#can my brain make up its mind i think i will further deteriorate my mental health as a treat. just 2 balance it out make it make sense

[funtomcafe]

please help every single time i take any uquiz the only result i get is "yea ur definitely mentally ill. bro r u ok" like NSGSJDH literally what is it that im doing 2 concern everyone so much im literally just sitting here 😭😭😭😭

[peachdelta]

did anything inspire the emmetropia au?

i kept seeing people draw emmet beating the fuck out of volo and while they were VERY funny the sephiroth-obsessed part of my brain was like “hmm but many of these make volo look like a pathetic wet cat…which he is, but also i like him as a competent antagonist as well” so i made the first comic. then it blew up and i got more and more ideas

my writing is heavily inspired both by my own humour, trying to keep in line with the traditional levity of pokemon’s tone to a certain point— but eventually my major writing inspirations come into play here. specifically, the works of kitty horrorshow and the book house of leaves. i’m gonna talk a lot about the third page in part 5 which i talked about on my twitter but its easier to save things here

i’m gonna preface this by saying emmet =/= the main character of house of leaves. he is not supposed to parallel johnny truant in any sense whatsoever, due to johnny being highly flawed in ways that are absolutely fascinating to examine and analyze but (in my opinion) extremely morally reprehensible, so i don’t want people to think that i’m trying to directly compare the two. rather, i’m just using a similar literary concept that’s used in the book, and getting some inspiration not from johnny’s character himself, but from the process of johnny’s deterioration

if you haven’t read house of leaves (it’s very good but it’s highly nsfw and i don’t recommend going into it blind if you suffer from delusions / paranoia / psychosis, please be careful) i won’t say anything about the plot specifically, BUT it’s important to note that it has three separate narrators. there’s an initial story, which is written as some kind of analysis of a movie that doesn’t exist. the story is interspersed with comments from the second narrator (johnny), as he reads the story and gives commentary and translations, stuff like that. the third narrator is very infrequent but will occasionally leave notes specifically commentating on johnny’s notes, not usually on the story itself. not important to understand my thought process here

basically, johnny occasionally talks about himself or what he did that day, but sometimes as the narrative progresses he visibly starts to deteriorate and break down mentally, as he loses his identity and mind and ego to fear and paranoia because of this story that he’s been reading and commentating on.

these initially short off-handed comments that he leaves in the footnotes will suddenly start extending so long and be so heavy with text that a single SENTENCE can take up two entire pages, a dizzying and overwhelming beast of a paragraph that’s genuinely horrifying to even find when you flip the page, much less read it specifically— there seems to be some kind of point to it, he has a thought, yeah, but it’s a literal stream of consciousness. he can’t filter himself even though he’s actively typing it out, it’s just COMING OUT OF HIM and he can’t control the rate that it’s expelled out of him.

and then, what i find FASCINATING: if the previous page is empty enough of text, you can literally see it coming when johnny is about to dump that stream of consciousness on the next page. the paper is thin enough that you can’t read the words, but you can see the vague shapes of a huge block of text, and it’s genuinely chilling when you notice it. it feels like there’s a monster creeping around the corner, right in your required path, and you know it’s there, and it knows you know, but you have to keep going down that path because you have to know what happens next!

it’s an absolutely genius way to utilize PAPER THICKNESS of all things if that was intentional, and i really wanted to try something similar. i can’t do the same ineffable shape through paper, but on twitter you can vaguely see that “oh, that’s a huge hunk of just text” in the preview before you click, and on tumblr you’d expect there to be an image when you scroll, but the further you scroll the more it dawns on you that it’s just text. it’s just a huge paragraph. it’s just his thoughts, unfiltered and breaking down. i don’t know if i was able to capture anything remotely similar to that thing in house of leaves, but i hope i at least captured something vaguely similar

ok thanks :) house of leaves and kitty horrorshow are big inspos for me for horror writing. i came up with the comic idea bc i like sephiroth so i liked volo in a very similar way so i wanted to make content for what i like

[mqnasluvr]

skinship headcanons | genshin impact

pairings; jean x gn!reader, amber x gn!reader, albedo x gn!reader

mentioned; kaeya, lisa, huffman, sucrose

warnings; suggestive themes ( jean ), all lowercase, not proofread

word count; 1.7k but half of it is albedo

jean

jean is not the touchiest person out there, but she does enjoy holding you. not too big on pda either; the most you’ll get out of her in public is maybe a quick smooch on the cheek and hand holding🛐 other than that, shes quite reserved.

her hugs are very comforting, but the first couple of times it was awkward on her part. she was used to giving barbara and klee hugs, but this was different. she wasn’t sure where to put her arms, and if anything she got more frustrated the more she hesitated.

once she grows accustomed to it, she’ll be fine. she enjoys the warmth and innocence of hugs, especially if you’re taller than her.

like i said, in public she isnt very touchy. while running errands she does keep you close though, and enjoys holding your hand more and anything.

behind closed doors shes a little bit bolder, but still shy overall. she’s not sure if she’s moving too fast for you so she waits until you initiate any type of physical contact, then takes it from there herself. it took her a long time before she managed to get the courage to kiss you tbh

one time when you two were in her office, amber walked in on you “distracting” jean from her work.

“y/n, i have to get back to work, please,” jean adverted her eyes from your gaze, embarrassed. she kept looking at the door, mentally asking herself if the door was locked or not and getting more nervous as the seconds passed.

you sat straddled on the young womans lap, her hands loosely placed on your hips. holding her face in your hands, you guided her face back to yours. “you work for way too long,” you frowned. “and i’m bored. there’s nothing to do in here.”

“the library is just across the hall—“

“if i read another book my brain will implode.” jean sighed and shook her head.

“please indulge in me just this once? please jean?” she stared at you blankly, her resolve quickly deteriorating. a couple of kisses couldn’t hurt, could it? she looked up at the clock in the corner of the room, then back at you.

sighing for the umpteenth time that day, she nodded. “just for a little while-“

before she could finish speaking, you pressed your lips to hers hurriedly, not wanting to waste any time. jean barely ever separated herself from her work, and refused to accept help from anyone else. you almost never had time alone with the acting grand master— you weren’t going to miss your chance now.

the kiss was not heated whatsoever, just very.. clumsy. and needy. on your part, at least. jean tried her best to slow you down, gripping your hips as her face heated up.

“jean, lisa needs you for somethi- oh,” amber nearly dropped the papers in her hands, immediately covering her eyes with it instead. you whipped your head around and stared at the girl wide-eyed before she spoke up again. “d-did i come at a bad time? i am so sorry, i’ll um. i’ll go now.”

jean couldnt look her in the eyes for WEEKS

it was painful

but overall, she likes physical affection, shes just nervous :,)

amber

amber LOVES touching you!! she’s 100% okay with pda. she isnt as forward as maybe kaeya or lisa, but she’s still rather bold. sometimes she forgets youre in public too, which ends up drawing a lot of attention to the both of you.

when you two go out on dates she is always touching you. hand in hand, arm around waist, whatever. theres always some type of physical contact, no matter what.

it’s so PAINFULLY obvious that you two are dating but for some reason she didn’t think that anyone knew ?? one time huffman saw yall kissing in an alleyway u really aren’t slick🤨

she loves cheek and forehead kisses, but likes receiving them more than giving really. shes a hyper one, and these kisses fluster her enough to make her quiet down. ( it’s so cute )

she often picks you up to hug you, spinning you both around in circles in an almost bone crushing hug. other than those times her hugs are really soft, but the energy is still there. ^^

have i mentioned that she is affectionate?? because she really is. she does respect your boundaries though, but if you feel uncomfortable you’re going to have to speak up on it because she won’t notice.

in private her clinginess is amplified by 10.

“i’m trying to cook, amber,” you mumbled, struggling to stir the paste sauce in the pot. all you were trying to do was make dinner for the two of you, but around 5 minutes ago she came up behind you and wrapped her arms around your arms and torso. you could feel her bury her face further into your back.

“mhm, and it smells really good too,” she hummed. you groaned, and she just giggled.

“i’ll be done in like, 20 minutes, amber. you can hug barron bunny in the meantime,” you tried to pry her arms off of you but she started whining.

“that’s too long.”

“no, it isnt,” you turned around with a spoonful of pasta sauce, motioning for her to open her mouth. she slurped the sauce and gave you a thumbs up.

“see? its good, right? well it wont get much better if you keep clinging to me so much,” she stayed quiet, but at least loosened her arms around you so that it was easier to move. you lightly patted her hand. “thank you.”

“whateverrr,” she drawled, and you couldnt help but laugh.

the pasta was in fact very good

in the end, shes the exact opposite of jean, and youll need to slow her down a lot :,)

albedo

as far as physical contact goes, it’s literally the last thing you will ever find on his mind. he’s too caught up with other things to think about physical affection

he does love you yes, but he doesnt show it through physical means. he does more gift giving, like when he sees a pretty flower that reminds him of you while going out to find starsilver shards.

if you want a hug or anything out of him you’re going to have to initiate it first— it’s foreign territory, and it’s not something he’s particularly interested in, so he doesnt feel the need to indulge in it

however the first time you two cuddle you can tell that he’s hooked. and he does a terrible job at hiding it.

now, he insists that you sit in his lap while he is taking notes because it “helps him focus better” and because “he’s so lonely”

we all know that aint true lmfao

he also really likes it when you play with his hair. please play with his hair, especially when you want him to get away from his studies. physical contact is completely foreign to him so something as simple as a scalp massage will make him melt 🛐

whenever he refuses to get away from his work, sucrose always asks you to step in because he wont listen to her

“y/n,” sucrose quietly approached you as you conversed with kaeya. you turned to her and nodded, albiet a bit concerned. sucrose never really needed you for anything, what did she need now that she couldn’t do herself?

kaeya took this as his sign to leave, but not before giving you a quick pat on the head. “yes, sucrose?” you said. “did something happen?”

she nodded meekly, watching kaeya walk off. a little bubble of guilt formed in her stomach from interrupting. “ah, i need your help with something. you see, mr albedo has been doing research non-stop on a new thing that has caught his eye since yesterday afternoon. i’ve tried to get him to put his research on pause, but,” she adjusted her glasses. “he doesn’t listen to me. i was hoping if you could maybe convince him to take care of himself?”

you pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed. he was doing it again. but you couldnt really blame him, he was terrible at keeping his hyperfixations under control. “i’ll take care of him, sucrose. don’t worry.”

she visibly relaxed at your words. sucrose flashed you a smile of gratitude, then waved and walked off to finish her errands in mondstadt.

—

it didn’t take him very long to notice your presence behind him. you were practically glaring at him, but there was no true anger behind it. wordlessly, albedo turned around in his chair and looked up at you.

you crossed your arms. “albedo,” you started, and it took everything in him not to sigh at the inevitable lecture.

“sucrose sent you, did she not?” he propped his arm up on the armrest of his chair, leaning his face into his hand as he gazed at you nonchalantly.

“of course she did. why aren’t you taking breaks?” he turned his chair back around, but you sat on the desk he was working at. you placed your hand on top of his papers and he shot a glare at you. it didnt phase you in the slightest.

“i have work to do. it’s much easier to do it all at once than stop inbetween.”

“have you at least been taking care of your basic needs? when was the last time you ate, or drank water?”

your eyes softened when he looked away.

hopping off of the desk, you grabbed his hand and pulled him away from his work ( gently, of course ). he barely protested.

you started muttering about how he needs to take better care of himself while pouring him a cup of water and making him a simple sandwich. he was a bit disappointed in himself for making you worry, and ate the food you gave him guiltily.

you pinched his cheek as he ate, giving it a light tug. he slapped your hand away playfully and a bit of the guilt he felt lifted when he heard your laugh. “i’m sorry you have to go through this for me.”

you shook your head. “you just need to learn how to stop yourself. you’re smart albedo, i’m sure you’ll figure it out in no time.”

he finished eating his food and, uncharacteristically, pulled you in for a hug. albedo rested his forehead against your shoulder, relaxing even further when you weaved your fingers through his hair.

“...i’m sorry, y/n.”

“stop apologizing.”

“okay. sorry. oh-”

you laughed.

[h50europe]

Why the myth about Steve's PTSD doesn't add up and other inconsistencies

In the last few episodes of H50, PL tried to sell us a mentally broken Steve suffering from PTSD. Only the whole thing came a bit too late. The clip you see is from season 4 and ended up - no, not in the series - but somewhere on the floor of PL's editing room. And why? after Kurtzman and Orci departed, along with their writers, PL took the helm and started turning Steve into a super-soldier. He stylized him into something that wasn't meant to be. Instead of developing the characters, PL began to incorporate more and more hair-raising action sequences into the series and then let Steve fight on the front lines. There was no mention of Steve's mental state, and a lot was explained by PL with: it just happened "offscreen." Yeah, sure. PL can't create a decent character. He can only produce stereotypes and one-dimensional beings. Like Adam. What potential would that character have had had he been turned into Five-0's antagonist? But no. So his role remained diffuse and monotonous. Sometimes even tragicomical.

Back to Steve. When SEAL Team started on CBS, PL also lapsed into SEAL mania. If someone who writes fanfiction were to produce as much garbage as this man did, he would be chased away from every writers' platform in disgrace. PL's Super SEAL also had to rescue his team members from a blazing inferno. Not man by man, no, he flew a helicopter right into the danger zone and lifted a whole cabin out of the burning jungle. If lunacy had a name, it would be PL. While the action became more and more exaggerated and unrealistic, the same happened to the protagonists. After the departure of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, PL completely lost his mind. And please, don't blame the writers for the nonsense that was thrown at you. A series stands and falls with the showrunner. He dictates what he wants and passes it on to his staff.

And so, lovable Steve became a soulless robot who only showed feelings here and there. Danny diminished more and more into a sidekick. McDanno became a ship that drifted anchorless through a stormy sea and threatened to capsize again and again. From season 8, it became a reboot of the reboot. PL tried an ensemble show and failed more than miserably. Often the actors just stood around bored. At least that was the impression. The only highlight was episode 8.10. A feast for all McDanno fans. But even here, the outcome of "who shot Danny" was more than insubstantial.

Wait, there was something about SEALs... Oh, yes. Junior appeared on the scene and became Steve's lapdog. I really wondered when there was going to be an episode where he would fetch sticks for Steve. Luckily we had Eddie for that. And because he thought he was so clever, PL invented the episode speed dating. How many subplots can you squeeze into one episode at the same time? In some episodes, you couldn't even take a look at the bag of potato chips without losing the thread.

The case of the week became the yawn of the week. There were so many loose ends that PL then came up with something called retconning. That's what you do when you're no longer satisfied with what was once established in the series years ago, or it no longer fits. But PL went one step further and did the same with the characters. The more the series was dragged out, the more the characters deteriorated and became OOC. It means, often, they were not recognizable at all. And that's where we come to Steve. Because PL, in his desperation, didn't know what else he could do to Steve, and so he killed Joe White. He did it in such a cheesy way with a fake sunset that it made you sick.

Of course, one episode later, there had to be another gig of PL's favorite Barbie. He stuck a fake beard on poor Steve/Alex, so he couldn't even hug Danny/Scott properly. The episode also raised more questions than it answered any. And Steve? He still didn't suffer from PTSD, even though he had now lost Joe White and a fellow SEAL. Everyone is dropping like flies, except for Steve, who is standing like a rock. No matter what. He doesn't need in-depth talks with Danny, nor psychological care, nor any sleeping pills. No, he's doing great. He also opens a restaurant with Danny because apparently, the carguments are already getting on PL's nerves. Unfortunately, this plot device leads into nirvana. The idea was nice, but nobody thought it through to the end. And the merry-go-round continues. Until we get to season 10, where it gets even more absurd. Now PL is almost bombarding us with McDanno episodes, or at least it should seem that way. Oh well, he's already planning for season 11, so a new character has to come on board quickly. While in the beginning, Steve's mother, Doris, dies.

Alex was allowed to take on the subject. Of course, only under the strict eyes of PL. He then nullifies Alex's idea that Steve kills his mother. Because a good soldier and Super SEAL won't do that. Little does PL know. THAT could have been the opening of a PTSD scenario for Steve. However, apart from that, this episode would have had any potential for a multi-arc. Just imagine Steve chasing his mother across multiple episodes. Again, PL stepped in and butchered Alex's episode. You can really feel sorry for the guy. PL at his best or worse? He just can't help it. And then, on the very last meters of the series, he brings someone new, who is allowed to cruise around with Steve most of the time. Because Danny was kidnapped by Wo Fat's widow, PL also invented quite late to have some villain at his disposal. This wannabe mastermind must really have been living under a rock somewhere if she wasn't even mentioned by her husband or appeared earlier.

Because towards the end, PL obviously ran out not only of steam but also of ideas, everything culminated in a wildly illogical scenario. Steve has to live through a dramatic day with Eddie, who stands as a metaphor for Steve (as I said, PTSD was never a thing for Super SEAL), Danny bangs his brains out in a ladies' room with a complete stranger, who dies shortly after that in an accident with Danny's rental car. Apparently, there was no budget to turn the Camaro into scrap metal. Danny then also goes home alone, ignoring the incoming emergency vehicles. Everything remains open at the end of the episode. While Steve expresses his gratitude to Tani and Quinn and says, he would be just as lost as poor Eddie without the dog and all of them. The strange thing is that you never notice anything until that sentence. A few forced dialogues are supposed to make the drama visible, but they all happen way too late or are so poorly written that you miss them.

PL had decided early on to make Steve a Teflon hero. That also means he didn't need to put much substance into the character. Which you can clearly see if you compare the first three seasons to the rest of the series. But towards the end, PL wanted to turn the tide and forcefully rewrote Steve's past. There is a huge difference if you compare Steve from seasons 1 to 3 with Steve from season 10. It is only a sparse remnant of what made this character so great. This change in Steve's personality also affects his relationship with Danny. The witty, affectionate banter degenerates into a snappy, humorless bitch-fest that takes all the joy out of it.

The final two episodes could have been written for any other crime show. As mentioned, we have Cole, who even gets a book'em Cole from Steve, which can only be described as out of line. And it begs the question, was that what Lenkov originally had in mind? Danny out of the show and Cole in? Was the last episode, which mainly featured McCole, something of a test run? Did all the McDanno moments happen only to tear the two apart eventually? Was the real final scene the one where Steve and Catherine take Danny's coffin back to Jersey? Was Danny not supposed to survive? Was that the real reason Steve wanted to get out of Hawaii because he wanted to pay his respects to Danny? And would he really have returned to Hawaii later? Or would he have turned his back on Hawaii? To me, this ending is more plausible than what PL served us. Then, Steve handed over his credentials to Cole instead of Danny, his second in command. Honestly, you can't make the end of a series any more sloppy and dumber than that. And I won't even lose a word about the last 1:30 minutes because I think everything has already been said.

No PL, mission absolutely not accomplished. You created Teflon-Steve. You never wanted him to show any weakness. You turned him into a superhuman who can survive anything. Only to pull the rug out from under him on the last few meters to the finish line and spit on his legacy. How can you dismantle such a great series and its characters like you did? How much do you have to hate something to do that? In the final interviews, the showrunner didn't exactly cover himself in glory either. Everyone who grew up with the series from day one knows that its end was wrong on all the possible levels and that the showrunner is solely to blame for that. It takes a fair amount of egoism and carelessness to drive 10 years at full throttle against the wall. Not many people can do that. Whether you can be proud of that, however, I doubt.

My respect if you have made it this far. Each of you gets 10 extra brownie points for it.

[aicidos]

to me it's painfully blatant noctis has dealt with depression most of his life. i realized that, as much as i reference it in passing comments, i'm not actually sure if most ppl look at it under this lense. so, to keep everyone in the same wavelength (regardless if you agree or not w my interpretation), i'm gonna ramble abt that under the cut👍

   - he's around 5-6 years old when the first signs start manifesting, due to the alienating feeling that comes with his father's absence. the accident he suffers at 8 years old is a deeply disturbing event (his earliest and nearest encounter with gore, violence & death) that, post-coma, makes noctis significantly more somber and distant for a child his age, even to his own father. during that recovery, he witnesses the empire's invasion of tenebrae and experiences incredible distress from watching luna fall behind. all these images sit with him heavily, and the insomnia he develops messes up his sleeping pattern from here on out.    - he starts showing a tendency for isolating himself during middle school. he feels as though kids only approach him for his status, and so he makes excuses to avoid interaction (that one scene in brotherhood where he straight up walks out from a conversation under the guise of going to the toilet). later on, the isolation habit would take on more complex reasonings.    - he moves out at 15 years old, and, although the privacy provides some relief, it still feels lonely. frankly, it’s escapism and further isolation. noctis reaches a severe depressive rut during highschool. he struggles finding the energy to function properly, and it's not only evident in his demeanor, but his apartment too; it's filthy and dark, bagged trash and clothes everywhere. he hardly ever cooks anything substantial, and when he does, it usually goes wrong, which just discourages him further. he’s constantly fatigued, which oftentimes gets reduced to simply being “sleepy”. to noctis, every day is a struggle of “what can i bring myself to accomplish?”, and his efforts usually go to academic work (i mean, he graduated on top of his class), making him too mentally tired to muster more energy for royal training/duties.     it also doesn't help his royal duties start increasing at the same time his father's health keeps deteriorating. seeing all the sacrifices he has made for his people and knowing he will be the one to take up the throne after his death makes him feel so... unprepared and useless, because noctis is aware he can barely function, let alone take care of himself at this point. even with that level of self-awareness and constantly wondering “what’s wrong with me”, noctis doesn’t realize (nor has the tools to know) he’s depressed. ashamed of over-relying on others, noctis refuses to reach out, even within his closest group (ignis, prompto, gladio).    - as we know, mental illnesses don't always manifest in 'tasteful' ways. depression makes him avoidant until he's forcibly backed into a corner, where he's prone to outbursts in which he finally speaks his mind. it also makes him have a tunnel vision of sorts, where he's so fixated on thinking it’s all his fault + his own suffering, he overlooks the periphery. which, for someone as kind, sensitive and empathic as him (something the game emphasizes a lot), it all later comes to make him feel extremely guilty and selfish: chapter 10 is a good example of this.    - his worst™ depressive episode comes post-altissia, his self-confidence at its lowest. destruction everywhere, luna is dead, ignis got injured in a life-altering way, and noctis feels like he can’t protect a damn thing. it’s a lot to unpack so i won’t get into it on this post, but just know he’s literally miserable, grieving, dealing with survivor’s guilt and giving it his all despite how the chemical imbalance in his brain feels like it’s trying to kill him, along ardyn and the stupid little prophecy.

all in all, his behavior is very often misunderstood as lazy and whiny, which is, uh, understandable at best and reductive at worst (mostly reductive), but. it's also heartbreaking to me, because noctis is trying his best to the energy and resolve he can physically muster. and it's still not enough.

[wolf-and-bard]

@winter-fir: Sofia, my darling, this was written as a birthday present and with you in mind. Thank you for being such a delightful, funny, mad scientist genius friend, I love you. I wanted to give you some Arnaghad/Erland fluff and it didn’t turn out fluffy at all, it’s a rambly mess and I’m sorry. It did turn into a continuation and a prompt fill, I hope you don’t mind. 😂 I also hope you ate a lot of cake today ❤

Steal My Heart Again

Prompt: Isolation

Relationships: Arnaghad/Erland of Larvik

Rating: E

Content Warnings: apocalypse-appropriate sentiments (aka hopelessness), explicit sexual content, swear words, minor character death (past)

Summary: This is a sequel to Drown With Me If You Can. Erland and Arnaghad have made it to the safety of Kaer Seren’s cellars and have to face life during the apocalypse. They cope in different ways. In which: Erland wallows some more and Arnaghad wants cuddles. 

Word Count: ~3k

AO3 Link I @witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo​

In the latter years of the 1130s, a conflict between the Northern Realms of Redania, Kaedwen, and Kovir and Poviss sprouted up in which Kovir and Poviss petitioned to gain sovereignty.

Erland pauses to ponder his next words and in that pause, becomes aware of something stirring.

Witchers usually sniff and listen before something breeches their line of sight, but with his beloved bear, it’s even more intense. Erland can hear the giant’s footsteps pound in tune with his own heart as soon as Arnaghad rises from his meditative perch at least four rooms down the hallway. Erland can smell the endorphins that chase each other through Arnaghad’s bloodstream as soon as he calls out for Erland, still far away. They have a different scent for every person and witcher picking up on them.

For Erland, Arnaghad’s contentedness smells like toasted white bread and strawberry jam. Conversely, Arnaghad is reminded of the concoction of oils and herbs he treats his old bearskin with so that it retains its texture whenever Erland smiles. Everything about Arnaghad is intense, as is the emotional knot Erland carries tucked between his lungs, the one that is made up of strings of the past and present that have become inevitably entangled. There is no easy emotion here and so Erland shoves them all aside in favour of putting down his next lines.

It came to pass that, under the supervision of the Hierarch of Novigrad, then Walter Beda, the rulers of the three countries met to negotiate the agreement. King Radovid III of Redania and King Benda of Kaedwen sailed on the Redanian flagship Alata to Lan Exeter where Gedovius Troyden, then Earl and later King of Kovir, met them, accompanied by his wife Gemma. Thus, the First Treaty of Lan Exeter was forged, and Kovir and Poviss gained the right to call themselves a kingdom.

Erland blows on the ink and the smell intensifies so much that his mouth waters. He glances to the side to see the bear appear in the hallway.

“There you are,” Arnaghad rumbles when he arrives at Erland’s small chamber which used to be a storage for barrels in need of repair. He shoulders through the narrow doorway without knocks or ceremony, and his bare feet slap against the stone, warmed by an underground pool of water which is suffused by heat from the earth’s core. With the White Frost raging outside the keep of Kaer Seren - in whose basement they currently reside in - even that heat will fade and freeze, but it has not been touched yet. They have not been touched yet, they made it to the safety of this hidden hearth and it nearly cost them their lives. “What are you doing, birdie?”

“Writing,” Erland says absent-mindedly and growls when Arnaghad’s hulking form blots out the light of half the torches as he approaches the makeshift desk. It’s a splintered plank of wood propped up on two empty barrels, a third one – overturned – functioning as the chair. The rest of the room is bare save for the rusted grates in which the torches reside and a wicker basket full of half-rotten corks. The griffins used to collect them to fashion floormats for the baths with. The griffins that now lay buried under rubble, only a story or two above Erland’s and Arnaghad’s heads. He tries not to think about that as he writes, writes, writes.

“Why, thank you dearest beloved, I had not figured that out for myself.”

Erland shrugs and bends further over his page. He is halfway through his account and he has to keep going while the words still come easily and his hand hasn’t cramped up. It tends to do that a lot these days, whether from writing, shovelling endless masses of snow or from stroking Arnaghad’s oversized cock. The first one is a need to preserve what might otherwise get lost, the second a necessity so their one exit from Kaer Seren doesn’t get blocked completely. The third activity is all pleasure and indulgence and re-learning the body of a man he thought lost to him for so long.

Arnaghad, the obnoxious idiot, steps closer and squints over Erland’s shoulder which truly sucks up the rest of the flickering illumination. His burly hand comes to rest on Erland’s head – now freshly shaven into his preferred undercut again with his hair woven into complex patterns Arnaghad yet remembers from his home – and his chin presses against Erland’s temple.

“’Kovir’s Independence and the First Treaty of Lan Exeter’,” Arnaghad reads out loud from the top of the page. “The fuck does this have to do with you? Are you trying to write a world history?”

“You forget where we are,” Erland murmurs and finishes his sentence, placing a small asterisk with a number ten atop the last word for yet another footnote.

“I haven’t.” Arnaghad plucks the feather from Erland’s hand and rises a little, takes the bent fingers into his own and strokes along them to straighten them out, one by one. Erland sighs and sags against the bear, letting fatigue wash over him, wash away his ambition for the day. “You forget where you are. Who you are and who you are with.”

“I might have,” he admits sheepishly and closes his eyes, listens to the faint gurgle of Arnaghad’s stomach. It’s a simple, well-crafted lie. Erland never forgets and how could he?

“I understood the journal,” Arnaghad says. “Well, I wasn’t willing to give my life for it as you were, but I understood why you wrote it. The ice might melt, the beasts might return and for that, whoever is to inhabit this world may need the information you captured. But this is unfathomable.”

“Of course, it would be to you.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Are you calling me stupid?”

“No,” Erland says and melts as Arnaghad’s hands let go of his to gently massage his shoulders. It’s only when the static pain slowly ebbs away that Erland realizes just how long he’s been sitting hunched over his notes. Each word an investment with so little parchment leftover.

“Then what? Why are you doing this?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Erland sighs and ducks out of his lover’s grip to get up and pop his joints. Avoiding Arnaghad’s gaze, Erland extinguishes the torches with a flurry of precise Aards and makes to leave the room.

The bear wouldn’t understand in a million years why Erland writes the chronicle, would probably call it a waste of energy and resources. There is utility in writing a bestiary, there is only sentiment in writing a history. And perhaps a flicker of hope that whatever civilization rises from the rubble of the Ice Age will not repeat their forebearer’s mistakes. Except no. Erland may be an idealist at heart, but not enough that this hope has a chance of threading through the fabric of his motivation.

His motivation is woven in entirely selfish materials. It’s distraction, it’s occupation, it’s indulging in self-pity and nostalgia, melancholy and pride. It’s to keep himself from spiralling into depression and forgetfulness, to keep his brain from deterioration. Between fucking and eating and sleeping, Erland needs mental stimulation more than exercise.

Arnaghad, on the other hand, spends his hours in meditation and weapon-less drills, doing push-ups by the hundreds, handstands by the hours, pull-ups by the thousands. His massive body, in spite of the lethargy and sluggishness his form might suggest, needs constant movement. To prevent muscle atrophy and to keep himself alert and strong for whatever they have to face.

For now, what they have to face is endless isolation. Just the two of them, a slowly but steadily dwindling supply of dried meats and herbs, pickled vegetables and fruit, and barrels upon barrels of ale. Most of them brewed with the recipe Keldar perfected over decades of teaching young griffins to hold their alcohol alongside their swords.

Keldar.

Erland tries not to think of the old griffin master, especially tries not to think about how they found his body, a frozen statue before the crumpled gates of Kaer Seren, half-buried in snow by the time that Arnaghad and Erland fought their way to the keep. He’d survived the avalanche, had stayed at the school, and Erland had abandoned him. Him too.

Dear old Keldar, dutiful to his last moments. It was what every griffin would have done, every one except for Erland it seemed.

“Birdie,” Arnaghad says, tapping the side of Erland’s skull where his griffin tattoo decorates his shaved skin. They walk side by side, down the endless winding corridors of Kaer Seren’s basement system towards the centre where the heat is the most intense. It’s also where they set up their meagre bedroll, a heap of old linens with Erland’s quilt and Arnaghad’s bearskin on top. “You’re getting lost in your thoughts again.”

“What were you saying?” Erland asks and pushes open the door to their bedroom. Slap, slap, go Arnaghad’s feet as he enters while Erland’s follows after him. He wears both their socks, still more prone to the cold even down here.

“Nothing,” Arnaghad says. He stops in the middle of their room – all grey brick cast in flame from the torches Erland managed to keep perpetually burning. It’s a trick he perfected back when the signs where first developed where he can attach the power of a sign to an object. So, he tethered an Igni to each of the torches, and he did not tell Arnaghad that this constantly pulls on his own energy. The bear would worry and call that too a waste of resources. But Erland would rather be tired by firelight than wide-awake in perpetual darkness, calculating in his head the days that remain to them. “Come here, you look fatigued.”

Erland catches Arnaghad’s steady gaze, darkened by his heavy brow and chiselled face, a small smile tugging on his oh so stoic lips. His hair is neatly bound at the base of his skull, two ceremonial mini-braids framing his cheeks to either side. He wears naught but a simple set of beige linen clothes these days, linens that tug and pull at his bulging muscles. He’s more than a brick wall, he’s as unmoving as the very ground they stand on. Arnaghad cannot be taken apart with brute force, it takes more subtler means of attack to undo him. Erland knows them all intimately and perhaps that is exactly why Arnaghad opens his arms to him then. Erland sighs. He has the rest of Radovid III’s reign to chronicle and his stomach is still on fast-mode. The only reason he came here in the first place was… to… Erland sneezes and the torches flicker. He knows when he’s defeated.

“I am tired,” he admits and crosses the distance between them. If ever there is such a space, unbridgeable at times, invisible at others, it is because Erland put it there. Not intentionally and not always happily, but if things went Arnaghad’s way, they would be close always. The man that envelops Erland in a tight hug has a constant hunger for touch and affection, and Erland has trouble having that piece slide into the greater mosaic he has constructed of his lover over the past centuries.

‘You’re getting old and sappy,’ Erland said to him once, three orgasms into the night and Arnaghad still insisted on holding him close. ‘Sappy and cuddly. I do not recognize you.’

‘Nor I myself,’ Arnaghad replied. If they were other people they might have attributed it to love, how it had overcome everything, how, here at the end of all things, it was them against the apocalypse. How they needed to hold onto each other for there was nothing else to hold onto. But Erland is an idealist, not a romantic, and Arnaghad a pragmatist, not an intellectual, and so that was where the conversation died then.

“You should rest more,” Arnaghad says.

“What a waste of time,” Erland replies and rises to the tips of his toes, uses Arnaghad’s bull neck for purchase to pull himself up. They’re barely eye to eye, but that doesn’t matter when he can finally tilt his head and kiss the tiny frown from Arnaghad’s face. It’s a matter of last resort as well as personal pleasure. Erland is in no mood to argue about his newfound hobby and he does want. Wants so much, so deeply it aches to the core of his bones. They’re still working through their differences – and that, he suspects, will take longer than any written history might – but with each day, Erland can allow himself a little more. He can allow himself to slot their lips together and push his tongue deeply into Arnaghad’s mouth, can allow himself to melt into his bear’s arms and let his rumbling groan rattle his skeleton. Erland smiles at the zealous manner in which Arnaghad’s whole body responds to the kiss. His hands, splayed across Erland’s shoulder blades, tighten, his cock stirs when Erland licks and sucks and adds a moan of his own, his shoulders rise. He’s so passionate, has so much to give, something that Erland has trouble keeping up with.

If half of this witcher had been the one leading the bear school, where could it have climbed to? What could it have accomplished if the abysses between its members hadn’t been quite so gaping? Erland tries not to wonder, tries not to rewrite the course of time in endless thought spirals, but it’s so hard. It’s another reason why he has to focus on the actual past. Because if he doesn’t remind himself that it is set in stone, if he doesn’t capture it with his own words, he starts to trail down the paths of forgotten ‘what ifs’, of unforgettable ‘what ifs’, of the ‘what ifs’ that are neither forgotten nor unforgettable, that are too daring to even consider. Erland loses himself in thought and it is then perhaps a blessing that he can lose himself in Arnaghad’s embrace instead.

“Do you think we could have dinner tonight?” Arnaghad asks after they part, even though he knows the answer. It’s worrying, a true sign that not even Arnaghad has an endless reservoir of energy. His hunger is much more vicious than Erland’s and it’s getting harder and harder for him to wait the intervals they settled on in order to stretch the food as long as they can. Usually, he doesn’t ask. Usually, his voice doesn’t sound so small. Fuck. It’s heart-breaking.

“Not yet, big bear, I’m sorry,” Erland sighs and noses along Arnaghad’s jaw, then sinks back down to his feet and presses his face into the crook of his neck. Wraps his arms around Arnaghad’s middle. Is proud when he doesn’t do the mental math right then and there. No, he won’t torment himself and he won’t succumb to the slight growl Arnaghad gives. Whether it’s from his throat or his stomach doesn’t really matter. The sound pierces Erland’s armour, but it doesn’t shatter. He’s still strong. Can still be strong. “Do you want me to distract you?”

“Ah, birdie, didn’t we just talk about how you’re tired?”

“I’d make a joke about being hungry myself,” Erland mutters, then licks over Arnaghad’s pulse point insistently. “But last I checked, your sense of humour is still as barren as the Korath desert.”

Arnaghad chuckles and the motion slightly shakes Erland where he rests against the bear’s chest. He lets his hand slide down to gingerly palm across Arnaghad’s half-hard cock and it rises to the touch, firms up. He closes his eyes and sucks on his own bottom lip. So easy to please.

“Says the man who thinks fun is a torture device,” Arnaghad retorts on a sigh and as such, it lacks an edge. Erland deftly plucks at the fastenings of the linen trousers and slips his hand into them. Arnaghad’s flesh is hot and solid, too big to wrap his fingers around.

“Alas,” Erland murmurs against the skin of Arnaghad’s neck, cranes his own to nibble on the bear’s jawbone, tracing it with his tongue. “My hand is tried from writing all morning.”

“All day more like,” Arnaghad grumbles.

“Even worse. It’s of no use now.” And with that, he gently guides Arnaghad to the corner where their makeshift bed is, bids him to sit down and takes his own place in Arnaghad’s lap with his belly pressed to the warm floor. Propped up on his elbows, Erland peers up at Arnaghad. From this low, the man seems taller than a mountain, his eyes far away, half-lidded and hazy and Erland smiles. He is tired, yes, so very tired, and that means he is sloppy. Sloppy as he descends over the head of Arnaghad’s massive cock which tastes salty and musky and he laps it all up he goes with lazy drags of his tongue. His lips are loose and his hands looser as they fondle Arnaghad’s cock at the base, toy with his balls.

Before long, spit leaks out of the corners of his mouth and runs down Arnaghad’s length and the low moans of the bear thunder through the hall, echo off the walls, loud enough to raise the dead, Erland thinks sometimes. He wishes he could revive his brothers and sons by cock-sucking alone, but the world has never been that simple. And it won’t ever be now. But if he can give Arnaghad pleasure and himself something to get distracted by then that should be enough.

Erland gets drunk on Arnaghad’s cock, chokes on it as he ruts into the floor without shame. They come within seconds of each other and Erland drinks up what he can, lets the rest spill over Arnaghad’s lap, then cleans that with his tongue too. After, he falls asleep there, curled into a ball in Arnaghad’s lap and it is enough. For now.

[agent-cupcake]

Dimitri and mental illness

**Warnings for Blue Lions spoilers and armchair psychology

Depending on who you ask, Dimitri is an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. Arguments for both sides have been exhausted, usually in the form of the popular Edelgard versus Dimitri debate, but I feel that both statements are heavily flawed and, truthfully, I think I take more issue with the former. Does it strike anyone else as rather patronizing that the audience (and the game, to an extent) treats Dimitri like an innocent, broken uwu soft boy both before the time skip and once he begins his recovery arc? Of course, a lot of this can be blamed on the awful pacing and poor writing of said recovery (which is the most valid structural critique of his character imo), but there’s a lot to be said about the fan depiction of Dimitri and the way people treat his mental illness. I think the reason this gets me is because I see it as an extension of the problems I have with the romanticization of male-specific mental illness. In this case, “all depressed boys are emasculated, soft, sad bois” and “anger is an accessory that is vanished once the cute boy takes it off” with the related sentiment of “the only two real mental illnesses are depression and anxiety, with a splash of PTSD for argument's sake”. And, speaking of arguments, while many people bring up mental illness in regards to the discussion around Three Houses characters, it is often supplementary to support their points rather than the main point unto itself. Dimitri’s mental illness (aka, the thing his entire arc is predicated upon) is mostly given only a passing recognition in the discussion of his actions. Even then, it’s often used as a justification to defend or lambaste him.

TL;DR Dimitri is a flawed person with a debilitating and incredibly well written mental illness that, while not excusing his actions, allows for further exploration of his character and a well-deserved shot at a recovery arc that is not usually awarded to people with the “non-traditional” mental illnesses. Furthermore, the game offers a wealth of insight as to what they intended his mental illness to be, the symptoms that manifested, and a plausible background to match up with it all and I have the receipts to prove it. Let’s go~

“Me? Oh. Um. Please forgive me... It's difficult to open up on the spot, don't you think? I'm afraid my story has not been a pleasant one... I do hope that doesn't color your view of me, but I understand if that can't be helped.”

I know that mental illness can be singularly caused by a traumatic event or events. That is, generally, how I see people framing Dimitri’s mental illness. My argument, however, is that the Tragedy of Duscur was not the genesis, but the trigger for issues that would exist otherwise. Perhaps it’s due to my own personal experience with mental illness, but I’m almost always more inclined to believe that issues stem from an unlucky combination of many things. 

Regardless, my evidence to entertain the idea that he would be naturally predisposed to mental illness is slim. Aside from arguing that it wouldn’t be out of the question for his mother to have been unwell while she was pregnant with him considering she would later die of plague (a cause that in and of itself is subject to skepticism), I would bring up his Crest. In-game there is clear proof that Crests have wide-reaching effects on the person, there are actually a few analysis posts that hypothesize that Crests could be the reason for certain character motivations. In ng+, the Crest of Blaiddyd is called the Grim Dragon Sign. There’s no definitive proof to point to here, but if his Crest was one of the reasons for his mental deterioration it would follow other rules set in-game. Rather than inherited human genetics creating the blueprint for mental issues and the writers having to face that issue on its own terms, it was the Crest’s influence. This goes along with the fact that the game never overtly references Dimitri’s illness, essentially using “the dead” as a blanket symptom of his problems. Both these things are cool ways to imply a possible way to read more deeply without having to use anachronistic medical terms.

Side note: There’s something uncomfortable about the idea of a Crest that gives the individual inhuman strength and mental issues. Grim Dragon indeed.

My next point is one that I don’t see being brought up too often in regards to how it might have affected Dimitri, likely because the events that came later in his life far overshadow it, but Dimitri lost his mom when he was young. The date is not given, but I think it’d be when he was about six-ish. Admittedly, the timeline is strange and non-specific around here but if that were true, it would mean that the plague, Dimitri’s mother’s death, and Lambert and Rodrigue’s war campaign to subjugate the southern half of Sreng would all have happened around the same time. Dimitri says he doesn’t remember it, but that doesn’t necessarily matter. At six years old he had lost one parent and the other one left him to go on a battle march, leaving this child without any sort of parent figure to console him in a country that is culturally opposed to expressing emotion. Lambert will probably always remain a mystery, but I think it could be fair to say he was a poor father. Or at the very least a distant one. Dimitri was undoubtedly a sensitive child (if we’re to judge by the sensitive person he grew up to be) and during the years where he was actually becoming old enough to remember, he had nobody to teach him how to properly navigate and manage his emotions. Emotional neglect in a child who is predisposed to being emotional and empathetic can leave them suffering from a sense of isolation, an inability to ask for help, and a predisposition to having break downs as they get older.

But three-ish years later, possibly one of the best things that ever would happen to Dimitri came to pass and Lambert married Patricia. Dimitri adored her. 

“I share no blood with my stepmother, but to hear you say that... It pleases me greatly. She was the one who raised me. I suppose it makes sense that we would share certain mannerisms.” (Dimitri’s B support with Hapi)

I don’t think Dimitri’s feelings about Patricia can be overstated, as I feel it’s one of the most defining aspects of his reactions to things that happen later on. Dimitri talks about Patricia more lovingly than he talks about Lambert. She was in his life for around four to five years but had such an impact on him that even his mannerisms are similar. 

Soon after, a ten-year-old Dimitri made his first friend that wasn’t knightly, who didn’t embody those Faerghus ideals of stifling emotions and swinging swords.

People point out the Faerghus crew as Dimitri’s best friends, and yet Edelgard is the one associated with his best memories. It’s just my own assumptions, but I think that it’s because both Edelgard and Patricia gave Dimitri space to be an emotional child, to not have to be the knightly prince who had no emotions and engaged only in the most masculine of activities. And, I mean, look at them. He’s learning to dance and she’s bossing him around, absolutely no regard for propriety.  

It’s pretty clear that Dimitri doesn’t feel romantic feelings towards Edelgard in the academy phase, but I think it would be fair to say she was his first love when they were young. He essentially says this was the best year of his life and establishes Edelgard as someone very precious to him (as well as the daughter of one of the most precious people to him). Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not? 

Google says that eleven to fourteen is the general age of male puberty. It’s the time that kids begin to more fully define how they’re going to emotionally interact with people and the world at large. Meeting Edelgard was at the cusp of this period of Dimitri’s life, and the Tragedy of Duscur was right in the midst of it. 

And we all know what that turned out.

Dimitri’s accounts of what happened during the Tragedy are... conflicting. This CG of an unharmed Dimitri in a field of corpses is... conflicting.

“My father...was the strongest man I knew. Someone I loved and admired deeply. That said, he was killed before my eyes. His head severed clean off. My stepmother, the kindest person I had ever known, left me behind and disappeared into the infernal flames.”

I’ve seen people create a plausible scenario in which Dimitri’s recollection is entirely accurate, where he saw Lambert call for revenge and get beheaded, saw Glenn’s ruined body and face twisted in pain, saw his step-mother disappear into the flames, and all despite the raging chaos of the battle and how people would undoubtedly be targeting the prince, but I think it makes more sense that his memories are unreliable. Dimitri suffered a severe head injury (very important to keep in mind) at Duscur. Maybe that happened early on, after seeing who attacked Lambert but before he was an actual target himself, which merely made him look dead. Maybe he saw a version of the events he described, but through the filter of confused head trauma, smoke inhalation, and intense terror. To think that his recollection isn’t exactly entirely reliable sets a precedent for his later skewed take on reality. 

Regardless of opinion, though, the facts are that Dimitri left Duscur with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

After that, from thirteen to seventeen, Dimitri was pretty isolated. Most of the people he cared about were dead. His entire emotional support system (Patricia) was gone. He saved Dedue (although they were definitely not on even terms, that relationship is unbalanced to the extreme) and occasionally saw Rodrigue (who I have no reason to believe was emotionally accommodating in any way considering the way he sees Dimitri as an extension of Lambert to his dying breath). Again, it’s strange. People act like Dimitri was super close friends with the Faerghus crew, that he was surrounded by people who loved him (although it is clear there is a lot of love there), but he never presents things in a way to imply that’s the case. In fact, he highlights his isolation:

“In Duscur, I lost my father, stepmother, and closest friends. I didn't have many allies at the castle after that. In truth, I had only Dedue for companionship.”... “I once had people I could confide in. Family, friends, instructors, even the royal soldiers. But they were all taken away from me four years ago.” (Dimitri’s C support with Byleth.)

Two years passed before the next time Dimitri saw his friends and it was a war campaign, putting down the rebellion in western Faerghus. Dimitri speaks about those battles from a place of deeply affected emotion, expressing empathy, pain, and disgust with his actions and the killing.

“I recall coming across a dead soldier's body. He was clutching a locket. Inside was a lock of golden hair. I don't know to whom it belonged. His wife, his daughter...mother, lover... I'll never know.... in that moment, I realized he was also a real person, just like the rest of us… Killing is part of the job, but even so... There are times when I'm chilled to the bone by the depravity of my own actions.” (Dimitri’s B Support with Byleth)

I love this support, honestly. It’s so very telling about the destructive quality of empathy. Although caring can be a good thing, it’s also arguably one of the most destructive of Dimitri’s qualities. His empathy is what presents him with situations he cannot accept, the thing that pushes him to disassociate from reality so he can be rid of it and fight without remorse like he was taught to do by his father and other soldiers. Dimitri is a man of extremes. Either total control or none, without any room for error. This dialogue is also the first time Dimitri brings up reconciling himself with reality and hints to the fact that he has been unable to do so. This is contrasted perfectly in this line from Felix,

“The way you suppressed that rebellion... It was ruthless slaughter and you loved every second. I remember the way you killed your victims. How you watched them suffer. And your face...that expression. All the world's evil packed into it...” (Dimitri’s C Support with Felix)

Dimitri doesn’t deny this. Just like all of the other terrible things Felix says, he takes it without protesting in an act of what I think is stilted contrition. Although, it’s not just in supports that Dimitri’s contrasting behavior is brought up. The Remire incident probably works as a good reference for what Felix saw all those years back.

This is the first time we see Dimitri’s darker side in full. The similarities in the situation to what is shown to have happened in the Tragedy of Duscur are interesting. The fire, the utter chaos, strange figures watching it all from above. This is another case of a perfect disaster. I wonder if his ultimate snap would have been so destructive if not for Remire.

Anyway, this draws parallels to his and Felix’s separate recall of the rebellion because later Dimitri apologizes.

“Professor... I...I'm sorry you saw that side of me in the village… When I saw the chaos and violence there...my mind just went completely dark.”

Dimitri is unreliable. A lack of control, a separation of self, and becoming consumed by a dark rage only to come to his senses later, full of shame and a sense of confusion about why. From my own experience, it’s not unnatural to come out of an episode like this without being able to explain what was happening and being baffled by your behavior. This firmly establishes Dimitri’s uncomfortably fast mood shifts in relation to his trauma from the Tragedy and confirms all of the warnings Felix had given. When Dimitri was faced with a reality he could not accept, he lost control of his emotions and his mental state shifted to adapt accordingly.

This is when I’d also like to note something interesting about how Dimitri discusses his trauma. He is very honest and open about his experiences, explaining exactly what happened to him to Byleth. However, he uses the truth to hide. In recounting the events of the Tragedy of Duscur, in talking about how his family died and saying how badly it hurt him, he does not make himself vulnerable. When he admits weakness, he does so in the past tense or apologetically, vowing to be stronger. “Stronger”, aka, he’ll be better in suppressing his emotions. 

“I always strive to keep my emotions at bay, but... Sometimes the darkness takes hold and...it's impossible to suppress. It just shows you how lacking I am... I have much to learn.”

Dimitri lies by using the truth, shoving down his feelings, and blaming himself rather than attempting to figure out how to handle his emotions. In his own words:

“Everyone has something that is unacceptable within them. I certainly do, and I'd wager you do as well. I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway...”

Good advice Dimitri. Might want to keep that in mind.

It is at this point is when I’m going to get into my personal thoughts and armchair psychiatry nonsense.

First off, when I mentioned earlier about “non-traditional” mental illness, I did not mean abnormal or rare. Although people mostly just point to Dimitri having PTSD (and depression) as the source of his issues, I’m going to use all of my above information to make the (decently common) argument that Dimitri is schizophrenic, which is, contrary to popular belief, not too unusual. I state that with the caveat that I understand that there’s a lot to be said about schizophrenia and the tumultuous relationship between mental health and fiction. However, now is not really the time to go into mental health politics and representation or the many lies spread about the illness so instead, I recommend that you read into the topic if you’re personally interested (This has some good information). 

At the very least be aware that this IS sensationalized.

That said, Dimitri does not, to my understanding using grossly simplified terms, meet the qualifications generally (very generally) used to diagnose schizophrenia through the majority of the White Clouds chapters. These qualifying symptoms include, but are not limited to, the duration of the psychotic episode, the concurrent presence of hallucinations and delusions, and a greatly lowered ability to keep up with basic quality-of-life tasks. You only see these symptoms in the final chapter of White Clouds and the first few of Azure Moon. This isn’t unusual, however, because schizophrenia manifesting fully in younger individuals is extremely uncommon, sometimes taking years to trigger during a person’s late teens. And since the diagnosis generally relies on the occurrence of a psychotic episode, it can be mistaken as other mood disorders. Actually, the idea of him having a mood disorder was one of the things that caught my eye originally. Prodromal symptoms such as depression, irritability, headaches, sleep disruption, and mood swings are common in bipolar disorder (and, of course, schizophrenia). 

Still, I don't deny that Dimitri has PTSD and depression, only that I don’t think PTSD is his main (or only) issue. In reality, PTSD and schizophrenia are closely tied. They share many symptoms, even the symptom of psychosis. There’s also evidence that those with genetic precedent to develop PTSD overlap with those at risk for schizophrenia, and that the nature of PTSD triggers can act as a severe stressor to aggravate a schizophrenic episode. 

(From here)

This falls into the realm of being uncertain where one ends the other begins, highlighting the lack of concrete understanding about schizophrenia and the dependency of diagnosis and treatment to rely entirely on the individual experience, but that’s not a conversation I’m actually qualified to have. 

The study that truly caught my eye and while researching for this was one called “Psychiatric disorders and traumatic brain injury”. As I mentioned, at some point during the Tragedy, Dimitri sustained severe head trauma. We know this because of his development of the rare inability to taste called ageusia. I was originally interested in following this narrative thread because, as you might know if you follow true crime cases, there are many murderers who recall having sustained a head injury as children. Not that Dimitri shares similar psychology to people that kill and eat their victim's feet... Although his body count is higher. Besides that, head trauma, in general, is known to be linked to mental illness and altering a person’s behavior. There is even a correlation between TBI (traumatic brain injury) and schizophrenia. 

From the study I linked above:

To put it more simply, patients in the study who had suffered TBI and developed schizophrenia reported that their most common symptoms were delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, and aggressive behaviors. The auditory hallucinations were often voices. Many of the subjects experienced psychotic episodes two or more years after the initial incident (although, as I mentioned, Dimitri’s age could also have something to do with the timing as children rarely have fully developed schizophrenic episodes). Furthermore, the behaviors classified as an absence of normal behaviors called “negative symptoms” (which include apathy and disordered speech) were rare in this testing group. 

Dimitri exclusively displays “positive” symptoms of schizophrenia (“positive” meaning the presence of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions). He also clearly suffers from delusions of persecution in his belief that Edelgard is the sole instigator of Duscur and the war and that he immediately accuses Byleth of being an Imperial spy upon meeting them post time skip. I think it’s pretty fascinating how closely Dimitri’s symptoms follow the outline of the study, especially with the aggressive behaviors, as those aren’t actually very common in schizophrenics. 

In very, very simplistic terms, if I’m right and Dimitri was born with the genetic blueprint for schizophrenia/PTSD (through Crests, inheritance, or environmental causes) and later suffered severe head trauma in an event that also gave him PTSD in combination with his pre-existing parental issues and stilted emotional development, then this could definitely create the type of person who loses all sense of reality, can’t control his emotions, and is prone to episodes of murderous rage when being reminded of the trigger (however tangentially) of losing everything he loved.

However, I’ll add real quick that the study I mentioned should be taken with a grain of salt. 

I use it mainly because I thought the similarities were interesting and it shows that there was more thought put into Dimitri than maybe people appreciate.

This brings us to my final point; Some kind of twisted joke.

A major point I saw being made as proof of how terrible Dimitri is as a character was that he blamed Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur (a time where she would have been twelve). More accurately, he blamed her for everything that had happened and the thing is, I don’t disagree with that critique entirely. However, this is a case of him being a bad person, not a bad character. This might seem like an odd distinction, but I think it changes the scope of deserved criticism.  

As I’ve been trying so desperately to illustrate, Dimitri snapping wasn’t just because of Edelgard being revealed as the Flame Emperor. Rather, it was an unlucky combination of many things. His grasp and interpretation of reality were already hazy at best by the time she was unmasked, slowly falling apart as his prodromal symptoms worsened. Going into the fight, he believed the Flame Emperor to be responsible in whole or in part for the worst thing that had ever happened to him, guessed at Arundel’s involvement, had found (and lied about) the dagger, and was rapidly mentally deteriorating. While Dimitri suspected Edelgard’s involvement to some degree, he did his best to act like it wasn’t true.  

Dimitri didn’t want it to be true. To the extent that he was willing to lie to Byleth (and to himself) to avoid reality. He cared deeply about Edelgard. The best year of his life was spent with her, she was his first love, and she was the daughter of the step-mother he adored. Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not? This reveal confronted Dimitri with something that he could not accept, so his mind sidestepped the issue altogether. Delusion convinced him that all of the fears and worries he had beforehand were related, all into one larger delusion that Edelgard had sole responsibility. It’s not right and maybe not even excusable, but it falls in line with everything else.

Edelgard and Dimitri. Bound by some twisted fate but forever doomed to be separated, unable to understand the other’s chosen path. 

I do recognize the flaws of Dimitri’s character and arc. There are some pretty major flaws. I have parts of a post typed out about his shoddy recovery and how I’d fix it that, hopefully, one day will see the light of day as well as many complaints about the way the story is hindered by the need for flexibility to accommodate gameplay and a happy ending.

But, despite that, this has all been a very long-winded way of praising Dimitri’s writing. His mental illness has a surprising amount of depth and I loved studying it as intently as I did. I learned a lot about his character as well as about mental illness in general.

Ultimately, Dimitri is neither an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. You can feel bad for his pain and his struggle with his illness and understand that as a reason for his actions, but you shouldn’t use it as justification. He had the opportunity to seek help before things got too bad. He was selfish with the mismanagement of his emotions and goals. However, he also was a victim. Dimitri worked to recover and mend the mistakes he made while he was unwell, which is a side of this mental illness that is rarely shown in media.  

I wholeheartedly believe that, love him or hate him, Dimitri is the most well-written of the Three Houses characters,

[shadedrose01]

Burning Hope

Ship: none. Parental/Paternal relationship between Tony Stark and Harley Keener

Summary: Tony goes to visit a boy that he met, and discovers something he shouldnt.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Medieval, medieval times, Knight Tony Stark, Future King Tony Stark, Kid Harley Keener, Even though hes not named at all during the fic, Its him i promise, Magic, Magic-Users, Alternate Universe - Magic, Mages, Mage Harley Keener, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Summaries, Febufluff, Day 20, Butterflies, Fire, Magical Fire, pyrokinesis, Pyrokinetic Harley Keener, Cliffhangers, Badish ending?, Unhappy Ending, sorry :/ - Freeform, Tony Stark Acting As Harley Keener's Parental Figure

Day 20 of Febufluff: "Butterflies"!

Part 2 of the "Devil's Backbone" series

Note: This is apart of my Devils Backbone series. There is a oneshot already written that's apart of this series, but you do not need to read that to understand this one. This fic happens way before that one does, in the past. You can read that oneshot here, but please be mindful of the tags if you do <3

Also this is really bad (especially compared to the oneshot), I'm sorry.

--

Tony walks towards the stables, the tall grass surrounding him swaying into the light summer breeze, and crunching under his weight. His horse, Friday, a beautiful tall brown horse with a blotch of white on his nose, nickers to him in greeting, Tony running a hand up and down her face in response, from her muzzle to her forehead. He takes one last glance at the sky, seeing the sun blazing down on them from the middle of the sky, before he gets to work.

He grabs his leather, hand sewed saddle made for him by his lovely wife, and heaves it into place on Friday's back, making sure its snug into place, before checking the knapsack he had brought with him, ensuring hed have everything he needed for the remainder of the day. Water for him, and some extra, some arrows, some string, some rope, a sewing kit just in case and strung over his back, two separate bows, one significantly smaller than the other. One he had created, hand crafted just the other night. With everything checked off his mental list, he slings the sack over his shoulder, opens the gate in front of Friday, and saddles up onto her, his muscles straining with the effort, even after the countless times he's done this.

He gives her a squeeze of his thighs, and she on the move, galloping out of the stable and towards the town with a steady trot. He passes the stone houses quickly, giving a wave or two to the few people that recognized him, before picking up the pace as they ride towards the woods, towards the edge of the territory.

Towards where a small, rickety straw and mud house stood, cracked and old, deteriorating with time and age. Towards where a little boy stayed, all by his lonesome.

He shouldnt be going this way, shouldn't be getting involved, getting attached the way that he is. He should have left it alone when he found the boy a few days prior, on a random excursion of the edges of the territory. He should have let natural selection take it's course, no matter how cruel it could be. Hell, he didnt even know the kid's name. But, there was something tugging at Tony, twisting up his insides every time he thought about leaving the poor boy alone, to die no less, and it overwhelmed him. He felt compelled to help, felt the knowledge of knowing, knowing that this boy no older than twelve years of age had a part to play in the future of their kingdom, that he had a destiny of some sort. He could feel it, feel it with all of his heart, in the depths of his bones as if God himself had whispered it in his ear, written it into his heart, and sealed it into his brain.

So, he kept returning to the boy, to the house at the edge of the woods, of the world, getting attached to someone he should have never known, hoping that one day he'll understand why. Why he had been lead there, why he had stumbled upon the boy, why he continued to help. Until then, though, he will continue on the path God laid out for him and put his faith into His hands, knowing He would never steer him wrong.

He pulls back on the reins, Friday slowing to a stop as they pull up on the old, worn down structure, the wind whistling through the cracks and holes. He dismounts the beast, rubbing and patting her as he tells her to stay. She shakes her head, puffing air out of her nose in response, as if the idea insults her, making Tony snort in amusement as he walks past her, glancing through the cracks as he goes.

He freezes as soon as he does, eyes widening before he rushes through the door, the creaking wooden slab slamming against the wall, splintering as Tony gapes at the mystical scene in front of him.

What has to be about a hundred or more butterflies are scattered around the room, their wings, their bodies, their being made of a neon, artificial blue fire, flooding the room with harsh light and a sweltering heat. Some are perched around the room, around the structure, but more are flying, flying in some sort of cyclone, some sort of tornado formation, practically swarming around one central point in the middle of the room. One person, one kid sat in the middle of the building, sitting on his legs, eyes closed in concentration, hands held out in a cupping gesture, holding a ball of flames, of fire in his small, small childlike hands.

As soon as the bang of the door echoes, the kid flinches harshly, head swiveling to stare with wide, bright, neon eyes, neon eyes that Tony's only seen a few times, only seen on- no, no he couldn't be a- couldnt be- and all of the butterflies flare up, their flames growing brighter, stronger, before they disappear completely, flickering out into flairs are fade as soon as their formed, the flame engulfing his hands disappearing to. Kid's mouth drops, and he rushes to stand, hiding his hands behind his back and looking absolutely terrfied. "M-Mr. Stark! What- What are you-?"

"You're a mage." He breathes out, his mind reeling with this new information, and the kid flinches back as if stricken, his lighter blue eyes (but not neon blue, not anymore, that having left when the butterflies did, when the magic did) widening even further, looking like the ceramic plates his wife had gotten Peter was born, around eight years ago.

"N-no, I'm not!"

Tony narrows his eyes at the smaller boy, only afew years older than his son seemingly, incredulously. "I saw you, child. With your magic, the butterflies, the- the fire!" He flairs his arms out. "I saw it! I saw it all. You truly expect me to ignore it, and pretend I saw nothing? This is-" he runs a hand through his hair, and starts to pace slightly. "Dangerous, child, this is dangerous! If the town caught whiff of you, much less the guard-"

"Don't tell anyone!" The kid blurts, his eyes looking like oceans, swimming with clear tears and flooded with petrifying fear. "Please, you can't! Momma said if-if anyone finds out, they'll-they'll-" He sobs, his tiny body shuttering, sniffling as hands press up into his face, wiping away the liquid now running down his face. "I'm sorry! I wont do it again, ill- I'll try to control it- I swear!"

Tony feels a rush of adrenaline, a parental, paternal urge rearing his head until Tony's moving forward before he can think, kneeling in front of the trembling child and shushing him gently. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it's alright."

He carefully grabs at the boys hands, covering in dirt and filth, all scuffed and scabbed up, covered in cuts and scrapes, fingernails black, and, ignoring the flinch the boy gives, slowly pries them away from his face, similarly dirt ridden, his entire face marked with brown's and blacks, the only clear part of his face being the trails of tears still running down his face. He looks him dead in the eye, and, even though his mind is screaming at him, says firmly "I won't tell anyone, I promise."

Won't tell anyone?? Is he mad? He needs to tell someone, he's about to become a part of the royal guard! He has to tell the soldiers, the knights, the king, it's a part of the law, now, it's what he's supposed to do, as a man soon to be knighted-

But he can't. He knows he can't, as he feels this fierce wave of protection for this child he doesn't know, this child that isn't his, as he feels the same foreboding feeling as before, as he feels, knows, that this is what hes supposed to do, that this is what's right.

Especially when hope brightens the kids baby blue eyes, the raging storm brewing behind his irises turning into a calm, overcast summers day, and a smile grows wide on his face. "Really?!? You won't tell 'em?"

Tony shakes his head, giving the kid a small smile as he rebrates himself internally, before suddenly letting out a huff as the kid practically knocks him over, embracing him tightly, his tiny, lithe fingers grasping the back of Tony's tunic with a strong hold, almost ripping it in his excitement. "Thank you, thank you, Mr. Stark!"

Tony's nose scrunches up as soon as the kids stench waves over him, but he ignores it, choosing to wrap one arm around the kid's back, patting it awkwardly, feeling his jutting bones through the big, loose shirt the boy is wearing. Over his shoulder, Tony watches as another butterfly forms, the blue fire lighter, wispier than the others were earlier, watches as he flaps its wings a few times in front of his face, the flames licking at his nose, his chin, before it takes flight, flying around the pair once, twice before sprialing upwards and squeezing through one of the cracks in the foundation, flying away, its neon flames blending into the sky.

Tony's smile widens at the unconscious act, at the innocence and purity of it, and wonders, wonders why people believe magic is so bad, why mages are so awful, when they can create beauty like that, at the snap of their fingers, without even a second thought? He wonders, and throws his other arm around the kid, fully embracing him, holding onto the warmth of the moment for a few seconds longer, while he still can. While he still has hope.

A few days later, Tony is send to war, serving his kingdom as a knight. A few months later, he comes home a king, the memory of warmth, of butterflies and of hope vanished like a dream.

[tweekedout]

“Just, just hang on...”

send “Just, just hang on...” for my dying muse’s last words to yours.

tw: effects of long term drug abuse, dying young, 

They start dating again when Craig gets an apartment off campus and sends for him, hauling him away from his family and helping him build a legal case with Mr. Broflovski against his parents. The story makes headlines, all their dirty laundry is dragged out into the open and hung up for everyone to see - and despite what his parents had told him, he’s not vilified. His story is heard and repeated, talk shows and celebrities weigh in on the crime and the case is a god damn slam dunk.

But every day is a new fight, each moment a struggle. Getting clean isn’t a battle, it’s a war.  It tests their relationship in ways he didn’t think it would survive. Craig’s there when he gets the one month chip, and the six month, and the twelve - and there again when he has to start all over again at one, again and again. Setting his hopes and dreams aside in favor of supporting his boyfriend (now fiance, almost husband) and that hurts in ways that he can’t quite express. Craig’s schooling gets put on hold when he begins to get sick, he starts working at a dead-end job to try to support them both. They move back home, to be closer to a support system, into a little two-story house with cheap rent. And the winnings from the court case against his parents get shunted into mounting medical costs.

It’s all terrible. It’s all rotten. But for a time, despite it, they’re happy.

They’re supposed to get married in the summer, all of their friends and family (Craig’s family, Tweek’s send their regards from prison) have RSVPed. They’re supposed to have a life beyond this.

But previously manageable symptoms have become debilitating over the course of the last few weeks. The best place to be would be the hospital, but he’s terrified of hospitals. The stress is bad for him, mentally and physically, and an inpatient stay was quickly changed to (not palliative, Craig insists) care at home.

(In one particularly regretful argument he’d said what he was thinking, hospitals are a bad place to die and watched as Craig’s heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. Hopefully, one day, someone would be able to fit them together again.)

The stairs to their bedroom had become a mountain Tweek couldn’t climb.  Craig had no problems with carrying him up and down them, playfully saying he liked the chance to flex. But when he began to deteriorate further, it was clear it wasn’t safe for him to be up there. A bad fall had left him with a sprained ankle. He couldn’t remember what he was even doing to get himself to the bottom of the stairs.

The living room has become a hospital (hospital, not hospice craig insists) and Craig the full time staff.  Almost every part of Tweek’s body is suffering from the lifetime of addiction, and the last relapse hadn’t been more than a few months before. A transplant isn’t coming any time soon, the powers that be will send it to someone more deserving. They relocate him to a hospital bed in the middle of the room and Craig takes up residence on the couch, scaring away the worst of his delusions with his mere presence. 

When Craig’s at work, Kenny babysits. Or Kyle. Or, when he’s home, Token. All of them wear the same pinched smile - the one that says they know this is hopeless, that he looks worse every time they see him, but they enjoy what time they can get.

Reality and Tweek are becoming more and more estranged as his body begins to slowly fall apart, his mind giving out bit by bit as his brain begins to falter. He’s rarely awake, and rarely lucid when he is. He loses time, sees things that aren’t there - the Grim Reaper looks a lot like Kenny McCormick, and last Tweek looked he was waiting patiently by the door.

The power flickers. The wind is howling outside.

Craig’s on the phone, becoming increasing hysterical. The monotone is breaking and he’’s shouting at someone on the receiver, I already gave him that its not helping! I need someone here now.

Everything hurts. His eyes are wet with tears he doesn’t remember shedding. He feels like he’s on fire and utterly frigid all at once, wracked with shivers his body is too exhausted to have.

The latest episode of Red Racer is ending, the ending credit music is warm and cheerful. His eyes are closed, he doesn’t see he emergency news bulletin that follows lets them know that the  way to Hell’s Pass has been closed - the 911 call he’d placed isn’t going to be answered. And Craig’s hung up and called his mom (again) to come help him out, to do something, because Tweek’s getting worse and no he hasn’t signed the DNR yet please come please he’s in so much pain but the roads aren’t passable she already tried.

They need to keep him going until there are plows on the road. 

There’s a thunk and he knows there’s a fresh hole in the wall. Tweek barely registers the noise, only pulled out of the haze as Craig touches the side of his face with a cool glass and gently coaxes him to take his medicine, i know its hard to swallow babe but you need to work with me here. His voice more nasal than usual, eyes reddened by the hours of frustrated crying.

His eyes drift shut. The narrow hospital cot sinks in as his fiance climbs onto it with him.

The bed isn’t really big enough for two, but he’s been cold all day and blankets don’t seem to be doing the trick. It’s not so bad, Craig’s curled around him from behind, trapping his cold feet between his warm calves and trying to rub warmth into his swollen, numb hands. He should be at work but instead he’s here, desperately mumbling reassurances into his dying boyfriend’s messy hair. The top of his head is wet, and Craig’s breath hitches every now and again.

“I-It’s going to be okay... It’s okay...” He tries to squeeze his hand. Reassure him, but all the strength has left him. The world is faded at the edges, and even with a machine doing the hard work of breathing for him it feels hard to draw in air. He’s been in pain all day, they’ve been waiting for help - but it isn’t coming. He knows as the pain starts to ebb away that Craig’s given him an extra dosage of something to ease his suffering.

The only thing he can do in the face of it now.

Hang on. Hang on, just hang on. Each repeat sounds just a little more hopeless.

“F-For me, please... Be happy, okay?  I want you happy... You deserve to be happy... Please be happy... It’ll b-be spring soon, it’ll be warm soon..”

[loubie364]

I haven’t posted anything for a while, due in part to waiting for all the pieces to fall into place for some rather exciting news, for me at least. Today it is 60 days till I go in for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery!

I have wrestled with the idea of having DBS surgery for the last few years. I know that to some people this might seem like a no-brainer – “have the surgery, get back your quality of life”. It’s a lot easier to say this when it’s not your skull someone is drilling two holes into. So yes, I am a wimp, fear played a part in my decision making (or lack thereof). I justified to myself that there was no urgency to decide because:

There is so much development and exciting discoveries happening in Parkinson’s Disease research (and there are), surely a less invasive procedure will happen soon.

(In my opinion) the progression of the disease, in my case, was relatively slow and I was coping fine.

And, of course there was that fear thing…

After 13 years of living with PD and having to honestly (I am stubborn) admit that in the last 2 years things have become more challenging, the decision whether to have DBS surgery or not had been quite prominent in my thoughts. My wife has been quite keen on the procedure, (possibly to see whether there is in fact a brain in there) but has always made it clear that the decision is mine to make and that she will support me either way. It still came down to me to make the decision, not my neurologist, not my wife…….me! If I am to be totally honest, I had been avoiding making the decision, procrastinating and finding ways to delay it. A nudge, actually more of a shove was needed to get this decision made.

But how did I eventually get here?

I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide let’s do this. A lot of thought and prayer has gone into the decision. I considered my age, my childrens’ ages, what my wife and I would like to do in our future, my health, the progression of the disease, my frustration levels with my symptoms etc. But it was all kick started by a foolish decision I took.

A newish development where the whole procedure can now be done whilst I am blissfully in a state of anaesthesia (as opposed to being awake whilst they drill into my skull and then fiddle around in my brain) has gone some way towards making the decision easier. I don’t really want to be awake when they discover my brain is actually a jelly doughnut – I don’t want to see or think about that.

The Nudge

About 6 months ago I foolishly started following a diet off the internet, a YouTube clip which recommended the ketogenic diet for people with PD and showed the remarkable improvements achieved by the person who was following it. This was strange behaviour for me as I am not a follower of diets and I am generally quite cautious and sceptical of internet advice and usually check things out before trying them. I can only think that the frustration of the symptoms at the time got the better of me and I started the diet. The results were remarkable……that is remarkably disastrous. I lost about 5 kilograms in the first 10 days, my legs started cramping and generally I felt weak. My symptoms got worse, rapidly. At one stage I could not even walk to the kitchen to get my medication, I ended up crawling there. Upon seeking advice from a dietician, it turns out that the ketogenic diet is not good for someone with PD. As our bodies are constantly moving, we need to eat more like a professional sportsman – our bodies require carbohydrates and when the body doesn’t receive enough of that it goes and finds this energy source in its own muscles. It breaks down the muscle and feeds on itself – hence the weight loss and general feeling of weakness. I immediately stopped the diet and subsequently regained the lost kilograms and my symptoms improved somewhat. At the same time, I made an appointment with my neurologist, he was quite shocked by the sudden deterioration and reiterated what the dietician had said about the ketogenic diet and the danger about following advice on the internet. And then DBS made its re-entry. He said I should really give DBS some thought again and knowing from previous discussions my reluctance to being awake during the procedure told me about the new development where you are anaesthetised throughout the procedure. The suggestion was not a surprise, it had been bouncing round in my head as well. I had nothing to lose in starting the process and I don’t want to get to 70 and be left wondering if only I had tried it. I agreed that we could start the process, not committed yet but we could have a look and see.

The first step was to meet with a neuropsychologist. The appointment would take about 3 hours. As it was close to the end of the year, I thought I would struggle to get an appointment, but surprisingly an opening was available for the 23rd of November. This appointment is to assess whether you are prone to depression as this can become worse after DBS surgery and that affects where the stimulators are implanted in your brain. Being quite a private person, I am not a fan of having my life pried open. The assessment involved family history and a variety of tests of cognitive ability and current mental state. Fortunately, I am quite positive, and my cognitive ability is pretty good. It went well and the assessment ended early. The report was positive regarding my mental state and that I am not depressed. So, the first hurdle was cleared. I still had in the back of my mind that as we were now heading into December things would slow down so I would have a fair amount of time to get my mind around the procedure.

So, I was quite surprised when the completed report from the Neuropsychologist was sent a week later and even more surprised when I received a call from the neurosurgeon to say he had an opening on the 21st of December – everything was just falling in to place. It was starting to seem that prayers requesting that if this was the right path that doors would be opened were being answered. The meeting with the neurosurgeon was extremely positive and my wife and I came out of that feeling encouraged and hopeful.

I still had in mind that the process would still take some time. Once again, I was to be proven wrong, when on the 7th of January the neurosurgeon issued his report recommending the DBS surgery and providing a provisional date for the procedure – 2nd March 2019. That was like one haircut away! It had become real so quickly. The required reports were sent to my medical aid for pre-authorisation. A slight delay occurred here as the medical aid was bit slow, resulting in authorisation only being granted on the 25th of February. This resulted in the neurosurgeon having to postpone the procedure as he needed the authorisation by the 22nd of February. The next available date was the 11th of May. So, I do have some time to prepare myself and not feel too rushed.

We’re doing this, I just hope they do find a brain in there 😊.

I am confident that this is the right decision. Lots of prayer has gone into this. It seems like everything is falling into place and leading me down this path, first the Ketogenic diet – something I never do (following unsubstantiated advice on the internet) but did and then the speed at which the neuropsychologists report came out and the rapid availability of the neurosurgeon for the appointment. I have also had so many people contacting me or my wife (out of the blue, with no knowledge that I am about to have the procedure done) with names of people who have had the procedure that are willing to share their experience with me. I believe this is the best time to do the procedure as my kids are going to be 18 and 21 this year and there are so many things I would love to do with them over the next few years. I am tired of always having to consider my symptoms before going out. It would be amazing to do spur of the moment activities again with my wife, my family, my friends without being concerned that I might freeze in the restaurant, cinema etc.

Final thoughts

When I tell people about the procedure, I am often told that I am strong (mentally & emotionally), but that can’t be further from the truth, reality is I am a wimp (as mentioned earlier). But I can only vouch for the truth in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all this through Him who strengthens me”.

I tell people I am going into the procedure with an open mind – literally. It is amusing, but I do need to remind myself to maintain balance. To be hopeful, but to also keep a tight rein on not being too expectant of a massive improvement. I would rather hope for some improvement and be surprised by a substantial improvement rather than expecting 100% and getting 50%.

So, whichever way I look at it, my journey takes a newish direction soon. It may not be a cure, but I am confident this will be the start of regaining some of my life that I have lost.

Hope springs eternal.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19 {NIV}

“When you look at a field of dandelions you can either see a 100 weeds or a thousand wishes.” – Unknown

“Live in constant anticipation” – Bob Goff

The countdown I haven’t posted anything for a while, due in part to waiting for all the pieces to fall into place for some rather exciting news, for me at least. 1,673 more words

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

My personal connection with Taylor’s discography, part eight: Ivy

Basically this is just a series I’m doing where I write down my feelings on what each of the Taylor songs means to me personally on a line to line basis both for my own sake to have it somewhere and for anyone who wants to know anything further about me.

So with that in mind, let’s get started.

Ivy

Bit of a disclaimer, technically this isn’t an interpretation I came up with. Upon listening to it the first time, my partner said this is what he thought the song meant, and I loved it so much that I adopted it and it’s now the way I see it too. As a whole, this song represents the struggle of wanting to be with someone but having emotional trauma that has resulted in the unhealthy side of you constantly try to convince you that you need to stay faithful to the idea that the only person you can trust is yourself.

How's one to know? I'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones in a faith forgotten land

To me, this is one of Taylor’s most intimate lyrics and really sets the scene for the rest of the song. When relating this song to myself, I see the spirit as the emotions you feel for each other and the bones as physical closeness, whether that be sexually or otherwise. So to me, this meeting is when you have two people who know that they love each other deeply and can show that, but who also refuse to admit to themselves that they are in love because the traumas of their past have taken away their faith and made them go on day by day thinking that the idea of loving someone for a lifetime is unrealistic and fake.

In from the snow, your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Feeling like you’re not worthy of love or even that you are but love as a whole isn’t worth it is an extremely cold and dark place. So when someone comes into your life and challenges that, it can feel like the light at the end of the tunnel, even though you know it’s not a perfect fix for everything.

And the old widow goes to the stone every day, but I don't, I just sit here and wait grieving for the living

There are three interconnected ways which I feel like this line relates to my romantic relationship. 

Firstly, part of the reason our relationship has been stunted like it has is because I’ve been an unofficial carer for my mother during her breakdown over what happened with my family. And quite frankly, that’s been hard because she doesn’t want to get better so not only do I feel like I’m grieving for how our relationship has deteriorated as a result of the family traumas, but also I’m grieving for her because she’s clearly still in so much pain over the loss of her family who are still alive that it’s ruining any chance of her having a future. 

Secondly, because I’ve been so focused on my mother and her grief, I’ve not only missed out on opportunities, but haven’t been able to properly deal with my own grief over the situation because at the end of the day, I lost of my family too. And on the flip side I know my partner relates to this because a similar circumstance happened to him in his childhood.

And thirdly, in many ways the two of us have spent a lot of our relationship grieving for each other and the relationship itself because we have seen the negative impact that the trauma of losing our families in such a way has made to each other and the relationship.

Oh, goddamn, my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand taking mine, but it's been promised to another

On paper, we seem perfect for each other. We help each other through the pain and most importantly, we love each other. But in reality, our trauma and past promises of never opening up as to protect ourselves from getting hurt is always going to try to interfere.

Oh, I can't stop you putting roots in my dreamland, my house of stone, your ivy grows and now I'm covered in you

Despite that interference however, it’s impossible to not picture a future together and want that because we love each other.

I wish to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed

When you’ve had so many relationships, romantic and otherwise, fall apart on you unexpectedly, it’s hard to not feel unloveable. And as part of that, any time anyone sticks by you, there’s always that thought of “why?” or even “what’s wrong with you to be staying when everyone else left?”. And while it may be enough for others to hear that there’s no catch, this person just loves you like they should, it takes time to override that caution and accept that there’s no catch or flaw waiting to pop up.

He's in the room. Your opal eyes are all I wish to see. He wants what's only yours

Like I mentioned, that fear of not being good enough and being hurt again never truly leaves you. As much as you wish for it to, it will always linger at the back of your mind, trying to demand all of your trust, time and attention.

Clover blooms in the fields. Spring breaks loose, the time is near

As the seeds of love and trust continued to blossom between my partner and I, the choice to commit to each other and accept that we are each other’s future also drew near.

What would he do if he found us out?

Though that love and trust grows every day towards my partner, I still can’t say I’ve reached that point with myself. As a result, I still find myself questioning what’s going to happen when my unhealthy brain feels like I’m relying too much on my partner or get to that point where things feel too comfortable and where I’ve historically begun to freak out trying to find something wrong because next to nothing positive lasts in my life.

Crescent moon, coast is clear. Spring breaks loose, but so does fear. He's gonna burn this house to the ground

As I’ve said, very few positives have lasted a long time in my life and it’s led me to a place where if my life gets good, I begin to panic thinking I’m missing some disaster that’s about to happen. So despite how perfect I feel my partner and I are for each other, the minute the unhealthy part of my brain realises things are going well, it will pick things that may not even exist to nitpick at and ruin the relationship and act like it was for my own protection. It’s done it before with friendships and a past romantic relationship and there is that constant fear that even though I am mentally better right now, that side of me will come out again and destroy everything my partner and I have built up for.

I'd live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time

Despite always being there, there are definitely better days where the effects of my trauma are felt less and I can enjoy myself with my partner or even just be comforted enough to get through the day without my unhealthy brain destroying it. And those moments mean the world to me.

So tell me to run or dare to sit and watch what we'll become and drink my husband's wine

It’s pretty self-explanatory but yeah, my partner and I have had multiple conversations over time where we’ve basically said that we need some kind of proof that we’re in a good place going somewhere because again, the minute our brains think we’re not, it’s going to intoxicate us with negative thoughts and keep as stagnant at best and cause something we don’t mean to slip and start a relationship ending fight at worse.

So yeah, it's a fire, it's a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Seeing a fire in the dark is a conflicting experience because on one hand it’s a warm light that can guide you, but on the other, a fire, and particularly a blaze, is an uncontrolled and potentially dangerous force with the ability to engulf and burn you. And a relationship, romantic or otherwise, is no different.

So yeah, it's a war. It's the goddamn fight of my life and you started it

Ultimately, I don’t want to be this traumatised and pessimistic person who believes love can never last and this relationship and all its endured has started to show me that. So I am going to fight every day to make this relationship work and open myself to other non-romantic relationships in a way I haven’t in years. And it’s going to be constant battles and fights, but hopefully in the end it will be worth it.

[allenmendezsr]

Alzheimer's Dementia Brain Health

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Alzheimer's Dementia Brain Health

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    Just over 3 years ago I thought I was losing my mind.

I mean literally… losing my mind.

My memory was failing me.

I found myself doing things – and I didn’t know why I was doing them…

My concentration was becoming noticeably weaker.

Sometimes I’d be faced with a very minor problem – and I just didn’t know what to do.

Or someone would be saying something and I couldn’t make sense of their words.

I’d started repeating myself too. Saying something.. and then realizing with a shock that I’d already said it less than an hour ago.

It got very slightly worse as the weeks wore on.

It was frightening. I found myself constantly worried about what was happening to me.

I’m fine now. Better than fine – I’m probably sharper now than I ever have been since my twenties.

But I never want to go back to how I was.

What made it worse was that this kind of condition has run in my family for generations.

Three different relatives of mine descend into a nightmare world where they knew things were going badly wrong for them mentally.

They knew their brain was starting to fail… they could feel it and experience it… but they felt powerless to stop it.

As the condition progressed… so did their despair.

If I knew anything – it was that I did not want to go down the same terrifying path that they went down.

My doctor told me I was simply experiencing the normal symptoms of growing older.

For him, I was just one more case. He’d seen it a thousand times. He’d see a thousand more.

But for me it was my life. And I felt I was losing my grip on it.

He told me to eat better and get outside a bit more. I did – but I still got progressively worse.

As I say, that was then. At the time I think everyone assumed I was going to slowly follow my relatives into a miserable decline of forgetfulness, confusion, and helplessness.

Thankfully, it didn’t work out that way.

And that’s in part because of a really fortunate accident I had just over 3 years ago. It led me to meet someone who, just in conversation, gave me an incredible break. One that changed my life forever.

A near miss – and a stroke of luck

I had been driving to my local mall – something I’d done hundreds of times previously. But as I approached it I didn’t recognize anything.

I had simply forgotten where I was. I turned into the parking lot… and I didn’t know where I was.

In my confusion, I’d stopped my car quite suddenly.

Which very nearly caused the car behind to rear-end me. He honked furiously at me.

I parked my car and apologized to him. I explained I’d got confused and that I was sorry.

Turned out he was extremely sympathetic.

We chatted for a few moments and he revealed that his wife had gone through a similar time some years previously. Forgetfulness, loss of concentration, and moments where she simply didn’t know where she was or what she was doing.

Despite very good medical care her condition gradually worsened. So he had done some research on her behalf and found a natural and straightforward approach to addressing her deteriorating brain function.

Things got slowly better for her day-by-day. After some weeks the incidences of memory failure and confusion ceased completely. He told me his wife felt as mentally sharp as a young adult again.

He wrote down the name of the program they’d used. He suggested I try it since… I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

When I got home I ordered myself a copy – and I started to work on it that afternoon.

And thanks to that gentleman – for whom I had nearly caused a car accident – I too am as sharp and as alert, as I have ever been in my life.

The turnaround was extraordinary. And this is how it works.

The key factors to creating a strong brain have always been known…

Perhaps my biggest surprise with this program is discovering that when our memory is letting us down…

when our concentration is failing us time and again…

and we just seem to not be thinking like we used to…

…there are proven ways of restoring mental vitality that has been delivering outstanding results to tens of thousands of people for years and years.

And while I would always strongly advise that you follow your doctor’s instructions… I also thank my lucky stars I found a better way to undo these frightening changes that were taking place in my mind.

And over a short period of time, it returned me to mental strength and sharpness I hadn’t experienced since my early twenties.

And this is what it is

The essence of the program is very, very straightforward. It tackles the causes of this horrible condition right at its source… exactly where it actually starts.

Because these problems with poor memory, weak concentration, confusion… they don’t just happen for no reason.

It’s not just ‘old age’. Think about it. Your brain doesn’t sit there with a calendar marking off the days until it’s time for you to have a brain problem.

Instead, something is taking place in your body that is creating the symptoms that are worrying the life out of you.

Something is happening to you… and whatever that something is… it’s leading to the problems you’re having right now.

And as far as our cognitive decline is concerned, scientists have known – for some years now – what that something is.

It’s blood flow.

More to the point, it’s the lack of blood flow to the brain.

When blood doesn’t flow properly to the brain, the brain is starved of two things it badly needs in order to function properly: oxygen and nutrients.

And research scientists have proved beyond any doubt that a brain that receives a reduced amount of blood flow will start to malfunction.

You will begin to forget things.

You will become disoriented. Your focus will suffer. Your attention will weaken.

You will become increasingly confused.

Much, much worse… it will worsen over time.

The brain needs oxygen and it needs nutrients – and both these are delivered to it via blood flow. If that flow is being slowed or blocked in any way at all… then it’s getting less than it needs.

Starved of what it needs to perform efficiently… it starts performing nefficiently.

And this leads to what you’re experiencing in your day-to-day life. The mistakes, the errors, the losses of your conscious life are the result of misfirings inside your brain matter.

And this is not theory, conjecture, or an area that needs further study. It’s a fact.

The connection between reduced blood flow to the brain and steady, measurable brain decline has been researched and shown with both mice and with humans.

It was when I addressed blood flow problems to my brain that I finally turned the whole thing around – and got my life back again.

How I tackled this horrible condition

I learned quickly that I had to act quickly.

The deadly side-effect of chronic lack of oxygen is the production of sticky protein substances throughout the brain. These sticky clumps create a kind of ‘plaque’ that interferes with how brain neurons fire.

And wherever our neurons are having trouble firing is where we’re going to experience very real, very noticeable brain decline.

And it’s an ongoing process. In a healthy brain these plaques are rare – and quickly cleared away. In less than a healthy brain, they accumulate over time throughout the brain. It’s this steady clogging up of the brain that leads to our mental decline.

But there is one piece of really good news.

This clogging up of the brain is a process – not an event.

And like many processes it’s one that we can influence. It’s one we can directly act on ourselves.

Switching the brain back ‘on’

Imagine that the flow of blood and oxygen to your head is controlled by a tap. When you’re healthy the tap flows freely – nutrients and oxygen-laden blood reaches your brain, keeping it in excellent working order.

But in my case then – and probably in your case now – that tap was slowly being turned ‘off’.

For you, it’s not yet ‘off’ but you’re starting to notice that this is where it’s heading.

It’s heading to a state where you have no cognitive function, you can’t look after yourself, you don’t know what’s going on… A steady collapse of brain effectiveness.

We need to move it back to fully ‘on’.

If we can do that then blood flows freely again, oxygen reaches all the brain in the quantities needed.. and the brain finds its way back to fully functioning.

That’s exactly what I did for myself. And it’s an incredible experience.

I felt physically better after 3 or 4 days. I don’t know if this was those plaques gradually clearing out of my brain…

Maybe it was parts of my brain that were under-performing suddenly coming back into life.

I really can’t say that I know.

But it felt like I’d been in a smoky room for the previous year… and then, all of a sudden, I found a door, opened it… and stepped out into the fresh air of a brightly lit day….

It was a startling transformation.

The Brain Booster

The program that the gentleman at the mall told me about is called The Brain Booster. It’s a very accurate name for the program. I do feel super-powered sometimes!

It was created by Christian Goodman. I used it to restore the flow of oxygen and nutrients to my brain and I have never looked back.

Christian’s approach to tackling illness is simple but stunningly effective. He recognizes that most illnesses come about because of normal lifestyle circumstances.

If we don’t address the lifestyle cause then, at best, the drugs we’re prescribed will only mask the illness. They suppress symptoms – but leave the illness still there.

For some health conditions that might work. For others, it works sometimes.

But for brain problems, well, once that starts going bad it continues going bad unless it’s dealt with head-on. No playing with symptoms here.

You get rid of it or, in the end, it gets rid of you.

So why is blood to your brain being restricted?

Blood travels around the body via blood vessels – veins, arteries, and capillaries. Our blood carries oxygen and nutrients to every part of the body and brain.

And everywhere they go those blood vessels are hemmed in by bones, muscles, organs.

And this is where our problems begin.

We’re used to seeing pictures in text-books of our veins and arteries just floating in our bodies, as if they are free-standing, surrounded by empty space, untouched by anything else.

The reality is very different.

In reality, our bodies are tightly packed. Blood vessels – arteries and veins – are pressed up close against muscle tissue and bone. They have very little room at all to move.

Yet they need at least a small amount of movement. Because as the heart pumps oxygenated blood through your arteries they expand a little in order to carry this blood load.

They then return to normal before expanding again to carry the next load of blood. Expand, relax, expand, relax. Your arteries need to be able to do this if they’re to properly deliver life-giving blood to your body and brain.

If things are normal in the body they have just enough movement to be able to flex and expand with each heartbeat – and so let plenty of oxygen-laden blood get up to your brain.

But if some of the surrounding internal muscles are a little tight and inflexible then… arteries find themselves pushed up against bones and organs. And, suddenly, they don’t have the same freedom to move anymore.

Surrounded by tight, inflexible internal muscles they don’t have the freedom to flex and expand with each heartbeat. And that directly affects the amount of oxygenated blood they can transport to your brain.

With each heartbeat we’re not quite sending the brain the blood and oxygen it needs to function properly.

There’s only so much of this your brain can take before its ability to function starts to decline. And you start to notice that decline.

Internal muscle tightness is normal – yet deadly

And those internal muscles do get tighter over time. It’s not your fault but, until you know it’s happening to you, it is largely unavoidable.

Unfortunately, tightness in some of those deeper muscles is almost impossible for us to feel or notice until it causes other problems – like blood flow problems and brain decline.

And blood flow problems are serious problems.

Because the longer that deprivation continues the more pronounced those symptoms are going to become.

Until one day we reach the point of no return.

But if you’re worried about your own brain health there is good news

I started turning that flow of oxygen-rich blood back on in days. In weeks I was mentally sharper than I ever remember being.

And I’ve been that way now for 3 years.

Christian Goodman’s Brain Booster showed me what I needed to do to be rid of this problem for life. I did as he instructed and I got the results.

The 3 vital keys to restoring fantastic brain health

1. Breathing for the brain

I learned quickly there’s a difference between ‘breathing’ and ‘breathing so your brain gets maximum oxygen’.

We breathe approximately 20,000 times a day. So even the smallest problem with the way our body breathes is being repeated 20,000 times – every single day.

Can you imagine how a tiny bit of oxygen deprivation in each breath is going to damage your brain over the coming weeks and months?

Whereas a small improvement in each breath brings you a little more life-giving air per breath, 20,000 times a day.

Honestly, by the second day of practicing better breathing I felt more alive and alert than I had done for years.

I now take proper breathing very seriously. I’ve not had a single symptom of memory loss, brain fog, or confusion for over three years… but I still do these exercises at least once every day. Because I want to keep it that way.

2. Fix the muscles that are suffocating your brain

There’s no compromise on this: if tense, inflexible internal muscles are pushing arteries up against bones or organs, allowing them no freedom to move even a tiny bit… they’re not going to be able to expand in order to allow blood to flow through.

Squashed arteries can’t deliver oxygen or nutrients where you so desperately need them.

No matter how perfect your breathing technique… that life-enhancing breath isn’t going to get where it’s needed – and you’re going to lose oxygen to the brain.

It’s internal muscles that cause most of the problems. I had to make those muscles relaxed and pliable once more. And I had to do it without delay.

Otherwise, my brain faced chronic oxygen deprivation – and I faced catastrophic, irreversible cognitive decline.

3. Target oxygen directly to the brain

Ever wondered why different people experience different combinations of symptoms?

Dizziness, forgetfulness, low moods, loss of physical balance, difficulty in recognizing faces, confusion over where you are or what you’re doing…

Why is it that you and I can suffer the same condition – reduced blood flow to the brain – yet we have different sets of symptoms?

It’s because different parts of our brains are being damaged. You’re experiencing oxygen-loss in one area, I’m experiencing it in another.

Both of us will end up in the same terrible state in the end. But in the early stages, the illness can look different for both of us.

Fortunately, there’s a very powerful way that humans can cause blood to move from one brain area to another. It mimics exactly something your body already does to divert oxygen to different parts of the head.

A couple of minutes of doing this each day delivers replenishing oxygen to parts of the brain that are right now being systematically starved of it.

I followed Christian’s instructions to the letter. And I can honestly say that my troubles just melted away as my brain sparkled back into life again and I freed myself of worry – and fear – over my failing health.

Did somebody say ‘exercise’?

Let’s be clear: when I say I did ‘exercises’ don’t for a moment imagine these were strenuous, difficult exercises that made me puff or sweat!

Almost every single one can be done either sitting down, lying down – or both.

So I would do one exercise while out walking, another while at home preparing food for dinner and a third while sitting watching television.

There are several to choose from and even today I still do most of them – just for maintenance purposes. And on long car journeys every time we’re stopped at lights I’ll do one of the exercises until we move again.

There’s even one that’ll make you laugh while you’re doing it!

But don’t underestimate what these exercises will do for you.

They’re easy. But they’re powerful.

Is this a magic remedy created by a genius inventor?

No, not at all!

Christian Goodman isn’t claiming to be the genius creator of some deeply mysterious miracle remedy. As with his other programs, he has taken known science and already-proven methods… and brought them together to create a program that literally transforms a person’s brain health.

He tests thoroughly and – best of all – He 100% guarantees his programs.

However he does it, I’m so glad he does. I found The Brain Booster just when I absolutely needed it most. I can’t imagine – I don’t want to imagine – where I’d be today if I’d not taken this chance to make things better for myself.

How about you?

If you’re feeling the worry that I felt when I first realized I had a problem – then you have my sympathies.

I first tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, that it was just something that happened as you get older.

I soon learned it wasn’t something that ‘just happened’. And that for my own sake I needed to address it once and for all.

I did just that. And I’m so glad, so relieved that I’m where I am today. If I’d left it… I just don’t want to think about what I’d be like today.

If you’re ready to address this once and for all then click here and order your copy of Brain Booster. It’ll be one of the best decisions you’ve ever made…

Avoid the slippery slope

We know it’s true but it’s worth reminding ourselves: this condition – memory loss, confusion, inability to understand or focus – doesn’t clear itself up.

It’s a process that has already started. And it heads in one awful direction only.

Fortunately, it can be tackled head-on and, as I and over four thousand other people have found out, it can be so completely treated that we end up more mentally capable than we’ve been since our twenties.

Don’t just leave this. It only heads in one direction. Click here and start addressing your brain health today…

There is only a nightmare at the end of this

Some conditions you can leave for 6 months. They don’t get disastrously worse.

But that’s not true when we’re finding ourselves noticeably more forgetful or confused. Some changes we feel almost overnight. Our problem here is that reversing this kind of condition is more difficult the longer it has gone on.

There comes a point where we’re simply unable to help ourselves anymore. And that’s it. Game over. We’re able to realize what’s happening to us. But we’re unable to fight it anymore.

Don’t do this to yourself. Act now, get it done and then move on. You need to do this…

[sending-the-message]

Atonement for Water by survivalprocedure

They say great minds think alike. It’s an anecdotal cliche spouted by two people who are about to say or do something similar. It’s an empty expression, though. Because great minds do not think alike. Not at all. That’s not what makes them so great or unique. Great minds will see the paths others failed to consider. Only ordinary minds think alike.

Great minds work differently. And I’m left wondering whether the mind of Thomas Jenkins was a great one or a heinous one. His mind was not like yours or mine.

My first encounter with Mr. Jenkins was not what you would call “favorable”. He sat in his hospital bed with a blank stare of anguish directed at me. If I had met him on the street I’d assume he was a lost man with a few loose screws in his head and try to maintain a safe distance.

“Cut if off.” It was one of the first things he said to me. His voice shook with reluctance, yet there was still a hint of conviction behind his tone. “It’s the only way she’ll love me again...the only way I can atone. I’ll do it myself if you won’t.”

The bizarre request upset my foundations of reason. It isn’t uncommon for hospital personnel to witness some rather outlandish cases of medical marvel. A rare disease; survivors of horrific injuries; even the humorous cases where obscure items became lodged where the sun doesn’t shine. Just yesterday a patient was admitted after her husband insisted on having intercourse through her stoma. Day in and day, nurses and doctors see it all.

But this...this I had not seen before. None of us had.

“E-excuse me? You want me to amputate your arm?” Using his right index finger, Mr. Jenkins drew an imaginary line across his left bicep. “Right here. See this line? That’s where the cut should be.”

Ordinarily a situation like this would lead to the conclusion of either a mentally imbalanced patient or a neurological disorder. I immediately thought of apotemnophilia as a potential explanation for the rash desire I observed in my patient. It wouldn’t be my first case handling the urge to cut off one’s own limbs. A young couple had previously came in after deciding to simultaneously bite off the first joint in the others’ pinky finger in a sexually motivated stunt.

Mr. Jenkins, however, did not exactly fit the bill. Most reverends wouldn’t. And it wasn’t just his request to be mutilated. Originally he had been brought to the hospital to have his stomach pumped after ingesting an entire bottle of painkillers. He was clinically dead for three minutes during the entire ordeal. Bringing him back was a challenge.

Actions such as these were not expected from a man of God.

I squinted back at him as he sat with that cold, cemented stare. “Is there something wrong with your arm? Are you in pain?” “No pain.” He shifted his head and stared longingly out the window as his eyes welled with tears. “‘...whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’" “Is that from the bible?” Jenkins nodded. “John 4:14.” He inhaled deeply through his nose; his snot-filled nostrils blocking the flow of air and erupting into a moist commotion that filled the room. “I’ll never get to drink that water if I have this arm.” “Would you...like to speak with someone?” “You mean a shrink?” “A psychiatrist, yes.” Jenkins’ face turned stern, his voice raising in volume. “I’m not crazy!”

The sudden outburst clouded my thoughts with uncertainty. How should I proceed with this? A man once filled with such enthusiasm for life was abruptly showing signs of mental deterioration. A man who aided many families in overcoming hardship was now viewed as the town villain. Beating your wife in her sleep will do that to you. It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve helped in life. One night can forever alter the perception society has on someone. The years Mr. Jenkins had helped others were now distant memories of a completely different person than the one who sat in the hospital bed today. He was no longer seen as kind and gentle. He was a wife-beater who had tried to kill himself, and now he was asking to be mutilated.

The number of times we help others in life becomes meaningless when we need help ourselves. And no one wanted to help Revered Jenkins. His value to the world was gone. The community tossed him aside like stale bread, feeding the languished remains to birds as they shoved their beaks into him and ripped him apart.

“I think it might be best for your mental health to speak with someone.” “I don’t need that! I need you to cut my arm off!” “I’m afraid I don’t visibly see any reason for amputation. You need mental care, not physical.” Jenkins slouched back into the bed, defeated, his voice calming. “I met him...in the afterlife...before you pumped my stomach...I met him. He whistled at me.” He stopped speaking and mimicked a whistling noise, first holding a high pitched tone for about two seconds before dropping the pitch an octave and holding for another two seconds.

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

“Just like that. I think he was trying to intimidate me.” “Who was this man?” “He calls himself Patrick.” “And who is Patrick?” Mr. Jenkins lightly tapped the right side of his head with his right index finger. “Right here. On this side of my brain. The right side is his. He’s the other man that lives inside of me. Inside my head. That’s who Patrick is.” I masked the internal feelings of pity with a coy smile at the reverend. “I see. Are you familiar with multiple personality disorder?” Jenkins furrowed his brow and spoke sharply, “It’s not multiple personality disorder.” “It would appear that way to me.”

The left arm draped over Jenkins’ lap twitched, jerking around as though he were trying to alleviate a numbness. It flopped like a fish out of water momentarily before promptly raising itself and casting the obscene gesture of a middle finger pointed directly at me.

The Revered immediately expressed regret for the action. “I-I’m sorry, doctor.” His hand lowered and draped itself over its owner's lap once again. “That was Patrick. Not me.” “It’s quite alright. I’ve had patients do far worse.” I buried my face in the patient chart and documented his actions. “We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. I’ll send someone to speak with you shortly so we could get a more precise diagnosis.” “You believe me, don’t you doc? You have to cut my arm off before Patrick emerges again!” “Don’t worry about Patrick, Mr. Jenkins. You’re in great care. Just let us do our job.”

I spun and ignored his cries as I walked out. After I closed the door to his room I could still hear his muffled cries from the hallway. “Patrick is real! Patrick is real!” he shouted over and over. The words faded as I walked away, heading straight for Dr. Quinn’s office, the hospital psychologist.

Later in the day, despite my attempts to shake Mr. Jenkins from my mind, his condition piqued my interest and remained in my thoughts for the remainder of my shift. What could possibly drive a normal, God-loving man to such extremes?

”It’s not your problem,” I’d tell myself. ”There’s nothing you can do for him.”

Perhaps it was my previous studies in neurology, or perhaps it was the slight scar I noticed under his hairline, but Thomas Jenkins found a cozy little spot to set up camp within me. Patrick was surely just a figment of his imagination. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. It was Mr. Jenkins’ mind that engaged the braquial plexus nerve and primary motor functions to give me that middle finger.

The image of that finger stuck with me even after I had left the facility and went home for the evening. Something just didn’t quite fit. Why had his left arm twitched the way it had before giving me that finger like it was struggling? Like it had a mind of its own?

Mr. Jenkins had tapped the ride side of his head with his right hand when he proclaimed that specific side as the area where Patrick resided. It was the left hand that had twitched and shot the middle finger at me. The right hemisphere of our brains control the left side of our bodies. Not many people were aware of that fact. Was it a pure coincidence that Mr. Jenkins tapped that side and then gave me the finger with his left hand, or had he done some sort of research beforehand? Could he really be that desperate to convince someone to amputate his arm to thoroughly study neuroscience?

I went to sleep that night still thinking of the reverend, promising myself to look more into his case the next day.

But when I arrived for my evening shift that day I was met with a rather grim situation. I remember first seeing the carpet in the lobby being completely stained with blood upon my entrance through the sliding glass doors.

The event was later played back to me on security camera footage. Mr. Jenkins had been discharged in the morning, went home for some time and came back to the hospital with an electric knife, the kind you would use to cut the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. He walked into the lobby of the emergency room with his shirt off, pulled the knife from his pocket, plugged it into a nearby outlet, flicked the switch and immediately dug the blade into his left bicep, sawing away at his own flesh in front of horrified families all waiting to be seen

I was told his screams were so intense that his vocal cords went into paralysis. But it didn’t stop him from cutting away as much as possible before the saw began to struggle cutting through the bone. He twisted the blade around, desperately trying to completely sever the limb. When it became clear to him that the blade was not strong enough to finish the job he began cutting through tissue vertically down the length of his arm, ripping through the flesh from his bicep all the way to the tips of his fingers in jagged zig-zags.

Eventually a security guard was alerted and took action, tackling Mr. Jenkins to the floor to prevent further damage. But by then it was too late. There was simply no saving the mangled remains of his left arm. It had been turned into a useless lump of meat. He was rushed into the operating room where surgeons completed the amputation.

While the whole ordeal was odd and frightening to watch, what really caught my attention was Mr. Jenkins’ face and his actions moments before he was tackled. During the process his face was filled with agony, but at one point something changed. The agony washed away and it was replaced with a burning hatred. He stopped cutting his arm and glared at everyone in the room as though he were about to turn the knife on an innocent bystander.

But, he was taken down before anything else could happen. Ultimately, I suppose you could say Mr. Jenkins got his wish. His left arm was now gone.

“Why do you think he did this here?” Dr. Quinn asked me, her voice shaky with uncertainty as the two of us looked through a window into the room where Mr. Jenkins was sedated and resting peacefully while a nurse checked his vitals. “Why didn’t he do this at home?” “Probably knew he was going to need immediate medical attention,” I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on Mr. Jenkins. My focus landed on the subtle scar in his hairline once again. “Did he ever have brain surgery?” “I believe so. Had some sort of procedure done to treat epilepsy around ten years ago, if I recall.” My eyes narrowed, squinting at Mr. Jenkins. “So he’s a split-brain?” She shrugged. “I have no idea what that means, Kenny.” “A split-brain. You know...to treat epilepsy the corpus callosum is severed, leaving both the left and right hemispheres in the brain independent from each other.” “Oh, well, why does that matter? That doesn’t have anything to do with his mental state.” “Well, actually...it does. Sort of. Studies have shown that split-brain patients experience a second personality, so to speak. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and will act independently from the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of body. At times the two sides will disagree with each other. There were cases where the left hand would swat away food it apparently did not want to eat. In one case doctors had trained the right hemisphere to answer questions by pointing at words laid out on a piece of paper. The left hemisphere, our conscious, vocal selves, answered on a different piece of paper with the right arm. The man was asked simple questions and provided mostly the same answers with each hand, until they asked whether the subject was male or female. The right hand pointed to male, while the left pointed to female.” Dr. Quinn shot me a menacing glare. “So you’re saying his procedure ten years ago birthed a whole new person?” I gave a frown. “I don’t really know. No one does for sure. There’s conflicting conclusions drawn from the experiments conducted on split-brain patients. Some say the idea is nonsense and that the two hemispheres are a collective, single person. Others tend to think that there’s always another person or soul or whatever you want to call it attached to the right hemisphere...that the mind houses two separate people at all times...and that the corpus callosotomy procedure somehow unleashes the right hemisphere as though it were a caged beast dwelling within our whole lives.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You observed him yesterday. What do you think?”

I recalled the events from yesterday - the twitch in his left arm, the middle finger he gave me, the tap he placed on the right side of his head. The truth was hard to deny.

I finally took my eyes off Mr. Jenkins and turned to meet the gaze of Dr. Quinn. “Patrick is real,” I declared.

Our discussion was interrupted by a scream inside the room. Dr. Quinn and I quickly turned our attention inside to see the nurse bent over the bed at the waist. Mr. Jenkins had buried his head into her neck. The nurse struggled and screamed again, frantically flailing her arms around in a frenzied panic. In one swift jerk, Mr. Jenkins pulled his head away. Hanging from his mouth was a thin slab of skin that dangled in between his teeth. Its red texture glistened in the flourescent lighting above as he leaned over and spit the skin out, projecting it forward onto the floor beside the bed.

The nurse rolled over onto her back and instantly a stream of blood shot upwards as though it was propelled by a super soaker. Repeated surges of blood squirted into the air with each beat of her heart, quickly painting the blankets in bright red gore.

There was only one reason for blood to shoot like that. Mr. Jenkins had bit into the nurse’s carotid artery. If we didn’t immediately help her she would soon bleed out.

I rushed into the door, eager to aide my fellow medical co-worker. Her screams persisted as I reached her side, pressing my hand against her neck.

“I need to stop the bleeding…” I advised, hoping it would calm her and keep her from squirming like a worm cut in half. “Hold still...please...oh Jesus…”

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

Whistling. The second pitch an octave below the first. Just as Mr. Jenkins had described.

I looked up and found Mr. Jenkins standing over us on the opposite side of the bed in his hospital gown that was now drenched in blood. He looked down at us both with a raging fury in his eyes, making it abundantly clear he intended on causing further harm.

I quickly grabbed the nurse by her arm and began dragging her towards the door. We needed to get to safety, and I had no intention of leaving this poor nurse alone to be devoured. As I pulled the nurse away, I heard the whistling again.

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

The location of the noise had moved slightly. I looked up and saw Mr. Jenkins was walking towards us slowly, stepping with left foot first, then dragging a stiff right leg behind him. The remaining stump of his left arm raised itself as though he were reaching out to us. His right arm retaliated, balling its fingers into a fist and thrusting itself into Mr. Jenkins’ face. His breathing labored and he began taking short, quick gulps of air.

The right hemisphere of ours brain is not capable of controlling speech. Although a few hospital personnel would later argue that he whistled because of his vocal cord paralysis from earlier in the day, I knew the real reason. It was the only way the right hemisphere could communicate. Patrick was announcing himself to us.

Mr. Jenkins was clearly no longer in charge. The will of Patrick had somehow taken over. I was seeing an internal struggle where the right side of his brain overpowering his left. It was Patrick, frustrated by the removal of his arm that was now acting out. And all Mr. Jenkins could do to fight this monster was to keep his leg stiff and beat his own face in, hoping it would slow Patrick down.

Dr. Quinn rushed into the room with another doctor she had hailed down. Together the three of us pulled the nurse out and placed her on a gurney. I pulled the door shut behind as we exited and after watching the other doctor wheel the nurse away I looked back at the room and saw Patrick standing right up against the window looking back at me and Dr. Quinn. The anger that had shaped his face was now replaced with frustration. Without a working hand, there was no way for Patrick to turn the knob and exit the room.

“P-Patrick? Is that you?” I asked, hoping to confirm my suspicion.

He didn’t whistle this time. Instead he widened his eyes like a madman and curved the left side of his mouth into a small smile.

Maintaining the mad look on his face, he pulled his head backwards and then violently thrust it forwards into the window. The blow cast a spiderweb of jagged cracks in the window and sent the piercing sound of broken glass echoing through the hallway. He repeated the act again. And again. And again. Rapidly he bashed his own head against the window over and over, each blow spreading more cracks through the glass. Blood began to flow out of numerous laceration in his forehead, covering his entire face.

With one powerful blow the glass finally shattered. Patrick’s momentum sent him tumbling through the new opening and crashing against the tile floor. He lay there, unable to pick himself up with just one working leg. Instead he rolled onto his stomach and began pushing himself forward with his left leg, slowing inching his way towards me, breathing heavily with his mouth open wide, all too eager to sink his teeth into another person.

I stood frozen, unsure if I was believing what I was seeing until a hand grabbed my shirt and pulled me backwards.

“What’s happening to him?” Dr. Quinn urgently asked me.

A team of police officers rushed into the hallway from around the corner. They pulled their weapons and aimed them directly at Patrick, but before they could say or do anything Patrick abruptly stopped. His body went limp and his heavy breathing ceased. An uncomfortable silence took over the scene, all of us standing over the body in awe.

“Mr. Jenkins is gone,” I said, answering Dr. Quinn.

We have a long history of associating evil with left handed people. In biblical times it was considered a sign of moral compromise. Matthew 6:3-4 reads, But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.…

For Mr. Jenkins, his left hand cost him his life.

The official cause of death was a ruptured brain aneurism, the result of severe head-force trauma. The area of the aneurism was on the right hemisphere which leads me to speculate as to whether Mr. Jenkins had somehow caused the aneurism from within.

Since that day a lot of questions have been asked by many people, some of which believe that Patrick was real, and some that refuse the notion. The most intriguing so far has been where split-brains end up in the afterlife if one hemisphere is considered worthy, and the other is deemed evil. Would they both go to heaven? To hell?

I can’t answer that for certain. I can only hope that Mr. Jenkins got his wish. I hope he achieved atonement for his water.

And most of all, I hope the strangers dwelling inside us all won’t prevent us from doing the same.

[yasbxxgie]

My beautiful death I spent 15 years sanding and grinding mussel shells to create my sculptures. Then I was diagnosed with heavy-metal poisoning

When you’re an artist, the work often becomes more important than you. Sadly, that’s always been the case for me. I started sculpting in 1991, working only with natural materials. At first, I sold small sculptures made of eggshells at the One of a Kind Show. Later, I created larger pieces modelled after the human anatomy using bones, coral and dried plants. My studio housed a collection of dead things.

In 1998, I finished a sculpture of Lilith—the first woman, according to Jewish folklore—made from eggshells. I began using blue mussel shells to create her counterpart: Adam, the first man. The shells came from Atlantic Canada, and I’d buy them in bulk in Chinatown, so that I could sort through the bins and choose shells in the shapes I wanted.

I spent up to 12 hours a day grinding and sanding the shells to fit into the shape of Adam’s body. They beautifully replicated the striations in his muscle fibres. I sifted through thousands of mussels and served them to friends and ­family two or three times a week.

After a few months working on Adam, I began to feel unwell. I was agitated all of the time. I had constant headaches, and I vomited often, sometimes a few times a day. I visited a never-ending assortment of specialists—neurologists, rheumatologists, endocrinologists—hoping to figure out what was wrong with me. When they asked me if I worked with anything toxic, I said no, that I only used natural materials.

The symptoms worsened. After a few hours of grinding mussel shells, I would become immobilized. My muscles ached. My hands would cramp when I held my tools. I became combative and fatalistic, declaring that my life was over. My husband was afraid to the leave the house, worried he’d come home and find me hanging from the chandelier. He found friends to babysit me. These symptoms continued, on and off, for 15 years.

One day in 2013, I cleaned out my ventilation system, which had trapped years of fine dust. As I swept out the particles, I suddenly felt weak and unable to stand. For the next week, I lay in bed, my mind in a fog. I couldn’t string full sentences together, and my speech was slurred. My whole body was in excruciating, paralyzing pain—my neck, abdomen, arms—and I had suddenly lost all hearing in my left ear.

My hearing didn’t return after that, and my short-term memory became badly impaired. I developed spatial disorientation, confusing up with down, right with left. I couldn’t recognize people I had known most of my life. At the peak of my mental distress, I would walk up and down the street, muttering and shouting profanities to no one in particular. I saw a psychiatrist, but he had no idea why I was so erratic. We tried everything: antidepressants, antipsychotics, tranquilizers. Nothing helped. Painfully aware of my deteriorating mental health, I began to withdraw from the world.

It was nearly impossible to create art in this state. My brain was no longer capable of conjuring up anything except anger and misery. But I believed I was dying, and I wanted to finish the sculpture of Adam before I was gone. I had no idea he was the thing that was killing me.

One day, I visited the ROM, where I met a curator of invertebrates. He mentioned that bones and shells accumulate toxins in their environment. Upon further research, I discovered that common blue mussels are filter feeders. They pump several litres of water per hour and concentrate chemicals in their tissues. In some countries, mussels are used to read toxicity levels in the water. Suddenly, everything clicked into place.

In 2015, I was diagnosed with heavy-metal poisoning. Doctors found high levels of arsenic and lead in my blood, the result of chronic exposure. The water where the mussels grew was likely contaminated from industrial waste, and the mussel shells I’d been working with for decades were toxic. Metals can be absorbed through consumption, air or skin. I’d been exposed in every way.

When you make art, you often feel diminished and small—you’re just a vessel for the creative energy to pass through. My body was carrying a painful message about the poisoning that Earth is experiencing. Each of my sculptures has precious metal and stones embedded in them; all too often, treasure is defined by its scarcity. But the real treasures aren’t jewels and silver. They’re the creatures being eliminated, the beauty that’s disappearing.

I will never fully recover, and I continue to live with many neurological and metabolic symptoms. I have difficulty holding a thought. I’ll pick up a tool to work on a piece and forget why I chose it. I struggle with autoimmune disorders, and there are many foods I can’t eat without becoming ill. I’m at a high risk for developing Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Heavy metals have an affinity for the tissues of the nervous system, particularly the ones in the brain.

I’m now 59 years old, and my quality of life is poor. But while I continue to work, even though it’s more difficult every day, I feel a terrible sadness. When we talk about environmental damage, we speak of declines in populations. Numbers and species. But I’ve experienced the suffering of so many creatures trapped in their polluted habitats. I now hope their voices can be heard—that my art might create a sense of awe, a sense of connectivity and reverence for the natural world.

I completed Adam in 2015. If I had left him unfinished, this all would have been for nothing. I often think of Beethoven, who suffered from lead poisoning; he lost his hearing and producing his work became an angry struggle. In the end, he had to create his music from the memory of sound. I was creating my art from the memory of joy. When I look at Adam, I feel grief—both for myself and our planet. But I also feel satisfaction because he is magnificent. That’s how I find my hope. I call him my beautiful death.

[h/t]

Photographs:

...

The author made Lilith—the first woman according to Jewish folklore—out of eggshells

She used blue mussel shells sourced from Chinatown to create her sculpture of Adam, the first man

She’d spend up to 12 hours a day grinding and sanding the shells to replicate the shape of Adam’s body

Adam’s internal organs are made from seashells and silver

Her latest work is Ammonoidea, made from steenbok skulls and bushbuck horns. The pelvis is made from a beaver’s skull, the rear from ammonoid mollusk shells and the hair from a wasp’s nest

[rowanijer794-blog]

Vaccine Public Health Center

"Among numerous medical secrets bogging the minds of scientists for ages is the crippling power of Alzheimer's illness. Specified in Chamber's 21st Century Dictionary as ""an incurable illness, generally happening in midlife or later on, in which degeneration of the brain cells results in gradual loss in memory, confusion, and so on ultimately leading to overall disintegration of the personality; called after the German neurologist Alois Alzheimer (1865-1915) who initially recognized it"".

Never ever a fan of the term ""incurable disease"", the clinical community is intending to alter the meaning of Alzheimer's disease by discovering its cure by 2025, thanks to the big portion of funding announced by President Obama towards Alzheimer's research study. The heat is on, as several researchers have attempted, and obviously not without success to find a cure for the formerly dreaded disease. The race to discover a cure began a few years ago when NIH scientists revealed ""Turnaround of Alzheimer's symptoms within minutes in human research studies"" in their article in Science Daily short article published in 2008.

A few months ago, a news product on the beneficial impacts of coconut oil appeared, with some indicators of amazing healing or enhancement of basic brain activities, as an outcome of consuming pure saturated coconut oil every day. They further showed files or reviews received for numerous other indicators of a coconut-oil treatment for Alzheimer's. Then came the vitamin group: Vitamins B, C or E. (There could be more, but I encourage you to explore those).

All of these have actually revealed pledges (stressed through a great deal of clinical thinking and research study) in reversing the signs. A group of UK-Canada researchers declares to have found a vaccine that brings relief in days. Apparently. the vaccine avoids or perhaps deteriorates the build-up of a protein called beta-amyloid, which is understood to form plaque on brain cells, that causes Alzheimer's illness. The group's latest research study, reported in Nature, suggested that the drug brings back a few of the mental faculties, in addition to eliminating the plaque-building protein.

And finally, the linguists, who did not want to be left, claim that learning numerous languages (actually, they highlighted on the term 'multilingual') can assist postpone the start of Alzheimer's disease by a few years. I am not sure if this was intended to be an attack on unilingual, however among my aunts was diagnosed with Alzheimer's quite early on, and she is trilingual. Maybe if we can somehow make her forget one language, show that she would formally get approved for the bilingual' status, however would her condition improve?

The results of each of the above evaluated and proved treatment plans seem quite appealing, which is very encouraging to the relatives of Alzheimer's clients. But looking at the big picture, one begins to question what is the validity of the variety of treatment possibilities? If just about anything can treat Alzheimer's disease, then why have we been sleeping on it for all these years? Mind you, not all of these researchers guarantee a remedy - the majority of them assure 'turnaround of Alzheimer's symptoms' (and it's prematurely to forecast as much as what portion), but a few of them do venture to call it a treatment. And we may hear a lot more on this subject.

Really, I have a theory myself, but initially I would like to discover how does the diagnosis of the illness compares with the determination of the treatment efficiency. While diagnostic tools to determine the electrical activity of the brain such as an electroencephalogram (EEG) and some other most current advanced technology have allowed medical science to identify extremely narrowly the very nature of the illness, we know that our brain could play techniques on us, or rather, we do not understand to what extent our brain might play techniques on us. Lots of people would declare that meditation, exercise, a leisure walk assists them believe clearly, coordinate things much better, minimize stress or in common language, improve brain activity.

So before I share my theory on the treatment of Alzheimer's illness, I want to know: will my memory enhance if I opt for an EEG weekly? Now I do work out, practice meditation, walk a lot on a practically everyday basis, but I do not see a definite or marked improvement in my memory. And hi, I have been great at those puzzles, specifically word assortments for several years now. I do not have the persistence to fix crossword puzzles. However all this has absolutely no bearing on the reality that my memory could utilize some (a lot, really) enhancement.

And I am waiting for responses."

[moonmoonmon]

Tell’m That God’s Gonna cut You Down

GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AND MENTAL HEALTH BELOW

READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION

ill keep adding to this as i work on it

and yes the title is from the song

Date: 28 June 2847, Universal

Location: Dahnhym, Rinzlyr 3rd moon of Dahn, Sector 4506AB

Curent time: 0930, Universal

A lone mercenary stood among the sandy ruins of an abandoned city in a dried fountain. Their eyes scanning their surroundings with great care. Their stature was small, and their visage was covered by a makeshift holo visor made from a holo tool and an old pair of reflective orange ski goggles and a tactical beige shemagh that wrapped around their head and neck. A linen scarf of the same color had been haphazardly thrown around their neck to provide further protection from the harsh sun and sand. The old beat up armored suit they wore was the color of the golden sand that surrounded them-- they had learned quickly that standing out while traveling a desert where there was no cover was not the best idea-- and was covered by a large tawny poncho.

The poncho, in many ways, was their favorite garment in the ensemble. It was loose enough so that the mercenary could strap their guns-- a modified MR(marksman rifle) M1K-60, and a Galactic Star-shooter SMG-- to their back without limiting their range of motion. Upon closer inspection, one can see that it is decorated with faint golden embroidery that seemed to shine in a motif of fleur de lys. It was always treated with the utmost care by its owner, as it was the only thing other than their prized FK BRNM --which was strapped securely to their hip-- that they had from their past life . A life they would never remember.

The abandoned city around them had been long overtaken by the golden sand of the desert it sat upon. The city used to be the pinnacle of technology until it was nuked in the Red War. It was difficult to imagine what it must have looked like before the explosion. Sand dunes were spread randomly across the city, and the wind constantly blew from the west, creating the occasional sand devil. The buildings were no longer the shining sky scrapers they had seen in the pictures on their holo tool, instead they were the color of tarnished silver and some of them had deteriorated and fallen or collapsed in on itself, but most still stood tall.

The mercenary could see the remnants of past lives in the streets and through the windows of the shops that were still intact. On their way in they had seen battered and rusted cars, some with their doors left wide open, others sat in the middle of the roads, as though the owners had just gotten out of them and left. Children’s toys had been scattered about as well, making the mercenary even more uncomfortable. Cans and other random items-- even boxes tampons, the mercenary made a mental note to go and pick some of them up on their way out-- were left at the winds mercy.

If one went far enough into the city, they would see the shadows of the people who were incinerated in the blast. The deeper one traveled into the city, the more destruction they would see, and-

The narrator's thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of a .50 caliber bullet lodging itself deep into the back of their skull. Everything seemed to go black, and all they felt was emptiness… IDK if that even makes sense.

I think it does.

Well I guess it was like trying to see out of the back of your head, but… with feeling?

Yes, feeling, but also nothingness.

That literally makes no sense.

…

…

…

The return of the narrators sight and brain thought-- does that even make sense?

I suppose it does… I think?

Whatever, it doesn’t ma-

← alt1: The mercenary’s mind shot back into gear, and they attempted to gasp for air. Only to realize they couldn't even open their mouth. They couldn't breath, and their eyes were glued shut as well. Which meant the bullet had completely obliterated their viscra lobe, the part of their brain that controls their fine motor skills as well as basic functions such as breathing, the pumping of their heart, digestive system, and basically everything else that their body does on it's own. They could feel that their skull and brain was already reforming itself, and slowly but surely, they began regaining the ability to move again.

Super healing was nice, but if there was one thing the old mercenary hated about it, it was the feeling of a bullet slowly being pushed out of their body as the wounds began to heal from the inside out. --> 

← alt2: Super healing was nice and all, but if there was one thing the old mercenary hated about it, it had to be the fact that if something had been lodged inside of them and they weren’t quick enough, their body would heal around it(this whole sentence is cancer, but idk what to replace it with). Making for messy on the go surgeries(← maybe a dif word) later on, but removing a bullet from their head is not something they could do on their own, so they had to move quickly.

When they attempted to move their hands, they only twitched, indicating that the bullet must have obliterated their viscra lobe, the part of their brain that controls their fine motor skills as well as basic functions such as breathing, the pumping of their heart, digestive system, and basically everything else that their body does on it's own. It wasn't until a breath of fresh air finally entered their lungs were they able to move their arms-- though not as (gracefully? Finely? well????) as they would have liked. But when they were finally able to move their hands to the back of their head, they realized that it had already healed too much for them to reach the led bullet with out damaging anymore brain tissue and knocking themselves out when they dug their fingers into the exposed brain tissue to fish it out. The idea of their wound healing around their fingers while they were incapacitated sent shivers down their back. they would have to deal with it for now.

As they brought their arms back down to their body, they suddenly remembered the sni-

Once again, the narrator was interrupted, but this time they had heard it before they felt it. Another bullet planted itself at the crux of their skull and neck, effectively cutting off their nervous system and traveling up into their skull and blowing through the top. The narrator would have let out a long and explicit string of some choice words had they been able to. The narrator had completely forgotten about the sniper-- who was, by the way, thoroughly freaked out by the fact that the narrator was still moving even after a direct hit to the back of their head.

<-- alt3: The mercenary’s mind shot back into gear, and they attempted to gasp for air. Only to realize they couldn't even open their mouth. They couldn't breath, and their eyes were glued shut as well. When they attempted to move their hands, they only twitched, indicating that the bullet must have obliterated their viscra lobe, the part of their brain that controls their fine motor skills as well as basic functions such as breathing, the pumping of their heart, digestive system, and basically everything else that their body does on it's own. Sure, super healing was nice and all, but if there was one thing the old mercenary hated about it, it had to be the fact that if something had been lodged inside of them and they weren’t quick enough, their body would heal around it(this whole sentence is cancer, but idk what to replace it with). Making for messy on the go surgeries(← maybe a dif word) later on, but removing a bullet from their head is not something they could do on their own, so they had to move quickly.

 It wasn't until a breath of fresh air finally entered their lungs were they able to move their arms-- though not as (gracefully? Finely? well????) as they would have liked. But when they were finally able to move their hands to the back of their head, but upon careful inspection they realized that it had already healed too much for them to reach the led bullet with out damaging anymore brain tissue and knocking themselves out when they dug their fingers into the exposed brain tissue to fish it out. The idea of their wound healing around their fingers while they were incapacitated sent shivers down their back. they would have to deal with it for now.

As they brought their arms back down to their body, they suddenly remembered the sni-

Once again, the narrator was interrupted, but this time they had heard it before they felt it. Another bullet planted itself at the crux of their skull and neck, effectively cutting off their nervous system and traveling up into their skull and blowing through the top. The narrator would have let out a long and explicit string of some choice words had they been able to. The narrator had completely forgotten about the sniper-- who was, by the way, thoroughly freaked out by the fact that the narrator was still moving even after a direct hit to the back of their head.

lmao, pls read this and tell me what y’all think. feedback and critique is always appreciated, just IM me or hit me up on my discord( furbuschrist, i died 4 ur sins) ( lmaooooooooooo). i know it pretty bad but still, i gotta work on my writing skills. and also there are still some edits in there that i haven’t changed because i want y’alls opinion. alt1 is the first option for the story line, alt2 is the second option for the story line.