#because this season and last have showed us symptoms

[gayofthefae]

Was thinking about ways to start to subtly hint to the GA that Mike likes Will because they can’t just jump straight to like Vecna callout, even as a queer Mike truther I think that feels forced, and then I just thought...

Do what they always do. End a scene with a look like 4x04. Just...this time...don’t interrupt. Let the look linger. in silence. Have Will be the first to look away. Then either Mike looks down and like “oh” and maybe a little insecure (yk that look that kind of implies that something did just happen) or just have him not look away.

I feel like that’s a start for sure. And it makes the most sense from the starting point we’re at too because like. There are not actions there that could be argued out of character. I mean, people who want to can deny but active deniers aren’t GA - GA are the people not committed to an interpretation so they aren’t pushing back. It wouldn’t seem out of character or sudden at all because it’s just...a continuation of what his behavior was already like. The camera’s just focusing on it a little more now. It demonstrates a hypothetical. A lingering glance is universal TV language. We know what it means. And an interrupted one like they’ve had is still a little deniable in nature, but a look-away? A shy, coy reaction? As if something just happened between them? Something unspoken just from intimate eye contact? That gets the ball rolling. Even if slowly. It can pick up speed from there. It’s gaining momentum.

[bri-does-art]

i know this probably won’t do much, let alone anything at all, but i’m sorry for the stress this site has caused you and so many other creators here. i’m not asking for you to stick around on here, but i hope you know just how meaningful you and your art have been on here. you’re amazing. /pos

Hey, this ask has done a lot more than you would think. Thank you, you are very sweet. <3

I've kind of made up my mind about what I'm gonna do for a while now, but I've simply been... too busy and overwhelmed to take the time to let you guys know. I'm not going to delete my tumblr, there's just. Too much here that I don't want to lose.

So far the game plan is: keep my tumblr. But do not upload anymore art or writing on it - not because it's gonna get scraped, because it was already getting scraped anyway, AI company deal or not. It's pretty much unavoidable at this point, unfortunately. I simply do not trust Tumblr with my data, if they're going to sell EVERYTHING, including private messages and such, so I'm not going to give it anything worthwhile to profit off of. Instead, I'm going to start uploading my art exclusively on Ao3, for now. I'll answer any asks I receive here on there too, as well. I'll figure some kind of system out. 🤔

The cool thing about uploading to Ao3 is that anyone subscribed to my profile or to the containment series I will make will get a notification anytime I upload something new. Having my art and writing in one place is likely going to be more convenient for you guys too, since you won't have to move across platforms to get the full experience. 😄It'll be different... but a platform getting too greedy for its own good won't stop me from finding ways to share my stories with y'all. I'll just find another solution.

(I've also been entertaining the idea of joining or making my own Discord server but. That one is a little more delicate. The idea of joining a server that has hundreds of members like a lot of this fandom's servers have, just. Makes me break into hives, lmao. (I am in the Ghost in the Machine fic server. I muted it an hour into joining, it was way too intense for me. |'D) That is way too many people, I simply cannot handle it. I'd be way more comfortable in a smaller group with a less rapid-fire rate of posting and conversation. I am also. Very picky about which servers I join, which makes asking for recommendations doubly awkward when I shoot them all down, haha... And making my own... Err, I can hardly keep up with a server I helped create for another fandom and mod for, I don't think I could handle two of them - I would need other people to handle the moderation for me, and I wouldn't trust just anyone to be a mod. I'd need to know them well enough to know I could trust them, and I... do not really know anyone in this fandom well enough to do that, sadly. I take server moderation very seriously, as someone who has had experience modding for forums back before social media was a thing. I do not know if that would make for a fun experience for everyone, and anyone who hasn't known that kind of supervised experience. It is comforting to me. It may be intimidating for others. So that's still a very hand-wavy, 'eehhhh' kind of thing still.)

All of this to say, that this isn't the last you'll see from me, far from it. I'll restrict my creative output to Ao3 for the foreseeable future, and I'll let you guys on here know when I make a new upload, so those of you who do not have an Ao3 account know when something new has happened.

So there you have it. 😊

[dollishmehrayan]

HOW BATBOYS TAKE CARE OF SICK!READER ── .✦

a/n: this was requested by a anon (here) I hope they get better though but Lowkey flu season is kinda in but I haven’t gotten a fever or flu or cold all year surprisingly but last time this time around my birthday I was in bed because of the same flu too 😭

(Tags: batboys x sick!reader)

BRUCE WAYNE ── .✦

Response: Bruce is not the type to show a lot of outward emotion, but when it comes to his S/O being sick, he’s all business. He’ll immediately take control of the situation.

What He Does: He makes sure you have all the proper medicine, checks with the best doctors in Gotham, and ensures that you rest. You’ll wake up to a tray with hot tea, some soup, and a blanket tucked in around you.

Care Style: He’s quiet but thoughtful. He’ll check your temperature often and make sure you’re hydrated. He may even work late into the night, but he’ll sneak into your room occasionally to check on you.

Humor: If you’re extra strong and act like your not sick, he might raise an eyebrow and make a deadpan joke about how you’re not allowed to go vigilante when sick.

“I didn’t take you for a hero when you’re running a fever, but I’ll make sure to add it to your file.”

DICK GRAYSON ── .✦

Response: Dick is the opposite of Bruce when it comes to showing his care. He’s incredibly affectionate and wants to make you as comfortable as possible.

What He Does: He’ll keep a stash of your favorite comfort foods and drinks on hand. You’ll find him sitting by your side, doing anything to cheer you up. He might even bring in a portable DVD player or set up your favorite show, just to keep you entertained.

Care Style: He’s a nurturing caretaker. Dick is constantly checking in with you, holding your hand, and making sure you’re feeling okay. He might even tell you stories to distract you from how miserable you feel.

Humor: His humor comes out when you’re feeling better. He might tease you about how dramatic you were when you had to stay in bed.

“I know you're sick, but I think you might have been faking it with that ‘I’m dying’ act. I’m pretty sure I’m more dramatic than you.”

JASON TODD ── .✦

Response: Jason is very protective, especially when you’re sick. His initial reaction will be pure panic (he's not a fan of seeing you vulnerable), but he quickly shifts into overdrive mode, focusing on getting you comfortable.

What He Does: He’ll get super practical: medicine, blankets, food, making sure you’re hydrated, and then he’ll sit with you, watching over you. He’s not one to baby you too much, but he’ll definitely make sure you’re pampered.

Care Style: Jason can be tough and blunt, but when you're sick, he’s extremely attentive. He’ll help you with everything from bringing food to checking on your temperature, and he’ll hover over you with little complaints, even if he’s clearly trying to hide his concern.

Humor: Jason’s humor is very dry when you’re sick. He’ll joke about you using the flu as an excuse to avoid doing anything.

“Not like you’d be any help with the bad guys while you’re over here acting like you’re on your deathbed.”

“I’m dying, Jason!”

“I’m still going to make you soup, but you better make a full recovery before I let you get dramatic again.”

TIM DRAKE ── .✦

Response: Tim is a caretaker by nature, and if you’re sick, he’s going into full research mode. Expect him to be the most methodical about it, making sure you get the best medicine and a recovery plan.

What He Does: Tim will make sure to check your symptoms, research flu remedies, and put together a detailed plan to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible. You’ll get healthy snacks, warm blankets, and an endless supply of your favorite teas.

Care Style: He’s very hands-on. Tim will likely be the one to prep your medicine doses, change your sheets, and even do some light chores so you can rest. If you need something, he’ll already know what it is.

Humor: Tim’s humor comes out in gentle teasing. He might make fun of how dramatic you’re being, but always in a loving way.

“You’re seriously not going to drink the tea I made? I mean, it’s not like I researched five different remedies or anything.”

DAMIAN WAYNE ── .✦

Response: Damian’s reaction to you being sick is a mix of irritation (because he doesn't like seeing you unwell) and a deep sense of duty. His pride might keep him from outwardly showing how concerned he is, but he’s actually very sweet when he’s worried.

What He Does: He’s the one who will give you strict instructions on how to recover faster, sometimes sounding like a miniature doctor. He might be a little bossy, but it’s coming from a place of wanting you to get better quickly.

Care Style: He’ll keep checking on you, ensuring that you’re resting and following his orders. He might even hold a glass of water up to your mouth, but don’t expect much coddling.

Humor: If you argue with him about taking the medicine or following his advice, he’ll roll his eyes, but there’s a soft spot in him that he won’t admit.

“You are not allowed to leave the bed. You will be much more useful as a fully recovered individual.”

“I’m fine, Damian.”

“No. I will call the League of Assassins to make sure you stay in bed if necessary.”

OVERALL TRAITS FOUND IN THEM ── .✦

Comforting: They’re all deeply caring, but their ways of expressing it vary based on their personality.

Teasing: There’s an element of teasing and dry humor, especially when you’re feeling a little better.

Protectiveness: All of them become especially protective when you’re under the weather. They want you to rest, and while they may not show it, they’re worried about you.

Little Gestures: Whether it’s bringing you tea, sitting quietly with you, or making you laugh, each of them will express their care in unique ways.

[genericpuff]

Hey y'all, Episode 67 will be out as soon as it's ready. I'm not gonna lie, coming off the back of a crazy holiday season, I was hoping things were gonna get back on track with the update schedule, but the last 2-3 weeks have brought about a whole new whirlwind of issues:

I took our cat to the vet a few weeks ago to get him checked out (esp because he wasn't eating as much as usual and we wanted to make sure he wasn't sick). The usual vet we go to has become a shithole, the doctor we got was extremely unhelpful and every interaction I've had with other members of staff there has been confusing and unpleasant. After an hour of an appointment that was more uncomfortable than it should have been, we were out $700 which was absurd, even for usual vet fees. After I shared the more detailed version of this story with friends IRL, some of them mentioned that apparently this particular clinic (among others throughout Canada) was bought by an American company. So that certainly explains a lot -_-

Car broke down and that cost like $800 to fix. Thankfully wasn't as expensive as the fucks at Canadian Tire quoted us, but it was still another huge expense on top of the vet bill.

Our shop moved locations this weekend, which took a lot of time to both prepare for and finally pull off over the course of the last few weeks. My new booth is at least set up enough to tattoo but there's still a lot left to do to make it comfortable.

Now my cat is potentially developing jaundice (sign of liver failure) which lines up with his blood test results from the vet showing increased liver enzyme levels or something like that (but they were apparently not enough of an emergency for the vet to actually do anything about it). I booked with a different vet clinic but they can't get us in until the 20th. So I booked an appointment for today with the emergency vet up the road. I'm terrified for him, he's an old cat so it was inevitable that his health would start to turn, but other than his increasingly picky eating habits and signs of jaundice, he's still acting like himself and it's breaking my heart that he could be hiding his own symptoms. I really just do not need a pet death on top of everything else that's going wrong right now.

As for the episode itself, it's not even that long, but the set design is pretty detailed and in our attempts to create some 3D models for ourselves, it resulted in bugs that had to be fixed on the fly. Thankfully I think we've finally got it down (and it's a recurring location so it's not like it won't be useful to have again in the future) but overall the episode production just hasn't gone as smoothly as it could have compounded by everything else mentioned above.

None of these are excuses, just reasons that have justifiably required my attention. Depending on how the vet appointment goes, I'll try and stream later tonight so that folks can at least watch some of the drawing progress for this episode. Episode 67 will be out by next Saturday at the latest, assuming I'm not able to get it out in the next day or two.

I know I'm a broken record at this point, but I'm incredibly sorry for the wait and I appreciate your patience with me. I'm begging for things to calm down soon.

[macgyvermedical]

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, "A Time To Heal" (get your tetanus shots, folks)

Be warned- I've never seen this show before and this episode was from season 6, so I'm not entirely sure of the character's relationships, etc... Also there will be spoilers.

"A Time To Heal" is the story of a diphtheria outbreak in Colorado Springs. Dr. Quinn, our main character, struggles to keep as many people alive as possible- including her own sister. She is also faced with a choice- she can either stick to tracheotomies as the last-ditch effort to save someone with diphtheria, or she can try a new technique called intubation.

Per the show's understanding, tracheotomies are painful but the tried and true method, while intubation is less painful and dangerous at the outset but comes with an increased risk of pneumonia. Dr. Quinn decides not to perform the intubation with Becky, and she dies from diphtheria. She then decides to perform an intubation with Marjorie, and while Marjorie survives the diphtheria, she dies later of pneumonia from the intubation.

Diphtheria:

Diphtheria is a highly contagious illness caused by a bacteria with a virus inside it that produces a toxin (all three! woo!). The primary symptoms are a fever and a very sore throat with a very distinctive odor and a "leathery" appearance. Untreated, it has a mortality rate of about 30-50% depending primarily on age (adults die at a higher rate than children).

It kills in a fairly unique way. The virus inside the bacteria create a toxin that kills cells. This primarily occurs in the throat, which then rather quickly produces a scar-like material that sticks to the back of the throat like a plaque that can't be removed. This is called a pseudomembrane. Lymph nodes in the throat around the pseudomembrane then swell, blocking the airway and killing the person.

If that doesn't kill the person, the same process can happen to the heart- this time where the pseudomembrane/scar tissue interrupts the flow of electricity through the heart muscle, causing it to be unable to beat properly, causing death.

So where were we in understanding all this?

The show takes place in about 1872-3. At this time, diphtheria was common in urban areas as an endemic disease. An endemic disease is one that is constantly circulating in the community. Because it was so prevalent, it tended to just infect susceptible people whenever they happened to come into contact with it. In rural areas, however, it acted more like an epidemic disease- showing up every 25 years or so, infecting all the children, killing about a third of them, and then disappearing.

Fortunately, most people would only get diphtheria once in their lives, most often as young children in cities, or as under-25 year olds in rural areas. It would be extremely rare that someone would make it to middle-adulthood without immunity to diphtheria.

At the time this show takes place, germ theory had only just been established, and most medical people, especially in rural North America, would not have accepted it as fact yet. However, understanding that it was contagious only required observation, so things like shutting down the school and posting quarantine signs would have been something well established by this point in history for contagious diseases.

Tracheotomies

Tracheotomies are ancient. Like, we know they did them in Ancient Greece. Tracheotomies for diphtheria specifically came about in the 1820s, and would have been well in use by the time Dr. Quinn went to medical school. This genuinely would have been the state of the art of care for diphtheria at the time and would have saved a lot of lives.

However, here's where we get into some 1990's TV sensibilities. They stretched a few things to make it so that Dr. Quinn's tracheotomies were both disinfected and anesthetized.

A doctor in rural North America in the early 1870s very likely wouldn't be using any kind of antiseptic or anesthetic when creating a tracheostomy. Joseph Lister, who invented surgical asepsis, was barely using creosote at this point halfway around the world, and while ether anesthesia had been around for 25 years, it was mainly used for larger, planned surgeries or tooth removal. The two anesthetics that would have been available -ether and chloroform- take about 20 minutes to work, and cause a lot of vomiting on the other side. Both of these are unfriendly circumstances for emergency tracheotomies. Since most doctors waited until the last possible second to perform a tracheotomy, ether just wouldn't have been the way to go.

Intubation

Non-surgical intubation was invented in 1858 specifically for diphtheria by a Dr. Bouchut in Paris. It was highly controversial at the time for 2 reasons (neither of which is pneumonia). One, a very well respected Dr. Trousseau, who had recently perfected the art of the tracheotomy, was strongly against it when it was presented, and a lot of people took his side. And two, Dr. Bouchut used a straight tube, which, while life saving, was extremely difficult and physically traumatic to insert.

Intubation would not become well recognized as an alternative to tracheotomy until 1885, when a Dr. O'Dwyer from Cleveland, OH developed the idea separately. Unlike Dr. Bouchut's invention, Dr. O'Dwyer received significant praise when he presented the concept to an American audience, none of whom had heard of the previous attempts. The instruments for intubation referred to in the show are "O'Dwyer's instruments". This means the show skipped a few years and it is now the late 1880s, or they fudged the year O'Dwyer came up with his invention.

Here is a set of those instruments from around that time period, which largely line up with the instruments shown in the show:

Unlike modern tubes, the tubes available at the time were short and made of metal. They would be placed in the throat with the introducer and held in place with silk sutures.

Why don't we get diphtheria today?

Well, you know I never pass up an opportunity to tell you to get your vaccines. You probably were vaccinated against diphtheria as a young child. But most people don't know you still need to get boosters as an adult to keep your immunity (and herd/community immunity) up. That "d" in Tdap (the standard adult tetanus shot)? Stands for diphtheria. You need it at least every 10 years.

So to summarize:

Diphtheria being an epidemic disease in rural North America is accurate

So many adults over the age of 25 having it would be unusual

Tracheotomies would definitely have been in use, and the indication of "the false membrane thickening" would be what they were used for

Tracheotomy sites would likely not have been disinfected, nor would a person be anesthetized for the procedure

Tracheal intubation, especially via O'Dwyer's instruments happened about 12 years after the show takes place

Get a tetanus shot if you haven't had one in 10 years

[perfectfangirl]

notes after rewatching fallout s1 ep4

• cooper and lucy wandering the desert and mans starts coughin', somethin' settin' in • whoa i just realized you could hear roger roaring from outside • roger was at a clinic, probably trying to find something to help him ☹️ • i wrote a whole entire post on this scene but anyways can i say we see full blown uncooked cannibalism hardly ten minutes into episode four like is everyone ok • the fact this scene is presented with a lot of tension, like a horror film and truly it's just a guy named roger fighting to stay not feral • i wonder how cooper met him? ghouls tend to know each other after a while [on account of the discrimination], i'm sure he was checking with this man every now and then tbh. perhaps. a friend. • cooper asks roger how he's feeling and he says "you know... it's hard out here. dang smoothies can be so unkind" and i just 😞 • "i see you got a smoothie of your own" ding ding ding ghoulcy this one's for you • you know what's particularly sad about ghoulification is for example that roger has had to isolate himself from others, even ghouls, because he was turning • roger asking for a vial and cooper looking at lucy [cooper, you botched the using lucy for bait, come on] • firmly in the camp that if cooper had vials left, he would give one to roger. cooper has shown himself to be crude and cruel seeming at times but i just know he went there with purpose • roger accepting he's turning and telling cooper and lucy to leave as a warning, roger seemed so nice, why and how did he get like this

• "i did ok" 😞 • going from standard human to turning into a feral ghoul in less than twenty eight years in the fallout universe is insane and idk if there's a lot of lore on why someone could end up like this and someone like cooper not • the difference in cooper's and roger's symptoms are pretty stark--- not entirely sold on him coughing and passing out is from ferality and more inclined to think chem withdrawals but i digress • "say, you remember how good food use to taste?" post war life is so bad, nobody in the wasteland remembers when food use to food 😭

• because roger is really nice and having a conversation, roger turns, speaking to lucy. cooper using this as an opportunity to kill roger seems so sudden and a betrayal until • look at cooper's eyes and his reaction after pulling the trigger--- not exactly the expression of someone who is in it "for the love of the game", in fact, i have come to view this act as a mercy kill • which is ironic of course because as we've all come to see, lucy does the exact thing for her own mother four episodes later • once feral, ghouls roam the wasteland operating on two instincts alone: hunger and defense. they are a threat to all those around them and i don't recall much on reversal. that's no life. roger would've turned feral and harmed them or others, it is sad • cooper mercy killing roger was in some ways compassionate, he had a sweet conversation with roger giving his last thoughts something warm and nice. cooper then going on to butcher and consume his flesh was an uh choice 💀

• and lucy immediately confused was like "wait?, why'd you do that? he was sick." i don't know if she entirely understands ghoulification, seems she thought maybe he could be helped • lucy is basically confused, begging cooper to not like, eat this guy 😭 • i'm gonna have to agree that he didn't have to eat roger, radroaches is everywhere and for free, still pondering if he did this to fuck with her or because some reason i am missing • cooper asking lucy what her name was [hold on, why he care about that?" and lucy so nearly coming this close to finding out what hank did and who cooper is [since she didn't ask his name] • "sometimes a fella's got to eat a fella" is my all time favourite quote in season one of this show lmao • cooper be funny as fuck for no reason like this man's brain is cooked • i would personally like to ask walton whose idea it was to go "mmm. mmm." while eating irradiated human flesh like that, like why is the pre war actor cooper howard like this • lucy is incomprehensibly disgusted but then goes on a thing [a vulnerable thing] about vault 32 starving [in the great plague of '77] and that she lost her mother during this time and that her father never resorted to cannibalism. there's some time and memory discrepancies here • "well there's what people say they did and what they really did" i wanted cooper to be wrong so bad here when he went on to clown hank by saying "i'll bet your daddy was first in line at the cookout. i bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbour's ass on it" • lmao they gave all the best lines to cooper, i'm sick, he was right • lucy, having had enough and not finding cooper's humour being used as a way to cope like this asks this disturbed little man • "how do you live like this? why keep going?" and for the briefest moment, and i do mean brief, cooper feels the crushing weight of who he is when lucy confronts him like this • of course he shakes off a moral inquiry and transfers it to another as he asks "why the fuck am i doing all the work?... ass jerky don't make itself." and forces lucy to do it instead • twice now this man has talked about ass in less than ten minutes and for everyone's sake i'll move along 💀

• woody basically trying to interrogate the raider prisoners and getting nothing, meanwhile--- i think they already starting to be poisoned • ooo ok but betty telling norm he's the last standing maclean in the vault so his words carry and people listen. it occurred to me maybe he inadvertently inspired the poisonings of the raiders but it's also occurring to me that because they couldn't just all be shot outright, being poisoned was the best follow through method, nobody notices until it's already too late. now who is sneaky enough for that? • "when clever boys like you are angry, you're lucky not to have seen where that can lead." so... was betty present for shady sands? hmm • betty asking norm to tread lightly is very... not a threat, but she's watching him, right

• ok! we have that second water scene. it's confirmed here cooper is fetching water from an irradiated source [hence why denying lucy any makes sense] he puts it in his canteen and drinks it just fine. lucy is obviously mindlessly thirsty because she defeatedly drops down to drink the murky, stagnant irradiated water. it's so irradiated, her pip boy is going crazy, she literally gags in the scene • "now you're getting it. how does this golden rule jibe with what's going through your head now?" well i mean we knew cooper been fucking with her the whole time and showing her the wasteland streets but it is also unlikely she would have found a clean water source where they are, i guess her getting radiation sickness may have been inevitable but cooper denying her water kept her from being sick • after another insane string of sentences from this centuries old movie star, lucy finally asks "what are you?" and it's more like "what the fuck is wrong with you?" • "oh i'm you, sweetie, you just give it a little time" is majorly menacing after everybody just drank stagnant rad water like it's koolaid • cooper felt so smug then was zapped with karma again because he has a coughing fit directly after telling lucy this lmao • walton has such a good old man cough ❤️ • lucy takes cooper coughing up a lung as an opportunity to run [where i don't know but] • cooper uses his lasso skills he used to use at kid's parties to pull lucy back and then says some shit like "where you think you going? you ain't going nowhere."

• so we have arrived at the infamous and intriguing finger biting off scene--- can i just say she bit his finger off with such ease and then! cooper doesn't even act like it hurt, he seems... pleased he got that kind of reaction out of lucy. he's like into it 💀 • "there you are, you little killer" i'll keep this pg13 and say cooper really wanted to get a rise out of lucy, to bring the dog out of her, huh • he... then proceeds to cut her [corresponding hand's] finger off. ironically applying the "do unto others as you would have done unto you" tit for tat, if you will • i was surprised he did this because like ok, she spat it out? pick it up and reattach it, fella 😭 but there's more under the surface here because • cooper says "now that right there is the closest thing we've had to an honest exchange so far." and he's being framed in a close up so close, you can see his dainty eyelashes, sun shining in the background, his hazel eyes sparkling--- this is not on accident ☝️ gdgkdkfd • there's a lot of symbolism to be had but for now, i'll save that for next episode notes when cooper does the thing • ah chet! and steph. i kinda am of the idea she strategically got with him but anyways! who wouldn't! chet hot as fuck! and steph look like an assassin • bert's shoes so small gldgldfl • steph is definitely angry and sad dealing with bert's death in her own special way [trying to fuck chet] • excuse me but why they turned an almost sex scene into a birthing scene 😭💀 • lucy been walking the wasteland without a shoe, how she do it 😭 • i did not pick up on cooper bartering lucy for two months' worth of vials [thanks subtitles] • "mint condition" [looks at a bloody stump on hand] "near mint condition" now who fault is this?? lmao • "you got problems out here too, sweetheart" like, shut up 😭 • cooper every time he interacts with a mr. handy is one of the only few places he gets to hear a voice of this old friend • "best you try your luck behind that door" well at least he untied her • this is like the third time he's gotten instant karma with lucy because either he pretended to keep it together until she went in or genuinely didn't know he was going to pass out but • went through the five stages of grief trying to figure who he sold her to because i deadass was thinking the same thing lucy was 😭 • lucy being given the finger of like, a corpse or something because it's grey 😭 forever changed by the wasteland, always carrying a little bleakness and death with her ❤️ • lucy never experiencing real cotton [or maybe only rarely] • lucy calling cooper a creature 😭 • "he put a leash around my neck and made me drink from puddle water that i'm pretty sure was some kind of animal pee" sending 😭 she talking to this evil mr. handy like it's a person • her recounting her captivity with cooper like he was simply being mean to her is just • "and i thought i was here to be a sex slave." "what?! no! what a disgusting idea. i'm simply going to harvest your organs." damn, fallout which one is worse, like fuck---

• hope the jello cake veronica got wasn't poisoned... • "what are you looking at?" "a murderer in a cage, paying the price for what you did to us. for what you did to the innocent people in vault 32" and norm gets circumstantial evidence from a raider by accidentally cross examining one of them with it being more than anything woody could coax out of them • one thing about the macleans, they smart • i also think it's excellent writing that intrigue was spurred like this by a raider saying vault 32 wasn't innocent because they were running an experiment like all the vaults did, everything isn't so black and white • norm reads every situation correctly because why he read chet by saying chet came along to investigate because norm reminds him of lucy fkdgkdkg • still piecing together the full extent of vaults 31, 32, 33 together but at first i couldn't understand why it looked like so many took their own lives--- apparently them discovering what vault 31 was about started a rebellion but two years seemed so recent to me. curious how this overlaps with shady sands if it does • they showed the spooky ass rat utopia experiment still playing on the tvs in there but i wasn't sure if this was explicit about that being vault 32's experiment

• lucy being prompted to continue on because of a flashback from her mom upon awakening 🥲 • "lucy sweetie what are you doing out here?" and those were her memories on the surface [nevermind cooper calling her [[condescendingly]] "sweetheart"] • i did not realize the ghouls were being kept in the freezers but it looks like they either only sell ghouls or keep the ghouls "on ice" [not unlike how dom pedro would keep cooper and cut pieces off of him] and collect the organs of standard people right then and there • "sir, you can't do this. please, i need my organs" lucy, it's just a robot bulter, he's not a real guy 😭 • the way lucy got out of this pickle quick, almost got snip snipped but short circuited the murderbot • lucy putting her murdercap on and putting drano in the murderbot's syringes, clever girl • it was so "star wars" of her to treat mr. handy like a person and then the guys running the organ trafficking scheme going "you might as well be holding an air conditioner hostage" 😭 • the organ traffickers running the super duper mart ring are so dull and banal evil types, it's so satire

• i just registered those two organ trafficker guys got a camera and can see cooper laid out in front of the store • lucy freeing the ghouls 🥲and one even thanking her [even the feral ones 💀] • poor martha, i peep how we see lucy's grey finger and it being shown used to defend herself against martha in her feral state • organ traffickers got ate up bless • nothing lucy did besides shoot was going to honestly stop martha, sometimes your pacifist playthrough doesn't go as planned • the pip boys still being on and running on the not alive people in vault 32 • "death to management" and it's directly the reference to vault 31's experiment, right there

• lucy walking out of there with mismatched shoes but two shoes nonetheless ☝️ • i guess lucy sincerely did not comprehend cooper is a ghoul or ghoulification, i suppose most vault dwellers literally would never know, that's post war history, wow • lucy asking cooper about if the vials keep him from going feral and he cannot even speak, he can only nod, from a prone position, on the ground--- the power/framing trade off is excellent • lucy bends down, briefly rolls the gun in her hand, while cooper lies helpless, she delivers a fatal line • "i may end up looking like you. but i'll never be like you" harbouring not enough ill will against him despite mistreatment, she gives cooper several vials, directly near his hand. didn't have to do none of that shit! • if i was cooper, i'd be scared as hell of this lady, she took down an organ trafficking ring in a grocery store ran by two armed guys, a murderbot, with some feral ghoul hostages, all of the bad and dangerous people fucking died • she really could've ended cooper right then and there, his devotion in season two gone be unmatched lmao

• i truly think he had a hint of a smile on his face after she helped [save his life] by anyways • lucy walks into the proverbial sunset meanwhile this man shambles into super duper mart about to go on the biggest bender the wasteland has seen since the bombs dropped • cooper gets so fucked up, i lost count how many things he ingested, king said all of 'em • cooper is so goddamn famous, his film "the man from deadhorse" is just sitting next to a tv • you could say here is where cooper has a crisis of conscience whereupon he holds the tape in his hand but truly we know already he had that centuries ago when he filmed "the man from deadhorse"

• cooper watching the scene, the very moment in his life where things started to shift--- he tries to cock an invisible fun, being unable as he remembers his trigger finger is gone [neutral, disarmed, here's where i think he decides he wants to sew on lucy's finger to his hand] it's like he's starting over, a moral rebirth but with his trigger finger • they really made cooper say "you commie son of a bitch" in a western, just ugly propaganda • let's examine "feo, fuerte, y formal" again! "ugly, strong, dignity" does post war cooper have two out of three on that front? is this his step into regaining dignity again? • cooper was always playing characters, it was expected of him and he got paid for it. it feels like a wall is being torn down, something is being shed here. and maybe it's this character he's masquerading as • cooper and lucy both having revelations in the super duper mart--- lucy realising you can't always reason and logic out of a situation and cooper being confronted with the fact you can keep your morality and sense of self intact and a horrible place and situation doesn't have to change you

[misscammiedawn]

Mr. Robot and Accepting Trauma Memories

In all my posts about how good Mr. Robot can be about depicting healing for those with DID, I never did highlight the last conversation Elliot has with his therapist in Season 4.

[Scene paraphrased, skipping comments about Elliot's father or the itch in the back of Elliot's head]

Upon his trauma memories returning Elliot is dissociated and barely holding it together. His therapist, who was with him for the revelation, gets him to safety (as always depicted by golden light in the show)

Krista's camera angle keeps Elliot in frame at all times while Elliot remains alone. She's reaching out and he's withdrawing. The show always uses camera angles and empty space to show isolation. All the empty space with subjects usually singled out in the 1-2 shots as a way to show their lack of connection.

Krista is on the very edge of the frame, meeting Elliot where he is. She's not trying to pull him out of his dissociation, she's just trying to reach out and offer him grounding and connection and comfort.

The thing being depicted here though is one of the most empathetic displays of trauma memories resurfacing. Elliot wants to forget again and Krista says that he never forgot.

In reality trauma memories, even the most buried ones, remain active and present within anyone suffering a dissociative disorder. The mind simply prevents access to that information as a means of self-preservation. When triggered or summoned it will activate the nervous system and create a recall response. In Elliot's case an "itch in the back of his mind"

At a cellular level, the body stores a memory of everything it has experienced. Sometimes this is evoked through touch, ranging from casual touch, to intimate touching, to massage and body-work. Sometimes a trigger can cause these body memories to break through. Sometimes the body memory just surfaces. Although there are times when a body memory coincides with an identifiable flashback, sometimes it may seem to happen ‘out of nowhere’. This can be extremely frightening and unnerving, especially if you don’t know this is what is happening. It does not mean you have ‘lost it’ or that you are crazy. Your mind is not playing a cruel trick on you, but rather is presenting you with memory or information that needs to be worked through so you can heal from the wounding you experienced. The phenomena of flashbacks and body memories can become more complex when you are not the only personality residing within your physical body— especially until you-all each have a greater sense of ‘self’ and ‘System’. If you have not yet reached a place of distinguishing between yourself and others in your System, you may have a consciousness of sensations that are the memory and/or current experience of another part. While this may seem strange or odd, it is not unheard of. Each part doing their own work, getting to know each other better, and getting strong senses of self- and System- is really what will get things to a more manageable place. - Got Parts ~ An Insiders Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder (ATW)

When it comes to handling trauma memories the option to "just forget" does not truly exist. To not think about it does not prevent the mind from reacting when the trigger is touched. The memory will summon sense memory or emotional flashback and cause symptoms.

The only path to healing is to engage with those memories and work on integrating them. No matter how hard that may seem. Because to continue pushing it away is to allow the triggers to continue activating the nervous system and let the memory literally haunt the present day.

I'm glad that Krista got to say that.

Season 4 Episode 8 is all about accepting the weight of the trauma memory.

The final moment of the episode has Mr. Robot, who was created to protect the system and is modeled to look and act like Elliot's abuser, returns to talk to Elliot about what happened. Bathed in golden light and within their base of operations "Allsafe"

Elliot flinches at the mere thought of Mr. Robot. The living memory of his father and the one who held the memories of his abuse for so long. Fearing that he has failed in his duty as Elliot's protector, Mr. Robot speaks, desperate to fix it, knowing that now the memories have resurfaced he may not be able to any longer.

"The only reason I'm here is to make sure no one ever hurts you. That was supposed to be your father's job. But he failed. He was too weak. But you? You were strong. You fought back the only way you could. You brought me here to protect you from him."

"I tried to keep you safe and only show you the memories when the two of you were friends before..." he pauses and lets the implication hang in the air, "I thought I could store the truth so you'd never have to see it or feel it. Fact is I didn't wanna see it either. I made a terrible mistake. I was afraid. Afraid of what this would do to you. To us.

"This was never my secret to keep. And you deserved better than to live in darkness for so long. I'm so sorry. I failed you, too. I understand if you can't forgive me or you decide to shut me out for good. Just as long as you know that I am not your father. I never was."

"You're nothing like him. That's why I created you. You're the father I needed. Not the father I had."

"If I could have stopped him. If I could go back in time. Change everything that happened to you and make it all go away..."

"Then I wouldn't be me." Elliot finally turns to look at Mr. Robot, "And I wouldn't have you."

Mr Robot finally protectively holds Elliot and he breaks down in sobs, unsure if he has it in him to see their hacking plan through.

In this scene Mr. Robot accepts the truth that holding those memories from Elliot caused him so much pain over the years and that it was all he knew to do as a protector but faced with the reality of him accepting the pain he understands he was wrong.

The episode also features Elliot's child alter guiding him to evidence that they did fight back against their father as a child. They locked the door to their childhood bedroom and hid the key that Edward had access to. They threw themselves out of a window to prevent him hurting either him or their sister.

They were a child and sometimes the only way to fight back is to hide or to show the abuser that you'll not accept their abuse silently.

Both Mr. Robot and Krista praise the child who received the abuse for doing all they could to fight back, even when they felt so powerless. That it was not their fault. That the abuse was something they did everything they could to try and stop.

Mr. Robot even goes in and says that he wishes he could use a time machine to undo it and Elliot, finally accepting the core themes of the show, rejects the notion outright.

"I wouldn't be me. And I wouldn't have you."

Healthy acceptance of that which is and treasuring all that has been made with his life despite the trauma.

The main villain's plan is to use what is implied to be a time machine to reject the pain of this harsh reality in search of a better one. She would see suffering and turmoil in the present to bring about a better history. She is so fixated on reclaiming the world she feels she was owed that she cannot accept the reality she finds herself in.

Elliot goes dormant after his conversation with Mr. Robot and he takes over for the big hacking plan. During the finale of the "Fsociety" portion of the plot, Elliot finally resurfaces when Whiterose promises that her plot (implied heavily to be a time machine) can bring back a loved one that was murdered earlier in the show. When confronted with the choice between pressing forward with the pain of loss or retreating into delusion and rejection of reality; Elliot chooses to resurface.

Cementing the theme and moral firmly. It is better to accept the past and integrate it into your future than to live in rejection. Even if it hurts.

It's the only way to heal.

[reasonsforhope]

When Swiss cardiologist Thomas F. Lüscher attended an international symposium in Turin, Italy, last summer, he encountered an unusual “attendee:” Suzanne, Chat GPT’s medical “assistant.” Suzanne’s developers were eager to demonstrate to the specialists how well their medical chatbot worked, and they asked the cardiologists to test her. 

An Italian cardiology professor told the chatbot about the case of a 27-year-old patient who was taken to his clinic in unstable condition. The patient had a massive fever and drastically increased inflammation markers. Without hesitation, Suzanne diagnosed adult-onset Still’s disease. “I almost fell off my chair because she was right,” Lüscher remembers. “This is a very rare autoinflammatory disease that even seasoned cardiologists don’t always consider.”

Lüscher — director of research, education and development and consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital Trust and Imperial College London and director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zürich, Switzerland — is convinced that artificial intelligence is making cardiovascular medicine more accurate and effective. “AI is not only the future, but it is already here,” he says. “AI and machine learning are particularly accurate in image analysis, and imaging plays an outsize role in cardiology. AI is able to see what we don’t see. That’s impressive.” 

At the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, for instance, his team relies on AI to calculate the volume of heart chambers in MRIs, an indication of heart health. “If you calculate this manually, you need about half an hour,” Lüscher says. “AI does it in a second.” 

AI-Assisted Medicine

Few patients are aware of how significantly AI is already determining their health care. The Washington Post tracks the start of the boom of artificial intelligence in health care to 2018. That’s when the Food and Drug Administration approved the IDx-DR, the first independent AI-based diagnostic tool, which is used to screen for diabetic retinopathy. Today, according to the Post, the FDA has approved nearly 700 artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled medical devices.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is considered the worldwide leader in implementing AI for cardiovascular care, not least because it can train its algorithms with the (anonymized) data of more than seven million electrocardiograms (ECG). “Every time a patient undergoes an ECG, various algorithms that are based on AI show us on the screen which diagnoses to consider and which further tests are recommended,” says Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Cardiovascular Health Clinic. “The AI takes into account all the factors known about the patient, whether his potassium is high, etc. For example, we have an AI-based program that calculates the biological age of a person. If the person in front of me is [calculated to have a biological age] 10 years older than his birth age, I can probe further. Are there stressors that burden him?”

Examples where AI makes a sizable difference at the Mayo Clinic include screening ECGs to detect specific heart diseases, such as ventricular dysfunction or atrial fibrillation, earlier and more reliably than the human eye. These conditions are best treated early, but without AI, the symptoms are largely invisible in ECGs until later, when they have already progressed further...

Antioniades’ team at the University of Oxford’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine analyzed data from over 250,000 patients who underwent cardiac CT scans in eight British hospitals. “Eighty-two percent of the patients who presented with chest pain had CT scans that came back as completely normal and were sent home because doctors saw no indication for a heart disease,” Antioniades says. “Yet two-thirds of them had an increased risk to suffer a heart attack within the next 10 years.” In a world-first pilot, his team developed an AI tool that detects inflammatory changes in the fatty tissues surrounding the arteries. These changes are not visible to the human eye. But after training on thousands of CT scans, AI learned to detect them and predict the risk of heart attacks. “We had a phase where specialists read the scans and we compared their diagnosis with the AI’s,” Antioniades explains. “AI was always right.” These results led to doctors changing the treatment plans for hundreds of patients. “The key is that we can treat the inflammatory changes early and prevent heart attacks,” according to Antioniades. 

The British National Health Service (NHS) has approved the AI tool, and it is now used in five public hospitals. “We hope that it will soon be used everywhere because it can help prevent thousands of heart attacks every year,” Antioniades says. A startup at Oxford University offers a service that enables other clinics to send their CT scans in for analysis with Oxford’s AI tool.

Similarly, physician-scientists at the Smidt Heart Institute and the Division of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles use AI to analyze echograms. They created an algorithm that can effectively identify and distinguish between two life-threatening heart conditions that are easy to overlook: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiac amyloidosis. “These two heart conditions are challenging for even expert cardiologists to accurately identify, and so patients often go on for years to decades before receiving a correct diagnosis,” David Ouyang, cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute, said in a press release. “This is a machine-beats-man situation. AI makes the sonographer work faster and more efficiently, and it doesn’t change the patient experience. It’s a triple win.”

Current Issues with AI Medicine

However, using artificial intelligence in clinical settings has disadvantages, too. “Suzanne has no empathy,” Lüscher says about his experience with Chat GPT. “Her responses have to be verified by a doctor. She even says that after every diagnosis, and has to, for legal reasons.”

Also, an algorithm is only as accurate as the information with which it was trained. Lüscher and his team cured an AI tool of a massive deficit: Women’s risk for heart attacks wasn’t reliably evaluated because the AI had mainly been fed with data from male patients. “For women, heart attacks are more often fatal than for men,” Lüscher says. “Women also usually come to the clinic later. All these factors have implications.” Therefore, his team developed a more realistic AI prognosis that improves the treatment of female patients. “We adapted it with machine learning and it now works for women and men,” Lüscher explains. “You have to make sure the cohorts are large enough and have been evaluated independently so that the algorithms work for different groups of patients and in different countries.” His team made the improved algorithm available online so other hospitals can use it too...

[Lopez-Jimenez at the Mayo Clinic] tells his colleagues and patients that the reliability of AI tools currently lies at 75 to 93 percent, depending on the specific diagnosis. “Compare that with a mammogram that detects breast tumors with an accuracy of 85 percent,” Lopez-Jimenez says. “But because it’s AI, people expect 100 percent. That simply does not exist in medicine.”

And of course, another challenge is that few people have the resources and good fortune to become patients at the world’s most renowned clinics with state-of-the-art technology.

What Comes Next

“One of my main goals is to make this technology available to millions,” Lopez-Jimenez says. He mentions that Mayo is trying out high-tech stethoscopes to interpret heart signals with AI. “The idea is that a doctor in the Global South can use it to diagnose cardiac insufficiency,” Lopez-Jimenez explains. “It is already being tested in Nigeria, the country with the highest rate of genetic cardiac insufficiency in Africa. The results are impressively accurate.” 

The Mayo Clinic is also working with doctors in Brazil to diagnose Chagas disease with the help of AI reliably and early. “New technology is always more expensive at the beginning,” Lopez-Jimenez cautions, “but in a few years, AI will be everywhere and it will make diagnostics cheaper and more accurate.”

And the Children’s National Hospital in Washington developed a portable AI device that is currently being tested to screen children in Uganda for rheumatic heart disease, which kills about 400,000 people a year worldwide. The new tool reportedly has an accuracy of 90 percent. 

Both Lopez-Jimenez and Lüscher are confident that AI tools will continue to improve. “One advantage is that a computer can analyze images at 6 a.m. just as systematically as after midnight,” Lüscher points out. “A computer doesn’t get tired or have a bad day, whereas sometimes radiologists overlook significant symptoms. AI learns something and never forgets it.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 1, 2024. Headers added by me.

--

Note:

Okay, so I'm definitely not saying that everything with AI medicine will go right, and there won't be any major issues. That's definitely not the case (the article talks about some of those issues). But regulation around medicines is generally pretty tight, and

And if it goes right, this could be HUGE for disabled people, chronically ill people, and people with any of the unfortunately many marginalizations that make doctors less likely to listen.

This could shave years off of the time it takes people to get the right diagnosis. It could get answers for so many people struggling with unknown diseases and chronic illness. If we compensate correctly, it could significantly reduce the role of bias in medicine. It could also make testing so much faster.

(There's a bunch of other articles about all of the ways that AI diagnoses are proving more sensitive and more accurate than doctors. This really is the sort of thing that AI is actually good at - data evaluation and science, not art and writing.)

This decade really is, for many different reasons, the beginning of the next revolution in medicine. Luckily, medicine is mostly pretty well-regulated - and of course that means very long testing phases. I think we'll begin to really see the fruits of this revolution in the next 10 to 15 years.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Coronavirus infections in the United States are up in December, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The week that ended Saturday, December 7, saw test positivity rates rise to 5.4 percent; higher than the last week of November (4 percent) and the week before (4.5 percent).

Rates of COVID-19 positivity—the percentage of people taking COVID-19 tests who have a positive result—were higher in states in the middle of the U.S. compared with states nearer the East or West coasts.

Texas and its bordering states, known as region 6, had the highest rates in the country at 6.4 percent, closely followed by region 5 (Minnesota to Ohio) at 6.1 percent.

Regions 7 (Nebraska to Missouri) and 8 (Montana to Colorado) had rates of 6 and 5.9 percent respectively.

In contrast, the area with the lowest rates of COVID positivity was in the Southeast, region 4 (Florida to Kentucky), with only 2.2 percent of COVID tests coming back positive.

(Follow the link for the interactive map!)

The percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as COVID has remained largely unchanged in recent weeks, at 0.6 percent—with the highest rates located in the Southwest: New Mexico at 1.8 percent and Arizona at 1.5 percent.

Deaths from COVID are highest in North Carolina, with 1.4 percent of deaths attributed to the virus.

California, Michigan, New York and Florida also have higher than average rates of COVID-related deaths, ranging from 1.2 percent in California to 0.6 percent in Florida.

These rates are low compared to the same month last year, according to data from the CDC's hospitalization surveillance network, called COVID-NET.

Preliminary data from COVID-NET indicates that 1.4 people per 100,000 were hospitalized with COVID in the U.S. during the week ending December 7.

That is much less than the 6.1 per 100,000 people that were hospitalized with COVID during the same week in 2023.

The same data shows that since October 2024, 19.1 per 100,000 people have cumulatively been hospitalized with COVID—compared to 48 per 100,000 during the same period in 2023.

The CDC recommends that everyone aged 6 months and older should get a COVID-19 vaccine this season, meaning from October 2024 to September 2025.

This is because vaccine protection decreases over time and because the vaccines are updated to give people the best protection against new strains.

The newest COVID-19 strain is called XEC, a subvariant of Omicron that is believed to be more transmissible, but milder than previous strains.

The CDC lists current likely symptoms of COVID-19 as:

Fever or chills Cough Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Sore throat Congestion or runny nose New loss of taste or smell Fatigue Muscle or body aches Headache Nausea or vomiting Diarrhea

Many of these symptoms overlap with other illnesses, such as flu, which is why experts advise taking a test to find out what the illness is. These can be mailed to people's homes for free.

[satansaidnottoday]

When you get sick

Based on the Uno reverse Beel pulled in the last post.

Info: Human AU, GN!Mc.

Summary: You've got the cold and now your boyfriend must take care of you.

Warnings: general talk of sickness.

Lucifer

Has "do what I say, not what I do" energy. 

He urges you to take time off and rest. Says it's very important to relax for a timely recovery. Be sure to remember his exact words for the next time he is sick.

Will try to get out of work earlier so he can take care of you. He calls you throughout the day to see how you're doing and if you need anything. If you're in a really bad condition, he will take time off to take care of you.

He can't cook, but will order any foods you like. 

He will cuddle you if you ask, but won't offer on his own. He is a little scared of it being contagious. 

When you feel better, he won't expect anything from you but will accept any gestures of gratitude you give him.

Mammon

Whiny.

Thinks you're going to die.

You have to reassure him that it's just a cold every thirty minutes. I will try to get you to the hospital anyway.

He is completely at your service from day one. Do not dare move a muscle; the great Mammon has everything covered for you.

You have a fresh supply of hot tea always by your side. He makes sure you get all of your meals. He keeps a tally of every medicine you need to take. You basically have a personal nurse.

Lots of cuddles and massages.

If you're trembling at all because of the fever, he will hold you as if you were having a seizure.

He cries a lot when you're in pain, probably more than you.

When you're feeling better, he will expect at the very least a thank-you gift. A shopping spree would be preferable.

Leviathan

He doesn't know what to do.

Finds everything to be too overwhelming. He is really worried about you and wants to help, but he has no idea how to take care of a sick person. So, of course, he goes back to the person who used to take care of him when he was sick. Mammon.

He tries his hardest to be just as supportive, but it doesn't go well. The tea is always too hot or too cold, he only knows how to make ramen, and he keeps forgetting about the ibuprofen!

In the end, the best he can do for you is bring you more tissue boxes and lay down by your side while you watch movies. You reassure him that this is more than enough, but he still feels a little guilty.

When you feel better, make a great spectacle about how helpful he was. He did miss a butch of seasonal releases just to stay with you.

Satan

He will insist you take time off the moment symptoms start to show.

Shows up at your house with a butch of medicinal herbs. Mint to open up your nose, lavender to help with the headache, cardamom for... Something? He knows it had some healing property, but seems to have forgotten. He makes you some soup with it just in case it was important.

Won't go near you, even if you ask. Most he'd do is help you get around if your muscles are aching.

He will tell you about his latest read and how it made him feel. If you have read it, he will ask you to compare notes. Just trying to keep you entertained any way he can.

He brings all of his favorite tea blends for you to try out.

He won't expect anything in return for his care. He loves you, and that's just what you do for the people you love.

Asmodeus

Whiny 2.0

"My poor, beautiful thing."

He might not know a lot about caring for the sick, but he knows a lot about self-care. You will still have a runny nose, but your skin will shine, baby. 

He will pamper you. Have all of the blankets. Sleep for as long as you want. Ask for any food, and he will get it for you. With unlimited snacks, you can even have his favorite chocolates. He will watch all of your comfort shows and movies with you.

Baths, many baths. They are really good when you're sick; they relax your muscles and help the bad energies leave the body.

As soon as you're feeling good, it's his turn to be pampered! So better be prepared.

Beelzebub

If nothing else, you're well fed.

All healthy meals, he won't let you indulge in sweets. Your body needs protein and veggies right now, and he will have them for you at every meal. 

Will cut fruit for you as snack.

Pushes you to do some light exercises when you can. Sweat out the sickness.

He is very supportive, constantly telling you you're going to be okay. He will stay by your side every single minute.

He will carry you around if your muscles are sore.

When you're feeling better, he will make you desert. For the days he has you surviving on steamed broccoli and rice.

Belphegor

This is actually great news.

He gets to cuddle with you all day, and you won't be able to escape. He can even use you as an excuse to take a day off. No work, no school, just napping with his favorite person. Every day should be like that.

If only you didn't have to be sick for it to happen. 

He doesn't know much about taking care of someone. Being the youngest one, everyone else always took care of him. But he doesn't like seeing you hurt, so he will try his best.

The best medicine he can offer you is a good nap in his arms, but he will try some of Satan's medicinal teas. If needed, he will get Lucifer to drive him to the pharmacy. 

He doesn't know a thing about eating healthy, so you will get a diet of chips, pastries, and candy.

If you manage to get better, he will whine about not having your full attention anymore.

Thanks for reading!

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

Not being capable of saying "I'm sorry"

So that did the trick for me.

I wasn't shipping them until I realized that there was something in there. Between them, I mean. Something so strong that would survive Review and his infamous:

"No acid - Your dish needs acid - My behavior was not OK - Yes, chef. Last check is ready whenever - Family style? - Two tops - Booths?- Window on the side... Yeah-" And she not stepping into that kitchen until Carmy basically gave her his blessing. She didn't move when Rich said: "Syd, quit fucking around! Grab a can opener." That silent eye contact and his smile were soooo telling, before he started offering her his dream, before he shared with her his whole future.

INSTEAD OF JUST SAYING/TEXTING: "I'M SORRY, I APOLOGIZE". Because admitting something was wrong and apologizing for it, are two different things. And committing to never doing it again, is yet ANOTHER completely different thing.

I have posted my theory about Storer being a converted Sydcarmyfan here before and I also heard that JAW and Ayo said that while they were shooting S1 any kind of a romantic plot didn't cross their minds at all. And I believe them.

What Storer and Calo did was create a character like Carmy who can't talk about his feelings and lives in constant denial of them, bottling them up to the point of complete shutdown, which is a trauma response. Hence, all his symptoms such as Panic attacks - Sleep disorders, etc. So that set the basis to do whatever they wanted with Carmy moving forward and what they did in the very last ep of S1 was to make him fall for Syd, which I also covered here. I actually think it started here, but on a totally subconscious level. He started his slow-burn journey in Braciole. He really began to get the idea when he slept with Claire and Syd crossed his mind in such an intimate moment, which is what I think the common blue cinematography implied.

And by the time we got to Omellete, he was 100% aware of his feelings for Syd, after the panic attack.

That took him to open up under the table, in the best way he could.

Took him a whole season to use his words, he's just getting started. That table was just a warm-up.

And let's not forget the costume jacket - again, no words-, which also hints that Syd has been on his mind for a long time, like I said, on different levels, but still...

So now that he's getting "verbal" maybe he will learn to actually say he's sorry and apologizing with words and also actions, after getting out of the walk-in. That walk-in was also a space to reflect about his feelings for Syd that he had been putting in the freezer to deal with at a later time. But how much longer can he keep them in there before they start to rot?

I wanna say, not more than 5 to 6 more eps. Tops.

I'm talking about coming clean about how he feels, using words like a grown-up and all. Not about a full-on Sydcarmy development.

What I'm saying is that there's a reason why Storer and Calo created this leading character like this, non-verbal, intense, and talented with his hands, and the whole show revolves around his arc.

Sydney is the plot twist, he is the plot.

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (1x03): “Holly Jolly” Review

I remember viewing this show for the first time on New Years Day in 2017. I managed to binge the whole season, but it was rough to get through. I was dealing with an ugly combination of anxiety and depression at the time (I still have those symptoms, but I have a better hold on them than I did 8 years ago), and even though this was a show set in the 80s (and I’m a big fan of 80s related media and aesthetics) I was ambivalent about whether or not I would like Stranger Things. By nature, I’m pretty reluctant to get into new shows, and it’s only been in the last few years I’ve started to overcome that. There were certain aspects in Stranger Things that set off my anxiety (particularly in regards to topics like bullying and abuse), and while I pushed through those issues at the time, it resulted in me only viewing that season once. Same thing happened for season 2. It wouldn’t be until season 4 came out in 2022 that I committed to doing a full rewatch of the entire show before the premiere.

I’m grateful I did at the time, and I’m glad I’m doing this again before season 5 drops. One of the nice things about rewatches is it helps you pick up aspects you missed the first time while also allowing you to reevaluate the show with a new perspective, especially with the knowledge of how later seasons will turn out. Having new life experiences as the years go by is also useful in allowing for a change in perception regarding certain characters or storylines.

Take Steve’s character for instance: I HATED Steve the first time I saw this show. So much to the point that when Jonathan beat the crap out of him three episodes from now, I was cheering, and saw it as long overdue karma. My feelings towards Steve mellowed by the season 1 finale when he came through for Nancy and Jonathan, but if you were to ask me who my least favorite character was at the time, I would have said him. I was at least willing to give Steve a chance in season 2 (which thankfully paid off) compared to characters like Troy, James, Tommy, and Carol whom I just wanted to go away and stay gone.

Viewing the show again, especially for these reviews, has helped me see a lot more clearly in regards to Steve’s character in season 1. There’s a lot of subtext, both in Joe Keery’s performance, and with the way Steve is written, that not only helps foreshadow Steve’s eventual redemption, but also establishes that the character had redeeming qualities to begin with. Compared to characters like Billy and Angela, who were bullies that got a sadistic kick out of cruelly putting down others, Steve’s reasons for his behavior, while not excusable, at least have more nuance and understandable context than I realized at the time.

Same thing goes for the whole show, especially with the release of season 4: I remember so many fans after season 3 (especially on Reddit and Tumblr) who turned negative towards the show, saying it should have ended at season 1, that the Duffer Brothers were just spinning their wheels and didn’t have a coherent story plan, and so on. It was hard NOT to get sucked into that mentality (Fandoms sadly bring out the worst in people). With the release of season 4, and the mytharc questions that are finally answered, a lot of those fan criticisms not only feel outdated, but just dead wrong. There is a clear plan for where the Duffer Brothers intended to take the story, and based on how season 4 ended, there is an endgame being built up to that I'm excited to see play out. I mentioned this to @skellybonesandtrees in my last review, but part of the reason for doing these reviews is untangling myself from past fandom perceptions, and looking at the show through my own perspective with my own opinions and theories.

Part 1: Barbara

Poor Barb. She really got the raw end of the stick this season. First, she goes to a party she had no interest in attending only because Nancy asked her to be there. Then she gets a cut on her thumb from being pressured into shotgunning a beer can. Then she’s left behind by Nancy for sex with Steve. Then she gets dragged into the Upside Down where she’s subjected to a gruesome and lonely death. It’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone (except maybe Angela).

I know there are people who complain about intercutting scenes of characters having sex while others get gruesomely murdered, and how tasteless and sleazy it is. In this case though, it serves a purpose further down the line: This is the moment that would forever taint Nancy and Steve’s relationship going forward. The same time Steve and Nancy officially consummate is when Barb dies alone, and it’s something that’s going to haunt Nancy for the rest of the series. Nancy already felt guilty about telling Barbara to go home beforehand, but it was easy to reassure herself at the time that she would see Barbara again at school and that she could explain to her that things turned out okay. Then Barbara doesn’t show up, and we see Nancy’s guilt turn to worry as she’s left imagining the worst: Did Barb run away (as Powell and Callahan snidely infer to Nancy in the next episode)? Was she kidnapped? Did she get attacked? Was the creature behind Steve’s house that Nancy sees later behind it? All of which leads her to telling her mom and Barb’s parents that she thinks something happened. Which it did. Even when Steve and Nancy later get back together, she’s still left wondering if she could have prevented Barb’s death by simply going with her, and that grief and guilt impacted her ability to be truly invested in any relationship with Steve. Four seasons later, she’s still feeling those emotions, and it’s something Vecna is all too eager to exploit:

With the revelation of Vecna and his connection to the hive mind, as well as what he specifically tells Nancy in “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab,” there isn’t any question that Vecna is the one who killed Barbara. What I’m curious about is whether he only acted through the Demogorgon he was controlling at the time, or if he was physically present in the pool with Barbara and did the deed himself. It’s a little murky since Barbara’s death doesn’t fit Vecna’s usual M.O. (i.e. limbs snapped and twisted, spine broken, eyes gouged out, etc), but that could easily be explained by wanting Barbara’s body to manufacture larvae that would eventually grow into future Demogorgons.

I talked about this in my review of The Other Side, but this is a big reason why I don’t subscribe to the theory that Vecna and the Mind Flayer only wanted Will to reproduce these creatures. They had plenty of other victims like Barbara (including the two hunters who disappear two episodes from now) that they could have taken and used if that’s what they were aiming for. Whatever reason for why Vecna and The Mind Flayer have a fixation on Will, it goes beyond that.

And while we’re on the subject of Will surviving and Barabara dying………..let’s discuss fan reactions towards Barbara’s death, and how that led to the #JusticeForBarb activism:

I remember watching season 1 for the first time, hoping that Barbara had survived, and being disappointed when she hadn’t. I also remember the fan fixation on Barbara’s death, and how it lead to a huge debate about whether the show was misogynistic in its treatment of female characters, about Fridging, and about the way Barbara’s death was treated by characters in-universe. I wasn’t even in the fandom at the time (I wouldn’t actually interact with people on social media until 2019), and even I was aware of this phenomenon when it happened. This was a big enough deal that the Duffer Brothers went to great lengths to address this in season 2, which is why we got the storyline of Nancy trying to avenge Barbara’s death and exposing Hawkins Lab in the process.

I’m just going to state this point-blank: I do NOT believe, nor have I ever believed, that Stranger Things is misogynistic. Not in its presentation, and certainly not in its treatment of female characters. I believe the show has explored themes of misogyny (internal and external) in relation to characters like Nancy, El, Karen, Joyce, and Max, along with their respective arcs, but that isn’t the same thing as indulging in hatred or condescension towards women. Girls and Women on this show have fleshed-out personalities, they have motivations beyond simply being the “Sexy Lamp” love interest to the male characters, and they’ve been allowed to have vulnerabilities and character flaws that help them avoid falling into the “Strong Independent Woman” caricature that Hollywood promotes, or even the “Mary Sue” stereotype. By the standards of other TV shows and movies with female characters, Stranger Things looks pretty damn progressive.

This is a horror show, and characters are inevitably going to die, regardless of their gender. Two episodes ago, Benny got violently murdered just because he was in the same room with El. Two episodes from now, we’re going to learn about the two hunters (Dale and Henry) who also become victims of the Demogorgon. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in regards to character deaths that are forthcoming.

Barbara’s death is tragic and sad (just like Benny’s), but for fans to imply it’s only because of misogyny is not just insulting and patronizing, it’s missing the forest for the trees: Vecna is established as a misanthropic genocidal monster who views all humans as one in the same, couldn’t care less about gender, race, sexual orientation, social class, etc, and wants humanity wiped off the face of the Earth. We don’t know the reasons yet for why he wanted Will alive, but it’s fair to say it wasn’t out of the pure goodness of his heart.

As for the accusations of Fridging…………if the Duffer Brothers had gone with the original Montauk script, where Barbara barely had any personality beyond her interest in Nancy’s crush on Steve, was just there to drive Nancy to the bonfire party, and was immediately killed off in the first episode with barely anyone noticing, then I could understand that accusation. However, that’s not the version of Barbara we got in the final product. We had several episodes to get to know her where we saw that, while she wanted to be supportive of Nancy, she wasn’t above voicing her concerns, had zero interest in kissing up to the popular crowd (and even expressed contempt for individuals like Tommy and Carol), and was one of the few people next to Nancy who was concerned for Jonathan over Will’s disappearance. Supplementary Materials like Rebel Robin (both the book and the podcast) added on to Barbara’s character, both in showing that she was progressive for a high school student in the 1980s (i.e. knowing about Mr. Hauser’s homosexuality, but keeping it a secret for his sake), and demonstrating how she was a genuinely kind person overall. I’m not surprised Nancy and Barbara were friends for as long as they were:

As for the complaints about how Barbara was forgotten by everyone except Nancy (not helped by that stupid SNL skit), that's really taking things out-of-context.

First off, at this point in the episode, Barbara was barely missing for 24 hours the same way Will had been missing for several days, and everyone had assumed she was somewhere else during that time. It wasn’t until Nancy came clean to her mom and Barbara’s parents that they were even aware about her disappearance.

Second, Brenner and Hawkins Lab weren’t aware at the time of Barbara’s disappearance when they were faking Will’s death with a dummy. When it was brought to their attention later on, they took care of it: Barbara’s car disappeared, and the story was put out that she ran away. I know the SNL skit tapped into fandom outrage at the time (“NO BODY FOR BARB! NO FUNERAL FOR BARB!”), but let’s think critically about this for a minute: What would have happened if the Lab faked a body for Barbara like they did for Will? How were they going to present it in a way that didn't create awkward questions? There’s already a kid who disappeared, and a man who was murdered that was staged to look like a suicide. Assuming they presented a dummy to look like Barbara's corpse, would anyone actually believe Barbara’s death was a random accident at that point? Or would people start to suspect there’s was a serial killer in the area, and that these death’s weren’t just a coincidence? Given Hopper has dealt with a serial killer in the past (as demonstrated in the prequel Darkness on the Edge of Town), I’m gonna wager he would have seen through this immediately and launched a full-scale investigation. He was already suspicious of Hawkins Lab and what they were hiding to begin with, and the last thing Brenner wanted was to draw attention to a situation he was desperately trying to contain.

Third, out of all the main characters on this show, Barbara had the closest relationship with Nancy. Therefore, it makes sense that Nancy is the one who’d be expressing the most concern for Barbara's whereabouts during this time. Jonathan and Steve barely knew her (at least that’s the impression from their brief interactions with each other), and it’s questionable if Mike, Lucas, or Dustin knew her beyond simply being Nancy’s best friend. It’s not a case of others not caring for Barbara’s fate; it’s that characters like Jonathan, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas didn’t know her as well as Nancy did, and they were fixated on finding Will because they had a closer relationship with him.

I know this is lengthy, and I will talk more about Barbara in future reviews, but I wanted to give my due diligence to her character because she deserves to be discussed. That being said, let’s move on to the other teenagers.

Part 2: Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve

Even before I saw this scene for the first time, I could already predict from the previous episode that Steve was going to find out about the photos and there would be an ugly confrontation with Jonathan. I remember feeling frustrated with Jonathan and wishing he'd destroyed the photos he took (or at very least, only develop the photos related to his investigation into Will’s disappearance while destroying the photos of the pool party). And to develop them at the school where someone (in this case, Nicole) was going to inevitably see them, and run to tell Steve, Tommy, and Carol. Ugh! 😖

I’ve already made my feelings clear in the previous review over what I thought about Jonathan taking the photos, but just in case it needs to be said again: This wasn’t a deal-breaker in terms of liking his character. Yes, it was creepy and wrong, but the show acknowledged it as such, Jonathan later apologized for it, and he hasn’t done anything like that since. I know there are fans who want to beat this dead horse, but I’m not interested in joining in. It’s fucking trite constantly going over past wrongdoings.

In regards to Steve’s behavior in this scene, my feelings are mixed.

On the one hand, I don’t begrudge Steve for being angry about this. If someone was taking photographs of me without my knowledge or consent, I would be furious enough to want to smash their camera or phone. I cannot begin to express how enraging I find it when I hear stories about videos circulating on TikTok of people who were unknowingly filmed without their knowledge or consent, and those videos are later posted without their permission so the user who filmed them can rake up their view count. Doubly so if the people in those videos are being humiliated. It’s creepy, exploitative, and gross on so many levels. It’s another reason why I have such a negative reaction to the Rink-O-Mania scene in season 4: It wasn’t just enough for Angela to have her face smashed in. I wanted El to take the video camera that Angela’s friends used to film El’s humiliation, and beat the shit out of them with it until it broke.

On top of that, it’s noteworthy that, unlike Tommy and Carol who are just there for shits and giggles, Steve looks genuinely pissed:

So I get Steve’s anger and why he came after Jonathan over this issue. I’m NOT saying it was okay how he handled it, but it’s a lot more complex beyond Steve-Antis claiming that Steve wanted an excuse to bully Jonathan. As I've discussed before, nothing in the show or supplementary materials has ever given the impression that Steve targeted Jonathan for the LULZ the same way Angela did with El. The most he had for Jonathan beforehand was indifference.

Where Steve loses me, however, is when Nancy shows up. Like I said, I can understand Steve smashing Jonathan’s camera in anger, but the way the camera-breaking happens here makes it look like Steve was showboating for the benefit of Nancy and his friends. Doubly so for Nancy since I’m sure he wanted to emphasize to her that he was being a protective boyfriend. However, that’s not how it came off to Nancy. If anything, Nancy looks upset that this is even taking place at all.

It does introduce a self-absorbed side to Steve that isn’t pleasant to watch, and is something that turns Nancy off from him (even if she doesn’t vocalize it). It doesn’t cancel out the genuine concern Steve has for her (which we see when Nancy later leaves to go look for Barb), but it’s not a good look either.

What is interesting though is seeing Steve’s reaction to the aftermath of having sex with Nancy. Not only did Steve NOT tell anyone about their affair, but he still wants a relationship with her. Compared to Montauk!Steve, who would have immediately dumped Nancy and bragged to everyone and their dog about the details of his sexual conquest, Steve's quick to reassure Nancy here about her anxieties. Even the scene where Steve points to a butterfly sticker on Nancy’s locker (a not-so-subtle metaphor for Nancy losing her virginity and “transforming” in the process) is depicted as a sweet moment.

There’s also Steve’s interactions with Tommy and Carol. I didn’t pick this up first time around since I pegged all three of them as one in the same in terms of personality, but rewatching season 1 again has helped me pick up subtext regarding how uncomfortable Steve is with Tommy and Carol’s mean-spirited jokes, as well as how they seem to use Steve. We got hints of that in the previous episode (like Steve’s reaction to Tommy and Carol banging in his parents room), but we see it further when Tommy is a dick to Nancy at lunch and Steve tells him to knock it off, or Steve's unimpressed reaction to the gross cracks Tommy and Carol make about Mr. Mundy. The way Joe Keery plays Steve in these scenes conveys that he's bothered by how Tommy and Carol act, but grits his teeth for the sake of their friendship. That is NOT something that will last down the line as they continue to show no respect for anyone else’s boundaries.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on social media act the way Tommy and Carol do, and then they wonder why others get fed up with their behavior and cut them off. 😒

Finally, in regards to Nancy and Jonathan, I will talk more about their interactions as they develop in later episodes, but if there’s one good thing that came out of the camera incident (even if it was unintentional), it’s that Jonathan got the photo of Barbara with the Demogorgon in the background, and Nancy was quick enough to notice and pocket the pieces of the photo. Nancy was already conveying in her body language that she wasn’t happy about what Steve was doing with Jonathan, but considering she was already worried for Barbara during all of this, and then saw that photo, I can understand why Nancy was willing to overlook the camera incident, and why she didn’t hold it against Jonathan.

Part 3: El and Brenner

One of the inspirations for Stranger Things, according to the Duffer Brothers, was an anime called Elfen Lied. Originally a Manga that ran between 2002-2005, it was adapted into an anime show released in 2004 consisting of 13 episodes and 1 OVA that lasted one season. It centered around a secret laboratory on an island that experimented with Diclonius, a mutated human-like species with horns growing out of their heads and invisible arms known as “vectors” that they use to kill humans, levitate objects, or slice through anything that stands in their way. Because Diclonii can spread their mutation through their vectors touching male humans, they are kept quarantined (and in most cases, killed) to prevent them from infecting humans and overrunning the population. One night, a Diclonius named Lucy, believed to be the Queen Bee of the species, manages to escape from the Lab (we later find out she received assistance via Professor Kakuzawa, the son of the Director overseeing the Program), slaughtering multiple people in the process, before getting shot by an anti-tank rifle, knocking her into the ocean and allowing her to escape.

The impact of the bullet, combined with trauma she’s endured during her lifetime (and even perpetrated), causes her to develop a split personality: Lucy, the ruthless Diclonius with her memories intact, and Nyu, a childish persona with no understanding of the world. She is taken in by a university student named Kohta (whom Lucy is later revealed to have known in the past as a child) and his cousin Yuka. The rest of the anime deals with Kohta and Yuka aiding Lucy/Nyu and helping her adjust to life at their home, all while government agents attempt to hunt her down and send other Diclonii like Nana/Number 7 and Mariko/Number 35 to deal with her.

There is a lot in relation to story, themes, and characters from Elfen Lied that works its way into the fabric of Stranger Things, not just in this season, but in season 4 as well. This episode especially pays homage to certain elements from the anime.

Take for instance the scene when El finds Nancy’s music box with the spinning ballerina, and how it mirrors Lucy/Nyu's fascination with a music box Kohta owned that played a soothing melody she liked:

The music box in Stranger Things was more of a curiosity for El and one of many interesting things she found in Nancy’s room, especially given she had next to nothing at the Lab AND this is the first time she’s aware of an older girl like Nancy and wants to know what she's like. The music box in Elfen Lied is a recurring plot element that foreshadows how Lucy knew Kohta in the past, and that they once shared a childhood friendship:

In regards to Lucy’s character, while there are parallels that can be drawn between her and El (particularly when it comes to their abusive upbringings, how they were treated as freaks for most of their lives, and the similarities between Lucy’s hellish experience in school and El’s miserable time in Lenora), it’s pretty disquieting how much Lucy and Vecna resemble each other in terms of personality and backstory. Even the play The First Shadow has certain story elements that come from this anime, particularly with how the childhood friendship between Lucy and Kohta mirrors Henry/One/Vecna’s childhood relationship with Patty Newby.

For this reason, I will save the more in-depth discussions about Lucy and Elfen Lied’s themes and motifs when I review season 4.

For now, I want to focus on the parallel that is obvious in this episode between Elfen Lied and Stranger Things: The relationship between Dr. Brenner and El, and how it mirrors the relationship between Nana/Number 7 and Dr. Kurama.

There are plenty of inspirations for Brenner’s character that will be discussed in later reviews, but Dr. Kurama is a big one: While he isn’t the head of the Laboratory (that would be the Director) he is a senior scientist who was hired through his connections to Professor Kakuzawa, and helps oversee the experimentation on the Diclonii. Unlike Brenner, who was trying to create as many special kids as possible via Henry/One/Vecna’s blood, Dr. Kurama’s motivation is to find out how the Diclonii spread their mutation and whether there’s a cure or an origin point for the mutation. He was also not above mercy-killing Diclonii babies, which he (and everyone else in the Program) viewed as a necessary evil to prevent the spread of the mutation and save the parents from their Diclonii children growing up and slaughtering them the first chance they got. Unlike Brenner, who specifically went out of his way to assert control over the special kids like El and made sure he was the dominant authority figure in their lives, Dr. Kurama’s connection to the Diclonius is tenuous as best. Lucy and Number 3 hate him, and Number 3 even infected him out of spite, which would later lead to his wife getting pregnant with Mariko/Number 35, another Diclonius that he has limited control over. The only Diconlius who really followed Dr. Kurama’s every word, and was desperate for his approval, was Nana/Number 7. And just like with El, Nana/Number 7 was conditioned to see Dr. Kurama as her “Papa” as a means of surviving the experimentation done on her while giving her something to live for.

The best way I know how to describe Dr. Kurama in relation to Brenner is that he’s a slightly more sympathetic take on Brenner's character (but only slightly). For all of his flaws, Kurama was genuinely invested in preventing loss of human life, and even showed concern for the well-being and safety of his staff, which contrasts sharply with the cold, dismissive attitude Brenner had towards employees who worked under him (as we see in the flashback with how Brenner steps over the bodies of the orderlies El killed just so he can reward El’s use of her powers with his affection). Unlike Brenner, who deluded himself towards the end of his life into thinking he was a good person and a loving “Papa” to the special kids, Dr. Kurama has no delusions. He knows he’s a hypocrite and that his actions towards the Diclonius were monstrous. And despite having killed plenty of Diclonii babies over the protests of their fathers, he was unwilling to do it for his own Diclonii daughter Mariko (albeit because his dying wife begged him not to as a last favor to her) and kept Mariko/Number 35 locked in solitary confinement with a bomb implanted into her because of Mariko’s psychopathic tendencies.

Neither Brenner nor Kurama are winning “Father of the Year” awards anytime soon, but at least Kurama takes responsibility for his role in the person Mariko/Number 35 became and for the damage he caused (which Brenner absolutely refused to do, even towards the end of his life). And while Brenner’s relationship with El was based complete control over her and her powers, with the implication he wanted to live vicariously through the greatness she was born with (at least from what Vecna infers about Brenner in S4), Dr. Kurama’s relationship with Nana/Number 7 was a lot more complicated. Yes, he used her to bring Lucy back, but when that failed and she lost her limbs as a result, not only did Dr. Kurama provide her with new artificial limbs, but he goes against the orders of the Director to terminate her for outliving her usefulness, and orchestrates Nana/Number 7's freedom from the Lab while providing her with money to survive.

As for Nana/Number 7, she eventually gets a second chance at an ordinary life when she's taken in by Kohta and Yuka (and even makes her peace with Lucy in the series finale despite what she did to her), but she still maintains that daughterly affection for Dr. Kurama. This contrasts with El, who outgrows her dependence on Dr. Brenner’s approval over the course of the series, and (rightfully) comes to view Brenner as a monster for what he did to her, her mother, Henry/One/Vecna, and the other special kids.

One aspect they kept from both the anime and Stranger Things was El’s aversion to hurting animals, similar to Lucy’s aversion to killing dogs. The scene with the cat and El at the Lab takes on a much different context come season 4 when we’ve seen what Henry/One/Vecna did as a child to the animals and pets around Hawkins. It wasn’t just about testing El’s powers on the cat the same way she did with the Coke can, but seeing if she could reach into the cat's mind and consume it the way Vecna would've:

I’m curious if Brenner assumed El finally did this when she killed the orderlies who were going to lock her up, and that’s why he awarded her with affection. If that’s the case, he’s dead wrong. El certainly killed them, but I seriously doubt she consumed them the way Vecna would have. There seems to be a very specific ritual to do that, and El did not follow that pattern. It’s even questionable if she knows how to, or if Brenner ever taught her how to based on his time with Vecna. In any case, it does act as future foreshadowing that El was NOT the one who killed the other kids at Hawkins Lab, no matter how many red herrings the Duffer Brothers planted in season 4 pointing to her.

Another call-forward to season 4 comes in the conversation Mike and El have later when El infers that Mike has been bullied and implies that the same thing has happened to her in the past:

Mike: I was tripped by this mouth breather, Troy, okay? Eleven: Mouth breather? Mike: Yeah, you know…..a dumb person. A knucklehead. Eleven: Knucklehead? Mike: I don’t know why I just didn’t tell you. Everyone at school knows. I just didn’t want you to think I was such a wastoid, you know? Eleven: Mike… Mike: Yeah? Eleven: I understand.

Conversations like this make me question how much El remembers prior to Vecna’s banishment to the Upside Down in 1979. She apparently recalls the tunnel Vecna showed her that she would later use to escape, and this conversation implies that she remembers being viciously bullied at the Lab. However, she doesn’t seem to remember the massacre itself at this point, or even Henry/One/Vecna for that matter. It makes me question what Brenner told her about the fates of the other special kids. Did he just not say anything? Did he tell her they all died, but wouldn’t give specifics? In any case, the fact El later believes she’s the one who killed them, and that Brenner never made any attempt to dissuade her from that belief (at least not until she completed her work with The Nina Project), is just one more example of him being an abusive figure in her life.

Part 4: Searching For Will (Mike, Lucas, and Dustin)

To call these scenes the highlight of this episode would be fair. In fact, if I were to pick the arc I was most invested in during season 1, it was the one pertaining to the boys and El and their attempts to find Will. They have a certain charm to them that holds up, and it’s nice seeing different inspirations from other media that were used to make the friendships between these characters work. One of those inspirations that’s present in this episode (and paid homage to in later episodes) is Stand By Me.

Stand By Me is a 1986 coming-of-age movie by Rob Reiner, which was adapted from a Stephen King story called The Body. It centers around four boys named Gordon, Chris, Teddy, and Vern who, in the summer of 1959, hear about a body of a missing boy named Ray Brower in the woods. Believing they can get famous and appear on TV if they find the body, the four boys venture into the woods to look for it. However, during the journey, they're forced to confront hard truths about their lives and what the future holds for them. It’s a bittersweet story, but one of Stephen King’s best, both in terms of his books and the movie adaptations based on them.

Also, for those fans who whine about characters like Lucas being politically incorrect this season, Stand By Me is a helluva lot more crass with how its characters talks about sensitive subjects. At the same time though, it comes off as how boys in the 1950s would’ve talked, and there’s a refreshing honesty with how the movie tackles hard topics like death, bullying, and ostracization that isn’t patronizing.

The main arc here for Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and even El to some degree, has its roots in Stand By Me, along with other 70s and 80s movies dealing with friendships and the ups and downs of them (The Goonies, Breaking Away, etc). The common theme in each one involves an adventure where the characters are forced to do some inner soul-searching, either regarding their flaws or problems going on in their own lives, and come out stronger and wiser in the process. It doesn’t magically make all their issues go away, but they at least are able to deal with them better than before.

In this episode, the journey has just begun. We have Dustin showing up with the snacks (which El later eats) and we have Lucas show up with all of his dad’s gear from Vietnam: Binoculars, Army Knife, Hammer, Camouflage Bandana, Slingshot. He came prepared. Or as prepared as he could be.

Both the show and supplementary materials (like the comic Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons and the novel Lucas on the Line) have subtly alluded to Lucas’s interest in what happened to his dad in Vietnam, despite his dad’s reluctance to talk about it. Given that Hawkins will likely become a war zone in the final season, especially with the military present, I’m wondering if that aspect could come into play, either through Lucas’s father getting an expanded role in putting his military experience to work (to help the Party of course, not Colonel Sullivan), or through Lucas finding out about what his father went through in Vietnam and putting that knowledge to use in helping to defeat the Mind Flayer’s army. Unlike Teddy from Stand By Me, Lucas has the athletics similar to Steve to be able to fight back (which we see him do against Billy and Jason in later seasons), is good at improvising, and could even get his father’s help in combat ideas. There’s a juicy story here for Lucas that the Duffer Brothers could explore in season 5 if they grab it by the horns. Lord knows that whenever they’ve given Lucas his own arcs, not only do they turn out to be great, they actually result in some neat character development that carries over into other seasons (just like with Steve).

In any case, the boys and El set out on their late night adventure, but unlike Stand By Me, where there’s a whole lot of introspection and deep conversations the characters have BEFORE they find the body, they end up finding Will’s body a lot quicker than they anticipated. Or so it appears:

I know this moment for many people was emotional, but for me, I didn’t buy for a second that Will was truly dead. I was skeptical about Barbara’s survival (especially because the Demogorgon was in the pool with her and we saw her get dragged under), but Will’s staged death here was easy to see through. This was only Episode 3, and we had 5 more to get through at this point. Considering how much emphasis the show had placed on flashbacks to Will prior to this, as well as Joyce’s entire arc in this episode, it would have been premature to assume he was dead because it would have rendered all of that moot.

Like I said, the parallels between this season and movies like Stand By Me are still there. They may be taking aspects of the story out-of-order as a subversion, but the journey Mike, Dustin, and Lucas undergo where they have to do some serious introspection is yet to come. And the journey to find Will and save him isn’t over yet.

Part 5: Joyce, Karen, and Holly

Ever since the Stranger Things Spoilers account on Twitter/X began releasing BTS photos for season 5 while placing a huge emphasis on Holly, it has inspired me to look closer at Holly’s role in the first four seasons. Particularly of note are the photos they released of Holly and Vecna at what appears to be the Creel House.

This makes me question whether Vecna and Holly are interacting for the first time here, or if that’s been a thing as early as season 1 and the audience is only now being made aware of it.

Take Holly’s scene at Joyce’s house for instance: The way Holly is lured into Will's room by the flashing lights before something starts to break through the wall makes me think it was Vecna doing this in that moment. I seriously doubt Will is the one who lured her, especially because he wouldn’t ever do anything to endanger Mike’s sister like that with the Demogorgon lurking about:

The last frame catches my eye because that doesn’t look like the Demogorgon’s mouth. That looks like a large hand. It’s possible it could be the monster’s hand, but what if it was Vecna’s?

I want to talk a little about Karen since, aside from her unhappy marriage to Ted, she doesn’t really get as much focus on this show like she should. Regardless of her flaws, I've always appreciated how she’s one of the few parents on this show to be emotionally available to her kids. We see that in her interactions with Nancy at the beginning when she’s upset about Nancy coming home late but also implores Nancy to talk with her, an offer Nancy takes her up on when she realizes Barbara is missing and might be in danger. We also see it at the end of this episode with her and Mike after Mike comes home in tears thinking Will is dead:

Personally, I feel like the show made a mistake not including Karen in the line-up of adults (Joyce, Hopper, Bob, Murray, etc) who find out about the Upside Down and what’s been going on with her kids. That will likely get explored in season 5 now that the Gate is open, but we could have gotten it so much sooner as opposed to dragging out her loveless relationship with Ted or her inappropriate crush on Billy (which was never going to amount to anything). I like that she gives good advice to her kids, and that we see hidden depths to her character beyond simply being a shallow, superficial housewife.

Finally, there’s Joyce. It should go without saying that her picking up on Will’s ability to communicate through the lights was inspired, and it led to this iconic and clever set design on her part:

The Duffer Brothers have talked extensively in interviews about the different inspirations for Joyce, from Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to Hugh Jackman’s character in Prisoners, to Jack Nicholson’s iconic role of Jack Torrance in The Shining. Each of these characters share the same trait of obsession and myopic fixation, to the point that it begins to impact their lives and alienates loved ones around them. The plot of Prisoners especially is central to this show, with both focusing on the disappearance of a child and a parent’s determination to get their kid back no matter the cost.

I will talk more about Prisoners and The Shining in later reviews as Joyce’s story develops, but Close Encounters of the Third Kind is relevant here, particularly with Joyce’s behavior. In that movie, Dreyfuss’s character, named Roy Neary, is one of many people who has a “close encounter” one night with a UFO, resulting in him getting half his face sunburnt and developing an obsession with the image of a particular shape that’s been implanted in his head by the aliens. What follows is Roy’s fixation on said image and what it means (later revealed to be Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, where the aliens establish contact with humans) at the expense of his family. His behavior becomes so unhinged and nonsensical to the point his wife takes their kids and flees to her sister’s house.

I saw this movie for the first time back in 2015, and even rewatching it years later for this review, I was never able to connect with Roy and found him unsympathetic. His abandonment of his family (whom we never see again once his wife drives off with the kids) left a sour taste in my mouth, and it made him look like an irresponsible parent. Steven Spielberg (who wrote and directed the movie) admitted later he wasn’t a fan of how he wrote Roy’s character, and would change it if he could to have Roy stay with his family, indicating even he came to recognize the problems with how this aspect of the character was handled.

All of this makes me question why the Duffer Brothers made Roy’s character and mannerism the centerpiece for Joyce’s character. Joyce is obsessed with getting her son back alive (as I’d imagine any parent would be in her situation) and while her behavior looks irrational on the surface to people like Jonathan or Karen, she isn’t trying to drag people into her fixation the same way Roy did in the movie (as we see when she demands Karen and Holly leave her house out of fear the monster may attack them). And unlike Roy, who discards his family by the end of the movie in favor of boarding the alien ship, Joyce establishes she does care for Jonathan and is trying to balance supporting him while looking for Will.

Funny enough, I would say Joyce has similarities to the character of Jillian Guiler. In the movie, Jillian has a three-year-old son named Barry who also sees the UFOs with his mother. Later, in an extremely creepy scene, the UFOs show up at her house, causing the electricity and appliances to go haywire (similar to the electromagnetic fluctuations that happen whenever something from the Upside Down is near) and her son gets taken by the aliens. Like Roy, she has the obsession with getting to Devil’s Tower at any cost. Unlike Roy though, where it comes off like he’s looking to have his obsession validated and therefore show he was in the right for how he acted, Jillian’s motivation to find her son provides a more sympathetic context to her actions, and makes it easier to relate to her. I would argue that sympathetic context also applies to Joyce, which is why the parallels with Jillian work better than they do with Roy.

As for Joyce’s situation with the monster in her walls, am I the only on who saw similarities to the video game Silent Hill 4?

Again, the Duffer Brothers have cited Silent Hill video games as inspiration for the show, particularly in relation to the Upside Down. I find it interesting how Joyce's story in season 1 parallels that particular game. The premise of Silent Hill 4 centers around a man named Henry Townsend who moves into an apartment that turns out to be haunted, resulting in him being locked inside and cut off from other people. All the while, he begins to have nightmares, and eventually finds a hole in his bathroom that allows him to travel to certain locations that turn out to have a connection to a serial killer and his victims.

There’s a lot here (particularly in regards to the killer and how he mirrors Vecna in his motives and the mindscapes both of them inhabit) that factors into season 4, but the main theme of Henry Townsend and Joyce being isolated from others while there’s a monster in their walls is notable. In Henry Townsend’s case, it’s supernatural (and even acts as a metaphor for how closed off he is from people due to being an introvert). In Joyce’s case, it’s self-imposed. She is able to leave her house, but doesn’t want to because Will is there, and she intends to stay there until he is found, regardless of how crazy her behavior looks to everyone else.

Part 6: Hopper’s Investigation

That reference from Powell about Hawkins Lab being “Emerald City” gave me a chuckle. The Wizard of Oz movie doesn’t dive too deep into the politics of Oz (I can’t speak for the books because I haven’t read them), but compared to the letdown of the Wizard being the “Man Behind the Curtain,” what lurking behind the curtain at Hawkins Lab would not be nearly as disappointing. Even Callahan’s snide remarks about “space weapons” pales in comparison to the horrors we’ve seen from this building.

In any case, I’d argue if you were going to draw parallels between this show and Oz, then the play Wicked, and its 2024 movie adaptation, would be your best reference. The way the authorities in Emerald City and the Wizard are depicted in those adaptations, with their sinister motivations, works a lot better as a parallel to the shady shit Hawkins Lab was engaging in, particularly its ties to MKUltra.

Speaking of which, this is the first episode that goes into the MKUltra program and how it connects to Hawkins Lab, specifically El’s mom, Terry Ives.

MKUltra was a real life human experimentation program created by the CIA which dealt with the use of different drugs and psychological warfare to control and manipulate human behavior. Mind Control and brainwashing were key themes in the program, particularly the idea of erasing someone’s entire personality and creating a new one through drugging, psychological torture, operant conditioning, all with the purpose of making that person susceptible to suggestions from the person exerting control over them. The proverbial Manchurian Candidate, if you will.

The program had its origins from the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), which was created from different branches of the military during WWII. This would eventually lead to the development of the CIA in 1947. While there were shady experiments done during this period, some of which were inspired by the Nazi’s experimentation of Jews with different drugs like mescaline during the Holocaust, it wouldn’t be until 1953 that the program officially became MKUltra. Some of the Nazi scientists, like Dr. Kurt Plotner, who oversaw the mescaline experiments on Jews, not only were recruited by the United States under Operation Paperclip, but were also encourage to continue their research, which was eerie foreshadowing for how MKUltra went forward with its research: Unethical human experimentation based on mind control and the use of drugs (about 125 different types were tested), stimulation techniques of the brain, sensory deprivation, hypnosis, you name it. There’s a video that goes more in depth about what kind of experiments took place:

One of the drugs used in the program was LSD, the same one Terry Ives took during her experiments at Hawkins Lab when she was pregnant with El. During the 60s, CIA specifically funded research into LSD to see how it enhanced the consciousness of a person. While the purpose was centered around making someone susceptible, either so they would spill information that the interrogator wanted, or to create a new personality within the subject, both season 1 and the novel Suspicious Minds (which is arguably non-canon at this point) implied that LSD was one of many drugs that could break down reality barriers set on the mind and allow those people to see other worlds beyond this one. It’s the idea that a mental gate is opened via the drug, which allows the mind to connect to different worlds and realities, including the Upside Down.

Unfortunately, while this idea was touched upon in the show, it’s not one the Duffer Brothers ran with. As we see with season 4 and The First Shadow, the reason El and other special kids like Kali/Eight have powers is because Brenner took Henry’s blood (which was altered due to transporting to the Upside Down as a child and encountering the Mind Flayer) and did blood transfusions to create multiple kids. In El’s case, Terry was likely given a blood transfusion without her knowledge or consent while pregnant during those times she was experimenting with LSD at Hawkins Lab. Pretty much in line with how unethical everything about this was to begin with.

MKUltra’s research allegedly stopped in 1973 due to distrust with the government that arose publicly after the Watergate scandal, resulting in thousands of documents related to MKUltra being destroyed to prevent a full investigation. What followed were a series of committee investigations into the CIA by the U.S. Congress, and even lawsuits from people who were test subjects in the program and were given certain drugs without their consent. Some of that is alluded to in the newspaper clippings Hopper and Powell view at the Library regarding Terry Ives’s attempts to sue Brenner and get El back:

Some people might question how Hawkins Lab is even able to be around at this point in the show (1983), but considering the shadiness and illegality of these government programs to begin with, as well as how there’s a history of programs starting out one way before it’s succeeded by another (similar to how Project Artichoke became MKUltra and MKUltra spawned other government sanctioned programs like MKNAOMI), I wouldn’t be surprised if Hawkins Lab became a program of its own that was off-the-books and pretended to distance itself from MKUltra, all while keeping the same ideology and techniques as its predecessor. It reminds me of the illegal CIA Treadstone program from the Jason Bourne movies. Treadstone was decommissioned after it got exposed in the first movie, but a new program called “Blackbriar” was introduced immediately afterwards, with the same people brought on board and continuing the goals of the previous program.

Part 7: Song Choices

For this episode, there were two key songs featured: “Waiting for a Girl Like You” by Foreigner, and “Heroes” by Peter Gabriel.

“Waiting for a Girl Like You” is self-explanatory in its lyrics. The song deals with the narrator who’s been desperately looking for love, all while dealing with crippling loneliness in the process, and finally finds it with a girl that he can connect with. Given this song plays while Steve and Nancy have sex, the impression is Steve believes that he’s finally succeeded in finding someone (Nancy) who loves him and that he can truly love and have a meaningful relationship with.

I will talk more about the relationship between Nancy and Steve, as well as the entire Steve/Nancy/Jonathan love triangle that exists in the first two seasons (and is sadly brought back for season 4) in later reviews. For now, I will say that, given everything that happens later, the impression on rewatch is that Steve’s belief is misplaced and Nancy isn’t the girl for him. He will eventually find love, but it won’t be with her.

“Heroes” by Peter Gabriel is the song everyone remembers from this episode. It’s also featured in the season 3 finale “The Battle of Starcourt.”

The song used in the show is a remix of the David Bowie version. The original version was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios in West Berlin in 1977, during the time Germany was split East and West by the Berlin Wall. The lyrics themselves depict two lovers on opposite ends of the wall who desire to be together, with the aspiration to transcend the boundaries that keep them apart (“swimming with dolphins” being a metaphor for freedom). David Bowie later would reference his producer, Tony Visconti, and his backup singer, Antonia Maass, as inspirations for the song, including the love the two of them shared at the time and how they would kiss by the Berlin Wall. There's a whole article here that goes more in-depth about this topic.

The song itself has been subjected to multiple interpretations about whether it’s optimistic or pessimistic. In both “Holly Jolly” and “The Battle of Starcourt,” the song plays at the end of both episodes during moments when it was believed a loved one died. In “Holly Jolly,” it plays after Will’s body is supposedly found in the quarry. In “The Battle of Starcourt,” it’s played after El reads Hopper’s letter following his supposed death while she’s moving to Lenora. It’s a downer song in the moment that becomes bittersweet in hindsight knowing that both Will and Hopper survived and are fighting their way back. Even the lyric “We can be heroes just for one day” is applicable to pretty much all the main characters. The idea that anyone, regardless of their circumstances, has the potential to be heroic, even if it’s just for a day, which is a recurring theme Stranger Things does an excellent job conveying.

[here2bbtstrash]

Miss you❤️

i miss you all so much, my goodness 🥹 shall we do a small life update?

partner moved in! my place was small to begin with so it's definitely a little cramped in here now 🥴 but we have our eyes on getting a bigger place when the lease is up. i'm super happy to have him around all the time, just sleeping in the same bed every night and sharing our meals together brings me so much comfort. it's been really wonderful!!

i turned thirty 😳 and honestly it... hasn't been a big deal at all lmao. i feel so excited to be entering this decade. i think i care a lot less about things that ultimately don't matter than i did in my twenties, and i feel a lot more sure about myself and what's important to me! plus i had a super-fun karaoke party with some of my favorite humans 🥰

i've seen so much kpop this summer, and it's not even over yet!!!! txt, itzy, ive, stray kids, ateez, and we have (g)i-dle, kard, and seventeen still to come before the year is through!! the shows have all been AMAZING, and ofc the best part is having friends come into town and getting to experience it together!! (and yes we did see lolla felix in person and no i have not recovered 😵‍💫)

and for the least-fun update..... health news 😔 after a whole bunch of concerning symptoms that were continuing to worsen over the last year, i sought out a specialist and got some tests run and have been diagnosed with ✨endometriosis✨ - and friends, this shit blows. i am on some new meds that we are hoping will help mitigate symptoms so that i don't have to have surgery (for now!), but the adjustment period has not been even a little bit fun, nor have the swirling unknowns about things like fertility or long-term quality of life. it's something i'm trying to give myself space to process and get adjusted to, bc even as someone with long-term mental health issues and adhd, adjusting to a chronic physical illness is a whole nother fucking ballpark. but i'm hopeful for an improvement with these new meds, and very lucky to have the best support system i could ever ask for - y'all know who you are 🫶

unfortunately, because of all these bullet points but particularly the last one, writing has continued to be at a full standstill. i am really hopeful that the inspiration will come back for me when it's ready, but for now i'm allowing myself to be in a different season of life and feel okay with that! i am still counting down the days til our boys come home (i quite literally am on the verge of tears every time i think about how SOON we will have hobi back MY LOOOOOOVE 😭😭😭) and i cannot wait to see what this next chapter brings, for them and for us!!

i hope you're all doing well, would love to hear your own life updates if you feel like sharing!! MWAH 🤍

[nectarine-neuroticism]

SEVERANCE TALK

Need to talk about Severance, BAD. I watched it first with my mom back in Feb/March 2022. I have said before that I will never EVER forget about how that finale felt (me pounding my fist on the ground). God, it has really been THREE YEARS. I'M SICK. Anyways, watched first episode last week with my mom and my roommate (separate occasions), and I just want to put down some thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain for a while.

Pre-S2 Thoughts

Just some things I accept in my mind from the first season (before watching S2E1):

- Mark & Gemma were coworkers to lovers, their big professor brains, and their love was too powerful for the world (Lumon took her ass out).

- Ms. Casey (aka Gemma) behaves so bizarrely because she has limited "awake" time; often getting experimented on down on the testing floor. She has minimal experience as an innie and she is just one of many test subjects Lumon utilizes because people who are presumed dead, missing, or whatever else/poor/homeless/what-have-you "won't be missed." I don't know if they took advantage of her situation and utilized the crash to their advantage, staged a crash, or wanted to get Gemma specifically (because she was also really smart). IDK. Maybe she even signed up for something (inspired by connections at the university), and got more than what she bargained for.

- Irving's dog, Radar, is inspired by Radar from M*A*S*H. He COULD be a service dog. I don't know if Irving was a veteran, following in his dad's footsteps. He could have gotten severed due to PTSD (we have no idea what wars have went on during this alternate timeline that the Eagans have ruled since the 1800s).

- Irving is reintegrated (maybe unintentionally) explains the zoning and drifting/goo/whatever. His Outie constantly paints (what we learned to be) the testing floor. OBSESSIVELY, which implies he has been down there. He is trying to figure out what's going on down there bc he was either suspicious of Lumon from the get-go, or experience symptoms (related to possible reintegration or a failed integration) and was probably being gaslit by medical professionals.

- HOWWWW does he know so many severed workers? Was Irving a part of a group of people intending to infiltrate Lumon to some degree? (I'm realizing a lot of these are about Irving, but it was mainly because we had the knowledge that Dylan had a family, we knew Mark's story, and we realized Helly was Helena Eagan. We only had Radar and tangible things to tell Irving's story, he was alone).

- Helena Eagan could've definitely been groomed to fit the position. She might be the nasty bitch she was painted to be (from Helly's perspective) (and our perspective, honestly, "I am a person, you are not" eeueugh)), she might not be a believer of what she was sharing to the public. She might have doubts. Her dad is such a creep omg. Her body and soul easily could have been molded to fit atop the throne, and her skull carved to support the crown (I don't know what the fuck I'm saying). Some monsters are made, but some... who knows, some aren't monsters at all.

- We all know why Mark got severed, and we know Petey's severance was inspired by his divorce + strained relationship with his daughter (or at least that's what the show seemed to imply TO ME)... Helena's could have been out of obligation, Irving's could have been due to PTSD/grief/pursuit of knowledge/infiltration... but what about Dylan? He has a family, but does he have a spouse? Is he a caregiver? Was it hardship that pushed him to this job? I think it has been shown to us that most people who were led to this job (at least severed positions) due to pure desperation, or potentially manipulation. Were there any aspects of Dylan's life that were darker/pushed him to this? His Innie things the world is a shitshow up there, and the numbers are... eels??? (Idr what his ass said fr), but he also thinks he's got yachts and bitches for days. Obviously, not all of that is factual, but maybe he was pursuing the job as a promotion (already working for Lumon) and just thought it seemed "sick as fuck" and more efficient.

- Thinking of trans folks... idk how to put this into words, but imagining the transference of dysphoria and not having the words or material to understand it - in the same way grief seems to transfer. "You feel it down there too," thank you, Petey... that's devastating. Is there any room for exploring that? Does this make sense? If your feelings aren't spatially deviated – your wants and needs – repression or avoidance does nothing. Anyone (if this is even read by another person) feel free to add to this, or direct me to someone who HAS talked about this. I'm... unable to articulate what I'm saying, or even figure out what I'm asking. But there is definitely avenues to touch on here.

- This also brings me to pregnancy. We know about the senator's wife who got severed just to give birth (horrifying), and we heard about the Innie relationship drama/affairs that was on the news Mark clicked past. Regardless of where conception occurs, the body will carry that everywhere regardless of the mind's deviation. Are there clauses that prohibit Outies from getting pregnant while working on the job? Are they granted maternity leave the moment they start experiencing symptoms (so their Innies don't experience that), or do they make them work through it knowing that no matter what happens - they have no control over what is growing inside them? This is horrible and making me shudder, but it's definitely a twisted question I have. It would be cruel for the Innies to know this, to experience this, then to live without knowing. Just a vessel for something they cannot understand beyond those walls.

- How many departments are there??? Goats??? Purple rooms??? Is Lumon global? Are there "Lumon towns" in the way there are coal mining towns? (Thinking of the subsidized housing)

- Girl scouts, boy scouts... Kier scouts. What the fuck was on Harmony Cobel/Selvig's wall? Is this a societal thing? People being raised in community-based things instead of cult... stuff? Because it isn't like the Lumon principles are universal (people protest it, it's newer technological advances the company has made) ... idk, I think I'm losing myself in this. I think I should stop on reflections I've drafted in relation to S1.

So, NOW.... reflections post-S2E1.

Episode One Thoughts, Pre-Episode Two

- Ahhhhhhhh. An episode all on the inside was so fascinating. No intro credits, so I'm wondering if the second season will bring us a new animation? Because there was no sequence in the first episode of the first season. Who knows? Either way, I'm excited. Theodore Shapiro is a phenomenal composer.

- What the fuck is going on with Miss Huang? Is she just there to be disarming to the employees? Are they THAT short staffed? That kid is eight years old LMAO. WAIT- AS I WAS TYPING THIS.... KIER SCOUT. Jk jk, it's not that deep (or is it?). Is this just a daughter of an employee, a kid getting extra credit, a test to push an employee into remembering something—like how Cobel/Selvig (wtf is her real name... is it Selvig?) brought in that candle Gemma made in hopes of triggering some kind of olfactory reaction from Mark (freak). IDK. I don't understand where the kid came from. Mark made my blood run cold, I thought he was gonna chuck the ball at that kid... he's gonna crack soon. Like, Dylan-level BITING. (He still doesn't know his best friend is dead)

- Additional new characters: Mark W is funny as fuck actually. Thank you for saying Milkshake. Hello, Maeby (Arrested Development)... get tired of the family? Why the random Italian guy? Where were his subtitles? Did anyone understand what bro was saying??? Where did they go?! So sad how they asked "how the sky was" ..... the wind. Devastating.

- I wasn't sure if Helly was gonna tell them the truth once they got together. Because how do you say, hi... I am behind this evil corporate scheme. And the way she did it, I almost wondered if they sent Helena IN. To gather intel. But as the episode progressed, I don't think Helena knows Helly well enough to even do that - and her charms kind of came out as it went on. So I think it is truly Helly.

- Irving was truly devastating this episode. Girl is at his wits end over the most painful situationship ever, first love heartbreak vibes (my current life situation).

- People say they saw crazy tension between them, and yeah, it was raw unbridled emotion. However, I don't see what ppl are seeing. Irving was devastated and effectively planning to end life as he knew it, and Dylan was talking him down. I guess yall can read it as romance, but I know gay when I see it and I say that it wasn't. Homies can kiss homies, but it wasn't beyond that. It was just a very charged moment. I loved it.

- That claymation video was giving peak corporate horror. And Moral Orel vibes.

- The newspaper was SOOOO fucking redacted, with no date (obviously), and the picture looked fake as fuck. Just an edited version of their office picture into a car that doesn't look like it is from the same timeline all the other vehicles are in. If anyone has more insight on that, feel free to provide it. I tried to take a screenshot and image grab it to see, but it wasn't working.

- I think it was fascinating to see ONLY Innies perspectives. We didn't get a single fucking peep of the aftermath from things on the outside and how that went down, how everyone reacted. I wasn't expecting that at all for the first episode, but I think it was a wonderful choice.

-Obsessed with how they blatantly called Cobel/Selvig a freak. Wanted to pursue a throuple. SHE IS SUCH A PERVERTTT, I KNOW IT IN MY SOUL. SHE'S A FREAK. However, they are using any ill intent that Lumon enacted as material to use her as a scapegoat. Like, that trickles down. It wasn't JUST her. Milchick, you treated them like animals because you COULD.

- What the fuck happened at the end of the episode... is GEMMA doing the testing? Idek what to think, I'm sick. I don't want to entertain that. Idk wtf they're doing. Genetic sequencing, cloning, whatever!!! WhatEVER. I have no idea what to expect.

- And lastly, because my brain is tired... they all went back to their desks. Severance reform my ass... the best way to tame a prisoner is to make him believe he is free. Or whatever.

[windywhistler]

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’d like to post a little farewell to G5. I know it wasn’t a lot of people’s favorite, and it definitely had its fair share of flaws (I remember giggling with my partner when the first episode of MYM came out over how stiff the animation was!), but I loved it very much, and I hope maybe we can somehow see these characters again. I loved this cast very much, so I’m going to ramble a bit below this. For a quick TL;DR: I love these sillies a whole lot, and they will always hold a very special place in my heart :)

Misty in particular means SO much to me. I love her and the way she overcomes living with Opaline, especially because the other Mane 5 are just. So willing to give her space to come into her own and discover who she is in a way she’s comfortable with every time she’s uncomfortable. Found family Misty is everything to me as someone who grew up with a not-so-great family and sees her friends as her family. On that note, I also really like the way Sunny is portrayed to have PTSD symptoms after struggling with 2 villains (shoutout to Allura though, I wish we got a proper end to your story girl). I like it when shows acknowledge that going through crazy stuff often results in trauma. She has very obvious flashbacks in s1 ep68 and s2 ep7 of TYT, and she starts experiencing paranoia, having nightmares, and being hyper-vigilant, and it means so much to me that they bothered to show how living through those situations impacted her mental health.

Next, I think I wanna talk about Izzy! I know a lot of people see her as “the Pinkie Pie clone” (and, to be fair, she IS pretty similar), but I feel like she’s so much more than that. I love her having Violette as her own protégé, and how she’s always so excited to use her creativity to help others! It’s nice to see G5’s Mane 6 teach others their own “elements” much in the way that FiM’s Mane 6 acted as mentors to others. I’m also VERY glad they brought back rainbowified ponies, even if Izzy was the only one. She looks GREAT, and getting to see that they brought it back one last time for the final episode made me SO happy (I actually SQUEALED when I saw the thumbnail for episode 23!). I know that part isn’t really personality related, but it still makes me happy!

I’d also like to sing some praises about Hitch, too. Adding a male to the main cast was a rather bold move in my opinion, since the closest we’ve ever gotten to that is maybe Spike in any gen, Danny in G1, and maaaybe Teddy in MLP Tales? We’ve never really had a boy be part of the established main group, and oh boy was Hitch the perfect beginning for that! He’s such a goofball, and I love the sort of “awkward, cringey dad who loves his son very much” thing they did. Yes, he’s different from movie Hitch, but I always saw that as a side effect of now having a child to parent in the form of Sparky. A LOT of people’s personalities can change post-having kids, and I think it’s interesting that they made him like one of those parents who just wants to bubble wrap their kid and keep them safe. It’s pretty funny, since Sparky doesn’t exactly seem to mind or care. He reminds me a tiny bit of my own dad, and that’s something that means a lot to me.

The last two I want to talk about are, of course, Pipp and Zipp! As for Pipp, I honestly… wasn’t the biggest fan of her at first. I think I was just cranky because they added technology and social media to my Horse Show, LOL! Once I kind of got used to that, she grew on me. She grew on me BAD. I absolutely ADORE Pipp; she’s just the cutest! I love how they have her take accountability when she screws up, and I think it’s really important how she teaches kids that it’s okay to put the phone down for a while around seasons 4-5 of MYM, especially given how much tech plays a part in everyone’s lives these days. I think her having confidence and wanting to SHARE that confidence rather than bring others down is really admirable, and I love the approach they had when designing her character in intentionally making her shorter and rounder than the rest of the cast (most notable in TYT), but very specifically not having her be insecure about it. Touching on bodily insecurity is always great, but I also love seeing characters who look different where it’s just… okay. It’s accepted. I think that's pretty awesome!

Last but ABSOLUTELY not least is Zipp! She was my first favorite of G5 (they’re ALL my favorites now, I fear), and I’ve always thought it was so awesome how they had this royal character who was actively against corruption in power AND didn’t want to be treated as royalty! Having a character who’s heir to the throne and very blatantly… DOESN’T want to be/isn’t looking forward to it is something I feel like I haven’t seen a whole lot, and it’s a really interesting perspective to explore. I’m glad they did! I also love how her scenes in episode one of MYM can very much read almost as a trans allegory. I myself am not trans, but my partner and quite literally ALL of my friends are, so it’s still quite meaningful! Plus, I’m someone who chooses to not go by her birth name due to CPTSD, so, from all angles, seeing her wish to be referred to in ways that make HER comfortable and having that be respected gives me the fuzzies. I love her relationship with Pipp too, and I find their bond to be so heartwarming! Portrait of a Princess is one of my FAVORITE episodes of MYM, and it’s just so sweet to see how much they care for each other! Also, slightly less relevant, but them getting their cutie marks one right after the other on the same day was very cute. Very CMC of them. Very Mane 6 of them. Very cute, very demure, very mindful. I hope people still say that, LMAO

All in all, I know G5 had plot holes, ever-improving animation, and a lot of things fans were displeased over. Still, these characters mean something to me, and, even if their story got cut short, they’ll always still be my little ponies. Thanks for listening to me ramble on if you read all this, I know I kind of turned it into an essay haha :”)

[alianoralacanta]

Warning! Long post alert!

Thanks to @maybezax (Zax) for posting a clip on Twitter, showing several drivers crouching in exhaustion in the pit lane (not even in the shade, where this would make a bit more sense) after the 2024 Singaporean Grand Prix. It is one thing for drivers to put everything into a race, but it is unusual to see this many drivers collectively doing this at the same time. Indeed, the last time I saw this was Qatar 2023.

For anyone who doesn't remember the debacle that was Qatar 2023, the drivers were asked to race in a ridiculously hot and humid place, in cars that have to be driven with precision at high speed. It was a blatant safety issue, confirmed by multiple drivers reporting either passing out or neither do so in the cars, vision problems, someone vomiting and a driver having to be persuaded to retire (because one of the symptoms of heat exhaustion is not getting the signals to say one is ill until it the situation is severe).

- Not written names because names aren't the point here. This is about the general safety situation and anyone could easily have swapped reactions with another - or had other serious reactions - because severe dehydration is like that.

One of the ideas that was proposed was for F1 to pay attention to the wet-bulb global temperature for their location. F1 might not have adopted the idea, but it occurred to me to check, so we can see whether this was weather-related or a bunch of drivers simply went, "It's the last race before several weeks' break, let's put absolutely everything onto the track to end this phase of the season".

I've had a look at the wet-bulb rating for Marina Gardens (which I think is the closest weather station to the track that measures WGBT) and it had a wet-bulb of rating 35, or Black. This is above the Green-Yellow-Red rating Singapore usually uses for this purpose (red is for 33 C + and it is required in Singapore to offer 10-minute breaks every hour, to every worker in an outdoor occupation in these conditions https://www.mom.gov.sg/heat-stress-measures-for-outdoor-work/faqs-on-heat-stress-measures-for-outdoor-work ).

Exact readings:

S108 Marina Gardens Drive Temperature: 29.1 degrees Celcius Relative Humidity: 80.7% WBGT rating: 35 WGBT Rating: BLACK Time taken: 2024-09-23, Time 06:15:00, +08:00 ahead of the UK

(Please note that this is at the end of the night and the sun will only just have started rising. Usually, humidity drops during the night). If these drivers make it look like it was ridiculously hot and sticky out there… that's because it was.

Singapore has a Workplace Safety and Health Act covering this situation for employers and organisations alike: if the WGBT is 32 degrees or higher, and the job has to be done outdoors, every company must provide 10 minutes of rest to every worker (longer breaks are recommended above this, but aren't compulsory and I can't imagine the FIA jumping in to impose these). No exemption for sports appears to exist (there's a limited one for military personnel), nor is any other heat protection measure considered mitigation for this. The choices are:

1) Shorten the event to below an hour. 2) Postpone the event until WGBT is below 32 degrees Celcius. 3) Red-flag the race for 10 minutes every hour, starting the count from when the last marshal has had chance to get to the rest area following the last car entering the pits, and giving all marshals chance to resume their posts before resuming the race.

The race was longer than 1 hour. I did not see the FIA or the teams offer a break. (For those of you saying, "the drivers could have parked if they wanted to follow the law", the FIA is responsible for the marshals and they can't take their mandatory break until all the athletes are taking theirs, so mandation from the FIA and co-enforced by teams would be the only way to make this work).

Since the FIA has not obeyed this standard, it is now liable for every single issue that occurs from this. We know the F1 drivers struggled and they train for this exact scenario quite intensely. If any marshal complained to the Ministry of Manpower about this (and I would be surprised if all of them handled it better than the drivers), then the FIA would be liable, which in turn would make the teams jointly liable - even if everyone in the teams and travelling part of the paddock were OK with this arrangement.

It also underlines how important it is that WGBT is adopted before Qatar and the FIA and teams all be bound by it. I don't know what Qatar's laws are about WGBT, but it is unlikely that a F1 struggling with a Singapore that it's been to successfully for years prior to this would otherwise be equipped to handle a Qatar that it barely got away with last time it went there (on a less stressful calendar, with a FIA that was less complacent about safety).