uncomfortable. Actually, he wants to tell her. Dean knows his little brother has nightmares about the dreadful event, but doesn’t know the whole truth. Sam doesn’t want to worry him or raise a red flag just yet, he’d rather figure out what’s going on first. But for some reason, the younger Winchester has the urge to open up. He trusts the huntress enough to reveal some of his darkest secrets, yet there’s a fair amount of distance between them to avoid awkwardness. Where that trust comes from, he’s not sure. It’s more than a gut feeling. If he didn’t know better, he would describe it as instinct. Sam looks over at Dean; he’s still sound asleep. Zoë notices. “You’re worried about him?” She huffs, looking back at the younger brother. “Don’t. You’ll need to set off a bomb before he wakes up.” Sam chuckles; seems like she’s got Dean figured out as well. He knows the two have more history than his brother let on, but he doubts that it was sexual, otherwise Dean would have bragged about it. Yet Sam can tell from the non-verbal communication that their bond lies deeper. Dean was there when her life got turned upside down, maybe he had a significant role to play in saving her from that demon. Whatever the origin of their strange relationship, it has them bickering like an old married couple.

Hesitation has him pondering. He trusts the female hunter, and on a certain level, so does Dean. But enough to allow her a glimpse at the skeletons in his closet? “I have these nightmares,” he blurts and then pauses, deciding that he might as well give her the whole story. “Let’s put it this way: I'd rather stay awake than have to experience them.” Zoë strolls through the room and halts on the other side, leaning against the wall; she seems interested all of a sudden. “Nightmares, huh?” she repeats, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “What do you dream about?” “All sorts of things. Bad things happening to people I don’t even know. Except for the first one.” He stares at the floor again. The huntress knows enough. “You dream about Jessica, didn’t you?” He nods. “Thing is, I don’t just dream about her now...” A shuddering exhale leaves his lips. Here goes nothing. “I saw her die... days before it happened.”

Zoë doesn’t respond, yet continues to intently observe him. He’s unable to read the huntress, but surprisingly enough, she doesn’t seem shocked by the statement. Sam glances over at Dean again, making sure he’s still asleep. Not wanting him to hear the conversation, he continues with a lowered voice. “I can’t put my finger on it. How is it even possible that I see an event take place days before it actually happens? It almost seems like--” “- a vision?” she fills in. “Yeah,” Sam whispers. “Come on, it’s strange. Even for people like us.” “It is strange.” Zoë bites her lip again; it seems to be a habit. “Do you have headaches?” she wonders, out of the blue. Puzzled, Sam glances up at her, but she doesn’t blink. “Yeah. I do, actually,” he realizes. “But with everything going on with Jess and Dad--” “John?” Zoë intervenes. “Yeah. He’s missing,” Sam clears up. The huntress scoffs. “Aha. He’s good at that sort of thing.” Sam registers the cynical tone and narrows his eyes, but decides to ignore the comment. “This is different. He just took off one night, left Dean and disappeared. That’s when my brother came to Stanford,” Sam tells her. “To drag your ass back into the family business?” “Yeah. I guess that was his intention, but it isn’t the reason why I’m hunting again,” he says. “Mom was murdered, and now Jess? It’s too much of a coincidence, especially with Dad gone. Something’s up.” She walks back to the window and observes the parking lot outside. It’s a great day, the sun is shining brightly, smiling down at Rochester. It’s almost ironic, working on a dark case and discussing these family matters during weather so sunny; it doesn’t fit the picture. “Maybe something snatched him,” she mentions, not even considering that this conclusion might upset Sam. “No,” he counters fiercely. “Since when do monsters make such an effort to cover up the death of a hunter? When they take one of us, they leave a body for others to find.” She frowns at that, nodding slightly. Sam has a point. “You think he’s on a hunting trip?” “I think he’s hunting down the son of a bitch that killed Mom and Jess,” Sam speaks up.

Zoë continues to stare at the passing cars on the freeway and pulls on her bottom lip with her teeth, thinking about his assumption. The younger Winchester is probably right. John has always been obsessed with the thing that killed his wife and he will do anything to get revenge. No matter what the consequences, no matter what the sacrifice. She sits down on the bed again, this time not facing the window, but Sam. His girlfriend, his mother’s death, John Winchester’s disappearance, maybe even the nightmares, this could all be connected. Without making eye contact, she frowns and lets a sigh escape her chest. “Are you absolutely sure that the thing that killed your mother came back, Sam? ’Cause this could be pretty damn important,” she urges. This time she does observe him, her dark eyes boring deeply into his. He gazes back, hurt by the memories resurfacing, yet confident. “I saw my girlfriend, pinned on the ceiling, bleeding on me, after which she caught fire. The same way Dad saw Mom burn.” Sam pronounces his words slowly, his voice breaks halfway through the sentence. Zoë can imagine the scenario haunts him. He relives it, every day, every time he thinks of her. “It’s the same monster,” Zoë realizes, as the pieces begin to fall into place.

The young Winchester doesn’t respond, not until has picked up her biker’s jacket from the chair and heads for the door. “Where are you going?” “I’m gonna check on my Dave. I thought I heard a sputter in the engine last night,” Zoë explains, but halts by the door. “One more question.” Sam waits patiently, looking at her from where he’s seated. She seems to hesitate, but then continues without looking him in the eye. “Do you have them during the day?” “What? The nightmares?” he returns, puzzled. She nods, glancing up at him now. “Wouldn’t be nightmares then, would they?” he returns, not understanding her reasoning behind the question. “You’re right, never mind. I’ll grab some lunch on my way back in. Meanwhile, good luck getting that brother of yours out of his coma.”

The door closes, and Sam is left with his unconscious sibling. The younger Winchester shakes his head while he scoffs. She’s a strange girl, that Zoë Sullivan. She has a dark sense of humor; sarcastic, cynical. Arrogant, even more so than Dean; now that’s a new one. It doesn’t happen very often that they come across someone who can knock the older Winchester on his ass. Or is all that big talk just a facade she’s trying to keep up? She seems bitter, even cruel at times, but her heart isn’t all black, not yet. Sam believes there’s a lot more under the surface. Loneliness, anger, frustration, sorrow, fear; he knows those feelings and deep down, Zoë probably knows them, too.

There’s something about her that he recognizes. All three of them lost their normal lives because of something supernatural. Dean was four years old when he was introduced to this world so few people know about, and grew up in it. Zoë, on the other hand, was twenty-one when she found out. He himself stepped back from the hunting fields and was about to study law at Stanford, until a few weeks ago, that is. Sure, Dean might pretend that he embraces his hunting career and that ordinary is dull, but if he ever gets the chance, Dean would want out, too. All of them were normal up to a certain point in their lives, and that’s what they have to hold on to. It gives them the slightest bit of hope they need to keep going, believing that one day they might be able to return to that simple life. Whatever happens, though, things will never be the same again. People died and won’t ever come back. They will always know. They will always be looking over their shoulder. They will always be hunters.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to reblog my work or buy me coffee (Link in bio at the top of the page)

Read part six here

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imaginetonyandbucky · 6 years

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Can someone do a story where the Soldier is the main personality in bucky/winter headspace and that he sides with tony in the whole winter soldier civil war arc? It can have anything else but i would perfer no steve/tony. Thankyou.

Combined with:

May I have post-CW angst please? Heart-wrenching, sad sad angst. Happy ending, ofc. Please, no Steve bashing - both Tony and Bucky love their friend.

No Steve bashing was SUPER easy, since I love Steve and would never bash him, even when he’s made some pretty dumbass decisions. :D I’m not sure I was able to give AwesomeBees exactly what she wanted (I couldn’t bring myself to have the Winter Soldier as the main personality, and I know my feelings on the Accords are pretty clear), but I tried!

On AO3

Everything Good

“Hey,Boss,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, “Captain Rogers is on the phone. He wantsto speak to you.”

Itwas late afternoon at the Facility, and Tony had his hands full—literally—with Rhodey,helping him during one of his physio sessions. Honestly, Rhodey was lucky he wasgripping the parallel bars, because Tony was so shocked he nearly dropped him.

“Uh,yeah. Put him through, Fri. Wait.” Tony glanced at the therapist, thengrimaced apologetically at Rhodey. “You two good without me, kids?”

“Yousure you’re up for this, Tones?” Rhodey asked instead of answering. Tonywas sure he’d have put his hand on Tony’s shoulder if he didn’t need both ofthem to hold onto the bars for dear life. He’d come a long way in the lastcouple months or so, but a spinal injury wasn’t something you could just walkoff. Even with a mobile brace.

Unlessyou were Steve Rogers, probably. Not that Tony had come close to paralyzinghim. That had been more what Tony had done to Bucky, though for a moment thereTony had honestly thought Steve was going to decapitate him and he reallyneeded to stop thinking about that.

“Iwas born up for this, Rhodeybear,” Tony said. He was absolutely certainhis grin looked 100% fake, but he held it like parallel bars while Rhodeystared at him. Tony let that painfully accessing gaze settle until Rhodey justlet out a breath and gave Tony a sad, knowing smile.

“Just,be careful,” Rhodey said. “I know how hard this whole thing’s been onyou. I don't—”

“Ipromise I’ll be home by midnight with a full tank of gas, Dad,” Tony saidbreezily, cutting Rhodey off. He turned his back and strode to the locker rooms,waving over his shoulder and taking merciless advantage of how his best friendcouldn’t follow him. It was a dick move for sure; just one more thing to feel guiltyabout. God knew Tony was used to that.

(More after the break!)

“Okay,F.R.I.D.A.Y., put him through.” Tony was sitting on the bench in theshower cubicle he’d designed specifically for Rhodey. Half the showers hadalready been disabled-accessible (never knew when one of the regular-humantypes would be badly injured), but Tony had made sure the one for Rhodey wasspacious, non-slip and top of the line for ease of use. He also knew he hadabout half an hour at least before Rhodey would finish his physio and wheel orstagger his way in here to use it.

Andhey, Tony could always take a shower after the call, if he needed to scrubhimself clean. Win/win.

“Tony?”

Thatwas…Yeah, okay, that was definitely Steve’s voice. But also not Steve’s voice.In that Tony had never heard Steve sound like that. Not even in Tony’sScarlett-Witchy hallucination where the guy was dying. Steve had just soundedaccusing, then. Angry. Of course, that hadn’t been reality, just Tony’s ownfucked-up brain playing pretend. Not that things had ended up particularlydifferently in reality, really. Other than nobody dying.

Notfor lack of tying, Tony’s brain couldn’t help pointing out. He knewhe needed to stop doing that.

But,Steve. Specifically his voice. Tony had never heard Steve sound that badbefore. Steve sounded terrible. Not just tired, though if hewas still in Wakanda it was going on 1:00 AM. No, Steve sounded like he was atthe end of his rope, but there wasn’t enough slack to tie a knot. And therewere hungry wolves circling in the ravine.

LikeTony had felt in the missile silo, watching Steve pick up his friend and walkaway.

“Yeah,it’s me,” Tony said, heart pounding. Normally he might’ve added somethinglike, ‘What’s up, Capsicle?’, go for bravado when inwardly he was quailing. ButSteve sounded like death and he’d never appreciated Tony’s pretense anyway. SoTony went for honesty instead. “You sound terrible. What’s wrong?”

“Ithink….” Steve took a breath that sounded like he he’d been crying.“I think Bucky’s dead.”

Tonynearly dropped his phone. As it was, if it’d been anything other than aStarkphone his white-knuckled grip might’ve cracked the screen. “Oh myGod,” he said, hushed with sudden, aching fear. “What do you mean,you think he’s dead? What happened?” A million scenarios were alreadyswarming like hornets through Tony’s mind: Bucky vanished in the Wakandanwilderness; Bucky abducted by Ross, or Hydra, or taken by one of the manycountries where Hydra had unleashed him; Bucky trapped in his broken Wakandan cryochamber, entombed like a bug in amber; Bucky in a coma, succumbing to poison orillness or (Dear God, please no) the unforeseen effects ofthe damage Tony inflicted on him.

“Was…wasit me? What I did?” Tony asked, small-voiced with terror. It was horriblyselfish, disgustingly self-centered of him to even ask. But Tony couldn’t not.If Bucky died, part of Steve would die with him. Tony didn’t think he couldhandle finding Bucky only to lose him again. But if Bucky died and it was Tony’s fault….

Therewould be no hope for reconciliation, no hope for the Avengers ever again. Tonywould have gained a nemesis worse than anything he could every imagine. Otherthan himself.

“Wedon’t know,” Steve said, and maybe it was the lack of certainty, but ithit like a fist to Tony’s solar plexus. A metal fist to his reactor and God he needed to fucking stop.“Shuri said…” Stevepaused, obviously steeling himself. “She said it was possible. That…that theshock of his arm being destroyed like that might’ve caused some neurologicaldamage. And then there was the kick to the head.”

Tonyclosed his eyes, clutching the phone to his ear so he wouldn’t slam it into theshower wall. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice thick and rough and gratingin his ears. “Steve. I—”

“Isaid we don’t know, Tony,” Steve cut him off, as ifthat was supposed to make him feel better. “Shuri said it was possible.But, Winter said it didn’t make a difference.”

Tonyhad spoken to Shuri, before. She’d assumed Steve and Bucky would want to comeback to the U.S. at some point, so as a courtesy she’d sent Tony the specs forBucky’s new arm. It was a sleek, beautiful thing he was privileged to be ableto understand. Shuri was still a child, but her intellect already shone like asun.

Hedidn’t know Winter, but it was a terrible relief to have someone say whateverhappened wasn’t Tony’s fault. Except it was hard to imagine Shuri being wrongabout anything. “Is Winter a neurologist?”

Hecould practically hear Steve’s confusion. “No,” he said.“Winter’s Bucky.”

Tonywaited a beat, then another. It still didn’t make any sense. “I don’tunderstand,” he said, though something in Steve’s voice had a cold, quietdread creeping up Tony’s spine.

“Winter’sBucky,” Steve said, as if it would be more comprehensible with repetition.His sigh sounded as heavy as the ice that buried him. “The doctorswho…accessed him said it’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder.” He madea sound that had almost nothing to do with laughing. “I didn’t even know thatwas a thing that could happen to people. But, yeah. Bucky isn't…Bucky anymore.He calls himself ‘Winter’. He’s not the Winter Soldier,” Steve addedquickly, “He hasn’t done anything like what happened in Berlin. He hasn’thurt anyone at all. He’s just….” Steve pulled in another breath thatshuddered. “He’s not Bucky.”

Tonyhadn’t even been thinking about the terrifying, snarling juggernaut who’d beatthe shit out of him in Berlin, but that didn’t stop ice flooding his guts whenSteve reminded him. Tony knew Shuri had removed the trigger words from Bucky’shead. But, yeah. Nice to hear Steve’s bestie hadn’t shoved him through anotherwall.

“Why?”Tony asked, still trying to wrap his head around Dissociative IdentityDisorder and Steve calling him for anything. “Whathappened?”

“Idon’t know.” Steve swallowed. “Winter said he needed to protectBucky. After…after what happened. So he wasn't…he wasn’t gonna let him outanymore. And. And I tried to talk to Bucky, but Winter wouldn’t let me. And…andwhat if he’s dead? What if he’s not, not even there anymorebecause it’s just Winter now? What if Bucky’s gone, and, andI—”

Stevestarted sobbing. Great, wracking gulps of air, each one followed by ashuddering gasp like cracking bone. “What if he’s dead,Tony? Oh, God. Oh, my God. What do I do? What am I going to do?”

“Whoa,whoa. Shh. It’s okay. Nobody’s dead, Steve,” Tony tried. Then,“Bucky’s not dead!” Forcefully, when Steve just made a broken noiseof negation. “That’s not how it works! It doesn’t work like that. Honest.I’m no expert, but, it doesn’t work like that. None of the identities die,okay? They’re just…in the background. Or something. I’m not sure about thatpart. But I promise you, Bucky is not dead.”

“Really?”Steve sniffled. He sounded so desperate for hope that Tony, who had troublewith other peoples’ emotions at the best of times, nearly broke down himself.“You’re sure? He wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Yeah,well, you said Winter was protecting him, right? So, he’s probably in his happyplace. I wouldn’t want to come out either.” Tony winced, wondering ifSteve would think that sounded as much like bullshit as Tony did. He stood andleft the shower stall, then strode into the hallway with his phone mashed tohis ear. He knew appallingly little about psychology, considering how manydisorders he’d been diagnosed with over the years. It was about an eight hourflight to Wakanda in a Quinjet; plenty of time to read up on the subject.

Notthat he had any idea what he’d do about it, once he gotthere. But, Steve had called him for a reason. And even if that was tomore-or-less accuse Tony of making Bucky mentally ill, Tony couldn’t listen toSteve crying his guts out and just do nothing. “I’m heading to the landingpad right now. I can be at the palace in eight hours. Do you want me to bringanything? Anyone?” he asked, thinking as he moved. “Wanda’s offsomewhere with Vision, but she’s got that hand-wavy telepathy stuff. Icould—”

“Winterwanted to talk to you,” Steve said. “He didn’t say why, exactly. But itsounded like he wants assurance you’re not going to try to kill him anymore.”

Tonystopped moving so fast he practically gave himself whiplash in the corridor.His first reaction was a blood-hot flare of rage. “You sure as fuck neverpull your punches, do you?”

Therewas a second of stunned silence. “I don’t understand,” Steve said atlast. “I just meant, Winter doesn’t want Bucky to come out. And, he reallywanted to talk to you. So I thought…maybe if you can promise you won't…attackhim again, it’ll help?”

Tonyforced back the anger he knew wasn’t really aimed at Steve. “I don’t getit, though. Why would that help? I mean, I won’t attack him again.” Itfelt important to say it out loud. “But, it’s not like I’m a threat to himwithout my armor. When I tried to fight him in Berlin he kicked my ass.”

“Thatwas the Winter Soldier,” Steve said. “The trigger words compelled himto come out.”

“Oh.”There wasn’t much else he could say to that. It made sense, considering howBucky had seemed more lethal before the silo. Which, honestly, only made Tonyfeel that much worse. He rubbed his forehead. “You really think Winter’staken over for Bucky because of me?”

“Idon’t know,” Steve repeated bleakly. “But…you really hurt him, whenyou blasted his arm. And I think you would’ve killed him if I hadn’t stoppedyou.” He hesitated, maybe waiting for Tony to deny it. Tony couldn’t.“So,” Steve went on a too-long moment later, “maybe that’s whatWinter was thinking about. When he took over. That this way you couldn’t hurt Buckyanymore.”

“Fuck,”Tony muttered. Like he didn’t already feel badly enough about this whole mess. “Look.Steve? I…” He gritted his teeth. No time like the excruciating present,right? “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I am so, so fucking sorry for whathappened. I know the Accords ended up a fucking trash fire, but I’d really….Fuck,” he said on an exhale. “I was counting on you, okay? I thoughtthat you, of all people, would understand why no one with super powers shouldbe running around without any kind of control. After Ultron I really thoughtyou’d agree with me about that. But not only did you not agree, you wereperfectly happy to fuck me over, as well as everything I’d been trying toaccomplish, to go on a field trip with your fugitive buddy—”

“Buckyshould never have been a fugitive,” Steve snapped. “And you know whywe went to Siberia. I wasn’t happy to ‘fuck you over’, Tony! I never wanted togo against you! I wanted your help! But you’d already signed the Accords. Ourhands were tied just as much as yours.”

“Idid help you!” Tony said. “I lied to Ross and went to find you. Iwanted to help.”

“Iknow,” Steve said. “And when you arrived, I was grateful. I thought…Ithought we could start mending fences. Trust each other again. But we know howit turned out.”

“Youlied to me,” Tony said. “You’re talking about trust, but you lied by omission, and then you lied to myface.”

“Andthen you tried to kill my best friend!” Steve shot back. “The oneperson who hadn’t done anything wrong. Even T'Challa could see that. Whycouldn’t you?”

“Idon’t know!” That was, ironically, a lie. Tony did know. He absolutelyknew why he’d lost all reason and self control and had almost done somethingunforgivable to a man he actually admired. He took a couple breaths through histeeth, forced himself to keep going. “I wanted to hurt you,” he saidat last. There was an awful, sickly relief in finally admitting it. “You’dbetrayed me by not signing the Accords. With your fucking perfect teeth andperfect morality.“—Tony wondered if Steve’s perfect hearing caught thefinger quotes—"You had to be so Goddamn self-righteous you couldn’t even consider my point of view. And I was trying! I was trying sodamn hard to do the right thing. To protect everyone. To make all the damagewe’d done mean something. But you wouldn’t even consider it.”

“Iread the Accords, Tony,” Steve said. “And I found—”

“Youcould have tried!” Tony shouted over him. “Youcould have tried, but you didn’t. And it hurt. I can admit it. It hurt likehell.” It still hurt: This was years’ worth of pain he couldn’t hold backanymore. It felt like when Obie had torn the reactor out. “And then I gotto see the Winter Soldier killing my parents. And you knew. You knew he’d done it, but you chose your friend overme. So you betrayed me again. First by lying by omission, then by lying to myface. “And I just….

“Ilost it, okay?” Tony said. “I just fucking lost it. I wanted to hurthim, for what he did. And I really wanted to hurt you. Iwanted you to feel the way I felt.”

Hecould hear Steve swallow in the silence on the other end of the line.“Bucky didn’t deserve that,” Steve said quietly. “Maybe…maybe Idid. But Bucky didn’t.”

“Iknow,” Tony said. “And I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry. I had a reallybad couple days and a fucking truckload of daddy issues, and I took it out onhim. And I will never forgive myself for that.” He gave a sharp, unhappysmirk, “That was actually what I’d intended to lead with, when I startedtalking a minute ago. Kind of lost the train there.”

“You’reright,” Steve said, and Tony gasped. “I should’ve tried harder to seeyour side with the Accords, not just what I didn’t like about it. I could havetried to get them amended, come up with something we all could agree on. I’mused to acting with minimal oversight, but I also used to work on behalf ofS.H.I.E.L.D., and before that it was the S.S.R. I do understand the necessityof checks and balances. But I was scared of our hands being tied when peopleneeded us the most.

“AndI never should’ve lied to you, Tony,” Steve said. “I was a coward. Itold myself I was doing it for you, but I was doing it for myself. For Bucky. Icouldn’t bear the idea of you hating him. But I can’t help thinking that if I’djust, grown a fucking spine, the video wouldn’t have been…so hard to take. Forany of us. I was a lousy friend, and I’m sorry.”

“Oh,”Tony said again, just as lost for words as before. “Thank you.” He didn’tknow if he could forgive Steve for what he’d done. Tony had been flayed alive.The fact that what Tony had done in retaliation was worsedidn't—couldn't—change that. “I, um, would’ve helped Bucky anyway.”

Heowed Bucky so much more than that. It was the least he could do to begin tomake things right.

“Iknow,” Steve said, and Tony’s shriveled, shrunken heart unfurled a bit,like an underfed flower reaching for the light. “I know you would. Thankyou. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“Thendon’t,” Tony said, all breeze and bravado. “Don’t worry about it. Seeyou on the flipside.”

Hehung up, then asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to tell Rhodey where he was going, and to havehis armor meet him at the Quinjet, just in case. Not that Tony was expectingtrouble, but, better safe than sorry. And he hadn’t been feeling all that safethese days. Amazing how that happened, being alone.

Onephone call couldn’t change that, but….

ButTony’s heart had something to reach for. It was a start.

Read the rest on AO3!

#winteriron #tony x bucky #tony stark #bucky barnes #winter soldier #steve rogers #shuri #civil war fix-it #angst #happy ending #prompts #taste is sweet

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ask-de-writer · 7 years

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MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE! : Bizarre Borderland : (Part 2 of 2)

MAD IRRITATED SCIENCE!

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2488 words

written 2008

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

PART 1 is HERE

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Had to wonder, you know, if folks learning to do this sort of thing wasn't the basis of the tales about witchcraft. Thinking it through a bit more, after destroying a few persistent vermin in my garden, I realized that if this was the foundation of witchcraft, those fears in the general population could be well founded. It took almost no imagination at all to see how someone with this sort knowledge could be a very real danger to the community at large. Especially if the general population treated the “witch” badly. I didn't intend to find out what would happen in a case like that.

I'd just got a pair of deer up close and doing a bit of a step-dance for a big flake of hay when I noticed the dust cloud of a truck barreling along the road from Al's place. I sent the deer away, cursing Al under my breath. Bad news only got worse when Al's pickup roared up my drive, scattering gravel as he skidded to a stop. Al bailed out with a rifle in hand, starting to aim at the retreating deer.

I glared at him. Al's rifle fell to the dirt from hands gone nerveless. Wide eyed with anger, he demanded, “Damn you, Art! What did you do to me?”

Not bothering to get up from my seat on the porch steps I replied tartly, “Me? I'm here on my porch. You are ten feet away. From here, it looked like you managed to drop your gun just in time to avoid poaching charges on top of the Felony Trespass and Protective Order violation.”

Frowning in a black faced rage, he flexed his now almost functioning fingers and retorted, “Poaching? No way! This is private land so its legal. No hunting without permission your signs says. Wasn't no time to ask first, so's I was gonna ask after I blasted 'em. Would'a given me a whole Winter's meat.”

Lips pulled into a tight line I snapped, “Only problem, Al, is I would have said NO. Those signs allow me to get game from my land. Desert game is spread thin and I don't share mine. At least not with you. I heard from Joe Sanderson how well you share yours.”

Al was looking down at his hands and flexing them. Still pissed off, he spit out, “Joe had it coming! Bastard wouldn't pay me for Neighbor Watch.”

I raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “Neither will I. Looks like your hands are better. Get into your truck and shove off. Don't come back, either.”

Al stared to bend over to get his rifle and just kept on going down. He landed in a heap on the scattered gravel of my drive. “Don't try to take that gun, Al, unless you want to leave here in a hearse.”

Twitching on the ground, Al yelled, “I knew it, you asshole! You've used some sort of evil witchcraft on me. I'll have the law on you for this!”

I smiled down at him from my vantage point on the steps. A sensible wolf would have stepped away from that smile. “One: Killing Felony Trespassers is legal, and that's what you became when you hauled out that rifle. Two: You have a Protective Order that requires you to stay at least a hundred fifty feet from my property line and do nothing to compromise my property, including discharge firearms on or across it. I can legally kill you for that violation, too. Three: Witchcraft IS legal. Four: I just sat here and watched you apparently have some sort of seizures. Five: I am calling the Sheriff's Office on your Trespass and and Order violations.”

I got on my phone and called the situation in to the County Police. I fixed a sandwich and went back out on the porch to watch Al. He was staying down. I knew that he would.

As I started to eat, Ratty popped up from his nest under the house. He did his little rat dance and got his chunk of sandwich. He settled down by my feet and happily nibbled his bread and cheese.

Al looked on in what I believe was genuine fear. Trying to point, he exclaimed, “There's the proof! You are a witch-man! That's your familiar!”

Amused, I replied, “Ratty? A familiar? The worst he could do is nip your nuts while you're down.”

Ratty squeaked firmly.

I laughed, “Right Ratty! Why should you risk lice and other crawling vermin just to bite Al's privates?”

Ratty expressed his opinion of Al by taking his part of the sandwich and retreating back under the house. With his tail up to show Al his ass.

Not too much later a deputy arrived. I greeted him, “Hi, Deputy Mustic. 'Fraid your cousin Al's in a spot of trouble. Seems to have not only broken the Protective Order, he brought a firearm onto my place. Trouble is, unless he's faking it, he seems to have some sort of paralytic neurological event. He's even trying to blame me for it. Witchcraft, no less. Can you believe it?”

Deputy Mustic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Of Al? I'd believe near anything. I gotta call for a backup and let him do this one to be sure that everything's done right. If I try to do the arrest, Al's lawyer is sure to try for a conflict of interest or some such because we're related.” The deputy got on his radio and I overheard him giving dispatch a piece of his mind for sending him out to deal with a relative.

Soon both the backup, Deputy Jorgen, and an ambulance were on the scene. Al was duly informed of his rights and placed under arrest while the ambulance crew verified with a pin that Al really was paralyzed. Deputy Mustic took me aside, day book out and asked, “Art, why didn't you call the ambulance? Even if he is my family, we both know that Al is slime. Still, you should'a called.”

I nodded, while watching Al being loaded into the ambulance to be hauled away, “I would have, Deputy. Thing is, he pulled that stunt on Sadie Halloway where he faked an injury on her place. Since she called the ambulance, she wound up getting stuck for near enough a grand. Al did it because she wouldn't pay into his neighbor watch scam. I won't pay him either and just figured he was doing the same to me as he did to her.”

Writing in his day book and flipping a page to finish, Deputy Mustic nodded, “I heard about that. Thought it might be the reason. Needed it clear for the record is all.”

More anxiously, now that he was done being official, he asked, “Any idea what is wrong? I mean, scum or not, he is family and I'm worried for him. Believe it or not, the kids like him at reunions. He does slight of hand coin tricks and card stunts really professional.”

I shrugged, “The slight of hand for entertainment is something I'd not have guessed. Slick as he is at lifting small tools and such, I should have known something like that was behind it. As for this, no idea at all. I am sure that it's not sunstroke. The AC in his truck was on and it works. I would guess that it might be an oddball stroke of some kind. Maybe an aneurysm or bleed in the upper spine could do it. Just a guess, though.

“Al appears to be sure what it is. I heard him telling both Deputy Jorgen and the paramedics that it's witchcraft. If it is, I don't think that I'm the one. Frankly, I hope he's right. Witchcraft is legal.”

Three days later, Deputy Mustic was back. It was an unofficial visit. Looking sad, he said, “Al died in the hospital, last night, 'bout midnight, Art. The doctors did find what it was but there was nothing that they could do. Doctor Collins said that it was the fastest growing neurological tumor that she's ever heard of. It was just near to the top of his spine. Inoperable. Al died swearing to everyone there that you cursed him.”

I watched a hawk soar overhead for a moment before I replied, “Not to speak ill, but if I could have, I would have. Didn't like him at all.

“You, on the other hand are one of the best. Never heard a single bad word about you, even from folks you've arrested.”

Deputy Mustic smiled but only slightly, “Thanks for that, Art. I didn't expect any sympathy for Al but I figured that you'd want to know.”

“Indeed, Deputy. My condolences to your family.”

As Deputy Mustic drove away, My mind was in high gear. I liked it out here, but it did get pretty lonely on occasion. The ease with which I influenced animals and settled Al's hash led to an interesting line of thought.

The next time that I was in town, I spotted a pretty young lady. Checking her out by 'feel' I found that she was not only available, she didn't like being tied to one guy. She enjoyed having a variety of lovers.

All that I planted was the urge to drive out my way. The weekend was fun for both of us. Besides bed, Sally hiked around the hills with me and even liked watching a hawk or buzzard fly. We took a bunch of pictures of her around my house and up in the rocks and hills. Nice cheesecake, barely risque. Good memories.

It turned out that Sally knew a fair number of other like minded friends. After she introduced me to her buddies, neither my days or nights stayed lonely.

---The End---

#MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE!#Part 2 of 2 #Bizarre Border #written by De Writer

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constellations-soc · 7 years

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‘Can you tell me why you haven’t killed yourself yet?” As she speaks to me from her home, Alice Kirby is not recounting abuse shouted at her in the street but the question put to her in a disability benefit assessment.

Kirby has a chronic illness and a neurological disorder, as well as mental health problems, and for the past two years has received the highest rate of PIP – personal independence payment. But after stating in a routine Department for Work and Pensions questionnaire that her health was deteriorating, last November she was told she had to be tested again.

Taxpayers’ cash should go to the needy. Here’s where it actually ends up | Owen Jones

It was then that the 25-year-old found herself repeatedly asked invasive questions about suicide: whether she’s ever felt like killing herself; if so, what method would she use; and why she hasn’t done so yet. In her words, it was “utterly soul-destroying”.

“When someone asks you to defend your reasons for staying alive, it puts thoughts in your head which shouldn’t be there,” she says. “You wonder if others also question why you haven’t killed yourself. You think about whether there is a duty to die.”

Kirby subsequently had her PIP cut: both the part of the benefit that pays for her care, like a support worker to help her at home, and for her extra mobility needs. It means she’s lost more than £250 a month and can no longer afford a regular carer. The whole process has taken its toll. “In my reassessment I was asked how often I thought about killing myself, and my answer was every fortnight,” she says. “But now I’m plagued by suicidal thoughts every day.”

This is the reality of Britain’s benefits assessment system: where people struggling with mental health problems and sickness are pushed to the brink, all in the name of saving the state cash. Several readers have contacted me to describe the way private assessors, outsourced from the DWP, are asking questions about suicide – and the damage such a test has done to them.

As one woman with fibromyalgia who’s been questioned about suicide at every assessment she’s had for both PIP and Employment and Support Allowance, put it to me: “It’s almost like they block every way forward and plant the thought in your head that suicide is an option, so when things turn really bad, it pops up as your only way out.”

‘Unless someone’s recorded the assessment – which I’ve never seen – there seems to be no redress'

PIP appeals tribunal member

Disability News Service, a specialist news agency, is running an investigation into whether the DWP is aware outsourced companies are asking such questions. This comes at the same time as claims from disabled people of fabricated and inaccurate assessment reports used to push them off benefits.

Carol Harrison, a wheelchair user, is a “disability-qualified” member of the PIP appeals tribunal (one of the three panellists who review benefit rejection decisions). Her name is a pseudonym – she’s afraid she’ll be dismissed for “bringing the judiciary into disrepute” – but wants to speak out about what she’s seeing.

Harrison regularly comes across assessment reports she describes as of “appalling quality”, full of spelling mistakes and incomplete sentences, paragraphs “copied and pasted” from previous assessments, with the same phrases occurring over and over. Of assessors even getting the gender of the person being tested wrong. “They’ll write, ‘He was well kempt’ when the assessment is of a woman.”

Disabled people often write in their appeal letters that the assessment report isn’t a true description of what happened, Harrison says. But the DWP “simply don’t acknowledge” the mistakes, or return the person’s benefits. “The most [the DWP] do is refer the claimant to the company employing the assessor, saying they can make a complaint,” she explains. “But unless someone’s recorded the assessment – which I’ve never seen – there seems to be no redress. I’ve seen a couple of replies from one of the companies which basically say, ‘Sorry if you feel it is inaccurate but there’s nothing we can do’.”

Cutting tax, clawing back disability benefits: Hammond’s plan is familiar | Frances Ryan

Last week, the Scottish government announced it will ban private firms from conducting benefit assessments, and is speaking to experts to create an alternative system. The rest of Britain surely cannot go on as it is. As the government lines the pockets of companies, public money is for all intents and purposes being spent on hurting disabled people.

Just as the work capability assessment is shown to damage people’s mental health, the test for PIP is quietly putting cancer patients, paraplegics and people with severe depression through hell: assessing them brutally and often incorrectly taking their benefits. That it came out this week that the introduction of PIP has failed to produce the £4 billion savings the government promised adds insult to injury.

Alice Kirby has just been told she can have her benefit reinstated. But because of further errors she now has to go through a full appeal, and her depression is the worst it’s ever been. What’s happening to her and others like her is nothing short of “institutional abuse”.

“It may be carried out by an institution rather than an individual, but it’s still abuse,” she says. “It’s almost faceless because it’s being perpetrated by a department of government. But the impact on us is still the same.”

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nfl2sevensummits · 4 years

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Kristen Willeumier: Another incredible powerhouse woman who learned the early lessons of competitive horse jumping (and falling) to become an expert in neurobiology. She is helping to change the world and give help to those with brain disease such as ALS

161: Kristen Willeumier: Neuroscientist and Author of the book Biohack Your Brain discusses overcoming serious athletic injuries of her own and pushing through to getting her PhD in Neurobiology from UCLA and working to help people fight back against neurological illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

Kristen Willeumier

As an athlete, what made Kristen Willeumier gravitate towards ? “I started getting more interested in the mind through sports. So, when I was at Boston College, I studied psychology. But, I was really interested in continuing the thread of athletics, and the brain, and psychology. I thought I wanted to go into sports psychology, and at the time, which was in the early 90s, there weren’t a lot of sports psychologists. I joined an association for sports psychology, learned more about it. I really wanted to work with athletes and Olympic athletes, helping them improve their mental game.”

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Kristen Willeumier, PhD, Neuroscientist and Author of Biohack Your Brain, which is published by HarperCollins Publishers and will be released December 29th, 2020. How does she fill the gap between diseases that exist today and what traditional medicine knows? “Part of the reason why I ended up first doing the Masters Degree and then continuing to do another Masters and PhD in Neurobiology is that I wanted to study a disease that we think is incurable, whether that is Parkinsons, Alzheimer’s.”

What You Will Learn:

How did Kristen Willeumier get involved in competitive show jumping on horses? “I started riding at the age of 7, and like most parents do with their kids, I was doing gymnastics. I was doing ballet. I was taking classes at the Art Institute. You have your kids trying different things to figure out what they are going to excel at. I happened to go to a riding camp, at Kelly’s Riding Camp, and fell in love with riding horses, and I happened to grow up in a suburb outside of Chicago called Barrington which is essentially horse country.”

Kristen Willeumier explains the ‘hunters’ and jumpers’ areas of competitive show jumping. “I started out very naturally doing what we call the ‘hunters.’ For people who aren’t very familiar with the riding industry, we have ‘hunters’ and we have ‘jumpers.’ Hunter competitions are really judged on the horse, and how well you take the horses around the courses. Jumpers are more about not the actual judging of the horse and the rider, but it’s just how quickly you can get over a course of 10 to 12 to 14 fences. You need to jump them clean and you need to jump them for speed.”

Did she have her sights set on the Olympics as something you wanted to do? “Absolutely. So, I actually rode for a decade, age 7 all the way to 17. Throughout that time, our family owned five different horses and the kind of training, so I was trained with people who ended up being Olympic show jumpers. Chris Kappler, who went to the Los Angeles Olympics, who is a gold and silver medalist. So, he was training in the barn with us.”

Kristen opens up about a very serious injury that she sustained when she was younger riding a pony. “I’ve had so many injuries and accidents. But, the one that is truly the most memorable happened when I was 13 and I was at a local horse show riding Razzmatazz, who was a large pony, dapple gray, large pony, and I was in the children’s adult jumper class. So, the fences are between 3-foot 6 inches and 3-foot 9 inches. I was going around a corner with Lee, and he slipped. So, the show ring was wet. So, he slipped. His backend goes down. I go flying over him. He scrambles to get up and he steps on my chest. My ribs end up puncturing my lungs.”

What makes Kristen Willeumier so passionate about her area of neuroscience? “Alzheimer’s disease, 5 million people in the United States have it. It is expected to triple by 2050. We have zero drugs that actually stop Alzheimer’s disease. Zero. I’m going to pivot off of Parkinson’s and go to Alzheimer’s for a minute. Alzheimer’s is 90% preventable by diet and lifestyle, and it is part of the reason why I’m such an advocate for brain health.”

Diet Against Alzheimer’s

What is a natural way of eating that can fight against getting Alzheimer’s disease? “I’m going to do a Mediteranean Diet that is whole food plant-based. For example, on a day-to-day basis you want to be getting two servings of fresh fruit. Fruits and vegetables are at the core of brain health. First of all, most Amercians aren’t eating two servings of fruits and three servings of greens per day. If anyone is going to make one change today that they can take with them for the rest of their lives, that is probably the number one change.”

Biohack Your Brain

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Kristen Willeumier also talks about the upcoming book that she wrote called Biohack Your Brain. “I basically give people the simple steps that they can do to take care of their brain health now, and a lot of it is the work that I did with professional football players and I give client stories. I talk about my own story. So, I make it really fun. It is loaded with great neuroscience facts, but fun ones, so very easily digestible.”

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com

Emilia’s Everest - The Lhotse Challenge: https://www.markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy/

Kristen Willeumier website: drwilleumier.com

Kristen Willeumier social media: Linkedin Instagram Twitter Facebook

Check out this episode!

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gordonwilliamsweb · 5 years

Text

Stalked by The Fear That Dementia Is Stalking You

Navigating Aging

Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system.

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Do I know I’m at risk for developing dementia? You bet.

My father died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 72; my sister was felled by frontotemporal dementia at 58.

And that’s not all: Two maternal uncles had Alzheimer’s, and my maternal grandfather may have had vascular dementia. (In his generation, it was called senility.)

So what happens when I misplace a pair of eyeglasses or can’t remember the name of a movie I saw a week ago? “Now comes my turn with dementia,” I think.

Then I talk myself down from that emotional cliff.

Am I alone in this? Hardly. Many people, like me, who’ve watched this cruel illness destroy a family member, dread the prospect that they, too, might become demented.

Judith Graham (left) with her sister, Deborah.(Courtesy of Judith Graham)

The lack of a cure or effective treatments only adds to the anxiety. Just this week, news emerged that another study trying to stop Alzheimer’s in people at extremely high genetic risk had failed.

How do we cope as we face our fears and peer into our future?

Andrea Kline, whose mother, as well as her mother’s sister and uncle, had Alzheimer’s disease, just turned 71 and lives in Boynton Beach, Florida. She’s a retired registered nurse who teaches yoga to seniors at community centers and assisted-living facilities.

“I worry about dementia incessantly. Every little thing that goes wrong, I’m convinced it’s the beginning,” she told me.

Because Kline has had multiple family members with Alzheimer’s, she’s more likely to have a genetic vulnerability than someone with a single occurrence in their family. But that doesn’t mean this condition lies in her future. A risk is just that: It’s not a guarantee.

The age of onset is also important. People with close relatives struck by dementia early — before age 65 — are more likely to be susceptible genetically.

Kline was the primary caregiver for her mother, Charlotte Kline, who received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 1999 and passed away in 2007 at age 80. “I try to eat very healthy. I exercise. I have an advance directive, and I’ve discussed what I want [in the way of care] with my son,” she said.

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“Lately, I’ve been thinking I should probably get a test for APOE4 [a gene variant that can raise the risk of developing Alzheimer’s], although I’m not really sure if it would help,” Kline added. “Maybe it would add some intensity to my planning for the future.”

I spoke to half a dozen experts for this column. None was in favor of genetic testing, except in unusual circumstances.

“Having the APOE4 allele [gene variant] does not mean you’ll get Alzheimer’s disease. Plenty of people with Alzheimer’s don’t have the allele,” said Mark Mapstone, a professor of neurology at the University of California-Irvine. “And conversely, plenty of people with the allele never develop Alzheimer’s.”

Tamar Gefen, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, strongly suggests having an in-depth discussion with a genetic counselor if you’re considering a test.

“Before you say ‘I have to know,’ really understand what you’re dealing with, how your life might be affected, and what these tests can and cannot tell you,” she advised.

Karen Larsen, 55, is a social worker in the Boston area. Her father, George Larsen, was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s at age 84 and died within a year in 2014.

Larsen is firm: She doesn’t want to investigate her risk of having memory or thinking problems.

“I’ve already planned for the future. I have a health care proxy and a living will and long-term care insurance. I’ve assigned powers of attorney, and I’ve saved my money,” she said. “Eating a healthy diet, getting exercise, remaining socially engaged — I already do all that, and I plan to as long as I can.”

“What would I do if I learned some negative from a test — sit around and worry?” Larsen said.

Currently, the gold standard in cognitive testing consists of a comprehensive neuropsychological exam. Among the domains examined over three to four hours: memory, attention, language, intellectual functioning, problem-solving, visual-spatial orientation, perception and more.

Brain scans are another diagnostic tool. CT and MRI scans can show whether parts of the brain have structural abnormalities or aren’t functioning optimally. PET scans (not covered by Medicare) can demonstrate the buildup of amyloid proteins — a marker of Alzheimer’s. Also, spinal taps can show whether amyloid and tau proteins are present in cerebrospinal fluid.

A note of caution: While amyloid and tau proteins in the brain are a signature characteristic of Alzheimer’s, not all people with these proteins develop cognitive impairment.

Several experts recommend that people concerned about their Alzheimer’s risk get a baseline set of neuropsychological tests, followed by repeat tests if and when they start experiencing worrisome symptoms.

“When it comes to thinking and memory, everyone is different,” said Frederick Schmitt, a neurology professor at the University of Kentucky. Having baseline results is “very helpful” and “allows us to more carefully measure whether, in fact, significant changes have occurred” over time, he said.

Nora Super holds nieces Kylie and Lian Ascher on the couch beside Nora’s father, Bill Super, and her aunt Trudy Super.(Courtesy of Nora Super)

Nora Super, senior director of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging, watched her father, Bill Super, and all three of his siblings succumb to Alzheimer’s disease over the course of several years — falling, she said, “like a row of dominoes.”

One of her sisters was tested for the APOE4 genetic variant; results were negative. This is no guarantee of a dementia-free future, however, since hundreds of genes are implicated in Alzheimer’s, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia.

Rather than get genetic or neuropsychological tests, Super has focused on learning as much as she can about how to protect her brain. At the top of the list: managing her depression as well as stress. Both have been linked to dementia.

Also, Super exercises routinely and eats a MIND-style diet, rich in vegetables, berries, whole grains, nuts, fish and beans. She is learning French (a form of cognitive stimulation), meditates regularly and is socially and intellectually active.

According to a growing body of research, physical inactivity, hearing loss, depression, obesity, hypertension, smoking, social isolation, diabetes and low education levels raise the risk of dementia. All of these factors are modifiable.

What if Super started having memory problems? “I fear I would get really depressed,” she admitted. “Alzheimer’s is such a horrible disease: To see what people you love go through, especially in the early stages, when they’re aware of what’s happening but can’t do anything about it, is excruciating. I’m not sure I want to go through that.”

Gefen of Northwestern said she tells patients that “if [cognitive testing] is something that’s going to stress you out, then don’t do it.”

Nancy Smith celebrates her 81st birthday with sons Nigel (right) and Tim Smith.(Courtesy of Nigel Smith)

Nigel Smith, 49, had a change of heart after caring for his mother, Nancy Smith, 81, who’s in hospice care in the Boston area with Alzheimer’s. When he brought his mother in for a neuropsychological exam in early 2017 and she received a diagnosis of moderate Alzheimer’s, she was furious. At that point, Nancy was still living in the family’s large home in Brookline, Massachusetts, which she refused to leave.

Eventually, after his mother ended up in the hospital, Smith was given legal authority over her affairs and he moved her to a memory care unit.

“Now, she’s deteriorated to the point where she has about 5% of her previous verbal skills,” Nigel said. “She smiles but she doesn’t recognize me.”

Does he want to know if something like this might lie in his future?

A couple of years ago, Smith said he was too afraid of Alzheimer’s to contemplate this question. Now he’s determined to know as much as possible, “not so much because I’m curious but so I can help prepare myself and my family. I see the burden of what I’m doing for my mother, and I want to do everything I can to ease that burden for them.”

Kim Hall, 54, of Plymouth, Minnesota, feels a similar need for a plan. Her mother, Kathleen Peterson, 89, a registered nurse for over 50 years, was diagnosed with vascular dementia five years ago. Today, she resides in assisted living and doesn’t recognize most of her large family, including dozens of nieces and nephews who grew up with Hall.

Hall knows her mother had medical issues that may have harmed her brain: a traumatic brain injury as a young adult, uncontrolled high blood pressure for many years, several operations with general anesthesia and an addiction to prescription painkillers. “I don’t share these, and that may work in my favor,” she said.

Still, Hall is concerned. “I guess I want to know if I’m at risk for dementia and if there is anything I can do to slow it down,” she said. “I don’t want what happened to my mother to happen to me.” Probably, Hall speculated, she’ll arrange to take a neuropsychological exam at some point.

Several years ago, when I was grieving my sister’s death from frontotemporal dementia, my doctor suggested that a baseline exam of this sort might be a good idea.

I knew then I wouldn’t take him up on the offer. If and when my time with dementia comes, I’ll have to deal with it. Until then, I’d rather not know.

Stalked by The Fear That Dementia Is Stalking You published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 5 years