#felt like doing one for the PLP | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the2amrevolution · 1 year ago

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Because I can feel when pyridoxal phosphate helps and when it stops helping and I know my dosage and recorded how long I took it, I can math out my typical daily demand and use that plus the known storage rate to know when to stop taking it before testing homocysteine again.

Methylcobalamin I can't do that because there wasn't a clear feeling of it helping after starting and then not helping after stopping. I did notice that my sleep sweating and some hypnagogic parasomnia symptoms decreased but it was as definitely from the methylcobalamin as the changes felt from the PLP.

I wouldn't have to continuously suffer to this level while obtaining old MRI images, trying to get a new one ordered by the neurologist sleep specialist I'm supposed to be seeing (not his nurse practitioner - I'm too weird for NPs, sorry), and hopefully getting word about a free genetic test I applied for. I would just have to suffer for however long I calculate plus some buffer days.

Based on when I first had any symptoms to begin with, without the PLP issues, my methylcobalamin issue may have been mostly benign. My onset of symptoms lines up with how long it would take full PLP storage to deplete with a mild dietary deficiency, except the start date wasn't a diet change, it was the start of a medication which caused my dietary requirement to increase. Because PLP and methylcobalamin are like co-worker's on some of the same projects but different teams, having mild issues with both caused a bigger problem.

Also if our industrial fortification of foods with B6 was done with pyridoxal phosphate instead of pyridoxine hydrochloride, I probably would be fine. Or if I didn't also have sensory issues. Or if I didn't have ADHD. Or if I could digest fruit peels without pain. Or if I ate more meat.

When they talk about really specific, necessary conditions for something to happen and then they happen perfectly, that's me. Its not surprising doctors wouldn't figure it out. For one, I'm the only one who knows all my symptoms and their details and has the time to put towards my puzzle. I know all the variables, I just hadn't found ways they could all connect before.

But I also never would have found these lines if it hasn't been for researchers hypothesizing about a third, more common line parallel to methylcobalamin being the cause of me/cfs, hEDS, mcas, etc.

Well hell. Appointment went well, but still my labs still came back not as expected. I still have one that hasn't come back, but it one that should be in normal range, just low for me personally. Though, if it comes back low generally, then that will open another path to figuring out whats wrong. I just don't think it will.

I feel awful and continuing to not take my supplements until I'm in the ER or my February appointment to try testing again isn't really a good option.

This is, BTW, one of the reasons I want to look into developing safe, easy home testing methods for one of these tests. I would be able to test weekly until I'm 100% sure that its not being impacted by supplemented vitamins or stored supplemented vitamins.

I could resume everything except for the PLP and methylcobalamin and see how that goes until February.

I hate that I got covid because I wouldn't have taken the methylcobalamin at all if I hadn't, so thered be no skewed results. I also wish that testing just methylcobalamin level were possible outside of research studies.

This is so frustrating. I'm torturing myself trying to get lab results 100% because of the American insurance system. Having a list of symptoms that match my theory isn't good enough for insurance to cover genetic testing and it costs a cool $1k out of pocket. If I can't get an MRI that shows the charactistics, then out of pocket will be the only option. If I can get an MRI and it doesn't show the characteristic changes, then I have no idea whats going on and all I can do is take the supplements and hope I get better anyway.

The problem with that is that there's no way to then prove I was right and that it wasn't something else or a fluke, and thats not helpful to other people suffering similarly.

#my life #medicine #cfs/me #functional vitamin deficiency #me/cfs

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oceluna · 2 years ago

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Party limo posse edition to this post

#Cobra Kai #cobrakaiedit #me just remaking my old edits lol #felt like doing one for the PLP #the party limo posse #chozen toguchi #johnny lawrence #mike barnes #mike f*cking barnes #daniel's collection of karate rivals #ocelunagifs #ocelunaedit #william zabka #billy zabka #yuji okumoto #sean kanan #tw: flashing

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ask-asexual-crystal-gems · 2 years ago

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Let me tell you a little story. Back in the day, we used to have threads on the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network forums (A.V.E.N.) where we asked each other the question, “Do you consider yourself queer?”

About half of the answers were No. And this wasn’t just because we were at times shunned from queer spaces. We just didn’t consider ourselves queer, full stop. Even if you had given us a golden ticket pass directly into acceptance by the LGBT community.

Some felt no desire to even enter said spaces, or shrugged when they got there.

Some felt specifically uncomfortable because there was such a focus on sex/sexuality.

Now, people who were gnc or homoromantic obviously often said Yes. But that was usually separate from their identity as an ace spec or aro spec.

I’m similar. I have dithered for long periods of time over whether to identify as queer. I don’t view my ace identity as queer. I can construct an argument for it to be considered queer, based on the history of “queering,” which means deviation from norm. This of course, is how the term QueerPlatonic Relationship, qpr, is derived. And in that context, yes aro is explicitly queer. I will vehemently defend those who want to use aro or ace that way. But I will equally as vehemently defend those who want to self-determine, (as in, not allo people enforcing it) view ace and/or aro as a separate issue altogether, who don’t feel totally fitting with allo people, queer or not.

I’m non-binary like that.

Language is a construct.

Language can be ambiguous, have different associations in different subcultures, mean one thing to one person and another to another person.

Language itself is inherently non-binary, non-black-and-white.

I identified as totally agender for a long time (enby identities are common among aces). Now I understand myself as “most of the time agender/enby but leaning transmasc” kind of genderfluidity. I find that even though transmasc is the word that the culture has settled on that got nearest to describing me, so I am sort of obligated to have it because of usefulness, I do not quite vibe with “trans,” neither as this- nor as an umbrella term, but prefer “gnc” as the collective name for non-sexuality queerness.

LGBG, as it were.

Now, GSRM or MOGAI are obviously better, let’s note. Less awkward, less hierarchical/seniority-centered, more bases covered.

But this still causes problems for me in particular. I believe that most people would be agender or bigender or non-binary, absent heavily gendered social conditioning. So that “M” in GSRM suddenly isn’t numerically accurate for norms in a post-gender society of the future. I think binary homo (mono-sexuality) as in gay, lesbian, will always the sexuality minority, but have strong suspicions that bi (or multi- or whatever else you prefer) would be the majority (or mathematical norm, if you will) if heteronormativity were absent as well.

Especially if you included other types of attraction other than romo- or amato- attraction, as well you should.

Been thinking about “oriented aro/ace” and its implications to allocishets as of late:

In a post allohet society, I think most people would recognize and more deeply venerate the fact they had strong platonic (and possibly, even more subtle demi) attraction to the same-sex or same-gender alongside their more flashy het attractions.

(Ironically, similar sentiments lead to things like people objecting that demi “is normal” and shouldn’t be considered an identity in itself, for those who don’t experience primary attraction. Said people sometimes fit the description of demi themselves, just won’t accept the label. Demi could be quite common, and it’s not lesser, it doesn’t lose uniqueness points or something, for being a larger presence)

In this post society, relationships, including QPRs and PLPs and/or marriages on that basis- more than already happen- would form. People like those who have realized, oh yeah, I’m still falling in love with xyz people, but this friend is the one or ‘also-someone’ I want to commit to.

But even for romo, humans are extremely good at deflecting and repressing.

(Romance is in itself a construct. You especially tend to see this come into focus in aro discussion groups, trying to figure out what it even is and what parts comprise it.)

The way I think, as it’s typically used, “queer” is not a minority at all, but a label that emerged to designate itself as a reality beyond cis-het normative societal structures.

Had we never developed the allo-cis-het-patriarchal conditioning nexus, queer would not exist.

In other words, “queer” is born out of this presence, in reactionary fashion.

Now, for the present? That isn’t a problem. It’s useful, it’s linguistically sound, probably necessary, depending on how you define “necessity.”

But I look forward to a day when the word “queer” loses all its current cultural meaning and power, because it’s just ... entirely ordinary. No different from saying you have brown eyes. Even if minorities stayed at levels they are.

Once that has eroded, the “queering” of norms is complete, and with the norms gone, ironically “queer” ceases to be.

Now if we defined “queer” as what appear to be true minorities? That’s an entirely different question. One that I’m not gonna do any more of a deep dive on atm.

I don’t personally believe those parts make me an outlier. Aro? Aplatonic? Most definitely. The aspects of me, as in my gender, that are “queer” as it’s used in ace-exclusionary meaning? Nah. If I were binary trans? Yeah, probably. But all the rest, masc and femme and everything in between, I think those are the normal human experience. To quote someone somewhere on the topic, “Most human beings aren’t Barbie or G.I. Joe.”

Those gender spectrums are just ...... not queer, to my mind.

Regardless of chosen definition, I don’t and have never centralized “queer” in my identity even though it’s a nice shorthand, especially in- ahem- queer spaces.

Some textbook-definition lgbtq choose not to use the word for non-slur-related reasons. Just because they don’t vibe with it.

To be perfectly honest, I have passions and hyperfixations that are worlds more important to my identity than my gender or my sexuality. Is that because agender inherently means (to me personally!) that I’m not hung up on gender, and being gray ace (to me) means I’m not hung up on sexuality? Maybe! Idk. Either way, it’s how I think.

It is not very important to me that people of any walk of life see me as queer.

I’m just me, doing my thing, any word you apply to me is incidental.

So am I queer? Depending on context, yes or no. I’m non-binary like that.

#asexual #lgbt #asexuality #aromantic #aromanticism #asexual spectrum #transgender #lgbtqia #pride month #queer #discourse #queer platonic relationship #platonic life partners #PLP

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dreamescapeswriting · 4 years ago

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BTS Reaction | You’re Tall [Request]

A/N: 170 cm - 172 cm = 5.6ft - 5.7ft according to google and I’m actually jealous that you all get height please share [BTS X Fem!Reader]

Seokjin:

Jin loved the fact that you were quite tall, you were still a couple of inches shorter than him and he teased you for it but he loved that you were a little taller than usual.

"You could be a model you know," He said one night as you were getting ready to get into bed. You scoffed at him and rolled your eyes playfully,

"Models have to be between 5''9 and 6''3," You knew that because you'd looked into it when you were a kid, you used to get teased all of the time for being tall but now you loved it. You didn't have to rely on people to get things for you and if you wore heels you felt like a powerful Amazonian who didn't need anybody to do anything for her.

"I'm just saying, watching you walk up and down a runway would be hot." You laughed at him before crawling into the bed and leaving a small kiss on his lips.

"I'll put on my own catwalk show for you tomorrow Jin," You whispered before laying your head down on his chest, his arm wrapped around you like it always did when you got into bed together and he hummed.

"I'll join in, we'll be the best looking model couple of the year...Of all time." He corrected himself smirking as he thought of the idea, he turned to see what you thought but you were already out cold in his

Yoongi:

Yoongi would never tell you that he wished he could be a little taller than he was, whenever he was with you he felt a little insecure about his height. It was never normally a big deal since he was 5''9 but he just wished he could be a little taller than you were. You were 5''6 so there wasn't that much difference between you,

"Red or black?" You called out as you walked into the living room in heels, one red shoe on one foot and a black on the other. He stared at you while all the boys shouted out which one looked better on you but he stayed silent.

"No heels." You rolled your eyes at him, you'd been through this a bunch of times with him. He was positive you weren't going to wear heels around him because he still wanted to seem like the taller boyfriend type,

"Baby it's one night." You whined out while the boys all teased him on why you weren't allowed to wear them,

"Please babe. You promised." He whispered as he followed you back to your shared bedroom,

"They're not even that big, just a couple inches taller. I'll be the same height as you-" You knew this was going to be a losing battle and you weren't going to get your way no matter what you said or did to make him feel better about it.

"Fine I'll wear vans." He kissed your lips and went back out to the boys who were still teasing him.

Hoseok:

You stared at Hoseok as you knew what he was going to do before he'd even opened his mouth to say something to you,

"Don't even do it," You warned him as you stared at him while you waited for him to do it anyway. Jimin looked between you both, he was confused as to what was going on and then he looked at you. You'd worn heels for the first time in months and he was a little surprised, the last time you wore heels you were teased relentlessly by Hoseok.

"Hows the-"

"I mean it Hoseok if you finish that sentence you're sleeping on the sofa." He thought about it for a couple of more seconds trying to determine if it was worth it for the one comment he'd been dying to make all day.

"How's the weather up there?" You stared at him blankly and without saying a word you kicked off the heels and walked away from him, leaving him and Jimin in the dance studio alone while you went to find one of the other boys to talk to instead.

"BABY I DIDN'T MEAN IT!" You ignored him as you got into the elevator and pressed the button to close the door quickly so he wouldn't be able to follow you. You could give him the silent treatment for a while just to torment him since he always made those jokes whenever he got the chance to.

Namjoon:

"Y/N! QUICK!" You ran through the hallway of your apartment clutching the towel around your body as you made it into the kitchen,

"What?! Where's the fire?! What's wrong?!" You asked in a blind panic, the way your boyfriend was screaming for your help you assumed he'd either set the house on fire or that he'd hurt himself while he was in the kitchen,

"I need you to get the sewing box down." You stared at him from across the room, your hair was dripping water all over the floor and the towel was bunching up in your hands as you tried to stop it from slipping down from around your body.

"Are you actually joking?" He smirked at you knowing that you'd just rushed around thinking there was something seriously wrong,

"I can't reach," He faked a pout and you gawked at him thinking about whether or not you could leave him over something so minor.

"You're still taller than me you know," You mumbled at him going over to the fridge and reaching for the sewing box that was sitting on top.

"Yeah but I love it when you get things for me," You rolled your eyes at him as he tried to cuddle up to you from behind to make up for dragging you out of your - what was - a relaxing shower.

Jimin:

Everyone expected Jimin to be super insecure about the fact that you were 5''6 but he wasn't. There was only two inches between you but he used it to his advantage, always offering to reach for things for you or leaning on you and calling you his 'PLP',

"My little PLP," He cooed as he squeezed your cheek, you let him get away with it since it wasn't often that he got to be quite tall and you loved how happy it made him to be able to tease you.

"PLP?" Namjoon questioned when he heard Jimin call you it that morning,

"Personal Leaning post," He smiled turning to look at Namjoon who was now sniggering,

"So what you are to Jungkook." That was the last time he ever called you his PLP and he never leant on you again in front of the boys, you missed it though and you asked him to call you it whenever you were alone together. You wanted to see him as happy as he was before even if it was only a couple of inches between you both.

"It's cute when you call me it," He shook his head leaning his head on your shoulder as you watched the movie on the TV together.

Taehyung:

You'd always been bullied for being the tallest one of your friendship group, it always started out as small jokes that you went along with but then it slowly developed into them teasing you all of the time and making harsh jokes about it eventually leading you to feel insecure about it.

"It's not even that tall," You whimpered to Taehyung as he stroked your back. You were laying on the bed with your head in his lap, you'd just gotten home from a day trip around the mall with friends and it had been a day full of teasing. You knew they were only joking but it was starting to hurt a lot more than you thought they wanted it to.

"I know baby, there's nothing wrong either. I think it makes you hotter." Taehyung was trying to make you feel better but he knew nothing was going to work right now and you were going to be upset no matter what.

"I just wish they knew that it hurts after a wall, they called me the BFG today." He groaned wanting nothing more than to talk to them about it but you wouldn't let him, you knew it would do more harm than good and they'd just defensive about it.

"Want me to order your favourite food and cuddle all night?" He offered,

"You have a late practice with Hoseok," You reminded him but he shook his head promising you that you were worth cancelling it for.

Jungkook:

Jungkook saw your height as the perfect opportunity to tease Yoongi and Jimin more. It was more Jimin than Yoongi that he teased though since Yoongi was still 3 inches taller than you,

"Jimin can you just reach- Oh never mind. Y/n will you get the cookie jar for me?" You looked over at Jimin who seemed to be getting really annoyed by the constant teasing so you got up from the sofa and grabbed the jar from inside the kitchen. Jungkook held out his hands expecting you to go right to him but you turned away and walked over to Jimin, sitting beside him and opening the jar.

"If you call Jimin short you're basically calling me shorter." You said as you took out the last of Jungkook's favourite cookies and handed it to Jimin who smirked as he bit into it.

"But you're tall, Jimin's just abnormally short for a guy." You faked a gasp and pulled Jimin's head to rest on your shoulder, babying him like you would if you had a child and he was being bullied by his father.

"Don't listen to him, he's just abnormally tall." You cooed squeezing Jimin's cheeks as you both ate cookies in front of Jungkook who turned away to sit and pout.

Tagline:

@writingdreamsnottragedies @snowy-meowl @jooniesdarlingdimples @lyoongx @fan-ati--c @mitzwinchester @callingmyangel @rjsmochii @btsiguess-kpop @kneel-begyourpardon @taestannie @supresoo

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sideblogformindtrash · 4 years ago

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You wrote "One day Haru will realize just how easily he can manipulate Orfeu and use it for evil pourposes" at the end of the sick Orfeu post, could you write something on Haru doing just that? 🥺

I don’t think Haru actually has any evil intention to be honest. At least not at the moment. But have him being selfish :3

Haru knows this is wrong. He knows he is being such a bad pet. And he knows that later he will be very ashamed of himself, he will… He will maybe confess and beg for punishment.

But now… now he wants to stay and see the pretty woman singing. Even after Master Orfeu has been so patient and kind the whole day… He wants more. He hits the sides of his own head, trying to shake of the feeling.

‘Please Master. Please. Please. Pet promises it will be very good and repay Master in the future and deserve it. Pet promises. Please’ he hands Master the note again. Master sighs, passing the hand over his own face.

“…No Haru. We need to go home. I can’t be late today, okay? It’s… It’s important” Orfeu says, weakly pulling him “Besides… What if it starts raining? You see how dark it is getting”

He only whimpers in response and tugs Master’s sleeve again. He doesn’t want to think of the rain and… And he doesn’t want to go! He wants to see the woman singing!

They had enjoyed such a nice day already, on a beautiful park that had a lake and and ducks! Also he got sweets from sellers and watched a show of magic! And…. And one of… stand up comedy? People liked that but he didn’t understand anything. Maybe because he was a pet. Master didn’t seem too into it either, safe for one or two giggles though so he tried not to think too much or his head world hurt.

But he wanted to see the music. It was important… So important. What Master wanted… Was probably more important. But he couldn’t bring himself to let this one pass.

And he knew how to charm Master.

It wasn’t something he did often… Not intentionally. Because he wanted to be good and a pet that tried to trick his Master was really really bad but… But he- he wanted it! He hit his head again. He had no right to want anything –

Master held his hands, softly.

“Please don’t hit yourself dear… Okay?”

He lifted his eyes, big and blue. Pleading expression, he was good at it. He bit his lower lip, twisting the fabric in his hand. He let a little tear start to form. Crying was… natural. Easy for him. He usually did it because he absolutely couldn’t avoid but now… he was okay. He just… wanted this so much!

“I’m sorry Haru, We really can’t. It’s a no” Master says, watching his expression.

He whines a bit. People around them seem to find this interaction all wrong and weird, and their gazes make him shiver… Master doesn’t seem to care one bit. Every time someone looked weird, Master Orfeu would give them the most deadly gaze he had ever seen, standing over him like a huge bear protecting its cub. So he felt safe. But now it was worse, because Master was focused only on him…

But it made easier to cry. Pet. Bad bad pet.

“Haru… please. We need to go…”

He pulls Master one more time. Okay. He could still… beg. So many offenses to be punished for later… But he could beg and he knew what begging worked! He nuzzled Master’s chest and breathed hard.

“p-plp-please…”

Master scratched behind his ear. It felt nice, so he closed his eyes for a moment… But no, if he showed Master that he was okay than Master wouldn’t oblige. He had to keep trying.

“p-p-le-a“ he couldn’t complete it, it was so difficult still… although… so much better than before it seemed “p-‘please. Please. M-m-master”

Master’s eye shine. He sighs, cupping his face and kissing his forehead.

“I’m sorry darling… We can’t…” His voice is trembling now. Master is… is considering it!

…More warm tears, big glacial eyes. Tears… soft sobbing. Master sighs again, finally convinced.

“…fine. But just a little bit okay?”

He nods happily, hugging Master tight and giving him his best smile. And of course they end up staying until the end of the show. And of course, it starts to rain, and Master has to find a way to carry him home dealing with all his fears and cries, delaying them even more. He curls up near Master’s bed, and Master pets him until he sleeps.

He doesn’t notice that Master now has to leave the house again, in the middle of the night and now getting drenched by the storm.

#ask #orfeu and haru

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capricorn-truths · 4 years ago

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Good morning!!

Related to the ask about being picky:

So [☀ capricorn, 🌙 Virgo, ⬆️ Leo] I'm curious if that's reason I compare my feelings to that "one that got away"?

... And could being picky be the reason NOTHING feels right lately? I feel like it'd be nice to make that first step, but motivation and the rest of life just seems so... Blah right now regardless...

Honestly, we all do it. We have an automated ranking system where we validate our feelings through logical thought

"It felt like this last time, it must be real" or "It felt better last time, this probably wont last".

We shoot ourselves in the foot this way because every relationship is different and this is because I be we meet plp for a reason. If your head is stuck in the past, your not really goving your present a chance. Theres a reason why that person is in the past. We do not rinse and repeat.

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sml8180 · 5 years ago

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Long Overdue Upgrades

This turned out WAY longer than I intended, and I have no regrets. Have some Cyborg!Eric, courtesy of a friend on one of the Discord servers I’m a part of.

Also, just a heads up for some medical unpleasantness, seeing as topics such as surgery are brought up.

Long Overdue Upgrades

One of the first things Google, Bing, and the extensions had noticed when they first met Eric Derekson was the fact that he had two prosthetic legs. Over time, they came to learn that he had lost his legs in the same crash that had snuffed out the lives of his brothers. It became clear early on that the prosthetics were on the cheap end, and likely weren’t fitted properly, going by how great of a parent Derek was. So, the androids all came together and got to work, even bringing Dr. Iplier and Dr. Schneeplestein into their plan.

It took them weeks of working practically non-stop, with all hands on deck. The work was frustrating, but it started to pay off when things finally started to come together and function properly. Every time the androids saw Eric walking around the manor, in the living area on the couch, or in Dr. Iplier’s office, likely dealing with the lingering phantom pain in his legs or the complications resulting from years of wearing ill-fitting prosthetics, it only served to act as fuel to their fire.

Finally, the androids all finished their work, and Bing went to find Eric while Dr. Iplier called Dr. Schneeplestein to come and lend an extra set of hands.

“Hey, little dude,” Bing addressed, finding Eric reading a book in the living area.

“Hm?” Eric hummed in question, looking up from his book towards the android. “What’s up, Bing?”

“I’ve got something to show you, come on,” Bing answered, hardly waiting for Eric to mark his page before he was starting to practically pull him along by the hand.

Eric allowed the android to lead him to the office he shared with Google and his extensions. He shut his eyes when they got to the door, as Bing requested it of him, and let the older Ego usher him inside with his hands on his shoulders. The younger Ego could hear some shuffling and whispers, though he couldn’t tell how many people were in the room.

“Okay, kid, open your eyes,” Bing requested. As Eric did as he was instructed, he let out a gasp, covering his mouth with his hand as he spotted Google, the extensions, Dr. Iplier, and Dr. Schneeplestein all standing by one of the work tables, upon which sat a pair of white lower legs. It was clear to him what exactly they were for.

“You guys… You m-made me new legs?” Eric stammered in disbelief, stepping forward to run his fingertips over the smooth surface of one of the legs.

“We did,” Google piped up. “You deserve far better than the cheap prosthetics your father provided to you. This set is one of a kind, made with similar materials and technology that makes up Bing, the extensions, and myself.”

“Ja!” Henrik interjected. “You vill have full natural mobility, and even be able to feel changes in temperature and touch, should all go according to plan.”

“A-according to plan?”

“Well, with how advanced these are,” Dr. Iplier began, “You will need to go through an operation for things to work properly. There is a set of cuffs that connect to the top portions of the legs, which will allow for sensation and natural movement. In theory, this could also help to manage your PLP.”

“Y-you really think s-s-so?” Eric was practically vibrating with excitement, at this point, especially as Dr. Iplier nodded in response to his question. “Um… What will the surgery involve…?”

Dr. Iplier picked up his tablet, which had been sitting on the table, and came over to Eric with it, tapping at the screen, with Henrik following behind him. “Basically, we’ll be going in and exposing the main nerve endings, neatening up the stump and smoothing the bone out a bit,” Dr. Iplier explained.

“From there,” Henrik jumped in, “Ve vill be making the primary connections between your nerves and the connecting cuffs. Once all connections are made, ze cuffs vill be set in place vith a handful of plates and screws, and your legs vill be wrapped up to heal.”

“It’ll take some time before you’ll be up and walking, but it’ll be worth it,” Dr. Iplier added.

“Okay… When will we do it…?”

“Well, Dark can easily arrange things so you have time off, seeing as you work for Wil and the twins. If you really wanted, we could go through with it tomorrow, so long as you think you can fast tonight,” Dr Iplier answered.

“I’d like that,” Eric confirmed, giving the doctor a little smile.

The rest of the day seemed to go by in a blurr for Eric, joy and excitement filling his heart. Night seemed to come quickly, and it went by just as fast. Soon, Eric was being lead to Dr. Iplier’s office within the manor by the doctor himself. He changed into a hospital gown and lay on the bed, while Dr. Iplier took his vitals. Google came in during this time, bringing the connecting cuffs for Eric’s legs with him, with Red and Green following him, and Henrik arrived not long after, speaking in a rapid-fire mix of English, German, and medical jargon with Dr. Iplier as he set aside his coat and got ready to scrub up for the operation.

“Alright, Eric,” Dr. Iplier addressed as he finished getting the IV into the young Ego’s arm. “I’m going to put the oxygen mask on you, and then I want you to count backwards from 50 for me. You don’t have to count out loud, I just want you to do it.”

“Okay,” Eric confirmed, lifting his head a bit and letting Dr. Iplier put the mask over his nose and mouth, starting to count backwards as he let his head rest on the pillow again.

50… 49… 48…

He was starting to feel tired, now, like he’d had a long day at work.

47… 46… 45…

His eyelids were starting to feel heavy, and his head was cloudy.

44… 43…

He was out cold.

The doctors, Google, Red, and Green were able to get to work. Green kept an eye on Eric’s vital signs as the others did what they needed to do. Red and Google make sure that the doctors had whatever they needed when they needed it, and the two doctors worked on Eric’s legs. They worked for hours, neatening up the ends of Eric’s natural legs, getting the framework needed to fix the cuffs in place where it needed to be, smoothing out the end of the bone. Once one leg was ready for the cuff, the doctors shifted positions, letting Google work on getting the cuff connected how it needed to be - he was more precise than any doctor could ever be, after all - and began to work on Eric’s other leg. Dr. Iplier followed Henrik’s lead when it came to the operation, seeing as he was the surgeon in the room. By late afternoon, they had finally finished, and wrapped up Eric’s legs so that he could recover.

When Eric woke up, it felt like he was waking up from a long nap. He blinked, groaning softly as he tried to recall where he was.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he heard a soft voice joke, followed by a quiet chuckle. Eric looked to his right, and smiled tiredly as he spotted Illinois by his side.

“Hey…” came his own soft reply, as he was still waking up.

Illinois smiled, lightly petting Eric’s hair. “Doc and Henrik say things went smoothly; Henrik said that this might’ve been the smoothest operation he’s done in a while.”

“That’s good,” Eric responded with a giggle.

Dr. Iplier approached the bed, hearing Illinois and Eric speaking. “Hey, there he is, awake and alert.”

“Hm…?”

“Well, awake, at least,” the doctor chuckled. He checked over a few things on the monitor beside Eric, and nodded to himself. “Everything’s stable. How’re you feeling, Eric?”

“Tired, kinda, um, kinda sore…” Eric muttered. His words were followed by a rumble coming from his stomach. “And hungry…”

“I’ll get you some soup or something, okay?” Illinois offered. With a nod from Eric, he placed a kiss on the tired Ego’s forehead and went to get him some food.

“Let’s sit you up,” Dr. Iplier dictated, helping Eric to sit up, propped up by a couple of pillows. “I think things are going to work out just fine, kid.”

Weeks went by with Eric recovering from the operation. He was sore and tired for the first three weeks or so, as Dr. Iplier kept him on painkillers, which he slowly weaned off of. Each time Dr. Iplier checked his legs, they seemed to be looking better and better. Illinois helped however he could; all the Egos did, really. Eric didn’t mind the time the healing process took - though he occasionally gave a small protest towards the others fussing over him - it was all leading up to the day he’d be able to start learning to walk with his new legs.

Finally, finally, Dr. Iplier and Dr. Schneeplestein gave Eric the green light to work with Google, Bing, and the extensions in order to get back on his feet. Illinois brought him to the Google office, carrying him in his arms (mostly just because Eric had asked him to, and he enjoyed carrying Eric, anyways), and the pair were greeted by Bing, who quickly ushered them inside. He had Illinois set Eric down on the surface of one of the work tables, and looked over the site where Eric’s legs met the cuffs.

“Okay, so, Doc gave us the green light to go ahead, this looks way better than we’d expected, and now is the time to get hyped,” Bing rambled, looking over Eric’s legs.

“What is going to happen,” Google interjected, cutting off Bing’s quick rambling. “Is that we’re going to connect the legs in two stages. First the primary connection, which is intended to keep the prosthetics in place and allow for movement, then the nerve connections, which will allow signals from the sensors to be transmitted to the brain,” he informed the younger Ego, watching as he nodded. “I will warn you now, Eric, that the nerve connection process will most likely be extremely painful. That is part of why we are doing this now, while Dr. Iplier still has you on some dosage of painkillers.”

“There… There isn’t another way…?” Eric questioned, wringing his yellow handkerchief in his hands.

“Not if you want to have any feeling in your legs,” Google answered bluntly. “The pain won’t last for long, if our calculations are correct.”

“Yeah!” Oliver chimed in, his chipper voice cutting off the level, serious drone of the main unit. “If we’re right, you’ll have a spike of pain right when we do it, but then it’ll dull down after a moment. It might be annoying for a bit, but that’ll mostly just be your body adjusting to everything.”

“O-okay…” Eric confirmed, taking a slow breath to try to steady his thoughts.

“You ready, little dude?” Bing asked, setting a hand on Eric’s shoulder.

“As I’ll ever be…” Eric answered.

The androids made quick work of making the primary connections, making sure to have Eric test the mobility of the ankle and toe joints as they went. Bing then moved behind him, resting one hand on the younger Ego’s left shoulder, taking hold of his left hand. Illinois took up a similar position on Eric’s right, while Green and Oliver positioned themselves at his legs to prevent any movement while Google and Red got ready to make the nerve connections.

“This is the part where it’s going to hurt, Eric,” Google informed him. “Brace yourself; we’ll connect both of them on the count of three.”

“Okay…” Eric responded, taking a deep breath as he turned his head towards Illinois, doing his best to brace himself for what he knew was going to happen.

“One… Two… Three!”

Eric couldn’t tell who had made the count. All he knew was that it hurt like Hell when the nerve connections were made. He let out a yell - practically screaming - as he tightly gripped Illinois and Oliver’s hands, tears welling up in his eyes and slipping down his cheeks. The connection burned and stung and felt like pins and needles in the worst way. It seemed to last for ages before he finally began to pull himself together, breathing heavily and paying no mind to the tears still rolling down his cheeks.

“It’s okay, you’re okay…” Eric could hear Illinois whispering reassurances in his ear, and he could feel the man rubbing his back.

“Connection complete, went off without a hitch,” Red stated, making a couple of notes for future reference.

“We will have to wait a couple of days for your body to adjust to the connection,” Google told Eric. “Then we’ll be able to make the adjustments so that you can feel things properly and possibly start walking again. For now, though, you should get some rest.”

That was all Eric needed to hear as he felt Illinois pick him up and carry him out of the office. The man was asleep before he was even set on his bed.

The next couple of days brought slow relief to Eric’s pain. His nerves were starting to calm, and though he was still sore, he was in far less pain than he was originally. He was feeling better with each passing day, and it only served to improve his mood even further. A couple of weeks went by of Eric continuing to recover, slowly making progress as he got used to having actual feeling in his legs for the first time in so long.

“You’ve been making great progress, dude,” Bing praised, ruffling Eric’s hair as the younger Ego sat in the Google office. “Think you’re ready to try walking on your own?”

“I think so,” Eric nodded. He’d been looking forward to walking without any sort of support from crutches or a cane or another person since this all started.

“We’ll help you down, then,” Oliver offered, coming to Eric’s left, while Bing shifted to his right.

“What’re you all up to in here?” Illinois questioned, coming to the doorway of the office.

“You’ll see in a minute! Stay there!” Eric excitedly told Illi, as Oliver and Bing helped him down from his spot on the table.

“Okay, okay. I’ll stay here,” Illi chuckled, leaning against the doorframe.

Eric stood upright, getting his balance before taking a hesitant step forward. Another step, this time a bit more certain, drew forth a fit of happy giggles from him, and he made his way towards Illinois. The adventurer straightened up, beaming as Eric walked towards him; it was the first time he’d walked without support since his operation was done. He caught Eric when he stumbled on the last step towards him, lifting him up in a hug and kissing him, beaming.

Google and Bing watched the pair, unable to hide their own smiles as they did. It seemed they had done well, and Eric’s life would only get even better as time went on, thanks to these long overdue upgrades.

#Markiplier Egos #Eric Derekson #Bingiplier #Googleplier #Dr. Iplier #AHWM Illinois #tw: medical unpleasantness #tw: surgery #Cyborg!Eric #chronic pain #Derek was a bad parent #long post

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offwithmyhead · 2 years ago

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Archon Quest spoilers

I wanted Nahida to be recognized and respected, but not at this cost... I really wish that at least Paimon remembered...

Oh well, I guess that 1) Nahida is still a child and having a Impostor Syndrome would be too much for her 2) every single Archon’s quest has to break my heart a little bit. Yes, even Venti’s as I was firmly believing that gods will remain gods in this world and whoa, it was a shock.

Fatui are equal to gods, at least the upper ranks... and they surely know A LOT. Like, more than God of Wisdom. Niiiice. Tsaritza really took care of her plp, they shine in contrast of rest of this world.

Plot hole- if Nahida can connect with Traveler’s mind so well, shouldn’t she learn about Greater Lord Whatshername? Have I missed smth?

Dottore was niiiice, I like Cyno much more (almost regret I didn’t pull for him- but couldn’t with Psycho Husband coming so soon), Alhaitham on the other hand... well, he has nice voice and hot roomate. It’s just too “and there is only one bed” situation to not to ship them together.

I really wish they didn’t go with “Nilou is now famous, the biggest star in Sumeru”. We already have a famous performer (Yu Jin) and it is a little bit repetitive. I liked how she was a humble dancer, cherished by few, but still happy about it.

So Fontaine is polluted (one NPC says that air is v v unhealthy there). That’s sad, I was hoping for a nice place.

To sum up: the first part of the quest was awesome, Dottore was a really formidable foe. I do not like Scaramouche, so he felt like extra there, without him could get more scenes with Dottore. Oh well. The highlight of 2nd part was in my opinion Cyno and D... Daehya.

#genshin spoilers #sumeru spoilers

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quality-ghost · 3 years ago

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Anyway i dont have too much to talk abt but i feel like one of the very few people who actually likes pally lol. Idk i actually enjoy her outfits (she is the representative of plp after all. Only complaint is that i think her halloween outfit could be more. Halloweeny. Like those devil horns n tail in the mocharia pack would be so cute!) and she just gives me very positive vibes. I kinda wanted her in as a customer for a while - amii

I like Pally as a concept just not as an execution, but I do understand why some people like her! even if she felt a little mixed up, she still had a real fun concept. I'm not a Pally defender but I am a Pally fan defender

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xoxavery · 4 years ago

Note

noticed i make a lot of female plp characters... honestly its just easier to make girl characters for me. honestly i have like... 3 male characters? two from the baseball minigame and one i made a while ago bc i felt like making a dude in a dress. oh yeah that one white and red astronaut too. - amii

Yeah what r u sexist 🙄 jk lol, it is easier to design gals 🗿 I’ve noticed u do a lot of characters with hats. Not a complaint just an observation

#Asks

0 notes

uk-news-talking-politics · 4 years ago

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The Corbyn-era autopsy proves that the 2019 election was a disaster waiting to happen

By Dorian Lynskey

On March 1st 2017, the week after Labour lost the Copeland by-election, Owen Jones published a column in the Guardian with the headline: 'Jeremy Corbyn says he's staying. That's not good enough.' More in sorrow than in anger, Jones voiced what he had been saying in private for months: if Corbyn could not turn the party's fortunes around, he should step down and allow a younger left-wing MP inherit what insiders called 'the Project'.

"If Labour loses the next election a rightwing Tory government, infused with an increasingly xenophobic and authoritarian brand of populism, will have a whopping, unassailable majority," Jones warned. "Corbyn will certainly resign. The left will be blamed for breaking the Labour party. Several leftwing MPs will lose their seats. The remaining MPs will certainly not nominate any candidate on the left. The party will hurtle off to the right."

That scenario was largely correct, but about 2019, not 2017. In the short-term, Corbyn defied received wisdom to lead Labour to 40% of the vote, a swing of historic proportions. The day after that result, Jones wrote a very different column, combining triumphalism with repentance and a dab of blame-shifting: "I wasn't a bit wrong, or slightly wrong, or mostly wrong, but totally wrong. Having one foot in the Labour movement and one in the mainstream media undoubtedly left me more susceptible to their groupthink. Never again." From now on, he would only err in the opposite direction.

Jones was not alone. Corbyn may have lost the election but he won a resounding victory over the media and Corbynsceptic Labour MPs, and he adopted the traditional victor’s attitude towards compromise. Talk of replacing him, whether from critical friends or sworn enemies, died the moment the exit poll came out.

He dismissed advice to tame his doubters by welcoming the more amenable back into the shadow Cabinet and rejected a plan to work on a soft(ish) Brexit deal with a humiliated Theresa May. At Glastonbury, he received a hero's welcome which felt bizarre to me at the time - although I was stuck behind a tree so perhaps I missed the full effect - and now looks like the definition of hubris.

Perhaps it's hindsight talking, but James Schneider, Corbyn’s director of strategic communications, claims to remember worrying about what the coming period of cultural polarisation and parliamentary trench warfare over Brexit would do to the leader's movement politics. "Fucking hell," he said, "we are done for."” The Project's doom was not averted, merely postponed.

Left Out and This Land are fundamentally the same story told from different angles. Though young, Pogrund and Maguire are impartial hacks of the old school (for the Sunday Times and Times respectively), who provide the same ultra-detailed, in-the-room storytelling as Tim Shipman. We learn perhaps too much, for instance, about the catering skills of Change UK's Gavin Shuker. Jones, a left-wing celebrity and lightning rod, was by his own admission both observer and participant: a Guardian columnist so close to the Project from day one that he was offered a job in Corbyn's office.

Perhaps surprisingly, and to the credit of all three authors, their accounts usually concur, often right down to specific sources and anecdotes. That's reassuring, though the story itself is traumatic. "I've never been involved in anything so unpleasant and bitter in my whole life," Corbyn ally Andy McDonald says of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meetings following Corbyn's ascent to the leadership. Four years later, Tom Watson was confiding to Peter Mandelson that his job as deputy leader felt like swimming through a "terrible swamp".

While it is hard to square some of Jones' columns at the time with what he clearly knew was happening behind the scenes, his candour is better late than never. Left Out, by opening with the 2017 election result, is all fall and no rise. Jones, on the other hand, starts by whizzing through the left's wilderness years, from the rise of neoliberalism in the late 1970s through the humbling of Tony Benn in 1981 and the triumph of New Labour in 1997, to the unexpected window of opportunity opened by the failure of Ed Miliband's vacillations and the swelling of protest movements such as UK Uncut. Even in his insider account of Corbyn’s 2015 leadership campaign, though, there are ominous signs: John McDonnell advises the candidate not to risk the left being "annihilated". Adviser Cat Smith asks him: "Do you want this?"

Now there's a question neither book can answer. Corbyn was the 200-1 longshot with no leadership experience and, it transpired, no capacity to grow into the role. If he did actually want to be prime minister, then he certainly didn't want to do what it took. The inherent problem with maverick anti-politicians, on both left and right, is that they tend to be bad at politics. Corbyn's myriad weaknesses came to include his strengths: personal loyalty and a distaste for confrontation are admirable in many jobs but not that of a party leader.

"His office was a shambles," a former shadow Cabinet member tells Jones. "And it was a shambles because of his personality: he just doesn't know how to say no." In one of Left Out's most tragicomic scenes, Seumas Milne, Karie Murphy and Andrew Fisher — described by Clive Lewis as Corbyn's "triumvirate" —fight over what exactly he means while the man himself sits there quietly, like a bad riddle.

Even Jones bemoans Corbyn's "mulish" intransigence, sloppiness, peevish impatience with the media, simplistic anti-imperialism and inability to strategise. The extreme hostility that greeted Corbyn in 2015 — from most of the media and the PLP, and a venomous clique of old-guard staffers — fostered a siege mentality that further guaranteed bad decision-making. He had innumerable enemies, for sure, but he gave them so much ammunition. It only got worse. By the summer of 2019, he was passive-aggressive, grumpy and exhausted. Aides feared that he was experiencing a nervous breakdown.

Lest you find Corbyn too pitiable, remember that the one issue on which he took a resolute stand was antisemitism, where his judgement was shamefully poor. When even loyalists were begging him to apologise, his wife Laura Alvarez and a "kitchen cabinet" of Jewish socialists in the safe space of Islington North convinced him to stand firm. He was always good at taking advice from people who agreed with him. In a long chapter on the crisis - a litany of missed opportunities which regrettably omits his own public inconsistencies - Jones reveals that Milne feared that if Labour adopted the IHRA guidelines in full, then Corbyn himself would be disciplined for antisemitism, which says more about Corbyn than it does about the guidelines.

Corbyn's passivity and indecision created a power vacuum which nobody could fill. Almost every key player turns out to have been weaker than was generally assumed. Tom Watson: the arch-plotter? Once one of Gordon Brown's most ruthless lieutenants, his appetite for political skulduggery was shrinking with his weight. The 'coup' of June 2016? A desperate convulsion born of "absolute panic". Seumas Milne, the Stalinist Svengali? A director of strategy and communications who could neither strategise nor communicate. An "absent father" figure, tardy, amateurish and remote. Jones writes damningly of his former mentor at the Guardian. "Not a single person who worked for Corbyn," he says, "is prepared to defend Milne's management abilities."

Even the more capable characters eventually floundered. Senior policy adviser Andrew Fisher was the brains behind the 2017 manifesto but quit during 2019, complaining of a "lack of professionalism, competence and human decency" in Corbyn's team. The force of will that enabled chief of staff Karie Murphy to professionalise the operation also made her an autocratic bully who fell out with Corbyn herself in late 2019 over her absurd attempt to abolish Tom Watson's job. "What I saw happen to her over the years made me think: this is how dictatorships happen," one former aide tells Jones.

The only figure of consistent substance and talent in Corbyn's inner circle was a tragic one. John McDonnell knew that he could have done the job better but also that he would never have been given the chance. Time and again in both books, he makes the right call, tactically and morally — on antisemitism, Brexit, the Salisbury poisonings, the treatment of opponents — only to be shoved to the sidelines. On all of these issues, Corbyn succumbed to the inevitable only after causing himself and his party unnecessary damage. During the summer of 2018, after falling out over disciplinary proceedings against Margaret Hodge - another unforced error - McDonnell barely spoke to the man his wife jokingly called his only friend in Westminster.

Jones, a former McDonnell staffer who calls his old boss "Labour's lost leader", reports that Momentum founder Jon Lansman approached the shadow chancellor, who was already transforming his public image from spiky socialist bruiser into amiable Uncle John, about replacing Corbyn in the spring of 2016 but was sent packing. Given that counterfactuals currently consume at least 50% of Labour Twitter, that's one worth chewing over. McDonnell's question to Tom Baldwin from People's Vote in 2018 is revealing: "Are you people who will help us win power? Or are you people who are going to stop us winning power?" Unlike Corbyn, he explicitly wanted power, because what was the Project worth without it?

Starting the story earlier than Pogrund and Maguire, Jones is strong on Labour's unexpectedly brilliant 2017 campaign (Milne lifted "the many not the few" from bad old Tony Blair) and the origins of Labour's Brexit mess. Remarkably, speechwriter Joss MacDonald admits: "Most people in LOTO [the leader of the opposition's office] did not take [the 2016 referendum] seriously at all. Most thought if we left, it wouldn't really cause us any political difficulties.” (Narrator: It did cause political difficulties.)

Even long after the result, the assumption was that it would hurt the Tories more than Labour. Corbyn himself was agnostic - he talked about Brexit "with the enthusiasm of someone reading a photocopying manual," according to Fisher - which explains both his tone-deaf response to the result and his inability to commit to a coherent stance. He was no longer, as Jones describes the 2015 version, "a plain speaker who stuck to his principles"” but a cynical triangulator with a Brexit position so slippery that Emily Thornberry was reprimanded for talking about membership of the customs union instead of a customs union. If your policy on the biggest issue of the day comes down to the difference between a definite and indefinite article, then it's probably a bad policy.

Jones was a reluctant Remainer who had previously argued for Lexit (a word he claims without pride to have invented) but he is probably right to compare Labour's Brexit quandary to the interactive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch: every branch on the decision tree would have ended badly. Cultural polarisation wreaked havoc with Labour's coalition of metropolitan liberal Remainers and older smalltown Leavers, although it's worth noting that socially conservative northern voters were already deserting Labour in 2017 and they had many other reasons to distrust a man who couldn't even bring himself to sing the national anthem. It's not as if Brexit broke up an otherwise happy family.

Far from being the arch-Remainer, cunningly manipulating the party towards a second referendum, shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer emerges from both books as a dutiful pragmatist who would have been quite happy to get Brexit done if Corbyn and May could have come to an understanding, and only came around to the enterprise of preventing it at Labour's September 2018 conference.

Whatever the respect-the-vote crew say now, the simple fact is that a majority of Labour MPs, members and voters opposed Brexit and the push for a referendum from constituency Labour parties was a fine example of the party democracy that the Project claimed to champion. Yet Corbyn, instinctively hostile to the cross-party People's Vote campaign, even alienated socialist Remainers such as Michael Chessum of pro-Labour Another Europe Is Possible by accusing them of sabotage and collaboration with Blairites. Brexit created splits within splits, as shadow Cabinet meetings turned into brutal rows between Remainers and Leavers, with party chair Ian Lavery positively feral on the issue. When Corbyn intervened to cool down one clash with Starmer, Lavery apparently told him to "shut the fuck up".

Much though the current incumbents have lowered the bar, it is almost impossible to imagine how Corbyn's Labour party could have run the country when they couldn't even run a professional election campaign. In an August 2019 memo, Milne wrote that Labour's opponents would "seek to portray Jeremy and Labour as tired, stale, hopelessly divided, indecisive, toxic and extreme". Set aside "extreme" and that's an accurate self-diagnosis.

Now fully in control of the party machine, Corbyn's team combined incoherent messaging and an undeliverable manifesto with what Jones calls "operational collapse". The triumvirate had fallen, with Milne and Murphy demoted and Fisher halfway out the door. Even Corbyn felt disempowered. Witnesses to a dinner during the 2019 party conference tell Pogrund and Maguire that Alvarez cried: "You don't deserve Jeremy. He didn't even want to do this."

Despite all the protestations that Corbynism didn't really exist - only socialism - the left staked a once-in-a-generation opportunity on one man who, at least after 2017, clearly wasn't up to the task. For the Project, he was both genesis and nemesis. Even the succession planning was botched, with the inexperienced, overrated Durham MP Laura Pidcock the clear favourite until she lost her seat, and Rebecca Long-Bailey far from being the heir apparent.

The left would now be wise to make peace with Starmer in order to defend its most cherished policies but many Corbynites seem as wedded to surly impotence as the most incorrigible Corbynsceptics were, and where are most of them now? Not in the House of Commons.

So what is Corbyn's legacy? Despite Jones' fears in his post-Copeland column, Labour has inched, rather than hurtled, to the right under Starmer. The new leader's pledge to retain many of his predecessor's key positions suggests that Corbyn did succeed in shifting the party's centre of gravity after all. It's hard to imagine Labour abetting, say, benefit cuts in the foreseeable future. While both his opponents in 2015 and the mayfly-like Change UK lacked an inspiring vision, Corbyn did at least believe in something. But these two books amount to an irresistible argument for the unglamorous virtue of competence, without which all of the wonderful ideas that swirled around the Project were, to the country's detriment, so much hot air.

This explains both Starmer's walloping mandate from the membership and his extreme pragmatism. Like McDonnell, who provides Left Out's melancholy final image, he knows that the finest principles go nowhere without power. Unlike McDonnell, he's in the driving seat.

#jeremy corbyn

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allura-a · 7 years ago

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Phantom Pains

For @voltronwhumpweek2017!

Day Five: Insomnia and/or Mental Illness

Summery: When Shiro can’t sleep because of something he no longer has, Keith calls upon Lance to figure out what to do.

Ship: Sheith

Word Count: 1562

Extra Note: College AU; Shiro’s prosthetic arm is basically the same on he has in the show, just with no Galra enhancements. Enjoy!

Shiro opened his eyes and looked at the clock on his bedside table again. 3:45. He sat up in his bed, careful not to wake Keith, who was sound asleep next to him. There was no way he was waking Keith up, no matter how much pain he was in. Keith had work in the morning. And while Shiro didn't have classes in the morning, he had them all afternoon and evening, so if he didn't get to sleep now he was never going to be able to get any actual work done.

Shiro brought his knees to his chest and buried his face in his pajama bottoms. He squeezed his eyes shut.

It hurts so bad.

Why does it hurt so bad?

"Shiro? Is everything alright?" Keith asked, sitting himself up as well. He put his hand on Shiro's back and began rubbing small circles into it, trying to ease his shivering. "What's goin' on?" Sleep was heavy in his voice and it only made Shiro feel worse.

"I didn't mean to wake you up but-" Shiro took a long, uneven breath before continuing. "But my arm just really hurts and I don't know what to do."

"How is it hurting?" Keith asked, stifling a yawn. Shiro sniffled, a sob he had been holding back finally escaping his lips.

"It feels like- like it's burning." Shiro replied. Keith nodded, continuing to rub circles into Shiro's back.

"Do you want me to go get some ice? Maybe that'll help, yeah?" Keith suggested. Shiro nodded, sobbing again. "Alright, I'll be right back, okay?" Keith leaned and brushed his white tuft of hair away from his face, noticing for the first time the fever boiling underneath his skin. Keith kissed his forehead nonetheless. "And I'll get you something for that fever, too."

Keith slowly inched off of the bed, not wanting to leave Shiro when he was clearly in a lot of pain. He made his way down the stairs, being mindful not to wake any of their other roommates in the shared apartment. Living with four other people may be crowded at times, but splitting rent between all of them was almost disgustingly cheap, so it evened out quite well.

Keith made his way to the kitchen, and was greeted by.. Lance.

"What are you doing up?" Keith asked, causing Lance to look away from his laptop.

"Sleep schedule is still messed up from my night shifts at the hospital. Got home today and was asleep at like six thirty, so by waking up so early today everything should be back on track by tonight." Lance explained. "And I didn't wanna wake Hunk up, so that's why I'm out here."

"Seems simple enough." Keith supplied as he filled a glass with cold water.

"What about you?" Lance asked, taking a bite out of a pepperoni stick that seemed to just come out of nowhere.

"Shiro woke up saying his arm felt like it's burning and he has a fever." Keith explained, moving to the medicine cabinet to get the thermometer and some fever reducers.

"Shit.." Lance whispered as Keith got some ice from the freezer, scooping it into a plastic baggie and wrapping it in a cloth. "I hope he feels better. And if you need any help I'm basically .. I'm up for the day so, I'm happy to help."

"Thanks, appreciate it." Keith answered as he made his way back upstarts. He found Shiro in the same place he had left him. Keith put the water and the medicine on his bedside table and turned on his lamp. "Shiro?" Keith asked softly. Shiro nodded, sniffling. "Hey, I need you to look at me, okay?" Keith whispered, rubbing Shiro's back again. "Let me take your temperature and then we can ice your arm to see if that'll stop the pain." Shiro reluctantly lifted his head and looked at Keith.

Keith frowned, brushing the tears off of Shiro's fever flushed cheeks. Shiro sniffled again, his breathing unsteadily. "Hey, can you open your mouth for me?" Shiro complied, letting Keith place the small device under his tongue. Keith picked up the ice. "Where's it hurting?" He asked.

"Forearm." Shiro muttered, his words not as clear due to the thermometer under his tongue. Keith took Shiro's arm in his hand, placing the towel wrapped bag of ice on his forearm.

"How does that feel?" Keith asked. Shiro shook his head, mumbling something Keith didn't understand. "Hmm?" Keith asked, looking for clarification.

"Other one." Shiro whimpered, sobbing.

"Shiro.. Your other arm was amputated two and a half years ago, remember?" Keith tried. Shiro shook his head, starting to cry softly again.

"It hurts, Keith.. It h-hurts.." The thermometer beeped and Keith took it out of Shiro's mouth. He had to squint slightly, the lighting in the room not being the best. It read 103.6.

Don't panic, now's not the time to panic.

"Hey Shiro, I'm gonna go get Lance, okay? Can you hang tight for a little longer?" Keith asked, trying his best to keep his voice level and calm. Shiro nodded. Keith kissed the top of Shiro's head, lightly mussing his hair. "I'll be two seconds." Keith went back downstairs, trying his best not to be loud. Lance looked up when Keith entered the kitchen.

"Can you come upstairs and look at something for me?" Keith asked. Lance shot him a confused look, but wordlessly follow Keith back upstairs. When they got back to the bedroom, they saw Shiro, sitting in bed, holding the cloth wrapped ice bag over what would be his right forearm. Lanc crawled onto the bed to Shiro, and gently put his arm on his back.

"Hey Shiro, what'cha doing, bud?" Lance asked softly, as if he was talking to a small child. Shiro sniffled, not looking up at Lance.

"It- it feels like it's- it's- it hurts." Shiro sobbed. Lance nodded, rubbing his back.

"Is the ice helping?" Lance asked. Shiro shrugged, an uneven breath escaping his lips.

"A bit.." Lance looked back up at Keith. He was standing by the door, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"Looks like he's suffering from phantom limb pain." Lance concluded, trying to keep his voice down for Shiro' sake. "It's pretty common in people whose limbs have been amputated. Has this ever happened before?" Keith shook his head, bringing one hand up over his mouth.

"I mean back when before he got the prosthetic he would like forget his arm was gone and try to like pick things up with it and stuff like that but.. I mean... I've never seen him like this before.." Keith replied. Lance nodded, looking back at Shiro and patting him on the back a few times.

"You said he has a fever, right? Were you able to get a read on that?"

"Oh! Yeah yeah.." Keith almost jumped, reaching for the thermometer on the bedside table. he handed it to Lance, who frowned when he saw the reading. He stood from the bed, smoothing his shirt down.

"Try to get a shirt and some shoes or slippers or something on him, I'll go start my car and meet you back up here to help you get him down. One of my friends from class is working nights this week, I'll call him and let him know we're on our way."

=======

"It's a good thing you brought him in." Lance's friend Josh began after exiting Shiro's room. "His fever spiked at nearly 104, but we got it down quite a bit. He was really dehydrated, too. That's probably why he was suffering from PLP. You said this was the first time this happened to him?" He asked Keith. Keith nodded.

"Can we see him?" Keith asked tentatively. Josh nodded, opening the curtain leading to his room.

"He's pretty tired so we wanna keep him here till about noon, let him catch up on some sleep and make sure his fever stays down. You're free to stay with him if you'd like." Josh offered. Keith and Lance nodded, entering the room. Lance patted Josh on the shoulder, uttering a small "Thanks man." As he did.

Shiro looked tired, dead tired, but some colour had returned to his face and he wasn't sobbing uncontrollably unlike the last time Lance and Keith saw him. Shiro smiled when he saw them.

"How're you feeling?" Keith asked. He leaned down and kissed Shiro's much cooler forehead, and he heard Shiro hum happily.

"Your bedside manner is getting better." Shiro commented, which caused Lance to start laughing. Keith rolled his eyes. Once Lance had calmed down, he patted Shiro on the shoulder.

"I'm glad you're feeling better, Shiro." He looked up at Keith. "I'm gonna head home, Pidge is gonna be up soon and wondering why we're not home, and I'll call your professors to let them know you guys aren't gonna be in today." Lance offered. Keith shot him a kind smile.

"Thanks man, really." Lance nodded. He took his leave, waving slightly as he did so.

"Call me when he gets discharged, I'll pick you guys up." He said just as he left. Keith turned back to Shiro.

"You're okay? Really?" Keith asked. Shiro nodded.

"It was so weird, I- I swear to god I could feel it.." He whispered. Keith kissed Shiro on the cheek, then on the mouth.

"I'm just glad you're alright. And if it happens again, I'm here for you." Shiro smiled up at Keith. He wouldn't ask for anyone else to be here with him right now.

"Thanks. Means a lot.."

#ten minutes before midnight fuckers!! we made it!!#still on my streak of posting each fic on its designated day #im so proud of myself #i really like this idea #voltronwhumpweek2017 #shiro #keith #lance #takashi shirogane #keith kogane #lance mcclain #voltron #vld #my writing

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jerepars · 7 years ago

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We’re Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner Story Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

> When she heard that damn ringtone, her mind was a vacuum of just two questions. What now? Who next?

> Betty heard it everywhere. She heard it as the soundtrack to her nightmares, in the halls of Riverdale High when the bell rang, and even as the purr of motorcycle engines whenever a Serpent peeled out of the parking lot at Pop’s. But none of that compared to really hearing it, in the stillness of the night in her bedroom when the tinny voice on the other end of the line would demand something new. When she would have to rip out someone else’s heart and drive over it with an ice cream truck.

Big shout-out to @diokomen for the ice cream truck line! It was something she mentioned in the comments in my post when I was hopeful that someone, anyone, would talk me out of writing this. I'd already mentioned a banana split in the very first paragraph of the story and when I saw what she said, I knew it had to be included somehow.

> Betty sat staring at the layout for the next issue of The Blue & Gold on the ancient computer in front of her in the school newspaper office, the only computer that could be used to format and collate the pages properly. She was so tired of thinking of the right ways for self-sabotage. At the get together where she blew up at Veronica, while everyone was doing Jingle Jangle, she’d sat brewing over the right words to use, to hit Veronica right where it hurt.

> You and I are the same, the Black Hood had told her.

> Betty feared that all of her thinking and plotting for the perfect demise of her relationships made him right. She was good at it, too. She didn’t need anyone else’s help to sabotage herself—she was sufficient at it all on her own. The Black Hood claimed he was doing right by Riverdale by attempting the lives of those he deemed to be sinners. Betty knew she was doing right, protecting the lives of her sister and her friends, by burning her emotional ties to ash.

A little bit of my own previously shared meta got incorporated here. In my opinion, the Black Hood chose Betty because she's the strongest out of all the kids on the show (if we find out that he's really Hal or Chic, that would be a reason, too). She's capable all on her own, with only her own methods to cut the people she loves out of her life.

The lines about sabotage were inspired by the bridge in Paramore's "Caught in the Middle": No, I don't need no help. I can sabotage me by myself. I don't need no one else. I can sabotage me by myself. There's also a part in the first verse that goes can't look back, can't look too far ahead / you got the point, you got the message. Betty spends nearly the entire auto shop scene trying to convey her message to Jughead, so I thought it was fitting.

> Betty unzipped her backpack and began gathering her belongings in size order. First her Pre-Calculus textbook, then her Chemistry binder and spiral notebooks. She grouped the loose leaves of paper on the desk together and tucked them into the flap of her homework folder. When she lifted the folder from the surface, the item that was revealed underneath it caused her pause. It was the book she’d checked out at the library with Jughead to decipher the Black Hood’s message, The Nancy Drew Secret-Code Activity Book. Amid all of the self-sabotage he’d had her do, Betty had forgotten to return it to the library.

One of my favorite things from 2x04 was that it was an actual Nancy Drew book that contained the cipher.

Also, to know me is to know how much I love the PBS show Arthur. Probably even more as an adult than a kid (I have this theory that so much of the humor is adult humor that I didn't pick up on as a kid, which has only made it better with age). Both times during the episode that Jughead was in the library, I wanted to start singing the library card song from Arthur. I doubt Betty was having any fun though. I don't think I could be bothered to return a library book either if I had a phone stalker threatening to hurt my broody gangbanger boyfriend.

> Jughead’s head lifted and he turned around. Before he could say anything, a gasp left Betty’s lips and her seaglass eyes went wide to doe-like proportions.

> “Juggie,” she couldn’t help the affectionate way his name tumbled out of her mouth. “What happened to you?”

> His lip was busted. An eye was blackened. His cheek was crimsoned with a bruise. There were small cuts on his nose, his forehead, and his chin.

Okay, I know that in the promo images for 2x06, it looks like Jughead's injuries from initiation have healed up. So there could be a time jump in canon. That's just...not the direction I went with here. Sorry, I guess.

From that "making it work" picture we got way back when, all I could tell was that Betty and Jughead were in a shop of some sort. For my purpose, I decided that they would be in the auto shop (classroom? Is the shop for auto shop considered to be a classroom?) at Riverdale High. I figured that between Riverdale High and Southside High, Riverdale would be more likely to have an auto shop on campus. I also figured that Reggie wouldn't be able to drive his car all the way over to the south side (the high school or anywhere else) and be back all before football practice. Logistics are a thing. Thanks so much to @somethinglikegumption for doing a little digging and confirming that, at least in the Archie comic world, Riverdale High has an auto shop class!

> Jughead shrugged off his jacket and tossed it off to the side. He’d come prepared. Rather than one of his many ‘S’ t-shirts, he wore a mechanic’s work shirt, likely something of FP’s from the trailer, Betty decided, over a white undershirt. She wanted to ask Jughead jokingly if he was going to dye his hair blond à la Jackson Teller now that he was both in a motorcycle gang and a less than mediocre mechanic, but given the very real life situation of dueling gangs and the Black Hood threatening lives in their small town, she didn’t think he’d find the parallels very funny.

In Sons of Anarchy, Jackson Teller's "honest" job is as a mechanic at Teller-Morrow, the family-owned shop:

I swear there's an episode of SOA where Jax says something about being an average or mediocre mechanic. Something like that.

> “I hope…” Betty’s voice cracked for the first time. “I hope they took care of you after whatever it was you had to do to prove yourself. I hope they’re taking care of you now.”

> “Just Toni,” Jughead said shortly. “She kissed me.”

> Betty’s heart took a nosedive down to her stomach. Toni kissed him. Toni kissed him. Toni kissed him.

> On the verge of new tears, Betty choked out, “How’d that go?”

> She wasn’t sure if the hurt she felt over his haste confession was as bad as the hurt she’d sent to him. She was angry and jealous, even more so because he’d done nothing wrong. She was the one who sent Archie to end things for her. As far as an eye for an eye went, Jughead wasn’t even close to even with her.

> “Like a snake bit me.” Jughead chose his words carefully when he replied. “Numbing.”

Unpopular opinion (do I have any other kind?): I just don't think Betty has the right to be mad or upset with Jughead over this kiss that's been making waves. If she's hurt by it, fine, she can be hurt. I just see all these suggestions that Betty will be justified in being mad when she eventually finds out about it. I disagree. Even if she ended things with Jughead (or rather, had Archie end things with Jughead for her) under threat from the Black Hood, she still did it. Their breakup goes a long way in bringing Jughead to a very low place.

So I had this idea that he would tell Betty bluntly--he wouldn't hide it or wait until later to tell her--but he would also let her know how he felt about it. I don't really think that Jughead needs to do anything to redeem himself because of the kiss, yet even still, he does.

> Betty unhooked the lamp from the top of the hood interior and held it out to Jughead. She was ready to check out the car and begin conveying her message. “Hold the light.”

I definitely meant for this piece of dialogue to mean more than just Betty telling Jughead to direct the lamp where she's going to poke around. Earlier in the story, when Betty is in the newspaper office, there's a line about Jughead being her clarity in the eye of a storm. A common thing that comes up in this fandom is how Betty brings the light into the darkness of Jughead's life. I've alluded to this in other stories before (Heartthrob and Lionheart), that I think Jughead acts as light for Betty, too. So it's doublespeak. She needs him to hold the light here in more than one way.

> “So who keeps the diner?”

> “What?”

> “If we’re really doing this, if everything between us is through,” Jughead elaborated with his jaw clenched, “whose territory is Pop Tate’s?”

> “Are you serious right now, Jughead?”

> “Damn right I am,” Jughead said emphatically. “Pop’s was our place. So is it mine, because it’s the last place on this side of town that hasn’t turned its back on me? Or is it yours because you saved it?”

> “This isn’t a divorce and the diner isn’t our child that we’re battling for full custody over.” Betty shook her head as she inspected the fluid levels of Reggie’s car. “We can share it.”

Imagine me writing a Bughead story that didn't make a single reference to The Gaslight Anthem. Just imagine it. Because by now, it's like...required referencing, haha.

The title of the story is taken from their song, "We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner". Ever since I started writing Bughead stuff in the summer, I wanted to write a story based on that title. I always thought it would be a fluffy fic where they sit in a booth at Pop's and in light of a recent breakup (not an actual divorce, the term 'divorce' would be used symbolically) would have to decide whose territory Pop's is. They'd have a back and forth of cheeky banter where, in the end, no one would solely claim it, because they would get back together instead.

...but then 2x05 happened and it became the perfect time to revist and revise that idea.

> The whole reason she’d gotten so worked up, so indignant over the Chock’lit Shoppe almost shutting down was because of him. Because of them, really. Pop’s symbolized more than a nice childhood and meeting new friends. Jughead was right about that. Pop’s was their safe haven. It was where they’d sat in a booth, on the night he turned sixteen, and been completely vulnerable to each other for the first time. It was where she found him after the big blow up at Homecoming, after FP’s arrest. It was where, just a week ago, they held hands for the last time and he talked about running away on his motorcycle and a single tear rolled down her face when she mentioned Romeo and Juliet.

> No. She’d already resolved that. It wouldn’t be the last time. And they wouldn’t be a couple of star-crossed dead teenagers. The magnificent dreamers that they were, they wouldn’t fall down by the wayside. They would have their own happily ever after. They would walk it back.

Truth be told, I've always been iffy on the idea of Betty and Jughead being like Romeo and Juliet, because the play isn't called Romeo and Juliet. It's called The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and they die. That's not the outcome I want for my OTP, so I would really rather they not be mentioned in the same breath at all. So I was glad that in the diner scene from 2x05, Betty's response to Jughead's wish about getting out of town is Romeo and Juliet except they live happily ever after. But I couldn't just leave it at that. I still had to mention the star-crossed dead teenagers.

For the second quoted part, I wanted to incorporate parts of "We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner" into the story in my own way and not just have it as the title. The opening lyric of the song is we were the magnificent dreamers. Then later in the song, a question posed is did they fall down by the wayside?

> Jughead hooked the lamp back onto the hood of the car and his gaze met hers again. He still looked at her with those heart eyes, like she hung the moon and was the most precious thing he’d ever seen in his life. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and came out and asked the questions that were a continous downpour in his mind, “Was what Archie said true? You wanted to break up for weeks?”

> Betty knew what the answer had to be. Just a simple ‘yes’. But that short answer seemed so much more cruel than what Archie had told Jughead. She didn’t bother telling Archie that his delivery was cruel when they talked about it after the fact. Betty knew him better than he knew himself, and Archie had acted the way he would if the scenario was repeated a hundred times over. She didn’t blame him for his delivery, either, because she couldn’t bare the thought of being the one to tell Jughead face to face that it was over, so she sent Archie—an act just slightly less awful. It couldn’t have been any worse for either of her fellow musketeers.

> Archie always let his emotions get the best of him. He didn’t sit in silence and think things through deliberately like Betty (or the Black Hood), and yet he managed to give the message to Jughead in the worst way possible anyway. He hadn’t meant for the words to come out the way they did. He’d even mulled over what Betty asked him to do all day and dreaded it. But when he got to the trailer and saw Jughead with the Serpents, saw Jughead joining the Serpents, he was overcome. What he said was fueled by how angry and how scared he was for Jughead.

Another unpopular opinion: I don't think Archie went to the trailer wanting to hurt Jughead. In earlier scences of 2x05, I think that we see Archie conflicted, and I think breaking up with Jughead for Betty is really something he didn't want to do specifically because he didn't want to hurt Jughead either. I don't even think Archie knew what he was going to say when he got there. It was seeing the Serpents that prompted him to deliver the message in the way that he did. That's just Archie. He acts on his emotions. I'm not saying that excuses the hurtful things he said in order to tell Jughead that Betty was breaking up with him. I just think that that's who he is and that's what he does in all instances.

> “Betty?” Jughead broke her from her thoughts and repeated, “Is it true?”

> She couldn’t help the tears that glassed over her eyes and threatened to fall. She believed in Jughead. She believed in them. So she had to believe that he could read her cues and understand what she really meant.

I think this applies much more to season 1 than what we're currently getting on season 2, but I've always considered Jughead's diction to be very specific. When Archie gives his little breakup speech, Jughead's reply is, "Tell Betty I got the message." The episode goes on and it was shown pretty clearly that he didn't mean anything else other than he got the message. But that moment made me take pause and think about Jughead visiting FP in 1x12, when he does get his message.

It got me thinking about how we think of Bughead as our OTP and endgame. It got me thinking about what is about them that we love so much: the special connection that they have. It's what prompted me to this weird writing excerise. Because if they are what we think they are, then Jughead should be able to get the message.

There's this part from Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse that I've always come back to:

>> But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him…she knew she had triumphed again. She had not said it: yet he knew.

As much as I rely on words in writing something, I think there's a lot to be discerned in the communication between characters in what isn't said. In many instances across many different genres, it's all in the implications.

If Jughead can read Betty as well as she hopes that he can, which he does in this story, maybe that's pretty romantic? Maybe that's the ultimate testament of their connection? I don't know. Like I said, this whole thing just turned out to be a weird writing exercise.

> It was all she could say in warning. She still didn’t know where the Black Hood had his eyes and ears. She could send Jughead secret glances and put her faith in him to pick up on them, but getting close to him was a bad idea, lest she reach out for him and touch him. She didn’t want to make the mistake of letting all her emotions bubble up to the surface.

> But Betty lost that war when Jughead reached behind her and settled his hand on the back of her arm. She trembled at the contact, needing his comfort and needing him to get as far away from her as possible all the same.

Quick reference to "Lost That War" by Jimmy Robbins & Alexz Johnson.

> “Juggie.” Betty couldn’t help the tears that fell from her eyes as she struggled to keep herself in check. “Let go.”

> It was the final warning she could give him, telling him to walk away but silently pleading for him to understand and hold her in his heart until it was safe. Those words were the opposite of what he’d told her not so long ago in The Blue & Gold office when he’d told her how strong she was and hugged her against his gray knit sweater, the same one she’d been wearing to bed since she was forced to break up with him.

> Jughead let go of her arm and took a step back. The look he gave her was sullen but his answer was the same as hers had been back then, “I won’t.”

When I decided that Jughead was going to pick up on the message and that he would be able to relay to Betty that he'd gotten it, I also very quickly got the idea that the right way to get that done was to tinker with the end of the Blue & Gold office dialogue (2:44 to 3:54) in 1x09, a moment about crisis and falling apart that they both would have remembered.

Also, I think that the costume department should choose more cable-knit sweaters for Jughead, even if he is a Serpent now.

> Months later, Betty’s lungs burned as she ran to where she knew Jughead would be. No longer was there a threat on her family or her friends or her love. She’d done it. She caught the Black Hood. As soon as the door of Sheriff Keller’s squad car shut with him inside, Betty had taken off running.

I thought that this was the appropriate transition to the last part of the story but...Betty. Girl. As if you could trust that Sheriff Keller would be reliable enough to handle a murderer.

> Betty pulled the hair tie from her low ponytail and shook out her hair. She combed the blonde tresses with her fingers and re-did the ponytail tight and higher up on her head, where it belonged. Even that was muscle memory that she’d missed.

I'm with Kevin. To me, Betty's ponytail is iconic and beyond reproach. A tight, high ponytail is where Betty's hair should be for her every day look. So with everything said and done, I wanted Betty to consciously bring it back to its right place.

> No words were said between them until the tears stopped flowing and the sobs ebbed into hiccups and ragged breathing. Finally, Betty didn’t have to speak in code or deliver a silent message. She could be honest. She’d been hell bent on deliverance of all the privileges of being with him again for far too long.

I almost changed my mind and named this story after the Crime in Stereo song "...but you are vast". But no, I'm still saving it for a story I'll never write. There's a part near the end of the song that goes Hell bent on deliverance of all the privileges of being with you, Heaven sent I crane my neck. I thought it was fitting for the final section so I worked the lyrics into the above paragraph instead.

And there we have it. This was a strange story to write, and probably a little strange to read, but the idea wouldn't leave me until I was done with it. So now I can tuck it into the corner and...not think about it. Or think about it a lot. It's a toss up.

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