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dearsholmes · 10 months ago

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Autism movie/show deep dive and my very general thoughts on them!

(everyones different these are my own opinions as an autistic woman please watch for yourself and share any additional thoughts you have on them!)

Music (2021)

Enough said.... had to get this one over with 0/10

Adam (2009)

I found most of these movies to be outdated BUT I actually really appreciate Hugh Dancy's recreation of an autistic character (those who know him as Will in Hannibal would probably also agree). Even though originally I wasn't a fan of the ending I came to appreciate it that he wasn't 'saved' by romance and that it proved he was able to be independent and had great character growth while still respecting himself and his passions. I think it offered a decent insight to the different aspects of autistic joy, passion, while still including the difficult aspects with socializing, navigating relationships, grief, and meltdowns but now being overshadowed by them or 'becoming a problem'. However, I do love space so that could've also been responsible for my love for this movie. 8/10

Heartbreak High (2022)

I absolutely love Chloé Hayden who is autistic herself so her character in the show feels real and more relatable. Pretty much what I said about 'Adam' but to an extreme I think the script and character interactions are such a fantastic and understandable demonstration of what being an autistic women is like (granted everyones experience is different). Cannot wait for the next season! This show is such a great modern day representation and not based in stereotypes like others are 10/10

Big Bang Theory (2007)

I will never not defend this show - I know people tend to hate this because Sheldon is heavily stereotypical but I find him incredibly relatable as I do fall into a lot of these stereotypes myself. Once again everyones experiences are different so I don't understand why people write this show off completely. Love it 10/10

Atypical (2017)

Unfortunately I don't have much to say about this show in regards to his autism because the constant inconsistencies during scenes deserve their own post and were too distracting to focus on anything else. Another thing that upset me about this is that the show is meant to take place in Connecticut yet they filmed in one of the most recognizable aquariums in the west coast. This show probably could've been good if it was just made better/had quality control. The only thing I remember liking was the pros and cons list because I also do that. 4/10

Mozart and the Whale (2005)

I'm going to preface this one specifically that I know everyone's autism presents differently but I almost found her... offensive? I think this is because it was made in 2005 and is just outdated but I felt like a lot of the characters especially hers were more caricatures than characters. Sheldon being stereotypical is one thing but this felt kind of insulting? I'm having a hard time putting it into words. There were moments I liked though - it was a weird back and forth. 5/10

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Other than the mistreatment/beating/abuse I actually am pretty fond of this movie. Once again, outdated. But almost... endearing in a way (minus the mistreatment once again). I hope anyone who has seen it will understand what I feel. I did find the love interest annoying but that is unrelated to this post yet I felt the need to warn you all, I don't like her. 7.5/10

My Name is Khan (2010)

I watched this movie six years ago in school before my diagnosis and I didn't even remember or realize he was autistic but I do remember having generally positive thoughts on this movie ?/10 (someone let me know if its worth a rewatch.

A Brilliant Young Mind (2014) ((also called X+Y))

There is a lot of downtime in this movie so it can be kind of boring but it is honestly one of my comfort/go to movies. Of course its the whole "autistics are math geniuses" thing but the movie itself I think is sweet. It shows his diagnosis, he loses his father, he has almost a fill in father who coaches his math, his mother is really supportive of him but not in a savior kind of way, he experiences going out of the country for a competition, struggles with socializing/overwhelm, romantic interests, and there is another character who is autistic and his struggles are also shown in a relatable way, nothings (in my opinion) is annoyingly over exaggerated like it sometimes can be in movies. 9/10

The Good Doctor (2017)

I never actually finished the show because the person I was watching it with kept making fun of me by relating myself to him. Since then I also haven't seen much of a positive reaction from other people either but please let me know your thoughts on it! ?/10

The Imitation Game (2014)

Alan Turing himself was autistic and so even though it's not a main focus of this movie I still wanted to include it because I love this movie! 9/10

Sherlock Holmes (timeless)

I have to also through him in here, obviously some versions are more autistic coded than others but I'm going to generally say all of them are great autistic representation <3 10/10

Not Dead Yet (2023)

Like in Heartbreak High, Rick Glassman an autistic actor plays an autistic character and I think its another great modern day representation. It obviously isn't the main focus but they honestly do a pretty good job being educational in regard to social situations/difficulties and explain it in a way that people can learn from. 10/10

Bones (2005)

I honestly can't remember if they ever say it but Temperance is 100% autistic and I think this is a very endearing show. Since its not the main focus I don't have much to say other than sharing my recommendation 9/10

Criminal Minds (2005)

I mean... enough said. I love Reid with my whole heart. He is very much the 'autistic genius' again but you can't not love Reid! 10/10

Community (2009)

Abed. Another one that doesn't really need much to be said about it. Abed is great 10/10

Dr Who (timeless) ((quite literally and figuratively))

Now this could be considered a reach or projection but Dr Who... autistic! simple as that 10/10

House (2004)

I had to just throw this one in at the end because its really just another version of 'Holmes' and 'Watson' now as 'House' and 'Wilson'. Sherlock, previously said as autistic means House is also autistic 10/10

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josnhoes · 1 year ago

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Hey, could I possibly get a how Dick Grayson and Bruce wayne would deal with having an adult 30 year old s/o who has autism, but the men don’t know about the autism until the men either figure it out themselves or date number 5 is when s/o tells them cuz they don’t just going around telling people about their autism. S/o at first masks themselves very well, but as you get to know them they have these quirks. Like s/o takes an intense interest in their men’s day or hobby or intensely helps out when they’re in trouble. Theyre excitedly talk to their men about their own interests. Gets stressed easily and can’t sleep until they’re not stressed. Finds it hard to understand new topics no matter how many times it is explained to them until it is explained in a way that isn’t normal, but once they understand it, they’re really good at it, except for the concept of being rich with all that money, still can’t wrap their head around how Bruce deals with all that money and all the meetings that go along with it. Finds it hard to express emotions unless it’s intensely happy or intensely hurt. Very blunt, like Batman says he works alone and date waits until other people are gone before saying “but you just worked with the police 10 minutes ago”

Batman and his family are all Autistic to varying degrees except Alfred who is the token nuerotypical, and I will die on this hill. Look at them and their behaviors and *tell me* they aren't autistic. I *dare* you.

GN reader

Content warning: none

Bruce, despite his himbo persona, he put on struggled with people and connecting to them. His family was an exception. He at times struggled with sarcasm and had some blunders but that was publicly chalked up to silly Brucie Wayne the himbo. His diagnosis was kept secret, being famous made that hard to accomplish, but he'd managed to keep it hidden; for him and his family.

Still he was surprised when he clicked so well with you. He found your blunt honesty charming, he appreciated the way you honestly cared about his day. It was nice to have someone outside the family who cared for him and not his fame or money. Though you didn't seem to comprehend how much money he had when you insisted on paying your part of the dates. If he snuck the money back on you somehow, well you'd never know. Spoiler alert you did but you appreciated the gesture.

Then on one of your dates you came clean; and how you clicked made sense! You guys both had autism. Sadly he couldn't tell you his own diagnosis yet. Forgive him for being so cautious, but he worried about the public opinion. Maybe he was a coward, but it was rooted in paranoia.

He knew there was nothing wrong with being autistic, he just also knew the bigots were a major issue and with his nightlife and CEO work he didn't really have time to deal with the bigots and media storm. But if you both lasted longer then a few months he'd tell you.

He supports you completely. Every hobby, Fandom, and hyperfixation he tries out with you. And even if he isn't a fan he happily listens to you talk about it finding the way you light up attractive.

You quickly become *his* person just as he became your's; a fact obvious to everyone.

Dick was the most functioning of the family. Everyone was functional but Dick was able to push through some things. Like the various sensory issues. He also was pretty good at reading social situations. Though he attributed that to his time with his Bio parents. It wasn't always easy for him, when he was younger he was much more prone to outbursts.

He maybe seen as the golden child now, but as far as Robins went *he* had been the one to give Bruce the most gray hairs. Though no one believes it when they hear it. That being said he is one of the few members of the family that is pretty open with his diagnoses. He wants to be a pillar for the autistic and adhd community in Gotham.

So when he met you, he pretty much pegged you as autistic. You had been in the area of hit and run, and as a witness, you had to give a statement. Being the friendliest of the force, he'd been chosen to talk to you. You were point blank and despite the situation you were calm and almost unbothered. Which he asked about and when you said you had trouble emoting he knew right away. He sends you off with his personal number incase you need help or remember something more.

From there, a friendship grew. That being said, this man was a mother hen. Always trying to help you with every little thing, including your sleep issues. He backs off some if you tell him it's too much, but he does explain it's how he shows he cares; and it's not because he doesn't think you can do things for yourself. He remembers the bitterness he felt when his cop coworkers found out about his autism when he first started, and they had both babied him and tried to get him off the force.

From friendship come a romance eventually. He was the one to make the first move. He made a meal for you both to share in his apartment. He picked a couple of movies, each a comfort film for both of you, and made the night special even if it was simple.

#batfam x reader #romantic batfam #batman x reader #dc x reader

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tisfan · 5 years ago

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From Joe Morice, daughters in 8th & 10th grade in Fairfax County Public Schools' Centreville Pyramid:

To our fellow FCPS families—this is it gang: 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.

Like all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise. You’ll get no presumption of expertise here. This is how I am looking at and considering this issue and the positions people have taken in my feed and in the hundred or so FCPS discussion groups that have popped up. The lead comments in quotes are taken directly from my feed and those boards. Sometimes I try to rationalize them. Sometimes I’m just punching back at the void.

Full disclosure, we initially chose the 2 days option and are now having serious reservations. As I consider the positions and arguments I see in my feed, these are where my mind goes. Of note, when I started working on this piece at 12:19 PM today the COVID death tally in the United States stood at 133,420.

“My kids want to go back to school.”

I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.

“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”

This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the Fall?

“My kid is going to be left behind.”

Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is “They’ll be behind where they should be,” to which I’ll counter that “where they should be” is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.

“Classrooms are safe.”

At the current distancing guidelines from FCPS middle and high schools would have no more than 12 people (teachers + students) in a classroom (I acknowledge this number may change as FCPS considers the Commonwealth’s 3 ft with a mask vs. 6 ft position, noting that FCPS is all mask regardless of the distance). For the purpose of this discussion we’ll say classes run 45 minutes.

I posed the following question to 40 people today, representing professional and management roles in corporations, government agencies, and military commands: “Would your company or command have a 12 person, 45 minute meeting in a conference room?”

100% of them said no, they would not. These are some of their answers:

“No. Until further notice we are on Zoom.”

“(Our company) doesn’t allow us in (company space).”

“Oh hell no.”

“No absolutely not.”

“Is there a percentage lower than zero?”

“Something of that size would be virtual.”

We do not even consider putting our office employees into the same situation we are contemplating putting our children into. And let’s drive this point home: there are instances here when commanding officers will not put soldiers, ACTUAL SOLDIERS, into the kind of indoor environment we’re contemplating for our children. For me this is as close to a ‘kill shot’ argument as there is in this entire debate. How do we work from home because buildings with recycled air are not safe, because we don’t trust other people to not spread the virus, and then with the same breath send our children into buildings?

“Children only die .0016 of the time.”

First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.

If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.

FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.

Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill you. Do you take the money out of the bag?

Same argument, applied to the 12,487 teachers in FCPS (per Wikipedia), using the ‘children’s multiplier’ of .0016 (all of us understanding the adult mortality rate is higher). That’s 20 teachers. That’s the number you’re talking about. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and diminish and dismiss the risk you’re advocating other people assume. Take a breath and think about that.

If you want to advocate for 2 days a week, look, I’m looking for someone to convince me. But please, for the love of God, drop things like this from your argument. Because the people I know who’ve said things like this, I know they’re better people than this. They’re good people under incredible stress who let things slip out as their frustration boils over. So, please do the right thing and move on from this, because one potential outcome is that one day, you’re going to have to stand in front of St. Peter and answer for this, and that’s not going to be conversation you enjoy.

“Hardly any kids get COVID.”

(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece.

One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in March, children have had the least EXPOSURE to COVID. In other words, closing schools was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging they were among our fastest and most quarantined people. Put another way, you cannot cite the effect without acknowledging the cause.

“The flu kills more people every year.”

(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months.

And when you mention the flu, do you mean the disease that, if you’re suspected of having it, everyone, literally everyone in the country tells you stay the f- away from other people? You mean the one where parents are pretty sure their kids have it but send them to school anyway because they have a meeting that day, the one that every year causes massive f-ing outbreaks in schools because schools are petri dishes and it causes kids to miss weeks of school and leaves them out of sports and band for a month? That one? Because you’re right - the flu kills people every year. It does, but you’re ignoring the why. It’s because there are people who are a--holes who don’t care about infecting other people. In that regard it’s a perfect comparison to COVID.

“Almost everyone recovers.”

You’re confusing “release from the hospital” and “no longer infected” with “recovered.” I’m fortunate to only know two people who have had COVID. One my age and one my dad’s age. The one my age described it as “absolute hell” and although no longer infected cannot breathe right. The one my dad’s age was in the hospital for 13 weeks, had to have a trach ring put in because she could no longer be on a ventilator, and upon finally getting home and being faced with incalculable time in rehab told my mother, “I wish I had died.”

While I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.

“If people get sick, they get sick.”

First, you mistyped. What you intended to say was “If OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.

“I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

You already live your life in fear. For your health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists, extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors, an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, “I’m not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,” and I’ve got news for you: that ship has sailed. It’s too late. There are two kinds of people, and only two: those that admit they’re afraid, and those that are lying to themselves about it.

As to the fear argument, fear is the reason you wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.

“FCPS leadership sucks.”

I will summarize my view of the School Board thusly: if the 12 of you aren’t getting into a room together because it represents a risk, don’t tell me it’s OK for our kids. I understand your arguments, that we need the 2 days option for parents who can’t work from home, kids who don’t have internet or computer access, kids who needs meals from the school system, kids who need extra support to learn, and most tragically for kids who are at greater risk of abuse by being home. All very serious, all very real issues, all heartbreaking. No argument.

But you must first lead by example. Because you’re failing when it comes to optics. All your meetings are online. What our children see is all of you on a Zoom telling them it’s OK for them to be exactly where you aren’t. I understand you’re not PR people, but you really should think about hiring some.

“I talked it over with my kids.”

Let’s put aside for a moment the concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out. Yes, those hygienic children.

Listen, my 15 year old daughter wants a sport car, which she’s not getting next year because it would be dangerous to her and to others. Those kinds of decisions are our job. We step in and decide as parents, we don’t let them expose themselves to risks because their still developing and screen addicted brains narrow their understanding of cause and effect.

We as parents and adults serve to make difficult decisions. Sometimes those are in the form of lessons, where we try to steer kids towards the right answer and are willing to let them make a mistake in the hopes of teaching better decision making the next time around. This is not one of those moments. The stakes are too high for that. This is a “the adults are talking” moment. Kids are not mature enough for this moment. That is not an attack on your child. It is a broad statement about all children. It is true of your children and it was true when we were children. We need to be doing that thinking here, and “Johnny wants to see Bobby at school” cannot be the prevailing element in the equation.

“The teachers need to do their job.”

How is it that the same society which abruptly shifted to virtual students only three months ago, and offered glowing endorsements of teachers stating, “we finally understand how difficult your job is,” has now shifted to “screw you, do your job.” There are myriad problems with that position but for the purposes of this piece let’s simply go with, “You’re not looking for a teacher, you’re looking for the babysitter you feel your property tax payment entitles you to.”

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.

And, if you want to take the actual environment into consideration, the odds of a teacher being killed in a car accident in their classroom, you know, the environment we’re actually talking about, that’s right around 0%.

“If the grocery store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”

(Deep breath) A grocery store worker, who absolutely risks exposure, has either six feet of space or a plexiglass shield between them and individual adult customers who can grasp their own mortality whose transactions can be completed in moments, in a 40,000 SF space.

A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.

Just stop.

“Teachers are choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”

(Deep breaths) Many teachers are opting to be remote. That is not a vacation. They’re requesting to do their job at a safer site. Just like many, many people who work in buildings with recycled air have done. And likely the building you’re not going into has a newer and better serviced air system than our schools.

Of greater interest to me is the number of teachers choosing the 100% virtual option for their children. The people who spend the most time in the buildings are the same ones electing not to send their children into those buildings. That’s something I pay attention to.

“I wasn’t prepared to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”

I truly, deeply respect that honesty. Truth be told, both arguments have crossed my mind. Pre COVID, I routinely worked from home 1 – 2 days a week. The solace was nice. When I was in the office, I had an actual office, a room with a door I could close, where I could focus. During the quarantine that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been short, I’ve gone to just take a drive and get the hell away for a moment and been disgusted when one of the kids sees me and asks me to come for a ride, robbing me of those minutes of silence. You want to hear silence. I get it. I really, really do.

Here’s another version of that, admittedly extreme. What if one of our kids becomes one of the 302? What’s that silence going to sound like? What if you have one of those matted frames where you add the kid’s school picture every year? What if you don’t get to finish the pictures?

“What does your gut tell you to do?”

Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, “Stop, right now, gut answer, what is it,” and we both said, “virtual.”

A lot of the arguments I hear people making for the 2 days sound like we’re trying to talk ourselves into ignoring our instincts, they are almost exclusively, “We’re doing 2 days, but…”. There’s a fantastic book by Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, which I’ll minimize for you thusly: your gut instinct is a hardwired part of your brain and you should listen to it. In the introduction he talks about elevators, and how, of all living things, humans are the only ones that would voluntarily get into a soundproof steel box with a potential predator just so they could skip a flight of stairs.

I keep thinking that the 2 days option is the soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.

At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420 Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that number rose to 133,940.

520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on this. In seven hours.

The length of a school day.

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mae-gi-writes · 4 years ago

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Deobi Playlist (EP 10) | The Boyz Imagine

The Boyz x Hospital Playlist inspired drabble series.

Main characters: Kevin, Juyeon, Hyunjae and OC (Mae)

Sides: the rest of The Boyz

Genre: fluff, slice of life, BROMANCE BRUH

EP 1 | EP 2 | EP 3 | EP 4 | EP 5 | EP 6 | EP 7 | EP 8 | EP 9 | EP 10

-----------

"Excuse me."

"Yes," Juyeon whips his head up to see a pregnant woman waddling over to the counter with an expression that looks murderous. Holding her belly against herself with a grocery bag slung over her shoulder, she slams her entire body onto the front counter, which causes him to jump in surprise.

"How are you, ma'am? How can I help you today?" Juyeon flashes a wan smile, used to dealing with unnerved clients. There's usually always a reason behind their madness.

"I have been waiting for at least an hour!" The woman bellows, practically red in the face, "I'm due in two weeks, and there are so many other pregnant women waiting behind me. How come it's taking so long?"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry we--"

"Do you know how hard it is for us, pregnant women, to sit here in this stuffed waiting room while babies are kicking?!" She interrupts with another yell as Juyeon's hands come up in defense, "I want to see Dr. Bae right now! Right now, you hear me? I'm tired! I want to go home!"

Panic rises at the back of Juyeon's throat, "I--I am so sorry about this ma'am. But due to the number of patients today, the office is running a little slower than usual. I'm really sorry--"

"I don't want to hear your stupid reasons. I want my appointment!" She bellows, "Now!"

Fear coils through his stomach, a sick feeling tying into knots as his throat dries up with the countless excuses dying on the tip of his tongue.

Shit, his heart races. How is he supposed to deal with that?

He'd give anything to be shadowing a doctor right now.

The door to the doctor's office suddenly slides open, revealing a gentle-eyed Jacob who's gaze quickly flits between them in understanding. The woman doesn't even wait a second, quickly twisting her body and waddling towards him.

"Dr. Bae, I was just telling your stupid staff here that you need to speed up your process! Do you know how painful it is to be sitting around with that?" She motions towards her belly, legs wide apart and fists clenched at her sides as though she's preparing for battle.

But Jacob's expression stays unfazed, "I apologize, ma'am. Unfortunately the speed of the diagnosis does not rely solely on me, but my patient."

"Yes, but--"

"Some have--" Jacob pauses, presses his lips together as sympathy flashes through his face, "some have difficult obstacles they've had to face in regards to their pregnancy. Not everyone is as lucky that their baby is growing up to be healthy."

The woman blinks, opening her mouth, then closing it upon realizing that she has been shocked into silence.

"I understand your frustrations, I really do," Jacob's voice is gentle, a soothing lullaby that instantly makes Juyeon feel like the world is a better place, "but we all have to cooperate a little, work together to make this work. Don't you think?"

For a moment, there's a complete silence so palpable that Juyeon can hear the ringing in his ears. He can feel the eyes of a multitude of patients drilling into the back of his skull and goosebumps suddenly explode along his arm at the sensation.

"Alright," the woman finally lets out a grumble, "fine. Whatever."

And she turns around, wobbly on her feet, before plopping back down at her seat looking slightly disconcerted by the effect of Jacob's words.

Juyeon sends the said doctor a look of utter gratefulness, which Jacob answers with a wink of his own before retreating back into his office.

Thank god.

---------

It's been a long day running back and forth between the maternity department and the pediatric ward, but it is only when the last patient bids their goodbyes that Juyeon allows his neutral mask to fall.

"I'm sorry doctor," he bows his head to the ground, not daring to make any kind of eye contact due to the embarrassment coiling through him, "It was my fault. I couldn't calm her down in time."

"No no," Jacob's lips curl up into a smile, face softening with understanding, "it happens all the time. Impatient patients are the norm around here. Mothers-to-be, especially."

"Still, I'm sorry."

"Did that swear you off the Maternity Ward then?" Jacob's smile widens into a teasing grin.

"Maybe."

"Well, if it's of any comfort, it's no better in the other wards."

"What do you mean?" Juyeon frowns.

"Some of them are always looking for donors, others always doing extra shifts. The pediatric ward is the only one that's doing okay, as of late. Cancer department is just a hole of sadness."

"That's...not very encouraging."

"That's the reality of it," Jacob shrugs, "did you give it any thought? What you wanted to specialize?"

"I don't know. Cancer, maybe. I'm not good with kids and the Cardiac Department looks like hell. Also, Organs make me squirm."

Jacob laughs at that, the sound bouncing through the room like sunlight, "that's exactly the same reason why I didn't want to specialize in surgery."

"That makes the two of us."

After packing up their belongings and clocking out for the day, Jacob offers to buy Juyeon dinner as a thank-you for helping him throughout the day and though the latter tries his best to refuse, the doctor insists that it's just something he does with all of his underlings, and that not treating Juyeon would just not be right.

So Juyeon has no other choice but to follow as they walk to the parking lot. They unexpectedly bump into Hyunjae and Changmin in the lobby, causing Jacob to invite them both to join.

"Why Jacob, I think that's the first time you're buying me dinner," Hyunjae can't help but comment as they settle at one of the tables of Mama's chicken, a small restaurant just down the street from their hospital. Juyeon smacks his thigh in protest, aiming to be subtle while the former stifles his groan of pain.

"What?" Hyunjae hisses venomously.

"You don't say those kinds of things," Juyeon hisses back.

"You only care because you want him to give you a good review."

"Piss off, Hyunjae."

The dinner goes surprisingly well considering that Juyeon isn't really familiar with Jacob. Having Hyunjae helps ease the tension between the interns and the doctors, lightening the atmosphere and loosening up his tongue. They share stories about patients, heart-wrenching stories about the ones they lost, and the ones that they managed to save. The more they spoke, the more Juyeon felt like this was the right path he'd chosen, after all this internal dilemma that had cost him a few years.

"So why did you want to study medicine?" Asks Hyunjae to Changmin, who is already slightly flushed from his second beer.

"I--uh--I just wanted to make the world a better place," Changmin stammers, ears flushing red, "I don't think I've considered anything else."

"See, this is the problem with interns," Hyunjae shakes a hand at him, "you guys think that being a doctor is honourable. It fucking sucks, okay? Like, it's really shitty. The shittiest of everything shitty in this world."

"Not all that shitty," Jacob intercepts.

Hyunjae scowls at him, "for you, maybe. You work in the Maternity Ward. What's the worst? That a pregnant woman comes screaming at you?"

At that comment, Juyeon can't help but glance at Jacob, eyes meeting for a quick second in understanding.

“I think I got used to that,” Jacob answers with a small smile, “Pregnant women don’t scare me.”

“You’re brave, Dr. Bae,” Hyunjae sniffs, “there’s no way I’d be able to make it.”

“Do you regret choosing to be a surgeon?” Changmin pipes up.

“Nah,” Hyunjae flashes him a grin then, leaning back against his seat and poking Juyeon’s neck as he does so, “couldn’t find myself a better match. Surgery is all I live for. It’s like me against death, and most of the time, I always win.”

“And the times you don’t?”

“You win some, you lose some. That’s the reality of it.”

When Jacob and Changmin bid their goodbyes, Juyeon accompanies Hyunjae back to the hospital -- the latter has a night shift. It is his second one in a row -- while throwing his friend a couple of worried glances out of the corner of his eye.

He knows more than anyone how much Hyunjae gives to the people. No matter how much bravado he puts on about doctors and how medicine really is like a beast you can’t tame, there’s definitely always a sparkle in the said doctor’s eyes whenever he talks about it. Juyeon admires that, and he admires Hyunjae (not that he’ll ever tell him though), but his stomach can’t help but churn with worry when he notices the darkening blue aprons underneath his friend’s eyes, or the tiredness lining them, red-rimmed and mouth pulled down in a way that only suggests he lacks sleep and energy.

“Hey,” Juyeon speaks up when they reach the hospital doors. Hyunjae looks back at him as he says, “try getting some sleep. You look like crap.”

“Thanks Juyeon. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’m serious, Hyunjae. Continue doing that and you’ll pass out in mid-surgery.”

“Yeah yeah,” the older man sticks out his tongue in retaliation, “I hear you, mother. You heading home now?”

“Yup. I’m done for the day. I got tomorrow off too.”

“Lucky bastard.”

-----

Tagging: @juyeonzz @thesingingfae1905 @gratefulmaria @nochuu17

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list!

Also, for all those who have sent me requests, don’t worry I’m working on them! they shall be up soon! <3

I’M SO SORRY IT’S SO SHORT FML BUT LIFE IS GETTING IN THE WAY AND MAE IS TRYING TO ADULT AND GO TO JOB INTERVIEWS SO YEAH IM SORRY FHSDLSDLKJDBUT I HOPE YOU LIKE ALL THIS BROMANCE.

NEXT EP WILL BE FULL OF MAE AND KEV SFKSDHGKDSJGDSLGLDKN <3

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marculees · 4 years ago

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Epilepsy Awareness Month💜

I recently seen this post by @interstellix who made great points about epilepsy for Epilepsy Awareness Month. It sums it up really well so I suggest you give it a read and reblog! Its nice to find another photosensitive here too because we’re such a small group within the epilepsy community. I deal with anxiety on top of my epilepsy and while they aren’t always related to each other, I don’t hear enough about the day-to-day worries of epileptics. Things that seem completely normal or fine to some people can be dangerous for me, which is why stuff like giving trigger warnings are much appreciated. But often, non-epileptics don’t know about what its like to actually live with epilepsy - not just having seizures. I want to add on some of my own experiences with a funky clickbait title, below the cut. Anyone who reads this all is a star and ily⭐️

10 Things Non-Epileptics Don’t Get (Yet)

1. That moment in movies when the character wakes up and a bunch of faces are gawking down at the camera uncomfortably. Always have someone to stay with the person having a seizure. But out of care for both that person and the people around, its best to get everyone else away. No one enjoys watching someone have a seizure - it’s scary and knowing you can’t stop it can ignite feelings of guilt or panic. For the person having the seizure, its embarrassing - they aren’t even conscious of what’s happening and for all they can remember, they were minding their own business and now they’re waking up and barely able to move their body without wincing in pain.

*TW: BODY FLUIDS* I’ve literally puked, shit and pissed myself all at the same time unconsciously in front of a room of people. I’m lucky these people were my family but it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing or upsetting knowing that everyone there saw me in such a state. A fear I had growing up was having a seizure in front of my class and the students making comments about it, thinking it was funny. In today’s age, filming seizures is something to worry about too because of how easily it can be shared to others online. Even if you aren’t an arsehole like that, try to be as respectful as possible and get everyone else to evacuate the room. At most, have three people to stay there: one person to stay close and time the seizure, one person to move furniture away and find something soft to lay under the epileptic’s head, and one person for crowd control who is keeping everyone else out and reassuring them all it’s okay.

Whatever you do, don’t make the epileptic feel bad for having a seizure. They can’t control it. Afterwards, comfort them and let them know its all over and you’ll stay with them until they feel better (unless they say they would rather be alone). Most of the time, the epileptic will be so tired and sore after their seizure that they’ll fall asleep. Let them; they need it. I’ve woken up on a couch, in my bed, the back of an ambulance or in a hospital bed and sometimes I was laying there for half an hour, sometimes a whole day. Knowing someone was there is relieving. Knowing everyone was there is shaming and it doesn’t make you feel any better when they’re all in your face afterwards too. Don’t be the camera crew.

2. Travelling alone is either a dream or everyday reality for a lot of people, but its a no-go for some of us. I was raised in a very overprotective household and still today, I don’t have a lot of freedom. Driving is usually one of the first bits of independence you get, but not for me. I’ve had seizures while out travelling because of the SUN. The sunlight flickering through trees, railings or bouncing off surfaces have triggered seizures in me where my family have had to pull over. The thought of being the one driving in such a scenario is terrifying to me, my loved ones and everyone else on the road. Driving is such a normalised thing for people my age that I’m embarrassed to bring up my own case unless someone specifically asks.

Then you have public transport. The sunlight issue is also here but this time, you’re with a bunch of strangers (see Point 1 again). Something my mum drilled into my head since I was younger was that if I ever got public transport by myself, then I could have a seizure and someone would film it and another person would rob me (and then you wonder why I have an anxiety disorder). I got my first bus by myself when I was 19 and for something so mundane to most people, it was like a little adventure to me. My mum didn’t approve but she complained about having to drive me everywhere too. While its fun to get the bus into town every now and then though, it becomes a bigger issue when travelling is a daily requirement and you aren’t able/allowed to drive yourself.

Free public transport doesn’t always include those with epilepsy, depending on which country you live in. What do you do when an employer asks if you can drive? What do you do if you have committments to go to and no one is around to drive or come with you? Or you need to explain why you’re going out, every single time, because someone else has to decide whether its worth the risk. Sunny roadtrips? Want to be a pilot? That last one isn’t a joke, by the way! I used to get a coach/private bus to college and if it was sunny, I’d pull the curtain over, wear my sunglasses and try to nonchalantly cover one eye to help. You can’t really get a curtain while driving your own car though and driving one-handed is not cool, its irresponsible.

3. Staying up all night talking with someone you love isn’t as romantic as we’d like it to be. All-nighters, i.e. lack of sleep, are a huge trigger for many epileptics. I wasn’t allowed to go to sleepovers with friends as a kid until I was 13, and at that sleepover I ended up having a seizure in the middle of the night after waking up to use the bathroom. Not to flex, but I had a seizure on the toilet. Where’s the weirdest place anyone else has had a seizure?. As a result of that, I was put back on medication after being told I was growing out of my seizures and had been med-free for one whole year. I’d love to stay up with a loved one and spend the night talking or watching movies, but I think a seizure would be more of a killjoy than going to bed early.

3. Unless you’re the paparazzi, camera flashes won’t give photosensitive epileptics seizures. Its a small gesture and I do appreciate it, but don’t worry - one small flash from a camera will not send my brain into override. Just don’t be taking photos from 5 different phones at the same time for more than one pic. Standing and waiting for people to take a photo all at the same time is awkward already because you don’t know who to look at, what to do with your hands, if you should change pose, smile or not, etc. Just take one flash photo and be done, or don’t use the flash at all if you don’t need to. Ring lights are a common thing now, by the way and I love them? Bye-bye camera flash!

I don’t blame anyone for having these types of concerns though. The only time you’re probably warned about flashing lights is when you’re about to watch a news report or awards show where there will be paparazzi and performances will be aired. Concerts are another thing that can be risky depending on the genre, size of the venue, whether its indoors or outdoors (if you’re like me and enjoy EDM music, you’ll have a very low chance of actually attending or watching anything live fdkslbjfdhb). Those things we avoid. But you taking a photo with a once-off flash will be okay, don’t worry. Seizures aren’t triggered by a single flash, but rather multiple flashes in a short period of time. They’re called Hertz and that shit hertz when its between 3-30 flashes per second. Also, fuck strobes, the Incredibles 2, Into The Spiderverse and any other movie that uses these for unnecessary effect.

4. Not everyone is diagnosed with epilepsy in their childhood and though some might grow out of it as they get older, not everyone will. I thought I had been growing out of it on two occasions (see point 3 again and point 9). Some people only get diagnosed with epilepsy later into their life. If you’re diagnosed while young, its easier to adjust your life because you’re growing up with it as your norm and its something you’ve just learned to live with. But for some people, they suddenly have to change their entire routine that they’ve established since they became an adult. Be sympathetic to those with epilepsy in their adult years, especially those who only got a diagnosis. Its not just a disability for children.

5. There are different types of seizures and one that’s commonly misunderstood is the partial seizure. These types of seizures have been mistaken for people being drunk or high (i.e. slurred speech, difficulty standing up or walking in a straight line, etc.), which has led them to getting kicked out of venues for something they have no control over. Swimming pools seem to be a common place for these bans, as well as gyms. Sometimes, these people are still somewhat aware they are having a seizure but cannot control them, which is really scary to think about. I don’t have them myself but I cannot imagine how frustrating they must be to not be taken seriously and instead as someone being high or intoxicated and then being punished for that. Alcohol is usually avoided as it can trigger seizures but when these seizures happen at social events, people can get the wrong idea. If you know someone who has these types of seizures, keep an eye on them if you’re out together. We’re usually only allowed one pint and hardly anyone gets that drunk after just one, so be aware that its likely they aren’t actually hammered but having a seizure instead.

6. Nobody likes being overworked but school, college, jobs and sport can very hard on us. Unless you’ve had a seizure, your teacher or boss probably won’t extend a deadline for you. The latter might even fire you. Chronic fatigue isn’t taken seriously. School is one big memory test in most countries, but for those with aura seizures, their ‘spacing out’ can affect how information they are actually taking in. Side-effects of meds can also make concentration and memory tough, and I hate how forgetful I can be because then I feel like I’m unreliable even though I push myself to give 110% anyway. Some activities like sports and physical education can be more draining than they would be for the average person, and sometimes I’d have to sit out during these activities because I felt an aura coming on after overexerting myself. I wish I could sit out having multiple assignments and group projects due in the same week, but college doesn’t work that way. I wish I could tell employers that I might not have that presentation done by the end of the day, but that wouldn’t go down too good either.

If you know someone who takes longer to complete tasks that might seem simple to you, ask yourself if you’ve ever considered they might have epilepsy or another chronic illness or disability. Don’t assume they’re lazy if they need to take an extra day or two to complete their final essay or have to stop their beep test earlier than the rest of the class. I didn’t know a good average for the beep test was 8-9, because no one ever told me. I pushed myself to 16 because I was scared people would think I was lazy and that I was dropping out to be with the other girls who agreed beforehand. I then ended up having an aura that almost slipped into a full seizure. I also almost had a seizure an hour before my religion exam in my Junior Cert at school. My mum even insisted I stay home and miss my State exam because of it. I still went though, took a bathroom break because I had another aura, and finished with an ‘A’ but had it been a different day, I might not have been so lucky. Its about knowing yourself and your limits, but we aren’t always informed that they should exist and then you end up doing stupid things like me that could hurt you. Likewise, its important to be understanding that not everyone can work at the same pace as you. It doesn’t make the quality of our work any less even if we need more time or energy to do it.

7. Side-effects aren’t always in the short-term. My own meds are advised to not be taken long-term as they weaken my bones over time. I’m 21 now and I’ve been on meds since I was 8. I wanted to reduce my dosage and eventually become med-free last year but the neurologist told me I still had brain activity and needed to stick with them. In fact, they almost ended up prescribing me more even after I had told them I was five years seizure-free. Why? See point 9. I’m lucky though because I’ve only been on one type of med. Some people can take years to find what works and their neurologists will prescribe them all sorts and leave them with awful side effects. Only last year I was chatting with a woman whose meds had caused sudden depression and fits of anger in her after she had been diagnosed and given her prescriptions. She eventually got brain surgery instead.

8. If you have a uterus and/or want to have children, do your research and a LOT of it. Birth control is usually a tough decision to make and often times, it can feel like you have no choice. Its so important to check with multiple neurologists and doctors which form of birth control is the best for you with your medication, because even the slightest new introduction to your meds box can have unpleasant side-effects. With the current medication I’m on, I can’t take the pill unless I want to increase my current dosage of meds as the pairing cancel each other and make me more vulnerable to seizures and other side-effects. I’m not pregnant and yet I have to take daily folic acid supplements because my meds cancel that out too. Every month or two, I will faint or almost faint on the first day of my period and I’m more vulnerable to having a seizure during that time. If I ever want to give birth, my children can possibly inherit my condition or be stuck taking care of me when I should be caring for them. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.

This is not to say that people with epilepsy can’t have fulfilling sex lives or raise families. But we just do it at a greater risk that even some neurologists aren’t aware of. I had to tell my neurologist last year why I didn’t want to go on the pill because HE didn’t know it interacted negatively with my meds. I’ve known women who were prescribed the pill or meds BY A PROFESSIONAL that interacted negatively with each other and gave them seizures as a result. It takes ‘find the right method for you’ to a whole new level. If your partner has epilepsy, its so important to discuss birth control and take their condition into consideration. I hear men telling their girlfriends to go on the pill so that they don’t have to use a condom, which is really selfish for a start and also disregards other forms of birth control. Do your research but let them and their own trusted neurologist decide which form is best. You should still be using a condom to protect yourselves anyway! And if you and your epileptic partner decide you would like to have children, do the same process and make sure that they are in a safe position to do so.

9. *TW: DEATH* Threatening (even ‘jokingly’) to trigger a seizure in someone is playing with that person’s life. SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) affects roughly 1 in 1000 people each year. Even if that person doesn’t die after their seizure, you may have just broken a record they set for days, months or YEARS without a seizure. You just revoked their driving license and they weren’t even behind a wheel. You just prescribed them new doses of medication without any years of medical school.

Growing up, I had countless incidences where classmates would joke about making me have a seizure. If the teacher left the room for anything, the first thing they would do is run up to the lightswitch and fuck around with it. In secondary school, I stopped using the bathroom at lunch because one of the girls thought it was funny to deliberately flick the lights on and off anytime I was inside. She would snicker and call out to me while I was in the stall, asking if it could make me have a seizure. Even after saying yes, she continued to do it. If I did end up having a seizure in that bathroom, god knows what could have happened. I had a seizure in a bathroom before and was lucky I only hurt my jaw as my head slammed against the wall. Others aren’t so lucky. Injuries from seizures can be brutal, just like OP said. Yeah, you might not kill them by triggering a seizure, but what injuries do they have to deal with after?

Imagine playing a game for years and you spent ages collecting all the items, defeating every boss and proudly showing off the trophies you won. Now imagine someone suddenly pulls the cord as you’re playing; your game freezes, the screen shuts to black and when you try to frantically start it up again and see where you had remembered to last save, it says your data is corrupted and deletes everything without your permission. It doesn’t matter where or when you saved. You have to start your progress all over again. You can try memorise the strategies from before but the game switches things up and suddenly you’re hit with a difficulty spike out of nowhere. The person who joked around and pulled the plug doesn’t have to do anything. And if they wanted to, they could do the same thing again and again. Don’t be that person. Be their Player 2 and help them. If they need to go into a dungeon but they’re scared to be alone, offer to cover their back. If their health is low, find them a safe spot and let them heal. The same goes for appointments and seizures. Its not a multiplayer game by default and while they can power through solo, that doesn’t mean they don’t need help if they’re ever stuck.

10. To end on a more positive note, there are lots of successful people out who have/had epilepsy and you probably never even knew. Cameron Boyce’s passing brought attention to SUDEP and celebrities with epilepsy but did you also know about these people and their own cases and seizures?

Prince

Elton John

Lewis Carroll

Danny Glover

Lil Wayne

Neil Young

Hugo Weaving

Charles Dickens

Julius Caesar

Vincent Van Gogh

Theodore Roosevelt

Adam Horovitz

Susan Boyle

Rick Harrison (the Pawn Stars guy!)

And some who are not confirmed (due to medical practices of the time) but are suggested as a result of numerous seizures:

Leonardo da Vinci

Michelangelo

Edgar Allen Poe

Agatha Christie

Socrates

Napoleon Bonaparte

Aristotle

Alexander the Great

Epileptics are humans, normal people just like you. And like you, they’re capable of great things too. If you think about making a crude comment to someone with epilepsy, think about these people and ask yourself if you would say the same things to them.

If you read all of this, comment with a ⭐️ and please reblog to spread awareness. Whenever we talk about epilepsy, we start and stop the conversation at seizures. Its good to bring awareness to the other things too because its something that affects every part of our lives. Its an invisible disability but that doesn’t mean we are hidden from the disability community and discussion!

#actually epileptic #epilepsy awareness month #epilepticon2020 #just epilepsy things

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reading-writing-revolution · 5 years ago

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Very long, VERY with the read -

Copied:

"I have been purposely been absent from the online conversation about opening schools because I was keeping my head in the sand for as long as I could. But the words below from a Fairfax parent, Joe Morice, could not express any more clearly why we should be fully virtual in the Fall. It’s a long read but well worth it.

——-

To our fellow FCPS families, this is it gang, 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.

“My kids want to go back to school.”

I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.

“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”

“My kid is going to be left behind.”

“Classrooms are safe.”

100% of them said no, they would not. These are some of their answers:

“No. Until further notice we are on Zoom.”

“(Our company) doesn’t allow us in (company space).”

“Oh hell no.”

“No absolutely not.”

“Is there a percentage lower than zero?”

“Something of that size would be virtual.”

“Children only die .0016 of the time.”

If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.

“Hardly any kids get COVID.”

(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece.

“The flu kills more people every year.”

(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months.

“Almost everyone recovers.”

While I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.

“If people get sick, they get sick.”

First, you mistyped. What you intended to say was “If OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.

“I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

“FCPS leadership sucks.”

“I talked it over with my kids.”

“The teachers need to do their job.”

“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”

“If the grocery store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”

A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.

Just stop.

“Teachers are choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”

“I wasn’t prepared to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”

“What does your gut tell you to do?”

Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, “Stop, right now, gut answer, what is it,” and we both said, “virtual.”

I keep thinking that the 2 days option is the soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.

At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420 Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that number rose to 133,940.

520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on this. In seven hours.

The length of a school day."

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stragglewort · 4 years ago

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Uncommon OC Questions! For Ardolf: 1, 2, 14, 18, 33, 38, 45, 50 For Martin: 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 21, 36, 49 And 25, 41 and 43 for both! ＼(＾▽＾)／

Whoa, that’s a lot. You always know exactly how to pander to me. I’ll do my best! These are probably going to be some pretty long answers, though.

________________________________________________________________

First up, Ardolf:

1.) A little-known talent of your OC?

Hm, for Ardolf? It would probably be his ability to work with children. Like, if he had been in a modern setting, he probably would’ve gone into family medicine or pediatrician work. Though he’s not a terribly charismatic person, he is pretty soft and fatherly and has high-key adopted nearly every child we’ve come across in the D&D campaign I use him as a character in.

Otherwise? Whistling. He’s really good at whistling.

2.) What trait does your OC like best about themself? (Eyes, guitar skills, random bird facts, etc)

He’s extremely proud of his practical doctoring skills. Though he’s learned healing magic and divination now that he’s gotten older and wiser, he grew up in the Greymouth Clan – a house of human doctors and surgeons that almost specifically worked with hands-on medicine. Give him some bandages, some leaves, and a bit of elbow grease and he can patch you just as well as any spell! (Though maybe it’ll take a bit longer. He really just wants to be as helpful as possible, even after he can’t cast anything).

14.) Happy birthday! What kind of present would your OC want?

Anything from the heart! It could be a song, a poem, a letter, or even a neat looking rock. He hasn’t celebrated his own birthday for years and just the gesture of someone remembering would probably make him tear up. Had he been a bit younger, freshly baked sweet or herb bread would’ve been his jam! That’s only changed in the recent years because, you know, lycanthropy makes eating that sort of thing real difficult.

18.) Something that makes your OC laugh without fail? Carved pumpkins, gourds, and really anything that has a face when it probably shouldn’t.

Like, a goofy face? A scary one? A half-baked monstrosity that could barely count as a Jack-O-Lantern? Doesn’t matter, it’ll get him every time.

33.) A song that reminds you of your OC?

There’s too many to choose! Probably Kind Folk – instrumental by Kenny Wheeler and Brian Dickinson, Secunda by Jeremy Soule (from the Skyrim soundtrack), or The Bygone Days from Porco Rosso. Kind of just dependent on the scene!

38.) Random thunderstorm! How does your OC react?

He’d probably around and watch it go by. The thunder gets a little uncomfortably loud, considering his hearing is all lycanthropic, but something about rain and a nice mist reminds him of home at the times when he’s farthest away.

45.) What kind of self-esteem does your OC have?

A very poor one!

Though he does try to keep his chin-up, as he’ll say, the first word that would pop in his head to describe himself would be something like ‘monster’ or ‘creature’. Though his lycanthropy is something he wasn’t born with, and he’s spent a good portion of his life fighting against it, he’s begrudgingly settled on the idea that it’s a part of him he cannot control. And that tends to be a bit of a bummer sometimes! Though he tries to, he has a very difficult time separating the wants of the curse with his own – and though he’ll say he and the beast are two different beings (and ultimately, he’s right) he worries, deep down, if that might not truly be the case.

50. What is your OC’s happy place?

On the top of a mountain somewhere – close to his family – close to his friends – watching the clouds of morning mist roll across the peaks. Mostly anywhere safe, warm, and together with people he cares about.

________________________________________________________________

On to Martin!

3.) Is your OC good at keeping secrets?

Hahaha, no.

He certainly tries! But if he gets off on a nervous tangent (which is about 60%-85% of his dialogue) he has a tendency to overshare. Quiiite a bit.

4.) Your OC’s worst habit?

He cannot keep quiet. Half of the time he’s speaking, he’s usually not even sure what he’s saying! But boy will he say it. And he’ll say it in staggering, stuttering bulk. See above.

10.) Would your OC prefer to live in the city, the suburbs, or the country?

He has no idea. The suburbs?

A close-knit community, nice, quiet, everyone-knows-everyone and that means everyone knows who he is and maybe they’ll use that to catch him off guard.

The city?

So many people that he’d be faceless, could be safe! But also very, very unsafe. Notoriously unsafe. Wait, doesn’t he live in a city? If something happened would authorities even have time to help him? What if there’s so many people that they gang up on him? Hold on.

The country?

That’s isolated, safe, lovely – but what if it’s so isolated that if something bad happened no one would hear him calling! What if his neighbors were strange and odd, then what would happen? He’d be stuck with them! And the land prices!

If he’d have the choice, he’d probably live in a Minecraft house. On peaceful.

15.) Something that grosses your OC out?

Ironically, considering he’s a vampire spawn, blood! He’s super, extremely squeamish and cannot stand the stuff.

20. An obscure/ridiculous fear your OC has?

Honestly if you talked it up right, you could convince this poor man to fear anything. I cannot pinpoint just one. (Though high-key, reality television. He knows it’s usually fake, but what if it wasn’t? What if someday he’s just trying to watch TV or go grocery shopping and all of a sudden a camera crew shows up Truman Show style? Horrifying.)

21.) Does your OC have any type of disability, whether it be mental, physical, etc?

Mhm. Overarchingly he suffers pretty majorly from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (something that I plan to cover/work with pretty majorly in the stories) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (something he had been working with since before the whole vampirism thing). After the vampiric attack/turning, he also has some unnamed disorders he’s working with (I, as the author, have applied them as symptoms of his pseudo-vampirism, and didn’t want to apply real-world diagnosis to avoid some really poor misguided diagnostic attempts!) such as a whole lotta’ paranoia and general poor-coping with being a half-undead. He also has some pretty major ticks (specifically an eye twitch he, for the life of him, cannot get to stop).

36.) Your OC’s favorite fashion era? (20’s, 70’s, etc)

I’d say 90s grunge. But that’s kind of a stretch, and probably more of an excuse to not futz with his hair and wear clothes three times his size.

49.) Your OC’s most prized possession?

:･ﾟ☆✧ The friendship he creates with the other Ghoul Parade protagonists :･ﾟ☆✧

In his apartment (which, mind you, is extremely cluttered and it the apartment equivalent of that Pepe Silvia picture) he has a small battery powered waterfall set up on what used to be his kitchen counter. It has a frog at the top that spits water into small pots that then pour into each other, and if he presses a button it’ll turn on some very soft LED lights. That. That is one of his most prized possessions.

29.) Someone does something awful in front of your OC. How do they handle it?

That depends on what sort of awful we’re talking about. He instinctively wants to help – to really help – and will go as far as putting himself into a hypothetical (or literal, who knows!) line of fire if someone’s really in danger. Though smaller things, in more everyday situations, he usually finds himself freezing up.

________________________________________________________________

And now, for both!

41. Does your OC like/make puns?

Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

43. Your OC wakes up with a coin super glued to their forehead. How do they react?

Ardolf would probably spend the whole morning trying to pry it off, before either succeeding or just giving up and asking one of his friends to help. To which they’d probably have no better luck. He wouldn’t be angry with whoever did it! More just kind of flustered until ultimately laughing it off.

And Martin probably wouldn’t notice for some time (he doesn’t really keep any mirrors in his house. He can very-well see himself in them, but something about the connection they have to vampire lore makes him uneasy) and wouldn’t notice until someone pointed out. He’d then drop everything and take hours trying to figure out how someone got into his house to put a coin on his head. Why they did it. What kind of coin it was. If it was really, actually a coin. All to probably learn that he somehow did it himself in some freak minor mishap. Yes, that’s absolutely what he would do.

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soviet-history-detective · 5 years ago

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Legasov You Did Not Know

I am going to share an ingot of solid gold right now, the kind that will break your heart and ruin your day.

I have unearthed this some time ago from a book that’s been long out of print. It is the translation of a truly heart-wrenching eulogy written by his late widow, Margarita Mihailovna Legasova. There is a lot of new information about Legasov in this piece, the kind of things only the wife of 30 years would know.

Defenceless Victor—Margarita Legasova’s title of her reminiscences

This title in Trud was followed by a quotation by Valery Legasov:

There are two colour photos hanging in my office at work. One of them is of a Nuclear Atomic Plant, the other of storks. These photos hang near each other as a reminder of the close relationship between life, nature and technology, letting one know beforehand of the fragility of life, about the necessity to keep it. I recalled these photos when I worked in Chernobyl eliminating the consequences of the accident at the NPP. Really, could storks in the future, living on the earth, feel themselves to be safe with modern industry? Is such a peaceful coexistence possible? And if possible, then what should be done to achieve this?

It was not until 10 years after the accident and eight years after Valery Legasov’s death that his widow published a short memoir in Trud that unequivocally confirmed that her husband had committed suicide on 27 April 1988. They had first met when students in the same institute and together worked at a students’ building construction project in what were termed in the USSR as the virgin lands. Under the title Defenceless Victor she described her memories of Legasov’s troubled times at Chernobyl and the period afterwards when he was, to a certain extent, ostracized by the establishment. She also includes interesting comments on what life was like for a senior scientist and his family in the Soviet system: very different from the experiences of Western scientists.

***

Last year we at last completed erection of a gravestone on his grave. This was with thanks to my son and daughter and a few supporters and colleagues of the Academician who helped to cover the expenses. That day when the sculptor invited me to his workshop and showed me the completed work, Valery returned home in the form of his bronze sculpture. He often had to travel away on business trips, we tried to be patient and wait for his return, but on 27 April 1988 he was transported away, already lifeless, forever.

On Saturday 26 April 1986, Valery left for an ordinary business meeting where he learned about the Chernobyl NPP accident and that evening he was already 2 km away from the destroyed reactor. Life seemingly continued but terrible forebodings did not allow us to relax and stop worrying about his health. After 27 April our acquaintances began to say that badly irradiated victims of the accident had begun to be transported to Moscow to Hospital No. 6. Nobody could tell me when he would return.

On the morning of 5 May about 8am there was a ring at the door bell and Valery entered in a borrowed suit of clothes and carrying a polythene bag with belongings rather than his normal case. He was very thin, with a dark face, red eyes and the palms of his hands were tanned black. He only had time to wash, change, breakfast and ask about his two grandchildren before he had to leave at 10am for a meeting. There was no time to tell us what was the state of events at Chernobyl. Then at lunchtime one of his assistants telephoned and said that Boris Scherbina wanted him again at Chernobyl.

It was only when he returned home later that he was able to tell us that he had personally entered the most dangerous areas in the fourth reactor and how shaken he was at the criminal carelessness displayed at the NPP before the explosion.

He next returned home on 13 May and it seemed to us that the biggest difficulties were in the past: but we soon understood that we were mistaken. By summer Valery was already in poor health, suffering from frequent headaches, chronic insomnia, nausea and stomach illness. It was difficult to recognize the earlier Valery in this morally depressed man. He was taken many times for medical investigation to Hospital No. 6 of the atomic establishment. Heart insufficiency, serious leukocytosis, problems with his myelocytes and bone marrow were diagnosed, as well as neurosis. But no official diagnosis was made of radiation syndrome, although I had no doubt that it was so.

He became an Academician at the early age of 45 but some of the leading figures of Soviet science called him ‘A boy from the chemical suburbs’. However, he was interesting to work with and liked jokes, being famous as an amusing raconteur, although everyone knew that science was the principal interest of his life. His private family life was unknown to his colleagues.

For five years, 1964–69, we lived in a flat of 22 square metres at Nizhegorodskaya Street. Though we could use only communal transportation we often made trips together with our two little children to Kuskovo, Ostankino and Arkangelskoye. In Tsaritsino we enjoyed ski holidays. It now seems that these were the happiest times of our lives.

Valery was a car enthusiast for the last 10 years of his life and loved driving at very high speeds. He had always wanted a private car and his first, which was also his last, was a GAZ-25 Volga which we bought in 1977 for 9500 roubles when he was a Candidate Member of the Academy of Sciences. The initial capital for the purchase was his quota from his State Prize received for his achievements in the field of chemistry.

We usually celebrated New Year in the circle of our family, sometimes in a rest house. One of these days a pure bred chau chau puppy appeared in our family and it was assumed that it was my New Year’s gift. Ma Lu Thomas, as she was called, would recognize only Valery as his owner and loved being in our car. She was inseparable from him and died just after Valery’s death. He was also an adoring grandfather to Misha and Valerik and invented little poems for them and played charades.

As a boy he received a musical education and for many years was interested in listening and understanding classical music: Grieg, Sibelius, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. He was also fond of Schnitke. Over the years we bought tickets for many concerts in the Tschaikovsky Concert Hall of the Musical Conservatoire. Valery’s last concert was in Lithuania in the summer of 1987: for flute and organ. Little did I know that soon afterwards Valery would make a first attempt to commit suicide. He swallowed a handful of Triptizol tablets but that time the physicians managed to save him.

In one Soviet TV programme is was said that Academician Legasov was a sincere believer. It is not so. From autumn 1987 he began to read the Bible and thought much about what he read. He was not baptised a Christian, but respected religion even though he was brought up an atheist.

He considered that the East was weak and during his business trips he tried to see as much as possible of culture. He very much wanted to visit one of the sacred Islamic places, the mausoleum of Hoja Ahmed Iasavi, and the monument erected in honour of the ancient Turkish poet who lived in the twelfth century and was an advocate of Sufism. We visited the ancient city of Yami and worshipped at the grave of the philosopher, and Valery often recalled his verses:

Having met a man of another faith

Don’t be evil to him

The God does not like people

With a cruel heart...

After their death punishment

Waits for them...

On his return from the Chernobyl NPP Valery told very sparingly, with tears in his eyes, about the unpreparedness for the accident. Those days nobody could precisely estimate the number of victims, but Legasov understood better than others, the lack of necessary means of health protection: pure water, food products, iodine prophylaxis.

In August 1986 Valery Legasov presented a report to IAEA experts at a meeting in Vienna, about the causes and the consequences of the accident. His five-hour report was very well received and he returned home triumphal. But soon his mood changed. During the last two years after the accident he suffered great psychological trauma and his inner strength was broken.

Twice he was nominated for a high award from the State, and twice the nomination was cancelled. He received a suggestion that he might take up a position with the IAEA in the field of nuclear technology: again, obstacles appeared. There was also the planned nomination for Director of a Research Centre on the Problems of Industrial and Nuclear Safety: this came to nothing. His election as a Member of the French Academy of Sciences was apparently assured and although we went to Paris on 4 February 1988, his last business trip, he did not receive Membership. Also, just after his Paris trip he was hospitalized with acute leukocytosis, pneumonia and severe neurosis.

Chernobyl was not only a tragedy of international importance but it was also the personal tragedy of the gifted scientist Valery Legasov.

Source: Chernobyl Record- The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe, R F Mould

Notes:

I had a feeling there was more to Legasov than what we see in the written material out there (I read Russian at upper intermediate level so I have access to quite a lot of info, and I have read the magnificent in-depth science-engineering reform articles of him which were absolutely jaw-dropping in their visionary quality. Yet some of the information in this article blew my mind. Legasov’s intellectual side is far deeper than anyone’s guess, that is evident.

All the documentary films and other material mention Legasov took sleeping pills in his first suicide attempt in 1987, but it turns out it was Triptizol, which is the brand name of Amitriptyline -a powerful antidepressant prescribed for major depression and where SSRI’s don’t work. It has been used as sleeping medicine in the US, but I have no clue if it had such use in the USSR. It is known Legasov developed a serious insomnia problem, but he was also diagnosed with major clinical depression.

Margarita Legasova was a professor of chemistry, they both graduated from the prestigious Mendeleev School of Chemistry, where they met (as mentioned in the beginning.)

The dog’s name sounds like it’s mistranscribed or something, in Russian language articles written by Legasov’s close friends she is mentioned as Tomka. Poor thing stopped eating after she realized he was gone forever and died shortly after.

#legasov #chernobyl #Valery Legasov

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rimalaw · 4 years ago

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Why this Non-Trump Voter Thinks Trump Could Win 2020

I am a registered independent and both parties have ideals I agree with, and sadly those I don’t. Therefore, I am always left out and just looking for who will better support some of the more important values that I believe in. I did not vote for Trump, and because I need healthcare (among other things), I cannot support a man who wants to destroy the healthcare plan that I am on, without a real plan in place that will protect people with pre-existing conditions. Trump says ObamaCare is a horrible program! But what the heck has he offered??? Nothing! I can't take small talk to the doctor or hospital if and when you take away my health plan, and have to wait for small business enrollment in Florida (1x a year) to kick in and charge me tons of money to cover my pre-existing condition!

When Bush was President, health insurance was costing me over $1,200/month, and now under the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obama Care which is really why Trump hates it... it doesn’t have his NAME!!), I am paying approximately $600.00 a month for a really good plan. Make no mistake, by now my plan would cost AT LEAST $1400.00-$1500.00, since I am 16-20 years older than when Bush was President. Let me not forget how Obamacare saved the life of my best friend, who would otherwise NOT have gone to the doctor, and not have discovered a life threatening illness, which but for the Grace of God, she did. Because of her health plan, she received the best care and treatment, and thank God survived one of the worst diagnosis one could get. She got the plan two (2) weeks before she went to the doctor! This is what Trump wants to take away! Trump wants to take away lifesaving care without a REAL PLAN in place to help millions of Americans.

And make no mistake; sadly, I think people who are on that plan, who rely on this plan, who have family or friends who need that plan, etc. etc. will still NAIVELY and IGNORANTLY vote for Trump.

Why do I think that enough people would vote for Trump and that he can win? Well... Let’s think about it:

1-He is campaigning like a high energy Super Bowl Team in all the swing states, bringing with him his own type of electrifying energy, electrifying his base, and those who are still on the fence and can feel some of that electricity as the attendees and media blare their excitement of his visit. Make no mistake, these visits matter. When I ran for Judge 14 years ago, I was an unknown an the youngest in my race. I didn’t have the type of ethnic or Anglo name needed to win in my County. However, every area that I was able to heavily campaign in, make speeches, meet people, I WON. I didn’t win that election, but I won those areas. So I realized that meeting people matters, and in this race, make no mistake, these super spreader events excite people. They don’t care about COVID while they are there, and for the most part have learned to live with it. They just care that the biggest Super Bowl team came to their town and made them feel GOOD! I know Biden has toured, but I’m sorry it doesn’t come close. I know he was doing social distancing etc, but the car thing isn’t exciting nor generating the amount of crowds and energy that it needs.

2-COVID- yes believe it or not, without COVID, Trump might have been up in the polls without issue. Then COVID happened which threw him down in the polls, and then his apparent lack of handling it, threw him even further down. Then he got COVID, and believe it or not, even though he didn’t seize the opportunity to come out more contrite, which would have assured him a win, he still earned a lot of points. How: A) because America saw him as human and actually felt scared for their President (even some of the ones that didn’t vote for him); B) America got to see that he BEAT IT! Yes, he has the best doctors and treatment etc, but America saw that this 74 year old overweight man, who got sick enough to need treatment, still BEAT IT! So now America sees COVID (foolishly or not) not to be so feared, which deep down everyone wants to believe. These two results of Trump getting COVID actually earned him voters as people felt scared for him and then happy at his beating COVID, signaling the Country and they could too could slay this dragon; and finally C) people are seeing the country economically recover and attributing this to his lack of fear of COVID, and the desire to keep the country out of lockdown which most Americans are fed up with.

3-Fracking- For the love of God Joe, you don’t denounce fracking like that when you need the swing states in the way that you do. Instead you CONFIDENTLY say, “don’t worry, our plan is to slowly bring in safe alternate sources of energy while we freely train current workers and so many more (as we will have so many jobs created) to transition into great and even BETTER paying safer jobs. NO ONE WILL LOSE ONE JOB, and I can guarantee even BETTER Jobs for you all.” But instead, you have Trump in Pennsylvania, and other swing states scaring people that they will lose their jobs.

4-Law and Order-Make no mistake, I believe the police have systemic racism and needs serious training and overhauling. But Biden and Democrats need to COMPLETELY distance themselves from the anarchist propaganda of defunding the police. That was NEVER a train to ride. From the first use of those words, BIDEN should have never bitten, not even a nibble. Now with the visual of businesses boarding up, Trump is touting about these rioters and giving the illusion to those voters less capable to comprehend the difference, that this is what the Democrats, i.e. Joe are doing and allowing. From the get go, Dems and Joe should have aggressively, I mean hot tooting crazy like attacked and distances themselves from it.

5-COVID AGAIN-I wear masks (2), I barely go out, etc, but like most Americans, we are tired of hearing about COVID. When that is all that you hear, gloom and doom, and Biden talks about dark days, it just doesn’t sit so well. Strangely enough, to people on the fence now, Trump seems like the guy that wants to give you freedom and a cheery positive outlook of life, while the Democrats, CNN, MSNBC, etc., are painting this bleak picture and more lockdowns, that no one wants to keep hearing about.

6-The Darn Polls- So many polls tooting a Biden victory whether true or not, are only making on the fence people, the lazy, the unmotivated, the unenergized Democratic voters say, “they don’t need me, ... I’m not so excited.. or Biden will win anyway.” Meanwhile, the Trump supporters are freaking out and making sure they show up in massive droves to help their Super Bowl Team, I mean their guy. Plus, any poll should really discount a lot of points away from Biden, because really, there are a lot of paranoid secretive, conspiracy believing, or seemingly ashamed Trump voters who will not participate. Remember, a bleeding hard liberal is more likely to be kind to a pollster and answer a poll; and a right winger will say, “I have nothing to say, leave me alone,” hang up, etc...

7-Socialism-Kill this socialism crap- The Dems should have killed this idea long ago, and Biden should have been VERY ASSERTIVE and vocal about how he is for middle of the road values (yes I know this might alienate the Bernie people, but that’s what Bernie is for. And if this party is so crazy to sit out and let Trump win because Biden isn’t left enough, well then the party has bigger issues which no amount of therapy can fix).

8-The last Debate- Trump basically showed people he is not so crazy, he can have restraint, he wasn’t rude. People who were running away from him after the first debate or on the fence, came back after he showed America and the world that he isn’t so bad.

9-Strength and POWER- Basically, aside from the fact that Trump often appears to be a bully, lately, more than anything he has shown stamina and strength. People like that, and want to join the stronger looking team, and the man that never ever seems to stop, and confidently never takes NO for an answer. People, like to support the one that appears to never back down, never accept defeat, never look weak, and never quit!

10-Too many people believe his lies, those of the crazies on Facebook, and the alt right that disseminate the worst of the fake news. Sadly THE DEMS DON'T STRONGLY and DEFINITIVELY ATTACK THEM!! Every talking point should have been hit with a barrage of targeted commercials and aggressive stump speeches. People need to be told for example, “TRUMP brags about the economy, he hopes you have amnesia and forget that OBAMA left him with a booming economy, and only an untrained monkey could ruin it. All Trump did was NOT destroy it YET, but his tax cuts to the MILLIONAIRES (not you AMERICA making under 400k) will cause us a depression if he is in office four more years because you can only pay so much to help the country without having income we used to rely on coming in.”

Well, that’s all folks. I hope I am wrong, but if it doesn’t go as the untrustworthy polls show, these are some of the main reasons why. These points are for that small percentage that pick the winner in most Presidential elections, not for the firmly committed of either party. Also, if Biden doesn’t win, then those who protested this summer did not all come out to vote, and that’s shameful!

#trump2020 #election2020 #2020 presidential election #stoptrump #Trumpcanwin

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tinyshe · 5 years ago

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Systems Biologist Speaks Out About COVID-19 Response

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

[this is a long read but well worth the time, food for thought]

Download Interview Transcript Download my FREE Podcast

Story at-a-glance

According to systems biologist Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D., the COVID-19 pandemic is being used to shift global wealth

Systems biology deciphers the synergies within living systems to understand how to diagnose, assess and identify the underlying problem, and how to administer the most appropriate remedy

The economic collapse is a result of precisely engineered governmental policies, even though those policies, superficially, appear to be in the public’s best interest

Systems biology informs us one size does not fit all. Yet this knowledge is being ignored in this pandemic. Instead, everyone is told they must take the same precautions as those who are at high risk

Fearmongering is being used to suppress antigovernment dissent, to crash the economy and issue medical mandates that could generate trillions of dollars in ongoing revenue in years to come

Today, we continue to provide you information about the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of this recording, April 6, 2020, there are more than 1.4 million cases worldwide and 370,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., with New York City being one of the hotspots.1,2 Here, I interview Shiva Ayyadurai, who has a Ph.D. in systems biology from MIT.

What Is Systems Biology?

His academic background gives Ayyadurai a slightly different perspective on this outbreak, as it focuses on the foundational causes of disease rather than the conventional medical paradigm that tends to focus on pharmaceutical remedies. Ayyadurai explains:

“The MIT department of biological engineering was created in 2003. The notion was … that you needed an engineering approach to biology as new advances or new discoveries were coming out in biology. That created the department of biological engineering …

One of the big things that took place in 2003 that led to the formation of that department was, in an ironic way, what occurred with the human genome project starting in 1993. We went into the genome project with a reductionist view of biology.

Biologists essentially thought that the number of parts meant complexity. We knew in 1993, a worm had around 20,000 genes. So, we said, OK, we're going to start mapping out the human genome. We were at least 25 times more complex. The notion was we had about a half a million genes.

By 2003, they only found 20,000 protein coding genes. That flipped biology on its head because it said, wait a minute, we have the same number of parts, and they thought genes were a reflection of complexity. That led to systems biology starting around 2003, which said, look, genes create proteins and these proteins interact. So, it's about all these interactions …

Today, that has led to this field called epigenetics, in which we know that the external environment, what we interact with, can turn on and turn off genes. I came back to MIT in 2003. I did four degrees at MIT in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering. My Master's was in design, but I always was fascinated with medicine.”

The Cytosol Platform

The project Ayyadurai took on for his Ph.D. thesis was to mathematically model the whole human cell. His work led to the creation of a platform called CytoSolve “cyto” standing for “cell.” This approach is different from biology, computer science and chemistry.

“Biologists are essentially distributed knowledge engineers,” he says, “and the thing they're trying to understand is this thing called the body. No different than aeronautical engineers trying to build the airplane. The difference is when we build an airplane, we actually know what we want to build. And we know the parts in biology, we're finding the parts, that's what they're doing.

Some biologists can win a Nobel prize just for looking at how two proteins interact. So, they're very focused on understanding these parts. So, imagine if we could create a technology where we could take those parts, integrate them, and then essentially let them be sort of focused in their silos.

But there wouldn't be this framework that you could integrate, where you could integrate these molecular pathways. And that really created cytosol. To me, it was a big circling back because I grew up in India where my grandmother practiced traditional systems of medicine.

In that system of medicine, they had diagnosis methods, they looked at you, they figured out your body type and they would figure out the right types of foods and medicines, herbs or even body work to get you back into balance. That was always seen as a ‘black art’ from a Western medicine [perspective].

[CytoSolve] lets us decipher what they were doing and actually understand these synergies. So that's what systems biology is about. It's taking an engineering systems approach to the body … It's literally understanding how to diagnose and assess and identify what the problem is, and then how to administer a prescription within a few minutes. It’s essentially an ‘AI’-type model.”

COVID-19 — Health and Economic Perspectives

As noted by Ayyadurai, the COVID-19 pandemic is not only highlighting our immune health but also our economic health. We're seeing the integration of medical policy and economic policy.

“I had a very interesting discussion with a leading economist,” Ayyadurai says, “and he had a serious concern about the fact that economists are being forced to backfill in a misguided health policy, which is occurring. What he meant by that is, [they’re being told to] just use quantitative easing, which is basically printing money, and that will solve the problem.

Now that entire process does two things. First of all, we have I think 10 million unemployment claims in March alone. In addition to that, you have the fact that we're going to print money, which … if you look, since 2008 and 2009, when quantitative easing started … that has essentially been the biggest transfer of wealth — to the 0.01%, again.

It is essentially a weakened earning power and the [weakened value] of the dollar. So that's what's occurred. Now we have this COVID-19, and we have this economic overreaction, in my opinion, from the fear-mongering. In many ways, it reflects the immune system.

The immune system fundamentally wants to operate well for you and maintain homeostasis, and it's the overreaction of a weakened and dysfunctional immune system that causes harm. Similarly, when you look at it from the economic standpoint, we have this unbridled overreaction, in my view. [We’re] not looking at what modern medicine is saying — that we should take a personalized medicine approach, right?

One size doesn't fit all. This is basically flatten the curve: Kick the can down the street. We're just going to wait until, when? Until the vaccine is produced or until a drug comes out. The assumption is that the immune system of all of us is equally weak. That's what this is based on. The assumption is that all of us are going to get it and all of us will suffer from it.

It's a very interesting model. Look at the person leading this health policy, Dr. Fauci. His background is from the pharmaceutical world … [and] when you look at the NIH and the CDC, these organizations are heavily, heavily influenced by pharmaceutical companies.

In that environment, the model has always been never to discuss immune health, what we can do to support the immune system. It's always under the assumption that there's this big boogeyman, that the virus harms your body. Most medical doctors, again, they're victims of this education.

Many of them are taught the virus literally comes and attacks your body, and that a vaccine or a pharmaceutical intervention blocks it. It's not taught broadly that [the problem is that] the dysfunctional, weakened immune system is not running on all cylinders.

One part of it can overreact, and that overreaction is what goes in and attacks your own tissues. So, the issue is, we're not having a discussion at all in the media about ‘How do you modulate that overreaction and support people's immune health?’”

Similarly, Ayyadurai notes, the economic collapse is “a result of precisely engineered governmental policies,” even though those policies, superficially, appear to be in the public’s best interest.

Is COVID-19 a Real Pandemic?

COVID-19 meets the technical definition of a pandemic, and the World Health Organization did declare it a pandemic. However, the death toll is nowhere near that of earlier serious pandemics that would legitimately justify the extraordinary measures being deployed by the U.S. government.

The Spanish flu in 1918 infected 500 million people worldwide, killing between 20 million and 50 million. The bubonic plague also killed 50 million people, wiping out a shocking 60% of the European population. This is typically what people think of when they hear the word “pandemic.”

COVID-19 presently affects a tiny fraction of the global population — about 1.4 million cases out of a global population of 7.78 billion3 — and even with a death toll of 81,000 worldwide,4 COVID-19 has had a miniscule impact, having killed a mere 0.00001% of the population.

Don’t get me wrong. Any death is tragic. But any given individual’s risk of dying from the epidemics of diabetes, heart disease or cancer, for example, is greater than their risk of dying from COVID-19. Why is death from lifestyle-induced disease and environmental toxicity more preferable and acceptable than death from an infectious disease?

Dying from a preventable medical mistake is also a greater risk, as that kills up to 440,000 Americans every year. Where’s the panic about that? Isn’t the idea that conventional medicine kills 440,000 people a year terrifying?! 1 in 5 elderly patients are also injured by medical care. Where are the calls to protect our aging loved ones from this threat?

Were health policies more aligned with truth, we wouldn’t have these chronic disease epidemics and far fewer people would die from preventable medical mistakes. More people would lead healthy lives were they properly informed about what’s harmful and what’s healthy.

Similarly, when it comes to COVID-19, there are simple strategies with which we can address this infection that does not require collapsing the global economy, creating unheard of unemployment and isolating everyone from human contact for weeks on end. You can find many articles detailing such strategies on my Coronavirus Resource Page.

As noted by Ayyadurai, systems biology tells us that one size does not fit all. “We need to move to the right medicine for the right person at the right time,” he says. But this knowledge has not been applied in this pandemic. Instead, everyone is being treated as though they’re high risk for severe infection and death and therefore need to take identical precautions. So, what’s really going on here?

“We have not said, ‘Hey, let's shut down the economy to address the fact that we have skyrocketing obesity taking place, skyrocketing diabetes,” Ayyadurai says. “So, the level of contradiction, the level of hypocrisy should wake up everyone to understand that there is another agenda.

There is another agenda afoot. I repeat what my mentor said: ‘When things don't add up, take a step back and ask, what is the other agenda?’ And the only thing in a common-sense way that reveals itself to me is power, profit and control. Power, profit and control.”

The Power, Profit and Control Agenda

Like Ayyadurai, I believe the fearmongering is being used to suppress dissent, to crash the economy and to issue medical mandates. “If you look broadly, there were massive uprisings, antiestablishment uprisings [in different countries]. Well, they're all gone now. We don't even hear anything about them,” Ayyadurai says.

He also believes this fearmongering and social isolation mandates will be used as a way to acclimatize people to accept state wants or what a few people deem is good for everyone. “That, I think, is the milieu being set up,” he says. “That's being teed up.” Indeed, it simply doesn’t add up when you look at mortality rates.

“There's another agenda,” Ayyadurai says. “That's what I see, because it doesn't make any rational sense [to crash the economy over COVID-19]. I think that's why a number of the videos, the tweets I've done have gone viral, because to everyday working people, it doesn't make sense either. They're trying to sort this out.”

Interestingly, this epidemic is taking place just a few months after Google began censoring holistic health news. So, people searching for sound nutritional strategies can no longer find them. Instead, they’re directed to Big Pharma-backed sites promoting conventional medicine.

The censorship isn’t even about squashing nonscientific views anymore. Educated health professionals are being banned left and right simply for posting peer-reviewed studies showing nutraceuticals work, or that drugs or vaccines don’t work — including Ayyadurai himself, who got kicked off Twitter the day this interview was recorded over a vitamin D post.

“It has essentially moved to a model of a finite set of people serving the interests of another finite set of people,” Ayyadurai says. “That's what's fundamentally going on. When we really look back at the history of ‘infectious diseases,’ what actually caused the real decline in infectious disease? …

That came from sanitation, vitamin A, nutrition, elimination of child labor, refrigeration [and] infrastructure at the political level … Well, how did we get that? This is one layer people need to understand from a human standpoint. It came about because in the late 1800s, there was a massive force of the American working class who were militant, and they fought for those rights.

People lived in squalor. No one cared for them. It was the uprising of those people and very, very powerful independently self-organizing systems, all over this country, that forced the elites to give them these basic infrastructures …

So, what I see is the ability for people to organize and demand their rights and get them. That is what occurred in the late 1900s, and we got massive gains. Now look at infrastructure today. Dirty water, dirty air, dirty food … and we look at them in synergy, how they affect our body. None of that's discussed, none of that.

I think the United States has a D+ in infrastructure. The roads, the bridges and the water systems [are all crumbling]. And when you don't fix these things in time, they affect all types of environmental things. The elite in this country do not want to address that. They want to always create a fake problem and a fake solution to consolidate power.

And that's why when you look at this [COVID-19] phenomenon that's taking place, it's a penultimate of it … You create massive amounts of fear so people will be willing — because they're under economic stress, under what they think is a health [threat] — to give up their rights.

And that's where I see this headed. So, this is an interesting convergence of … economic attack, attack on people's health, [and attack on] people's autonomy and freedom. Truth, freedom and health are all under attack …

They do not want any discussion about indigenous people's medicines that have worked for centuries. They don't want to talk about simple solutions … so, they suppress discourse, suppress debate, suppress freedom, and move everything away from the scientific method — which is a process where you actually have to prove stuff, which is what they claim they want to do to scientific consensus.

Freedom gets suppressed and now you can move truth to scientific consensus. So, you go from suppression of freedom to fake science or outdated science at best. And then that is used to create a fake problem and a fake solution.

And then, if you go to the health part, what that means is you diminish people's health, you control people's health, and now you have a populace which is so controlled, they don't have the strength to fight for their freedom. So, you have the attack on freedom, the attack on truth, and the attack on health.

All of those are interconnected. They too are a system from a systems perspective. Without freedom, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can’t have health. And without health we don't have the strength to fight for our freedom. And the way that truth actually is discovered should be through the scientific method. That's what's really been compromised, starting, I would say, in the late ‘50s.”

Postal Service Could Be Used to Protect Free Communications

To summarize, the three-pronged agenda is: Power, profit and control. To counteract that three-pronged threat, we need academic freedom and the freedom to discourse and debate.

From that freedom, we get truth, and from truth, we’re able to understand health, not only physical health but also in the broadest sense the health of our systems, our infrastructure and environment. With health, we gain the strength to fight for even more freedoms.

“For each one of those, there's a solution. For example, when you go to freedom, if you look at communication, right now we are heavily relying on Google, Facebook and three major telecom companies. So, basically, five CEOs control our communication. One phone call to them, and you can essentially shut down communication ...

What is the solution? Well, it's going to sound weird, but … the founding fathers of this country created an institution called the United States Postal Service. Why did they create that? Because the crown was not allowing each individual to communicate. So, the notion of ‘the press’ was all of us. There was no New York Times. Each one of us were supposed to be the press ...

If anyone interfered with your communications, [they got a] 20-year prison sentence. It was criminal. So, the entire postal service system was a decentralized environment enabling every American to communicate for pennies …

In 1997 is when email volume overtook postal mail volume. I met with the executives of the postal service. I said, look, you guys should be living up to what you were chartered to do, which is to protect free communications. Why don't you offer a public email service and public social media services … that would be protected by the laws of the Constitution? No one, including the government, could interfere.

They thought it was a ridiculous idea … In 2011, the postal services were going out of business. Why? Because all the best parts of the postal service were privatized into DHL and FedEx. So, I again hit them really hard. The inspector general, Dave Williams, called me up.

He goes, ‘Shiva, why are you attacking us?’ I said, ‘Look, you guys are not doing your job. You're not in the postal mail business. You were supposed to be in the communications business. You are set up as a quasi-organization to protect our rights. So anyway, I did two chartered reports for them.

My point is we need a digital rights act, and there is an institution [that can supply us with that]. It is the postal service, in my view. All these postal service locations could be converted to a mesh network. So, there is an opportunity to have a network by the people for the people. Now if someone wants to go use Google and Facebook and you can, but there needs to be a public common.

Those few elite would object to this and have the power and control to prevent that from being implemented. Definitely. That's why I believe we need to have a mass movement. Nothing has ever been given to us. People think slavery ends one day and we have freedom the next. Every point in human history has always been people chipping away at slavery to get freedom from the elite."

Decentralization Is the Name of the Game

Ayyadurai discusses many additional issues and goes far deeper than I can summarize here, so please, listen to the interview in its entirety. He has many fascinating insights, ideas and solutions. For example, about 50 minutes in, he discusses how federally funded research systems can be improved to ensure scientific integrity and prevent scientific fraud.

“We need to take power away from the academics,” he says, “and one way to do that is to force decentralization. That's a common theme here.” He also analyzes the health care model, and discusses how health care, as a system, can be improved while simultaneously being made far less expensive.

“Broadly, we need to decentralize health care. The concept of centralized health care — which is what the purpose of this [COVID-19 pandemic is] — is that next year everyone's going to be mandated vaccines,” he says.

“For them to crash the economy, to drive it into a depression, for them it's a relatively great return on investment. You make the fed print $6 trillion, but you're going to make $7 trillion to $8 trillion recurring revenue [by way of mandated, annual vaccinations] … So, we have to do whatever it takes to decentralize health care …

When you look at these things I've said, it comes down to one word: Decentralization … I think the opportunity here is to start educating people. It is supposed to be We the People, and this does not mean it's going to happen without struggle.

We may have to rise up and fight in ways that we haven't done before, just like those people did in the late 1800s, and the idea is to compel the thing. We need to build a broad-based movement bottom-up … And I think it begins with taking care of your health.”

#covid-19 #pandemic

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flannelmoth · 6 years ago

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Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/flannelmoth

Our dog, Juniper has been experiencing serious gastrointestinal flare-ups intermittently since he was about 4 months old. In May 2019, he will be a year and a half old. These flare-ups are a serious health problem, and we don’t have a diagnosis yet, despite us having spent over $1400 on tests, treatment, and special diets so far. We’re trying to raise money to help pay for veterinary care he desperately needs, and our own medical bills that have been put off to take care of our dog.

If you are able to donate, it means the world to us! If you can’t give, or if you’d like to help us out in other ways, please link people to this post, or share it with as many people as you can.

For those who don’t already know him, Juniper (also affectionately known as Juni or Junebug) is a goldendoodle who is definitely not golden-colored, and who is my ESA. He firmly believes that everyone is his friend, even if they disagree. He loves tennis balls, especially squeaky ones, and checking bushes for birds. He is incredibly intelligent, and does a myriad of tricks, including “animal impersonations.” He is a blessing to this world, and makes the world so much brighter for being in it. He deserves a life that doesn’t involve him being ill all of the time.

Note: While I can’t tell you what to do, I would prefer if folks under 18 did not donate, and that folks don’t put themselves in a bad financial spot by donating. It’s important to me that I don’t put anyone in a bad place, so please do take care of yourself as well.

—

UPDATE 4/5/19: We learned from the folks running the clinical trial that we were looking into that they sent their pamphlet to our vet in error. Their study is not accepting any more dogs. Unless they run an additional study in the summer, the clinical trial isn’t an available option to us anymore. We will have to find a way to fund any tests that Juniper needs.

-- UPDATE 4/10/19: Juniper had a vet appointment yesterday! The bill was $215. We did: - 3 vaccines - heartworm test - ran a CPLI blood panel, which tests his pancreas (waiting on results) - 3 day course of panacur (a dewormer) Next week, we will likely have to purchase: - new hydrolyzed prescription food - monthly preventative meds - more probiotics I'm estimating that those 3 together will be around $110 if we get a small bag of food. So far we have raised $165 ($225 if Facebook's fundraiser works, though we are having difficulties with it because they want bank numbers directly), which makes a big difference, but we can really use more help! Please keep sharing this post! -- UPDATE 4/12/19: The results for the CPLI test came back normal, which means it isnt pancreatitis or EPI causing Juni's health issues. We're starting a 3 day course of panacur today, and we'll see if it changes anything.

#juniper bear #juniperbear #dogblr #fundraiser #esa #please share this post #please please please reblog #goldendoodle #dog #i made a new post that hopefully makes more sense because i was more coherent making it

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e1e4n0r5 · 5 years ago

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A drop of tea to spill, just cos I need to put this into words

Seasons greetings, everyone. Even though I know I'm a bit late. For anyone who may be wondering why there was nothing on my blog to do with the holidays, or wondering why I haven't posted any original content in a good, long while, it's because 2019 has been a very shit year for me.

About this time last year (Nov 2018, to be precise) I started getting a lot of heartburn, acid, and indigestion, all coupled with the wonderful feeling in the top of my stomach and back of my throat that I constantly needed to yack. All the time. All day. Every day. With no relief.

So I go to the doctor and he diagnoses me with GORD, the fancy medical term for persistent acid reflux. He prescribes me some pills to help reduce my acid, and they do actually work...for a while.

Cut to Feb 2019 and I go back to the doctor (A totally different doctor sees me because that's just how my doctors surgery works) to discuss my prescription, because those pills I got in Nov are starting to give me side effects. Great. I talk with this 2nd doctor, who was lovely but seems quite perturbed that no investigation has been done into the cause of my reflux. After all, I am an otherwise perfectly healthy 26 (25 at the time) year old woman - why was I getting reflux out of nowhere???

He refers me for a breath test, which come back negative (Oh poop, that would have solved all my problems if it had been positive but hey-ho) Meanwhile I'm still taking these pills which are controlling the extra acid in my stomach but are still rocking my body with side effects. (TMI: nausea; diarrhoea; stomach pain, that is "pain of my stomach organ", like my stomach itself had been punched from the inside)

Please let it be known, up until about mid-May, despite these side effects, I was doing ok. Pretty good, I would say. Yes, there were days when I wasn't great. But overall, not too bad.

Then it gets to June, around my birthday. The side effects are getting worse and I'm starting to feel pretty shitty. No pun intended 😑 My parents go away for a week holiday and when they come back, I had apparently declined so much during those 7 days that they discussed it at length that night after I'd gone to bed. I was visibly worse, visibly sicker than I had been before they'd left, a mere 7 days ago. I was un-blissfully aware that my condition was indeed getting worse, seemingly by the day.

Never the less, I carried on as best I could.

This leads me to one night in June when I almost collapsed during a fitness class because I had felt so sick and in pain in my stomach. This episode actually caused my mother to contemplate calling for an ambulance to take me to hospital because I looked and felt so ill.

I have a phone call with another doctor (doctor #3) the next day, explaining my on-going issues with this first pill, the side effects, and my almost-collapse the night before. He prescribes me a different, gentler pill than the one I was on, in hopes that the side effects would not be as drastic. Well, he was correct. I did not have side effects from pill #2...Because pill #2 did not work against the stomach acid and I was crippled in less than 3 days.

Another phone call with a doctor (I honestly don't remember who I spoke to, everything was a blur at that point) and he tells me to go back to my old pills for the time being, but that he would also prescribe another pill, stronger than #2 but not as strong as #1, so it should control the acid but hopefully have less side effects.

(If anyone is still reading, thank you and I love you)

So I go back to pill #1 and with everything going on with this illness and my job, I just forget to collect pill #3.

About a week goes by, I'm still sick, I still have acid, the side effects have kicked in again now that I was back on pill #1, and I almost collapse for a second time at the same fitness class.

At that point, enough was enough. I had had it with this stupid acid and the stupid pills and the doctors not helping me feel better, so I booked an appointment with a private specialist, but that appointment was still 3 weeks away.

I go to work the next morning (the day after my second episode) and people can tell I'm not myself. My mum happens to call me just as I was putting my bags down at my desk, to check in on me, see how I was feeling that morning after what happened the night before. And I break down.

I have to find a private room because I am so upset, so distressed, and still feeling so ill. I am in tears on the phone with my mother, and we decide together that I had to go home, I was not fit to work, and I had to see a doctor that morning. Not just have a phone call, but actually see and speak to a doctor so that they could actually look at me and see how ill I was for themselves.

I manage to stop crying, get myself together a little, and pull my supervisor out of a meeting to tell her that I needed to go home. When she saw me with tears drying on my cheeks, she knew something was seriously wrong. As a rule, I don't cry when I'm upset. My colleagues had never seen me cry before, or even get slightly upset, so when I started crying again while speaking to this supervisor, the whole team knew how bad I had gotten. I manage to stutter out that I wasn't well and needed to go home and needed to see a doctor, and I headed home.

When I got home, my mother was on the phone was the doctors surgery, telling them that I needed an urgent appointment and that if they couldn't fit me in, we would be going to hospital because I could not wait for a regular appointment and I needed to be seen by a doctor that day.

They give me an appointment for that morning and my mother comes with me, to make sure that the doctor takes me seriously and doesn't just give me some new pill and tell me everything would be fine.

Because I felt like I was dying. I knew there was something wrong inside me, something was wrong with my body, and I felt like it was going to kill me if we didn't catch it. Whatever this was would be listed as Cause of Death on the certificate if I didn't get help. I didn't know what it was or how it would be treated, but I felt like I was dying, and I had felt that way for a while.

We go to the doctors and we're seen by a lovely female doctor who was very kind and sympathetic, and agreed that something had to be done urgently to help me. The first thing she did was sign me off work for 2 weeks, so I could rest and recuperate a little, take away the stress of work so that my body could get out of the fight-or-flight mode it had been in for the past several weeks.

The second thing was to refer me for an urgent procedure which would examine my stomach internally and see if there was anything physically wrong with it. I collected pill #3 from the pharmacy while we were there, which I started the next day.

One week later, I have the test at hospital, and finally we were given an answer. 7 months after that first appointment, 3 medications, half a dozen urgent phone calls, and being signed off work, finally led to an answer.

Hiatal hernia, 3cm.

A hiatal hernia happens when a portion of your stomach slips through the opening in your diaphragm muscle where your oesophagus joins with your stomach and that portion of your stomach ends up lodged in your chest cavity.

Fun.

This isn't a life-threatening condition, it's not even treated as a serious one. It's incredibly common, and research says that approximately 50% of patients with hiatal hernias don't even experience any symptoms.

Lucky bastards. Mine had me convinced I was dying.

Having that answer, that diagnosis did help. I wasn't dying. This was not serious, I would be ok.

Next came the question of what to do with this diagnosis. Several people I know have had their hernias for years and manage perfectly fine with no issues, complaints, or the need for medication.

So I could either learn how to manage it with the right medication, or seek surgery.

I went back to the doctor a few weeks later to discuss these options, and myself and the same lovely doctor who saw me That Day agreed that I would give it a few months and see how I fared on this new pill, pill #3 that I had been taking for about 3 or 4 weeks at that point.

Pill #3 did work better than #2, but alas had the same side effects as pill #1, admittedly to a lesser degree.

I gave pill #3 about 3 months, before I requested a new prescription, as it was now only, say, 90% effective against the acid and was still giving me side effects.

In comes pill #4. The doctor (not the lovely female doctor, a different doctor on the phone) explains that #4 is slightly stronger than #3 so should be more effective against the acid.

Nope.

Pill #4 did not help with my acid at all and came with even more side effects that #3. All cons, no pros.

Back to #3 only about 10 days later.

I go back to pill #3 for a while and just try to manage the side effects as best I can.

But about a month ago (mid-Nov 2019) pill #3 seems to just...stop working?? Out of nowhere?? I woke up one morning with stomach acid, and it wouldn't go away. I didn't think much of it, after all some days were worse than others. I just assumed I was having a bad day. But the next day, I had that acid feeling as well. And the next day. And the next. Before I knew it, it had been an entire week of that bad acid feeling, even though I was still taking pill #3 at the same dose I had been for several months. Nothing had changed, yet the pill wasn't working anymore.

Another phone call, another pill. Pill #5, which is where we are now. I've been on #5 for around 2 weeks, and I still don't feel great.

I have a specialist consultation booked for January, and I will be officially seeking corrective surgery.

Thank you for sticking with me while I try and sort my shit out.

TLDR: had a very shit year so haven't been creative or in the holiday spirit

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decaymode · 6 years ago

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My thoughts and headcanons about Arthur and his horse, both before and after he becomes unwell. This got very long and very out of hand very quickly. I think I should've kept this for a fic, but, well:

1. Arthur takes the colt from the Adler's Ranch. He asks Mrs. Adler if she wants to keep him after all, to which she sharply replies no. Arthur keeps the Adler's horse in camp anyway; he saw Sadie sit next to him when he was grazing, brushing out his mane and tail once, too.

2. Arthur doesn't buy his own horse. Instead he catches a nice wild skewbald. He brings it back to camp. Feels like almost everyone has to comment on his choice of horse and how he'd break his neck before he can even catch up with a stagecoach he wants to rob, but well. Arthur can only shrug.

3. The filly he caught is pretty tall and has surprisingly soft gaits. Arthur never had to work with a wild horse before, but he worked with green horses enough, and it's kind of nice and a new experience, too. It takes three weeks for him to finally mount up, using a bitless bridle as the horse fusses too much otherwise and being bitless helps keep her calm and confident. Arthur finds out she's so soft in her gait it's almost like he's sitting on a sofa, and that's when he knows her name.

4. While camped in Horseshoe Overlook, Arthur takes the Adler's horse to jobs and takes Sofie in hands to hunts. She doesn't fuss too much hitched and grazing while he's out tracking, so that works. Arthur tries to be as gentle, confident and thorough as he could with her, and in a matter of weeks Sofie is used to the idea of his weight on her back and learns what Arthur means by different input of his leg or rein.

5. Sofie acts very skittish around water and refuses to cross. Arthur figures he can't force her, so maybe he should show her it can be fun. He dismounts to be on her level, gets his boots soaked, splashes water on her feet, tries to trick her into trudging deeper with sugar cubes. He ends up soaked through and through once Sofie gets the taste of splashing in the river, hitting the water surface with her hoof. After that there're no problems with crossing bodies of water; sometimes Arthur takes her the long way along the riverside just so that she can have some fun, also build her stamina up a bit.

6. Once tracking a deer that hurt its leg and was bleeding badly, Arthur runs into a pack of wolves. Sofie gets him out without so much as a wail. She still doesn't take well to the bit, and at this point Arthur's confident enough in his skill with bitless to get his point across and not hurt her by accident. After the encounter with the wolves, Arthur decides to use her for the next job. It happens sooner than he expected, as Cornwall runs them out of Valentine in a shootout.

7. Sofie proves to be very, very brave, and not too keen on trying to buck him off in danger. She has her fun, though, and Arthur lets her, as long as she isn't actively trying to make him end up on his back on the ground.

8. When Arthur is kidnapped, Sofie is very distressed. She follows the O'Driscolls, which they brush off as a horse sticking to the herd. They hitch her once they reach the hideout. She almost costs Arthur his life when he gets out of that basement. Sofie sees him and starts neighing, trotting up to him, and it's blind luck the last O'Driscoll guarding him is too surprised to alert anyone before Arthur plants a knife in his eye.

9. Sofie gets him out of there and straight to their camp. Her gallop doesn't jostle Arthur too much. Although he can't remember a thing from the road the next time he wakes up in camp, he knows Sofie got him there safe and sound.

10. Shortly after they escape to Shady Belle, Sofie's behavior changes. She's less playful on the road, seems much more careful in her stride through woods or up and down the hills and wary in general. Arthur risks the journey back to Valentine, where the stable owner seems to be the most competent veterinarian in these parts. He checks her over and promises that if something is wrong, he can't see it, and to his eye Sofie's just fine. Once he learns she's actually a broken wild horse, he brushes the matter aside completely, saying she's just getting used to her new life. It doesn't sound right to Arthur, but with no more symptoms to look into he accepts that, still keeping an eye out for any more signs.

11. After Guarma, Sofie meets him in Shady Belle. He rides her to Lakay bareback. It almost seems like her gait somehow got even softer. In camp, Charles tells him they couldn't get her to leave with them once she and other horses came home from Saint Denis.

12. Shortly after the diagnosis, when Arthur gets particularly lightheaded and Sofie balances him out from a fall, the realization hits: she's gotten more careful when she first felt he was unwell, doing her best to keep him from more harm or discomfort.

13. Arthur loses even more weight. He passes out again, but this time, his foot gets stuck in the stirrup. He visits Dr. Barnes in Saint Denis for another shot and to check the bruise on his temple. He also visits the trapper to get sheep pelt for his saddle as sitting on hard leather for too long gets unbearable and he's cold half the time he's not burning up, and the stables to buy hooded stirrups in case he black out again.

14. Arthur loses too much strength. He doesn't use the bow anymore. He still can, if not for too long, but he doesn't want to, because it makes him anxious and afraid of how weak he's becoming. The rifle in his hands is heavier than he's used to, too, but still easier to manage. He hunts and tracks on horseback now, and waiting for the game to take bait, Sofie always stands still as a statue under him. Maybe she knows if they don't catch any game, folk back in Beaver Hollow will go hungry. Maybe she doesn't. Arthur's grateful she's patient with him, staying still for hours and bearing through the sound of rifle shots with no fuss.

15. When Hamish dies, Arthur has to take a moment to decide what to do with Buell—he doesn't want to risk keeping him in camp, where anything can happen to anyone at this point. Arthur mounts Buell to ride him to Van Horn, not trusting him to not get spooked and lost in the woods here. This is also exactly when he realizes how careful and patient Sofie has been with him. Buell is quite a brute. He doesn't take easy to leg, and Arthur finds himself completely out of breath not less than two minutes later. He never uses spurs with Sofie, wanting to keep her responsive to just leg, and she always is, keeping the gait he sets for her until he asks for something else. But Buell needs constant pressure and release, and maybe every other horse except for Sofie does, too, and Arthur isn't up for that, both in physical and moral strength.

16. He leaves Buell in the hands of the stable owner, paying ahead for a year of stabling. He lets Sofie, who's gentle and careful, take him back to camp. He only has it in him to grip the horn and will himself to make it until he can pass out in his cot and not at the side of the road on the way there.

17. When Charles comes back to the peaks of Ambarino to take care of the dead, he buries Sofie's heart with Arthur.

#rdr2 #arthur morgan #rdr2 spoilers #headcanon #horses #text

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king-ishima · 6 years ago

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OOC Rant

// Just need somewhere to vent in the hope that I’ll feel better after putting my thoughts out of my head. Naturally I’ll put it under the Cut so it doesn’t bother anyone who don’t want to know.

// So my family used to be extremely close. Naturally as we grew up we all split up and started our own lives in different cities, but most of us keep in touch via a family chat on WhatsApp (literally the only reason I have that app is for them).

// Now, waaaaay back last year my cousin (I’ll refer to her as cousin1 from now on) announced she was getting married. We all congratulated her, obviously. We were excited, we had two people engaged but no weddings yet. I’ve never been to a wedding. Months after, I told my family I was pregnant. Cousin1 left the chat forever. She never said anything about why. Literally seconds after my annoucement she left the chat.

// I tried to ignore it, and I saw on her Facebook that she and her partner had picked a date an a venue. I Liked the status. My Auntie (I’ll call her Auntie1) made a comment saying how excited she was and how she couldn’t wait. Then Cousin1 brought about the news that she wasn’t sure if she could invite all of us. After I liked the status, Cousin1 blocked and deleted me. Only me. Not Auntie1 or any of my other family. They can still see her page - only I was deleted and I didn’t even comment.

// Now, she said it was because the venue was tiny. My grandparents (who are massively family orientated and have done SO much for Cousin1) were devestated they weren’t invited. So I looked into this venue. It can fit OVER 100 PEOPLE! There’s no way that my family, her partners family and friends go up to 100. Who’s coming that she has to not invite any of us? Her own Mother only just got in! Her MUM!

// Call it pregnancy hormones, but this really upset me. I was crying all the time thinking about how much Cousin1 must dislike me. Her sister (Cousin2) has always been a bit weird around me, and outright ignores me most of the time, but I didn’t think they hated me this much.

// The only thing I can think of that started this disliking for me was at Cousin2′s daughters birthday (5 years ago). We were all invited to a BBQ, we had a good time. But recently, Cousin1/2′s brother (Cousin3) was diagnosed with Bipolar. My Auntie (Auntie2, mother of Cousin’s 1, 2 and 3) was scared and came to me because she knew I was (at the time) studying Psychology and wanted a simple definition and what it could mean for Cousin3′s life. SHE came to ME. I reassured her that many people have carried on with their lives with this diagnosis and have gotten the help - we just have to support him. She told me she felt better after talking with me. Then Cousin1 came over and shouted at me for talking to her about Bipolar. Even when Auntie2 reassured her that she came to me and I actually helped her, she forced my Auntie2 away from me to ‘talk in private’.

// That part of the family haven’t really talked to me since. I got to the point I thought Cousin1 had told everyone to stop talking to me - because I barely heard from anyone for months. I cried to my Mum that I must have done something wrong to upset everyone. So she knew it was affecting me more than they thought.

// Luckily though, since that talk with my Mum, the rest of the family are more open with me and willingly come to talk to me. Apparently Cousin1 had spread lies saying I didn’t want anything to do with them.

// Now. Cousin1′s wedding is coming up. I only know this because my Mum saw it on Facebook. The only family that have been invited aside from her siblings and Mum are my English family; Cousin4 and Auntie3.

// WTF. I love my Cousin4 and Auntie3, I have no issues with them, but why have they been invited but no one else? If it was THAT hard to get family in, why not just invite your Mum and siblings? Why a random part of the family? Even though Cousin4 and I don’t have any issues, I always feel left out among my cousins. They always visit each other and I’m never invited to these things - it’s always been like that since we were kids. They’d go on holidays and I’d never hear of it until they came back.

// Personally if I was invited and no-one else was...I wouldn’t go. I’d find it too awkward. So I’m a little annoyed they’re going despite the way Cousin1 has treated us. Spreading lies, ignoring us and treating us like we’re lower class.

// Thats the reason I think Cousin4/Auntie3 and their boyfriends were invited. The rest of us are ‘lower’ than them - even if Cousin4/Auntie3 definitely dont see it like that. I’m sure Cousin1 and Cousin2 do. I don’t get why. All of the family have their own homes, jobs and education. None of us are above the other. If anything, I’m above them if they REALLY want to look at it like that. I earn nearly £10 an hour in a bank job, I have a University degree, a lovely 2 bed house in a nice area and a boyfriend that treats me very well. Of course I don’t see myself as above, never have.

// Why am I so inferior? What did I do to upset them this much? Why neglect the rest of the family when we’ve done nothing wrong to her? If they don’t love me, why should anyone else? What’re they going to do next, trash my parenting? Are they going to treat my son like this? Make him feel like utter shit? Will the rest of my family think the same as them eventually and ditch me too?

// I can’t help but think about these things as the wedding approaches. When Cousin4/Auntie3 asked to come and see my baby this weekend while they’re down - part of me felt a bit mad that they’re only coming to see my baby because they’re over for the wedding. I began to question if they would have bothered if Cousin1 wasn’t getting married.

// I know families can’t choose each other, and its none of my business who she invites to her wedding - but did she have to be so cruel about it not only to me but to the others? Did she have to be so nasty and delete me on all social media?

#familys eh?#long rant

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thesilverstaganddoe · 6 years ago

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The Beginning: Psychology and the Law (Killing Eve Fic) Chapter 10

AO3 Link Chapter [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Chapter 10: Hx & Dx

As was becoming typical, Oksana appeared in Eve’s office on an early Monday afternoon and plopped herself down in the extra chair next to Eve’s desk.

“Well, hello there,” Eve said without looking away from her screen.

“What are you doing?” Oksana asked without preamble. “It looks boring. I can suggest something better.”

Eve looked sideways at her. “I’m sure you can, but I have to finish this lecture.”

Oksana leaned on the arm of Eve’s chair so she could read the powerpoint slides on Eve’s computer.

“Hmm. Antisocial personality disorder. Characteristics of psychopathy. Interesting.”

“Yes.”

“You know a lot about that, don’t you? It was your speciality at MI6.”

“Yes, it was. Did I tell you that? I didn’t think I did.”

“No...I googled you.”

That earned her Eve’s attention.

“You did? When?”

“After I watched your lecture. I was curious. The videos of you from that big case years ago said that you were a profiler and you specialized in serial killers with psychopathic traits.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Oksana nodded and leaned back in her chair with her hands behind her head. She didn’t say anything for a while, and Eve returned to her typing. Then she rather suddenly broke the silence.

“You know I was diagnosed with that.” She said it completely casually, as if she was simply commenting on the weather.

“What?” Eve stopped typing and swiveled her chair to look at Oksana.

“Well, not exactly, you generally can’t give that diagnosis to a child. It was implied though, I was given the preliminary child versions of that diagnosis, at least. The psychologist in primary school diagnosed me with Oppositional Defiant Disorder when I was six. I overheard them talking to my parents and went and looked it up in the library. And then after my parents died, before I was sent to boarding school, I got assessed again. They never said anything to me but I stole my file and in there it said I had Conduct Disorder. Apparently, they were supposed to keep a close eye on me. Well, and then when I left the firm - or, more accurately, was ‘encouraged’ to retire - there was some sort of implication that they thought something was...wrong with me in that regard. I don’t really know why they would care though. I think it was useful for what they were trying to do there.”

Oksana fell silent and stared at Eve, waiting for her reaction.

“But...that doesn’t make sense. You’re not like that.”

Oksana smiled just a bit and there was something achingly heavy about it. Tired, maybe even a bit sad. “Am I really not though, Eve? You’ve never thought that I was...at least a little bit off? You've never jokingly told me not to be an ass, but really meant it and had no comprehension of how I could be that much of a jerk, how I could have so little empathy for other people? Something I did never creeped you out just a little bit?”

Eve glanced away. There had been moments. Occasional ones, brief flashes where Oksana threw her off. But they were always over so soon and then Oksana would be back to being funny and charming and wonderful. Eve had never been concerned. Not really. She did remember when she’d first met Oksana and there had been something unsettling about her. Something small and indescribable, something about her eyes or her expression. But it, too, had been gone in a moment and Eve had forgotten it until the topic brought it back into the light.

Oksana spoke again, her voice softer, “You called me manipulative, that time you yelled at me.”

“I didn’t mean it.” Eve forced herself to look at Oksana, trying to show her that she was telling the truth.

Oksana briefly closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, and shook her head head. “I think you did.”

When she looked at Eve again her stare was penetrating. She was clearly trying hard to maintain a cool expression, holding strong to a lighthearted half-smile. But it looked fake and it wasn’t hard to notice the slight tremble to her lips or the pained look lingering behind her cool demeanor.

Eve didn’t respond, so Oksana continued, “And you’re right. I am manipulative. I manipulate people on purpose and I’m okay with that, Eve. That’s what made me especially angry. That you were right, at least about that. And that you said it like it was such a terrible thing.”

Eve studied her, trying and failing to read her. “Is that...is that what this is? You and I? You’re just manipulating me and I don’t even realize it?”

Oksana looked taken aback and a little horrified. “No. No, Eve, not at all. If that’s what I was doing, we would have slept together the first night we met. I wanted you to genuinely like me, by yourself.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you don’t think there’s anything wrong with manipulating people, so why not do it to me?”

Oksana shrugged and her eyes drifted across the room. She looked like she was having a hard time coming up with an answer. “I don’t think it’s wrong to use your skills to work people in order to get what you want. But it’s fake and I know it’s fake. It’s not as fun. I like when you come to me, when you beg me, when you tell me what you want. It wouldn’t be the same if I’d led you to those things. I like...attention. Real attention.”

Eve didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure what to say. Oksana leaned forward, looking at her in earnest.

“Do you believe that, Eve?”

Eve studied her face. “Yes,” she said finally. And she did believe it. Oksana nodded, clearly satisfied. Eve continued, “But that’s not the whole story. No one would have diagnosed you with those things just because you were a manipulative kid. And you’re not running around committing violent crimes and getting yourself involved in scandals and other trouble. Unless there’s a lot that I don’t know about.”

Oksana sighed. “No. Not now. I’ve come a long way, I’ve learned to control myself. But when I was younger...yeah, I behaved like that. I killed cats as a child, that’s cliche isn't it? I didn’t skin them, though, I dissected them. I liked black ones especially, something about the drama of it. I was a total kleptomaniac, I stole anything and everything I could get my hands on it. I was really good at it. I had all sorts of nice clothes and fancy jewelry as a teenager and lots of stupid, little toys when I was younger. Also snatched all my classmates pocket money and rock collections and whatever else they had in their pockets. I had a whole collection of wallets, for no good reason, just to have them and prove that I could.”

Oksana stopped and waited for Eve to say something, but Eve was busy processing and had no response, so eventually Oksana just continued. “I beat up kids on the playground, whenever someone said something nasty to me or was just annoying or whatever. I had a friend back then, or at least something close to a friend, and a kid broke this porcelain doll she had. So I broke his nose. No one really talked to me after that, including her. Supposedly they were scared of me. After my parents died, I set a house in town on fire. They never proved it was me, but I think everyone suspected. They sent me to the boarding school after that.”

Eve reacted to that, giving Oksana an only somewhat constrained look of horror.

Oksana immediately defended herself. “No one died! It was an old, empty house. They were about to tear it down, anyway. I really probably did them a favor.”

Eve stared at her and realized it was exactly one of the moments Oksana had been talking about, where she couldn’t entirely comprehend how Oksana could have just said what she said and truly believed it. But she really seemed to think there was nothing wrong with her statement.

“I...think they would disagree,” Eve told her. It was the only thing she could think to say.

Oksana shrugged. “Yes, they seemed to.”

Silence hung heavy in the air. Ultimately, it was Eve who broke the tension.

“But you said it’s not like that anymore?”

“No, not since boarding school.”

“What changed?”

“I wanted...some semblance of normality. I wanted what other people had. Well, something like it. I wanted more exciting than most people, but something close to normal. And I realized that if I wanted that I had to...act normal. Or at least try to.”

“And you just did? Overnight?”

“Kind of. For the big stuff, pretty much. It took a while to shake the stealing and anger outbursts. But basically, yeah. And I know I’m still manipulative, like I told you. But that’s fine.” Eve nodded. “You know, nothing in my head changed, though. I still think like that. I still…want those things. I just don’t act on them. I behave myself.”

Eve studied her fingernails. “Everyone has dark thoughts sometimes.”

Eve had dark thoughts sometimes.

“I suppose so”

“It’s your actions that matter.”

“I’d like to think that.”

The silence fell again and Eve plucked at a hangnail. It was an avalanche of information and she didn’t even know where to begin in regards to dealing with it.

“I...don’t really know why I’m telling you this, you’ll probably be done with me after hearing it.”

Eve jerked her head up to look at Oksana. “I have no desire to be done with you.”

Oksana met Eve’s gaze and allowed a small smile to form on her lips. “Are you sure about that? Because it would probably be the smart thing, you know.”

Eve shrugged her shoulders. “Well, you haven’t tried to kill me yet. You have taken a knife to me, but I liked that so if that’s a symptom of this then I guess I'll just have to be cool with it.”

Oksana grinned. “You know that it’s probably also evidence that you’re a bit fucked up yourself, right?”

Eve sighed. “Yes, probably.”

Oksana got up and came over to Eve’s seat, placing her hands on the armrests and leaning over her to whisper in her ear. “Do you want me to do it again?”

Eve’s pulse sped up instantly.

“Yes.” The answer didn’t take a second thought.

Oksana’s breath ghosted her neck, sending goosebumps across Eve’s skin.

“Hmm, well, unfortunately you’ll have to wait. But I’ll remember to bring something sharp in the future.”

And then, before Eve could respond, Oksana pushed herself away and headed for the door. She winked at Eve over her shoulder and left. Eve sat there in silence, far too flustered to even think about returning to her work.

————

Sitting in bed later that night, Eve drummed her fingers against her laptop and mulled things over in her mind. Eventually she opened up a browser tab and logged into the university’s journal article database. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment and then she typed in “functional psychopathy”. The search turned up 4,689 results.

The majority of them were in regards to functional neuroimaging of people with antisocial personality disorder or varying levels of psychopathic traits, but Eve eventually found one that got at what she was looking for: “Challenging the ‘urban myth’ of psychopathy untreatability”. She bit her tongue and opened it.

She skimmed the beginning and it told her much of what she already knew from her past work. The majority of the literature to date showed that there was no effective treatment. People with psychopathic traits, especially those that appeared in early childhood, did not get “better”, they did not improve. If anything, they got worse with time.

But the article was different than most of what she had read in the past. It challenged the validity of the old research and, not only that, it suggested that some sort of improvement could occur. Of course, it was reviewing a specific, very intensive treatment program. Oksana had done nothing of the sort, so Eve couldn’t really make a comparison - and maybe she was being naive to do so. But the description of the techniques used in the program had a striking resemblance to what Oksana had told her about the work she’d done to push herself in the direction of normalcy. At no point did the program ever try to change the thought processes of the people in the study; rather they simply taught them ways to control and change their behavior.

It was what Oksana had claimed she had successfully done. And, at least in that study, there was evidence that it was something that worked.

Eve saved the article and pushed her laptop to the side. She rolled over, wrapped her arms around her pillow, and closed her eyes. She fell asleep without turning off the lights and slept fitfully through the night, dreaming of Oksana holding a knife to her throat.

#killing eve fic #killing eve #killing eve au #killing eve ao3 #killing eve university au #killing eve teacher au #villanelle #Eve Polastri #oksana #eve x oksana #oksana astankova #eve x Villanelle #my posts #my fics

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