#for the countless people throughout history that died to infection

[bittersweetblasphemy]

hi im exhausted here's vent art i made about having trauma over being hospitalized with sepsis sorry it's cropped shitty i am tired from multiple nights of nightmares

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

I know everyone likes the "secretly good villain whumpee..." but what about when the villain was a rat- bastard with very few redeeming qualities... just being injured and sick and oh so broken. Just begging for mercy, even though they were so arrogant and vicious before.

I melt at those scenarios.

I agree with that. If the villain is secretly good, you might as well call him or her a hero- or at least a vigilante.

Vicious and Bloody

Warnings: gorey(?) description of injuries, maggots, blood, vomit, mention of people dying, pus, field medicine, bathing, vomit, sleep deprivation, pills (tylenol and ibuprofen), attempted murder, implied past torture, hallucinations, fever, delirium

~

There was no rational answer for the scene in front of her. Not even the greastest minds in history could comprehend it- figuratively speaking. It was just so peculiar, odd and out of place, that it was like from a different dimension.

The said scene would be absolutely mortifying to the squeamish soul. Between the blood and the vomit and the maggots, the sight was more than revolting.

But still, ignoring her instincts to gag and run, Civilian crouched down next to the poor man- not touching, of course, it would only irritate his injuries further and be disgusting on many levels.

"Should I call an ambulance?" Civilian asked the man softly, brushing back the part of his grimey hair that wasn't intoxicated by maggots or too much blood.

But in doing that, she realized that the man wasn't even conscious. Which, was not surprising and brought a small relief to the nervous civilian.

But it also revealed his identity. Even without the foreboding mask, his features unmistakably were those of the most feared and vile human of the city.

Villain.

"If you ever see Villain, call the heroes. If he so happens to be incapacitated, kill him or injure him further to limit his ability of escape or to destroy."

That mandatory lesson rang through Civilian's ears nearly as loud as semi's horn. It was every civilian's responsibility- whether they were a certified hero or not- to hand it or dispose of any being against the government.

Especially Villain.

Especially without any doubt Villain.

Civilian sighed and observed the injured man's face. It was her responsibility to do this, the city would thank her, applaud her.

She brought her hands to Villain's neck and squeezed. His breaths hitched, but he didn't wake, not even to the sensation of suffocation. Civilian squeezed her eyes shut, but it did nothing to rid her mind of the horrendous sight of his already crimson stained face growing even redder... his lips paling then morphing into a grayish blue...

Civilian gasped, drawing her hands away from his neck. The villain's eyes shot open as he tried to fill his lungs, but as he heaved and wheezed, they kept rolling up and sliding closed.

"Hey!" Civilian exclaimed, tapping his shoulder. Villain's eyes shot open and he looked at Civilian with an expression filled with the unthinkable.

Fear.

Villain's lip trembled as he tried his hardest to scoot away. He whimpered something unintelligently and weakly held up a hand as if to protect himself from futher harm- as if the shaking limb could do anything other than wave aimlessly in the air.

Upon coming to the conclusion that escape was impossible, the villain resumed a position of pointless mewling.

"Don't hurt me," he whined, tears streaming down his cheeks, making the small cuts sting and itch. "D-don't hurt me. I've been bad, please don't remind me. P-please." He shifted his head into his elbow and sobbed.

Civilian didn't know what to do with the scenario, so she just allowed him to cry until he was too exhausted to do anything other than whimper pained pleas.

When his eyes started to droop, Civilian wrapped her arms around his upper body and heaved him into a sitting position- somewhat shocked of how limp and pliable he was.

Then she stopped. What was she doing? Villain was the most notoriously evil person in the city, if not the universe. He killed hundreds, thousands even including men, women, and children. He was undeserving of any level of comfort, whether that be love, care, or compassion.

Yet someone had to be worse than him to put him in such a nasty condition.

"Don't hurt me," Villain whispered, clinging to Civilian's shirt with all his might- as little as that was.

"I won't," Civilian promised, smiling down at the injured villain. The villain sighed and closed his eyes.

She had to help him now. It would be practically illegal to turn him in, or harm him even further. Well, metaphorically speaking.

Civilian dragged Villain into her house. Luckily, she owned a one-story, so bringing him to the bathroom was not too big of a deal- apart from the exertion on her slender arms, that was.

Immediately, Civilian stripped off the remains of his tattered clothing and sat him in the tub. Gingerly, she washed out the infection wounds, making sure all the maggots were gone.

After thirty minutes, she only finished the lower half of his body and his back and shoulders were much, much worse. It took another hour to get done with those.

Civilian took a second to catch her breath, she didn't realize how diligently she was working. The villain was completely clean, other than countless uneven holes that looked like someone grabbed his skin and pulled it out.

The next line of business was whether or not to give him stitches. Many of the remainding wounds were heavily infected and would benefit from being dried out.

Many of those infected wounds needed to be drained and removed.

Civilian sighed, thinking of her nursing classes. She had school tomorrow...

Someone was dying.

Someone with the name of Villain.

Civilian ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She ran in through the sharpener a couple times before heating it on the stove to remove bacteria. Here goes...

Civilian cut into one of the infected abscesses and carefully drained the pus out. She sighed and wiped her hands on a papertowel. She should really be wearing gloves...

Villain jerked, suddenly awakening with a shriek. His eyes saw the knife and he froze, staring at it for a long time, before erupting into unstoppable sobs.

"Don't hurt me! P-p-please don't... knife," he wailed, trying to curl into himself.

"Stop it," Civilian tried to reason, clenching her teeth, as she pulled Villain away from himself. He started to rock, back and forth... back and forth... back and-

"Hurts," he whimpered.

"I know," Civilian whispered, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm trying to help."

"No. Pain."

"No pain?" Civilian repeated, trying to make sense of what Villain's intent of the statically said statement.

"No pain," he murmured, resting his head against the tub. "Take away."

"I don't have anything for the pain," Civilian told him softly. "Some nyquil, but I'd rather give you tylenol for the fever."

Villain looked up at her with pleading eyes. "Please," he begged..

"It's just gonna make you tired, not take away the full extent of the pain."

Villain let out a strained sob and kicked out with his feet. Pouting in the most pitiful way.

"Just," Civilian sighed. "Just. It's gonna hurt."

Civilian leveled the knife to another wound and drained it. Villain writhed in the beginning, but stopped when he realized his fate.

By the time each major abscess was drained, Villain was barely conscious, his head lolling groggily against the bath tub. Civilian gulped. She would have to disinfect the wounds now, but she didn't have anything for it...

Salt water, a saline solution.

Villain's screams did not leave Civilian's memory for a while, even when he was finally asleep on the couch. Civilian aimlessly rubbed his hand, whispering to him as he slept, but it all felt wrong. So, so wrong. All the people he hurt never got the same level of care that he was receiving- as if they had any at all.

But at the same time, it felt right. None of Villain's victim's injuries were as extreme as his- they either died or went to the hospital. Whoever tortured Villain wanted him to suffer, not that Villain wanted people to not suffer...

Crap, this was confusing herself.

Civilian cared for Villain throughout the night. The open textbook on her kitchen table did not even remind her of her class in the morning. Nothing could, especially when someone so sick seeked her hospitality.

Villain's fever raged and he was fed more and more tylenol. Eventually, she started to put ice packs around his neck and major arteries, but he was still so, so miserable.

He started to hallucinate. Sometimes whimpering about a bat flying around his head, or laughing giddily. But one of these episodes really stood out to Civilian.

"Curve, curve," he muttered as his cheek rested against the mattress- for some reason he kept flipping himself to his stomach. "Fall."

"Then cave." The delirious, but intense gaze the villain had made Civilian wonder if he was trying to tell her something in his fevered state.

"Man hurt."

Civilian shushed Villain and gave him a quick sip of water with an ibuprofen tablet. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"Don't hurt me," Villain whispered, scratching at the sheets. "Please."

"I won't, sleep."

Villain slowly, oh so slowly nodded as he allowed his eyes to slip closed.

Civilian took care of Villain as best as she could. She really needed to get supplies, but it was dangerous to leave the villain unattended as sick and injured as he was. Infection set in agai, fever rose...

Civilian groaned and rubbed her head. She had a horrible headache from stress and lack of sleep.

Maybe a short nap wouldn't hurt...

When Civilian woke up, seven hours later, she found Villain shivering on the ground with vomit all over him.

"Dangit," Civilian groaned and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

Just dangit.

[skzloona]

White Entitlement and Doctor Who: AKA Why I Like The Timeless Child

TW: Discussion of real life racially motivated medical abuse, general racism. This may hurt sensitive white feelings.

At the end of series 12 of the British sci-fi show Doctor Who, Jodie Whittaker's Doctor discovers that she has a secret past she was unaware of. Erased from her mind by her own people, the Gallifreyans. In a series of flashbacks we see a young Doctor. She's a little Black girl, standing alone below a portal that presumably leads to whatever Universe she called home. She's lost and alone. We don't know if she was abandoned by her family or simply separated from them by an unfortunate accident. She's then found by Tecteun, an adult white woman who was one of the earliest inhabitants of Gallifrey, the very planet the Doctor believed to be their own. She adopts the child Doctor and becomes a sort of mother to her. This seems, at first, like the act of a selfless person. She's taking in a child she doesn't know, who would most likely die without her. A happy ending.

But that's not where the story ends. As the Doctor plays outside with another child on Gallifrey she falls from a cliff. Instead of this being fatal she regenerates, just as the Doctor and other Timelords have been known to do throughout the history of the show. Her body is remade into a young Asian boy. Tecteun sees this and her first thought is to solve this mystery. We see The Doctor, now a little boy, sitting in a chair in a lab as his mother does tests on him. We're shown a montage of various regenerations of the Doctor, many of them children of color. It wasn't until after the episode ended that I thought back and wondered "how did this child end up in so many lethal situations while Tecteun remains alive and well?" which suggests that this might not be a series of accidents but purposeful results of the experiments being done on the Doctor by their own mother figure. What seemed to be a miracle before has turned into a nightmare that evoked in me the memories of similar events in real world history. 

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who, in the 1950s, was being treated for her cervical cancer. Some of the cells of her tumor were biopsied by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. These cells went on to create the HeLa cell line, the oldest and most impactful immortalized cell line in history. Without getting into too much medical jargon, the effect this had on the medical field was immeasurable. The problem? Lacks never gave her consent to have these cells taken, nor was she even informed that it happened. She was also never compensated for it despite the cells being used shortly after to craft the Polio Vaccine. Henrietta died in 1951, never knowing about these cells or what they did for world medicine. Her family wasn't even made aware until 25 years later. Henrietta's story is not unique. Countless black and brown people in history and in the present have been subject to experiments by medical science. Most of them without consent and without compensation. 

In 1932 the United States Public Health Service conducted a medical study called the Tuskegee Study. They told 600 African American men in poverty that they would be receiving free health care from the federal government. 399 of these men had latent syphilis. They were told this study would last 6 months. In reality it was 40 years. These men believed they would be cared for by medical professionals. Instead they were left uniformed of the disease they had (they were merely told they had "bad blood"). None of them were treated with penicillin, despite it becoming the common treatment for syphilis by 1947. By the time the study ended in 1972, 128 men had died of syphilis or related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected with the illness, and 19 babies were born with congenital syphilis. 

These stories were at the front of my mind during the course of this episode. After finally unlocking the secret to the Doctor's regeneration, Tecteun uses it as the foundation for all of Gallifreyan society, giving them all the power to regenerate. The ability to evade death. This power is what leads to Gallifrey being the most powerful and formidable race in the Universe. And what becomes of the Doctor? Their memory is erased. The Doctor's very DNA is used to build a dominant society, without their consent, without their knowledge, and without gaining anything in return. The Doctor becomes who we know them as; an outcast and a misfit. Someone who doesn't fit in with everyone else they know and doesn't know why. Everything about this story connected with me. It connected with my family, with my ancestors, and with the knowledge I have of what other people of color have gone through.

It wasn't surprising to me that some others wouldn't enjoy this plot change. After all, a large subset of the fan base already dropped the show simply because Jodie Whittaker, a white woman, was cast as the 13th Doctor. They thought it was too "PC" and "pandering" even then. I had already decided to pay those people no mind. What was surprising was that many of my supposedly "woke" friends also hated this finale. I saw countless tumblr posts, tweets, and messages declaring that the Doctor was officially "not relatable" anymore. They felt personally hurt that the Doctor was no longer what they saw as a normal person. They called it a "chosen one" story or even a "Mary Sue" (a character with so many things that are special about them that real people can no longer relate their experience to them). This entire concept was frustrating to me. Here I was, feeling connected to this character as a person of color for the first time in its entire 50 year run and other people were treating this as universally and inherently bad. They were calling the Doctor's history of abuse and memory loss,  things that happen to children in real life, "special". Many were saying it should be left ambiguous, that it should never have been stated that these mostly nonwhite people were actually their beloved character. Effectively saying that people should be able to decide whether or not the Doctor has ever been black. 

In no way am I saying everyone must enjoy or love this plot twist. Afterall, it's a big change. But to me, it screams White Entitlement to throw a blanket over the whole thing and say nobody could have enjoyed it. Nobody could find this new plot relatable simply because they couldn't. What they fail to realize is that not everybody will relate to every story and sometimes that's the whole point. This story was clearly created to be something more people of color could relate to than white viewers. To put them front and center for the first time in a show that is half a century long. It's okay if you don't personally connect to one major plot line of a character after all those years of them being made precisely for you. It feels reminiscent of the one spoiled, rich kid who's birthday you went to as a child who cried because instead of getting all 30 cookies in the box, they had to give one to each of the 10 other kids and had a mere 20 left to call their own. I assure you you'll have more Who stories to relate to next time around. It was just our turn, after waiting for so long without one. Perhaps it's time to share your cookies with the other kids who never got to taste them before. You don't have to love the idea of sharing them, but it might not be very kind to complain loudly about how much you wish you had gotten them all. Like the Doctor said, remember to always be kind. 

[morsking]

mobage opening chapters are wild. fgo starts with the horrible death of chaldeas’s director as she is forced to die over and over within the core of a miniature planet caused by the person she trusted most, the cryogenic freezing of 50 of your superiors and co-workers after their pods are bombed, and the incineration of humanity which you, a rookie, are tasked with undoing by traveling throughout history facing world-ending peril after world-ending peril to restore the existence of countless people that have died throughout the ages. you, and the remaining staff of this security organization are stuck in a pocket dimension with limited resources and no help from the outside.

girls’ frontline opens with the torture of a squad at the hands of a vindictive group of robot terrorists, and you are tasked with their search and rescue, only to discover some of them have scattered after escaping to avoid capture and permanent deactivation, since they have no back-ups to transfer their consciousnesses into. the righteousness of your cause is eerily questioned by the androids you slaughter remotely commanding your own.

arknights starts with your character regaining consciousness in the middle of a warzone, having been resuscitated as an amnesiac by your former assistant. on your way to being evacuated, you are intercepted by a terrorist group formed by disenfranchised infected rejects of a callous society who surround you and kill several of your operators who gave their damnedest to JUST buy you time to escape. by the end, you and the survivors narrowly avoid being crushed to death by a calamitous geological phenomenon that splits apart an entire city and nearly engulfs the skyline. as you escape, you are filled with a sense of dread and uncertainty at the future and the morality of your actions and your survival, since the human cost was far too great to justify saving only one person. 

meanwhile granblue fantasy is “oh you’ve been killed by soldiers but it’s ok because this cute blue girl has shared her life force with yours so now you can fly the skies with this cool older knight lady and your little dragon best friend from childhood and everything will be a wonderful adventure from here on as you step into a brave new world full of amazing things to discover!”

[rebellect-writes]

[SIZE=1][b]Name:[/b] Jess. [b]Age:[/b] 22. [b]How did this happen?:[/b] He needed an updated application.

[align=center][IMG]http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lidyo4kwgL1qexe87.gif[/IMG][/align]

[b]Name:[/b] Tegan Jonathon Frost [b]Nicknames & Aliases:[/b] [LIST] [*] Alias/Fake ID: Tegan Summers. [*] Nicknames: Tee, Teg, Frost, Frosty. [/LIST][b]Age:[/b] 31 [b]Date of Birth:[/b] 24/01/1981. [b]Gender:[/b] Male [b]Sexual Orientation:[/b] Bisexual; but happily taken by a guy. [b]Occupation:[/b] RPIT Detective Inspector.

[b]Animal Species:[/b] African Leopard. [b]Animal Description: [/b] [IMG]http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv90/bloodwillout/app%20pics/teganapplication2.png[/IMG] [i]Weight:[/i] 155lbs [i]Length:[/i] 9' from nose to tail tip. [i]Height:[/i] 30 inches at the shoulders. [i]Coat:[/i] Creamy tanned yellow with dark rosettes. [b]Do you have a hybrid/alpha form?:[/b] [URL=http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv90/bloodwillout/app%20pics/wereleopard_by_koutanagamori-d32f28a.jpg]Indeed he does.[/URL][LIST]Tegan stands at a rough seven foot tall in this form and weighs in at a hefty 320lbs.  From head to foot he’s covered in tawny gold fur with black spots, has a tail, paws instead of hands and feet and while he may appear more feline than human in this form, but he’s more than capable of speech. [/LIST][b]Rank:[/b] Nimir Raj. [b]How long has your character been a lycanthrope?:[/b] 10 years and 7 months. [b]Mind set:[/b] Dominant. [b]Power level:[/b] Alpha. [b]Powers:[/b][LIST] [*] Hybrid form. [*] Healing through touch. [*] Force/Prevent shift in both leopards and jaguars. [*] Resist a vampire’s direct gaze. (480 and under). [*] Can shield his beast and appear human. [/LIST] [b]Face Claim:[/b] Shane West [b]Description:[/b] [IMG]http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv90/bloodwillout/app%20pics/teganapplication.png[/IMG] [i]Height:[/i] 6’0. [i]Weight:[/i] 165lbs. [i]Eyes:[/i] Hazel green. [i]Hair:[/i] Light brown. [i]Build:[/i] Average, athletic. [i]Visible marks:[/i] Tee’s back is pretty clawed up from when he was attacked and infected, from shoulders to the small of his back he looks like he’s been whipped. He has a torn bite scar on his side just over right his hip. He has a black panther tattoo on his left shoulder and on his right shoulder, Tee has a large fleur-de-lis. Over his heart he has "Satori". [i]Style:[/i] Generally Tegan likes to leave an impression on people, so he generally wears a suit to work. However when he’s kicking around the house he’s more than happy to wear casual things like jeans and t-shirt.

[b]Special Skills:[/b] [LIST] [*] Knows a little Russian and Spanish, just enough to get him by and is currently learning Italian. [*] Good under the hood of a car; his baby is proof. [*] Moderately proficient with firearms. [*] Knows basic hand to hand/close combat skills. [/LIST][b]Personality:[/b] [LIST]Compared to his twin brother, Oliver, Tegan is the calmer and more rational of the Frost brothers despite being fairly rough around the edges. He may be a little unorthodox at times depending on the situation at the time – especially when conventional methods don’t work in his favour - but that doesn’t make him a bad person, he just doesn’t like to mess around when it comes to some things such as work, leadership responsibilities and his family life. Outside of those three aspects of his life, Tegan’s pretty chilled out and the type of person that will always try and be there for someone else no matter the cost to him. Of course that’s not to say that he won’t think things through either before or after. He is the type to hang out and have a few beers after work with his friends, shoot hoops at the park on his time off if he isn’t tied up with something else.

He’s loyal. Even if someone betrays him, Tegan will likely keep an eye on that someone. He may not be that willing to throw himself in the line of fire, but he’d be there. While he may not be that trusting from the start of a relationship, Tee goes to some extreme measures to work on trust between him and the other person – or persons - involved. He may, at times, keep some things to his chest such as choices and decisions regarding the Pard or work, and derail the conversation should they come up before he’s ready to talk about them. It just means that he’s thought things through. He may not show it at times, but he does care about the people close to him; and in his mates case, he cares a great deal but what he says go without question. His very family orientated in his own way. Tegan was raised that idle hands could always be put to work elsewhere, and that manners were important on top of always being there for kin.

Tegan is anti-vampire for the most part. But that isn’t to say that he’ll go out of his way to cause trouble for any vampire that crosses his path. He’d just rather prefer that they leave him and his pard alone, but since life isn’t that fair, and he knows for experience that most vampires take what they want, he’s personally remained remarkably cautious about the species as a whole. He doesn’t really mind when someone in his pard has connections to a vampire (though he’ll growl about it if he sees something he doesn’t like), he won’t micromanage the pard that way, all he asks that those with vampire affiliations take their business elsewhere as he won’t put up with a vampire in his house or in his face. He’ll try and be civil with a vampire, he really will, but the bad experiences with the vampires have kept him at odd when it comes to them.

His personal preferences are damned when it comes to his work. It doesn’t matter if he’s dealing with a human, a shifter, vampire or something all else altogether, he likes to keep things as professional as possible even if he’s out of his element. Tegan’s not exactly a work-a-holic - Ok, well he is, but he wouldn’t call himself that – but he does at some times overwork himself and just keep going until he drops or gets told to take a break. His feelings on the other supernatural differ depending on what he’s drawn into. If it’s personal, that’s fine with him, he’ll roll with the punches but if someone or something thought that dragging his Pard into their issues was going to be fun, Tegan would fight tooth and nail to get them out of it. [/LIST][b]Likes:[/b]  [LIST] [*] Working out. [*] Playing the guitar. [*] A decent cup of coffee. [*] Keeping busy with work. [*] Working on his car when he’s stressed. [*] Having some fun with friends. [*] Having a drink after work. [*] Closing a case. [*] Movie nights in. [*] Climbing as a cat. [/LIST][b]Dislikes:[/b][LIST] [*] Vampires. [*] Chick flicks. [*] An unsolved case. [*] Inner Pard fighting. [*] When he’s put on the spot. [*] When someone lies to his face. [*] People that make him repeat himself. [*] His twin brother when he’s being an ass. [*] When people eye his car for the 'oh cool' buzz. [*] People that think he's a push over and try to be a leader. [/LIST][b]Strengths:[/b] [LIST] [*] Twin empathy. [*] He actually listens to people. [*] Very protective of the Pard. [*] Standard alpha strengths. [*] Shielding his beast, he barely notices when he shields now. [/LIST][b]Weaknesses:[/b][LIST] [*] Can't resist a vampire’s call or gaze (the latter 400+ years.) [*] Twin empathy can be a pain in his ass. [*] His 1966 Impala SS Sport Coupe! He’s poured a lot of time into his baby. [*] Can have a bit of a hot head at times. [*] Possessive of his mate. [/LIST][b]History:[/b] [LIST]Thirty one years ago in Bucklin, Missouri USA, Tegan J. Frost was brought kicking and screaming into the world seconds before his twin brother did. His father, James was delighted and so was his mother, Dawn Frost. However things didn’t go so well. Within minutes of both boys being brought into the world, Oliver died and was spirited away by one of the nurses on call during the delivery. It was a sad state of affairs, and both parents were devastated, Dawn more so than her husband because little did Mrs Frost know, her other son was alive and in the hands of her husband’s mistress and bit on the side. News of Oliver’s ‘death’ was a dramatic blow to the family and people close to the newly wed Frosts once they returned home with their surviving boy to start their new life.

Life for Tegan was pretty simple and family orientated while he was growing up. Despite the fact that it was his mother that was the role model in his life because his father was almost constantly away due to work and would only be home a few months at any one time. When he was home, however, Tegan always tried to stay clear of his father because the elder Frost believed that a good old fashioned beating would toughen any boy up to be a man. He took his licks when they came to him; which was generally when his mom wasn’t around or when he’d done something really bad that a talking to didn’t seem to cover. Respect was one of the things that James Frost demanded, and while Tee may have respected his old man, in the same breath he couldn’t stand him either.

Throughout school, even though Tegan had his ups and downs for various reasons, he tried to make his parents proud. It wasn’t until he was seventeen that Tegan was given something that took his mind off the typical teenage issues that plagued everyone that age; a girlfriend, school grades and peer pressure. On a trip home, his father gave him the keys to the old car in the garage that he’d never been able to give the attention it needed. It was a wreck, but Tegan saw the potential right away and over the next year and a half he put his heart and soul into fixing the machine up while his friends wandered their own way assuming that he thought that he was better than them. It was around about this time that he really sat down to think about what he was going to do with his life.

He could’ve gone into the army like his father, or he could’ve done countless other things like settle down with a wife like his mom hinted at, however Tegan decided that he would rather go into law enforcement. It was something that he hadn’t decided on a whim, and the evening that he’d decided to tell his parents, his life changed when his mom turned around and told him that his father had passed on. It was shocking, and it numbed Tegan to the point he didn’t speak to anyone – not his mother, his girlfriend or even the guy at the corner store - until the day of the funeral almost a week after he’d gotten the news. It was during the service that things took a dramatic turn once more. Half way through, a punk rocker rolled up like he owned the world. It could’ve been handled easily if it had been anyone else, expect the guy looked exactly like Tegan.

He introduced himself as “Ollie”, James' son.  

His dad wasn’t even in the ground twenty minutes before a fight between the boys broke out and they were only separated when Dawn got in between them and forced them to back off. Tee was mortified at what he’d done and Ollie was fuming that Dawn had got between them, but Dawn didn’t leave it at that. She chewed on both her boys before Ollie stormed off in one direction and Tee in the other. Tegan didn’t go home for two days after the funeral and revelation that his twin brother was alive, he was a mess emotionally and pushed everyone away when they tried to get close. He’d lost his father, gained a brother that he’d always been told was dead, his mom had no answers she really wanted to give him and even his girlfriend at the time wanted him as far away from her as possible for the scene at the funeral. He may have been a mess, but he did return home after a few days when he’d had a chance to calm down. The day he came home, he and his mom had a bit of a talk that had been long overdue.  His mom told him how things had been strained with her and James’s marriage but she never dreamt that it would affect him. Then when he hesitantly broached the topic about Oliver, all he was given a phone number – somehow she’d managed to snag that before Ollie had left – before she changed the topic. He could see that it still hurt her, so Tegan left his mother to it and went about his own business.

In retrospect, he probably should have told Dawn that he was moving out and applying to the force. She probably would have been fine with it if he had been staying local where they could still keep in touch daily, however when she found out that he was moving to San Francisco, Dawn flipped! She tried everything that she could but nothing seemed to faze Tegan who was only a few months shy of his nineteenth birthday. The move itself was relatively pain free, and as scary as the prospect of beginning his own life away from anything familiar was, Tee pushed on as best that he could. It wasn’t until a three months after his twentieth birthday that he decided, well and truly, that the SFPD was the right occupation for him and applied to join the force. The tests and exams almost made him change his mind half way through the process; his time at the academy however flew by with very little memorable moments, and within half a year he was a fully-fledged cop.

Things didn’t really change for Tegan until mid-June, two thousand and two. On a call out with his partner in the downtown area – Pacific Heights if you want the exact location -, both officers were lead to believe that the disturbance were just bored kids. In fact there was money riding on the fact that they’d find some kids hunkered down in a court yard making weird noises to spook the residents who just happened to be around at the time. What the two officers found was something a little bit more than a couple of kids playing pranks. Caught in an alley way, mid transformation was a leopard shifter that attacked first and asked questions never. Perry died within minutes as the panicked and enraged monster charged them and swatted him into a wall, snapping his neck. Tee managed to get two shots off before the beast transformed fully into the nastiest looking feline he’d ever seen. Rather than attempting to run, Tee did the opposite and attempted to put the beast down. It didn’t work, and the exact details of the mauling were lost under the pain and finally, thankfully, unconsciousness.

Tegan woke up a week later in a secured hospital ward, having healed enough from the attack to be allowed visitors by his doctor. The visitor in question was the deputy chief of Field Operations and ultimately, Tegan’s superior officer. He explained what had happened as well as informing him about Perry’s passing and such. The daze that he’d listened in quickly vanished when the deputy chief brought up possible retirement. When Tegan panicked and asked why, he was told that no one wanted to work with a monster that could turn any moment and attack fellow officers. What was worse, outside of the early retirement, the FOB deputy chief then proceeded to berate him for not killing the leopard creature or helping to save his partner’s life. In the end, it was all too much for Tegan and he sank somewhat blissfully into unconsciousness once more as his doctor hustled the superior officer out of the room. Two weeks later, Tegan discharged himself from hospital against the wishes of his doctor. The first place he went was to work and as distraught as he was, Tegan kicked up enough of a fuss that he managed to wangle a meeting with the Deputy Chief. It may have cost him his position in the Metro division, but that didn’t bother him then. After a long and painful talk that seemed to take hours and perhaps because he could see Tee’s desperation over the idea of being kicked from the force, the DC brought up another option that Tegan could take instead of retirement. A transfer to the UK; more to the point a transfer to a new division that allowed supernaturals to work on the force, known as the Royal Preternatural Investigation Team. Seeing as it was Tegan’s only option outside of losing his job, he accepted and within the week he was on a plane to the UK with the assurance from the Deputy Chief that things would be sorted by the time he’d landed.

Unfortunately, things had been cut a little too close for comfort. With days of finding a new place to live and moving in, Tee’s first shift hit him like a tonne of bricks. When he came around, he found that his flat had been torn apart, but that wasn’t what freaked him out the most. What unnerved him, was the fact that he woke up to find a couple bustling around his apartment like they owned the place. They introduced themselves – after Tegan had demanded to know what the hell they were doing - as the Nimir Raj and Nimir Ra of Jackford and when confronted and told that Tegan had no idea exactly what a Nimir Raj or Ra was, the female shifted into the biggest snow leopard he’d seen in his life outside of a television show. The Raj – he introduced himself as Ross – explained that they’d found him in the woods just a few miles north of where Tegan lived, and rather than confront him there and then, had followed him back to the flat. Personally, Tegan was fine with that and thanked them, however Emma – the Ra – chose that moment to pipe in after she’d shifted back, and demand to know when Tegan would’ve sought them out as Rogues weren’t welcome in Jackford and if he didn’t join the Pard, then they would have no choice but to force him out of the city or kill him. Put on the spot with all of this news and knowing deep down that he was severely out matched in every way, Tegan did the sanest thing he could, and asked if he could join the Pard figuring that it was the lesser of two evils and that there wasn't much else that could really happen to him.

Being part of the Pard didn’t affect his job that much and he tended to stay away from the brewing troubles between the clan’s alphas. It wasn’t until the summer of two thousand and four however, that things changed drastically for them all. Ross and Emma had made a bargain with one of the local vampires that could call leopards. In exchange for the resources that the master vampire could give them, the Nimir Raj and Ra handed over their Clan to be used as however “Andrei” felt fit. This sparked an inter clan war between the alphas, and while they were fighting, the vampire turned his attention to the weaker werecats in the clan, and over the space of a few months, Tegan was being used as a walking, talking, blood bag just like many of the other Pard were as the little “rebellion” was crushed.

New arrivals came and old clan members left almost constantly, it seemed. However, one spunky new member to the clan caught Tegan’s attention. Sera was an omega like himself, and it didn’t take her attitude long to provoke an alpha that had a habit of picking on the weaker cats to make him feel bigger. Rather than see her punished for something unbelievably stupid like he had done over the year that she’d been in the group, Tegan got between them which surprised him and everyone else involved since he’d never gotten involved in any trouble or issues within the Pard, choosing to keep a distance from most things unless he was dragged into it. The stronger lycanthrope made his displeasure known and kicked the proverbial spots off Tegan’s hide before finally going on his own way, but not before leaving Tegan with some scars that he couldn’t get rid of afterwards. It was the beating that made something in Tegan click into place, and rather than stand back and let things carry on they were, he took action.

Rather than continue to view things from the side, Tegan pushed himself on and trained harder just like Sera did. He worked his way through the power structure when things between the Pard leaders and the vampires fell apart, and when he finally reached alpha status after eight years of nonsense, Tegan challenged Ross for leadership. Ross indulged him, figuring that it would be easy to break Tegan’s new found backbone and that ego was his downfall. Tegan ended up tearing out Ross’s throat during their fight, and despite the wounds that he’d suffered, when the Ra came upon them, he turned on her too. Yet, when he had her where he wanted her, where he could end her, Tegan backed off and told her that if he ever saw her face again or caught her scent in Jackford that he would do the same to her as he had her mate. Emma was wise enough to see where she was beaten and bolted into the woods, and that was the last that Tegan – or anyone else from the Pard - ever saw of the Queen.

That was almost three years ago, when he took the throne of the Life Forger Pard, and Tegan’s continued to maintain the position and bring the Pard back together as it should be without being some kind of a tyrant, as well as maintain his job. He’s even managed to win the heart of his mate and that suits him. [/LIST][/SIZE]

[greatwar-1914]

October 14, 1918 - Spanish Flu Death Toll Climbs

Pictured - Victims of the 20th century’s worst pandemic.

Countless books on the Great War are published every year, yet curiously few on the Spanish Flu, the worst pandemic of modern history. The virus began spreading throughout the world in 1917, originating in a Kansas army depot and soon infecting millions throughout every continent (it was called Spanish because the neutral Spanish press called attention to it earlier than others).

On October 15 it was announced that 1,500 Berliners had died of the disease. The flu had already ravaged the malnourished German army, which contributed to its rapid collapse in fall 1918. Healthier Allied soldiers had started to succumb as well; a Canadian air ace named Frank Quiqley downed thirty-four German planes but died of the flu on October 19. The disease was also taking its toll in the United States, where it had begun. Philadelphia would lose one percent of its population by the end of 1919. In London 2,225 people died that week, more than had been killed in four years of Zeppelin and bomber raids.

In Asia, Africa, and in the Pacific millions died of the flu. It killed 24% of Western Samoans, for example, and 14 million in India alone. That the flu affected the colonial world the worst is doubtless one reason it is overshadowed by the Great War in history. When the Great Flu passed in 1919 as quickly as it had come, it had taken at least 50 million, possibly as many as 100 million with it, compared to the 12 million who died in the Great War.

[septembriseur]

The scene in which we meet Detective Joe Miller establishes two things about the character in quick succession: first, he’s a “badge,” a cop on Ceres Station; second, he’s a “welwala,” a Belter who is, as Miller puts it, “a traitor to [his] people”— who serves Earth. As we follow Miller, we see that this is a pretty apt description. On a practical level it’s true: the security firm he works for, Star Helix, nominally exists to stop crime and keep the peace on the station, but more often works to keep low-level gangsters from siphoning water from the Earther government’s gardens, to take bribes, and to put down incipient political threats. On a deeper level, Miller also seems to have crafted his self-presentation to reflect this identity. He has a carefully neutral accent, rather than the heavy lilt of most Belters, and though he is fluent in Belter Creole, he almost never employs it unsarcastically— in contrast to other Belter characters, who pepper their speech with kes, keahs, and yas, and toast each other with yam seng. He also dresses like an Earther, as his partner, Dmitri Havelock, points out. When Havelock asks why Miller wears a hat, Miller replies, “It keeps the rain off my head”— a fraught response given that the lack of weather on Ceres means that Miller, born and raised there, has never experienced rain.

Miller’s voice and appearance reflect what is quickly exposed as an internalized resentment of Belters. When a barroom confrontation early in the show’s first episode leads to a sharp reminder from a Belter that “even if he disguises himself, [Miller] is “just like [him],” Miller spits, “I am nothing like you,” and tells the speaker to “take [his] [political] bullshit down to the Medina and wait for the revolution along with the rest of the victims,” implying an ideology that sees claiming victimhood as a way of excusing personal inadequacy. The same scene sees him caught slightly off-guard when, after he points out to his partner the physical deformities by which the Belters in the bar around them can be recognized (baggy skin, shaky muscles, height), Havelock asks him, “What about you?” “What about me?” Miller returns. When Havelock asks, “What’s your tell?” Miller looks uncomfortable at the idea that he too belongs to the category of people whose bodies can be discussed with such casual disregard. The ease with which his “tell” is exposed— a passing Belter jerks back the collar of his shirt and jacket to reveal the bone spurs that run up the top of his spine, explaining that they’re from getting “cheap bone density juice” as a low-gravity child— enrages him, and he drags the Belter off under arrest.

Perhaps even more tellingly, in the fifth episode, while stuck on a transport pod during a power outage, Miller seemingly hallucinates Belter voices describing him as an “Earther’s pet” and commenting darkly that he “doesn’t deserve to breathe the Beltalowda air.” The takeaway here seems to be that Miller loathes himself for being a “welwala” as much as he loathes himself for being a Belter. His response to this unresolvable tension seems to be to regard everything and everyone around him with the same bitter and painful cynicism— an attitude that, however, falls away as the first season of The Expanse approaches its conclusion and Miller evinces a growing sense of Belter identity.

The show seems to suggest that Miller’s evolution is linked to his wistful, one-sided affection for the presumed-dead Julie Mao, who threw away her Earther privilege and wealth in order to save the lives of Belters. Belter political leader Anderson Dawes tells Miller that Miller is “everything [Julie] despised: a Belter who preys on his own kind,” and Miller’s realization that this is the case— that Julie was not only a committed activist for radical Belter political faction the OPA but, in fact, “died for the Belt,” trying to prevent her father’s corporation from testing a bioweapon on Belters— is positioned as a significant step in his personal journey.

The fact that Julie died for the Belt and, moreover, died as a Belter— her body treated as nothing more than material for biological experimentation— is undoubtedly important to Miller. Yet this revelation is inseparable from an experience that I would argue is more important: Miller’s firsthand encounter with the brutality of Protogen’s experiment on Eros, and his resulting awareness that “Belter” is neither a political identity nor a claim of victimhood, but instead a situation of bodily vulnerability that is imposed by systems of power outside of one’s control.

The first hint that something in Miller’s mind is changing comes after he and Holden have been irradiated during the early stages of the experiment on Eros, and have witnessed a shelter full of Belters being deliberately cooked by lethal doses of radiation. Eluding the guards responsible for controlling the experiment, the two duck into an abandoned pachinko parlor. Holden thinks they’ll find a place to hide; Miller responds by saying, “Optimism is for assholes and Earthers. And Belters? We know what’s up. We know the game is rigged. It’s been rigged from the start. Always has been.” It’s one of the few times he has identified himself as a Belter, and comes as he reveals that he was a street rat who became a cop because a friend asked him if he wanted to be an ass or a boot— the one getting kicked, in other words, or the one doing the kicking. “Which one are you now?” Holden asks, and an hallucination of Julie Mao repeats the question, eyeing Miller knowingly. Miller can’t answer the question, perhaps caught in the realization that his current situation demonstrates the falseness of the dichotomy. For Belters, there is no option to not be the oppressed, and believing that one has escaped or can escape this position is a form of self-delusion. (A later scene, in which the Belter guards are refused transport off the station, seems to confirm that “Inners” see no difference between Belters who wield the boot against their own people and those who don’t.)

It’s shortly after this that Miller and Holden encounter a transport pod filled with dying Belters infected by the growing alien protomolecule, and realize the full nature of what’s happening on Eros. The scientists in charge will “watch a hundred thousand people die,” Miller says, “just like bugs in a dish. That’s why they picked Eros. They don’t even consider these people human.” These people are, of course, his people. These people are him. Holden doesn’t seem to really be listening to what Miller says, more preoccupied with the broad political implications of what’s happening: “Mars will accuse Earth of using a bioweapon. Earth will claim it was Mars. The Belt will blame the other two.” He recognizes the tremendous suffering and injustice that are taking place on Eros, but it lacks the full force of the immediacy it has for Miller.

In a curious scene, as Miller and Holden try to reach Holden’s ship, Miller devises a plan to cross the Eros docks by pretending to be a guard and inciting the other guards to revolt. In order to do so, he mimics the radical Belter rhetoric we’ve seen him mock and put down on Ceres: “We’re just meat for their machine… just like all them other Belters back there, ya? …Blood’s on the wall, beratnas! Milowda na animals! [We’re not animals!]” This is play-acting, down to the affected Belter accent. Yet at the same time, perhaps an element of it is not. Blood is literally on the wall, and he has realized that he is just like all the other Belters— seen as no better than an animal, in spite of his willingness to sell himself to Earth. “See, they picked Eros to test their weapon on,” he reiterates to Holden in episode 2x01, “because they knew nobody gives a shit about a hundred thousand Belters.” When Holden insists that the people who carried out the experiment will pay for it, Miller asks, “You still believe that? After everything you saw?”

Miller and Holden escape Eros, and journey to Tycho, where Miller promptly signs on to a Belter mission aimed at taking out the scientists behind the Protogen experiment, despite having no experience in space. When a young Belter gangster whom Miller had previously busted on Ceres expresses astonishment that Miller would be involved in such a thing, Miller says simply, “I was on Eros.” The experience has clearly altered something in him. 

But the most striking example of how much has changed comes after the Tycho mission, when Fred Johnson (the Earther who leads a faction of the OPA) and Holden are interrogating Protogen’s lead scientist. The scientist, Dresden, makes the case that his work is about saving and advancing humanity. “Eros is hardly a rounding error,” Dresden says, in comparison with the lives that other great men in history have taken. He wants to be allowed to continue his work. 

Miller is the only Belter in the room, and throughout the conversation, his eyes track not the scientist, but the reactions of the two Earthers. And when the scientist has finished talking, and Johnson has agreed to work with him, Miller shoots Dresden dead.

The reaction of Johnson and, especially, Holden is one of fury and shock. In fact, they have Miller put in cuffs and treated as a prisoner. The assumption is, as Amos Burton (also an Earther) later says, that Miller shot Dresden as revenge for the death of Julie Mao. Miller wearily attempts to explain that this isn’t the case, but no one seems to buy this. It’s not surprising that the only central character to express agreement with his choice is Naomi Nagata (a Belter), who tells Holden that Holden “can’t understand,” and that Miller “cared about all of us,” demanding to know if Holden really wanted to work out a deal with a man “who casually murdered countless Belters.” (Two Belters who adopt Miller on Tycho— “You one of us now,” they insist— say that they wanted to space all the Protogen prisoners, but that Johnson refused. “Earther,” one of the Belters says, as an explanation.)

Perhaps the most significant scene in Miller’s journey takes place in the tiny Tycho apartment of Diogo, a low-life street kid turned OPA soldier. Miller, shirtless and with his Belter bone spurs visible— a previous scene in which he acknowledged a shared Belter identity with Naomi also saw him shirtless and with the back of his neck exposed— responds to Diogo’s desire for the Belt to rule the system by saying, “System rules you, kid.” (There is a deliberate ambiguity here as to whether Miller is referencing the solar system or some other kind.) Miller continues, regarding himself in the mirror:

“You don’t choose anything. You’re born into it, man. One side or the other. You play it out. When those Inners, they figure out what’s on Eros, they’ll kill every last one of us to get it.”

“Us?” Diogo asks.

“Belters,” Millers says, the camera shooting him from behind so that his malformed spine can be seen. He hesitates for a long moment before clarifying quietly, “Us Belters.”

Diogo stands and goes to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Beltalowda,” he says, with uncharacteristic solemnity— an agreement, or an affirmation, or perhaps simply the only word that can really express what Miller is gesturing towards, which is a solidarity born from the situation that he’s just described. 

The situation of being Beltalowda is not just that of sharing a place or condition of birth, the accident of having been raised on a station in low gravity, but is instead a response to having a body that is excluded from the strictest definition of the human body, being a kind of life that can be extinguished at low cost. To be a Belter is not a choice: Fred Johnson is an Earther who has chosen the Belt as his home and his cause, as Julie Mao also did, but neither of them is subject to the extreme vulnerability of the Belter whose very body (marked by its brittle bones, its inability to tolerate what Chrisjen Avasarala describes as “the gravity of a real planet,” its multiple other physical debilities) participates in dehumanizing assemblages that position Belters as always outside of the whole and universal “human.”

Beltalowda, as a concept, takes this shared vulnerability and transforms it into a defiant kinship. In the scene between Diogo and Miller, Diogo is playing the newest dance track, which he describes as “fresh out of Eros”— a “mad OPA pirate” has hacked the encrypted data stream of sounds emanating from Eros and remixed it with dance beats, creating what Diogo describes as “our anthem,” a “call to war.” The suffering of other Belters has been seized on and made loud, made powerful, and made into something that drives their fellow people. In a sense, though Miller is initially disturbed by the idea of the song, this is exactly what he has experienced: the suffering he saw on Eros has forced him to confront his own dehumanization, which he has tried to escape and always feared, and through that confrontation and the realization that he is a Belter (that he was “born into it,” and being a “boot” (or a badge) will not keep him from being of the ones who get crushed) he has come to an understanding of what it means to be part of Beltalowda, and found unanticipated meaning in it.

It’s this that inspires him to cook up an extreme plan to destroy Eros before the Inners, as he predicted, try to seize it— a plan that he doesn’t seem overly surprised to learn will probably cost him his life. Ultimately, whether it does or it doesn’t is an unusually complicated question, and at the very least, he is united with Julie Mao. But it would be a mistake to assume that his mission is about Julie. Miller is dying, like she did, for the Belt.

[ayers85morales-blog]

Circumcised VERSUS Uncircumcised Penis.

Sharin Lion has been a freelance writer because 2009, specializing in health-related articles. When cosmetics executives explain the purported benefits of gold for the skin, they appear to be reading from the exact same PowerPoint slide: anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, anti- acne Individuals who market lotions with visible gold streaks discuss the capacity of those streaks to warm up the skin and also make it conducive to various other active ingredients. Main types of cosmetic surgery for creases of the face and neck are renovation, forehead lift, and necklift. Many thanks to blood being pumped around the body, live skin cells lying deep in the skin are pushed up higher to the surface area of the skin. The mild oil pressed from the lush avocado is understood to be comforting to the skin. The Seki Side Craftsman 6-piece Pet grooming Set is best for if you're tired of having to replace your manicure set. you. Evaluating the influence of skin condition on the quality of life in contrast keeping that of persistent nondermatological diseases is hard; nevertheless, the study by Mallon and others (1999), which was not executed in a developing nation, compares the usual skin disease acne with chronic disorders such as bronchial asthma, arthritis, and also diabetic issues as well as discovers equivalent deficiencies in unbiased dimensions of life quality. However, you may intend to look for skin tag treatment for cosmetic factors if, for instance, they are on your eyelids and also detract from your look. It is likewise product that, by the time Humbert's confession is read, both Humbert and Lolita have died of all-natural reasons. SkincareIQ works in a various way as well as you have to know your skin a little bit prior to you attempt this out. A good friend recommended CoQ 10. Everybody claims that it doesn't assist after damage is done-but I seem to be getting some relief from it-If I fail to remember to take it-the creepy skin begins once again. On the more expensive end, this light yet abundant cream is an example of the transfer to natural skin care that's been all over Korea. You could find olive oil in countless skin as well as hair treatment items, including soaps, facial washes, conditioners, shampoos, and creams. Topical or systemic anti-biotics may be needed for any one of these problems if the affected skin gets infected. Disinfectant - Elegance mavens have utilized apple vinegar for centuries to cleanse their skin. As compared to all the other available approaches of reducing temple wrinkles, rhytidectomy uses the longest-lasting, most effective outcomes. Grooves between the nose and corner of the lips (nasolabial folds up) or lip as well as chin (marionette lines) end up being much less noticeable with facial fillers such as hyaluronic acid. Physical activity could enhance sagging skin, with exercises that tone the muscle mass underneath your skin. As a result, everyday skin treatment ought to include protective clothing in addition to an application of a broad-spectrum sun block.

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[siimpledreamer]

FULL HISTORY.

rosie was born to prince george and princess marguerite of iconven, a sunny morning in july. her mother was a count’s daughter from france and her fahter’s brother was the king. a health condition prevented him from having an heir of his own. for this reason, a son was wanted. but her parents loved their daughter. rosie was educated by a governess. more children joined the family. in all, rosie had six siblings, two of which being twins. she loved art and fell in love with fashion.

when rosie turned fifteen, her uncle found a suitable husband for her. from a young age, rosie was told she was required to keep her country happy. as much as she didn’t want to, she agreed to the marriage. she met duke sebastian wakefield (who was in his mid-fifties) before the match was announced to the public. only a few weeks afterwards, the duke died. alarmed, her uncle found another match for her. prince matthieu of neighboring country, vobuvaria. he was a year her senior, a much more appropriate match with better circumstances for all. she met her future husband at a ball. matthieu was shy, blushing everytime he spoke to rosie.

the wedding was a few weeks later, forcing rosie to say goodbye to her family and country. she started sobbing halfway through the vows. her uncle was humiliated and scolded her afterward. her mother warned her about the wedding night, how she must do her duty as the wife. however, nothing happened that night. her mother gently sat her down to give some advice. weeks later, rosie broke under all the pressure and “seduced” her husband.

rosie tries her best in her new kindom. it’s hard to be without her parents. only six months after the wedding, she learned her father was dead. matthieu, understanding the pain of loosing a loved one, was extremely supportive. the couple bounded during the time of mourning.

after her father’s death, rosie found out she was pregnant. her uncle and husband’s family were pleased. however, the joy didn’t last long. when woke up one morning with blood on her bedsheets. seeing her daughter under so much stress, she has her come home for a few months. the break was much needed. rosie came back refreshed.

by the next year, rosie was pregnant. she was extremely concerned this time and refused to leave her bed, believing physical actividy was what caused her to miscarry. it took lots of prying from midwives, doctors and her husband to get her out of bed. after a traumatic delivery, the child is born healthy. a daughter, named elodie after matthieu’s late grandmother. after her uncle’s death, rosie’s younger brother, claude became king. unfortunately, claude is killed in a carriage accident. at the tender age of fourteen, prince john became king. rosie realized the great injustice of it all. they both took roles meant for adults when they were children.

rosie became a fashion icon. she adored bright, pastel colors, popularizing them. yellow fever spreads throughout the palace, infecting the royal family. rosie’s worst fear was losing another baby. she focused everything on making sure elodie got better. fortunately, mattheiu, rosie and elodie survive. however, his mother and her husband do not. rosie and mattheiu took the crown. she hated all the responsibility put on her shoulders. charity work was her main concern. rumors of rebellion sprang up, but other politicians and advisors assured them it was nothing.

rosie gives birth to another girl. they call her lisette, after matthieu’s mother. rosie stressed over not having a son, but matthieu adored his daughters. there was time to have an heir.

an uprising began. inspired by the one in france. rosie remained calm and elegant to others. she threw a ball, inviting everyone who could dress for it. the people were angry at this. since the only people who could dress for it, were wealthy. rosie’s health struggled under all the stress. matthieu asked countless doctors to look after her. however, there was hardly anything they could do.

when an angry mod broke into the palace, the royal family was put into hiding. rosie suffered another miscarriage. but she and matthieu kept hoping things will go back to the way they were.

[worldnewsinpictures]

Do it. Fuck you. Fuck you. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dumb swine, youre an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably massive that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to fuck up on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must not have seen the sacrilegious act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did he would have forsaken humanity long ago so that your birth may have never become reality. After you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn not to generate your bone structure, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you degrades them to a useless piece of trash and a burden to society. No wonder your father questioned whether or not your were truly his son, for you'd have to not be a waste of carbon matter for anyone to love you like a family member. Your birth made it so that mankind is worse of in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can never really recover into a state of organization. Everything has forever fallen into a bewildering chaos, through which unrecognizable core, you can only find misfortune. I would say the apocalypse is upon us but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of horror that is now reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know into an eternal state of suffering, worse than any human concept of hell. You are such an unholy being, that if you step within a one hundred foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your distorted sac religious soul will ruin whatever meaning it ever had beyond repair. You are an idiotic, shiteating, dumbass ape and no one has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been better off if you'd never joined us. You are a lying, backstabbing, cowardly useless piece of shit and I hate you with every single part of my being. Even this worlds finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just fucked up, and how incredibly idiotic you are. Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been wrong this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would never have allowed a being such as you to stain the earth and this universe. In the future there will be horror stories made about you, with the scariest part of them being that the reader has to realize that such an indescribable monster actually exists, and that the horrific events from the movie have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been wrong on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the evil that is your being. Never in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such an eldrich abomination, but here you are. Its hard to believe that I am seeing such an incredible failure with my own eyes, but here I am, so unfortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the idiotic mistake that is you. Even if time travel some day will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to fix history, because having to witness such incredible horrors if they failed would have to many mental and physical drawbacks that not even the bravest soul in history would be willing to risk it. I cannot imagine the pure dread your mother must have felt when she had to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a wretched monster as you. Not a single word of the incoherent, illogical rambling you may be wanting to do to defend yourself or apologize would ever be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws preventing such a terrible event like this from ever happening again, but sadly this is not possible since your horrific actions just now have shattered every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws irrelevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you I knew you were an absolute abomination of everything that is wrong with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to prevent your evil from being released upon this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, but it is clear to me now that not even the greatest efforts would have been able to prevent a terrible event in this scale from occurring. You are the worst human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Events like the infected plague apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to survive such a horrible event as the one you just created, but not even mankinds greatest trials were able to even slightly prepare anyone for the insufferable evil you have just created. If you ever had them, your children would be preemptively killed to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as bad as you are, except you will never be able to have children, because not a single human being will ever want to come within a hundred mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal disappointment not only to your parents, but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The disgusting mistake that you have just made is so incredibly terrible that everyone who would ever be to hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense anger, fear and anxiety that emotionally and physically they would never truly be the same ever again. The sheer scale of your mistake, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense failure, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating working as hard and efficiently as possible, yet there is not even a snowballs chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute shitshow you have just released upon the world. You are an irresponsible, idiotic, disgusting, unloved, horrible excuse for a living being whos soul contains less humanity than every ginger in history combined. The absolute disgust I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your unholy actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it I think that even I do not posses a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it. When people of Columbia fought to break free from Lungmen, countless soldiers fought and lost their lives in favor of a chance at a better future for their children, they did not give their lives to have you fuck the world up beyond repair to the degree that you are doing right now. Honestly, even when technology advances and studies on the subject become more and more accurate, I do not think humanity will ever truly be able to understand what your failure actually means for the universe. My hate for you and everything you stand for is so much deeper than the depths of Shambala that you could probably take the entire Lungmen population down there and back up around twenty million times before you would have sunk to the end of my hate, and honestly, I do not want to exaggerate, but I think that that insult was low balling it such a massive amount that all mountains in this world combined would not be able to stack up to this imprecise judgement in light of the fact that when being honest, my hate is almost certainly bottomless. There is no one in this world that has ever loved you, and especially after what you just did, no one will ever love you in the future either. There is no hope that your idiotic behavior and especially your crooked soul will ever change for the better, and in fact quite the opposite might be true. By making the mistake that you just did, you have shown me that you are so incredibly hopeless that you will only devolve into a more idiotic and wretched creature than you already are. The only possible way in which your future would be brighter than the black hole your existence currently is would exclusively be because there is absolutely no conceivable way that you would even be able to sink lower than the pathetic place your current failure has put you in.... Got an opinion about this? See what others are saying.... See MORE -> https://worldnewsinpictures.com/do-it #FuckFuck #FuckFuckYou #YouThe #YouTheEven #Jesus #JesusAfter #JesusAfterYour #YouYou #YouYouYou #Island #IslandYou #IslandYouEven #YouNever #YouNeverIts #EvenNot #EvenNotThe #YouEvents #YouEventsYou #TheYou #TheYouThe #Columbia #ColumbiaLungmen #ColumbiaLungmenHonestly #Lungmen #LungmenThere #LungmenThereThere #GotSee #GotSeeSee #useless #absolute

[pointgiven4517]

I haven't posted on Tumblr in so long, but I needed to share something a patient of mine's dad wrote. It hits all of my emotions so hard...

This is a long post, specifically written for fellow believers in Christ who have chosen to not get themselves vaccinated. It may come across as quite direct. It may cause one to feel uncomfortable or confronted. Please know that I've written all of this because I love you, I want you to take care of yourselves and your neighbors, and I care deeply for my family, especially our Adair who is put at risk by all unvaccinated people. If you're a fellow Christian who is unvaccinated, please read this, even if you haven't read anything else I've written on the pandemic or vaccines. Here we go...

A friend had some wise words for me today as we were discussing the pandemic, vaccines, and our faith. He said that he believes bible study is the effort to know God's will, and science is the effort to know God's work.

I thought that this was profound and wanted to share some of my intersecting thoughts on this.

In my opinion, modern, American, Evangelical Christianity has increasingly become linked to a general distrust of science. Concurrently, the Republican Party has increasingly sought to brand themselves as the Christian Party (especially since the 1980s with Ronald Reagan), and not only that, but they've sought to demonize the Democratic Party. I'm mentioning both of these concepts, because they are interwoven in today's political and religious landscapes.

For many American Christians, it is deeply woven into the fabric of their lives that they must vote for a Republican in order to be a good Christian (I used to believe this myself). Furthermore, they believe that the word of God is in opposition to scientific discovery. Now don't get me wrong, I'm actually much more conservative in my biblical interpretation than you'd think, but I also believe that the earth is God's creation, broken by sin, but is still his creation, just as we all are. Scientific discovery is a gift from God and further reveals God's work in our lives. It is not the enemy.

Because many American Christians have universally linked their faith with the Republican Party and have put their faith on par with their loyalty to the party, they have set up a construct where they have made anything and everything that is in opposition to the Republican Party an enemy in the name of faith.

This all has been going on for decades, and has really come to a head over the last several years. Before I make additional statements, I want to make it clear that I believe (and the bible teaches) that all people are sinful from birth. I believe that when we put our faith in people as opposed to God and Jesus, we will always be let down. This is true, regardless of denomination, political party, etc.

All of that being said, I believe that the devil has been at work in these divisions and linkages. Here, I want to specifically focus on how the devil has been delighting in the alignment of Christianity with the Republican Party in America. I believe we saw that on full display with the election of Donald Trump. In my opinion, through Donald Trump, the devil worked to see how far he could push Christians away from the teachings of Christ. Donald Trump said that he was a Christian, but he also said that he didn't need forgiveness (example of that here: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-on-god-i-dont-like-to-have-to-ask-for-forgiveness-2016-1). This is a cornerstone of Christianity - the knowledge that we are sinful, in need of Christ's forgiveness, and that faith in his saving work on the cross and resurrection is the path to heaven. There are so many examples of Donald Trump's overt bullying, lying, xenophobia, cheating, horrible business practices, and the list goes on (I use the word overt, because Donald Trump has been bold in his un-Christian behaviors, seeing them as a badge of honor) - yet the Republican Party and an overwhelming number of Christians have followed along in the name of faith. From my perspective, this is exactly what the devil wanted. He wanted to see how far he could push people away from the teachings of the bible by following an antichrist as the leader of this nation.

Don't get me wrong, there are countless examples throughout history of leaders from all political persuasions that have been terrible witnesses for Christ, even though they said they were Christians. Donald Trump is the first one that I'm aware of, though, that claimed to be a Christian yet stated that he didn't need Christ's forgiveness. That is critical for the Christian person to consider.

Donald Trump is, objectively, a compulsive liar and master manipulator. I can hear people now - so are all politicians. Ok, I get it. Many are, yes, and increasingly so in order to win votes. BUT, Donald Trump was so compulsive in his lying that he would lie about things that were irrelevant. He couldn't help himself in his lying. In my opinion, Trump, a lifelong Democrat, knew of the linkage between Christianity and the Republican Party, and used that to his advantage. He claimed to be a Christian even though he isn't. He claimed to be pro-life (THE issue for Republican, Christian voters), even though he's been pro-choice his entire life. And he branded himself as the person who was going to look out for the little guy, be the hero of the all-American family, and bring back American values and strength. But what he did was tap into things that have been building for decades and things that have been lying under the surface for a long time - the linkage between Christianity and Republican Party, underlying systems of racism and oppression; he built upon the strong emotion of fear and made immigrants his enemies, he made the made-up issue of voter fraud come alive in people's minds, and he sought to pit one side against the other, winner take all, at all costs.

His strategy was working in a lot of ways too. And then a novel coronavirus struck the world. And for Donald Trump, a man that refuses to be anything but a strong-man, refuses to acknowledge that he needs help from anybody or anything, a man that believes that he knows all and knows best, the virus moved upon him and our country with a vengeance (and continues to do so).

This virus doesn't care about political affiliation, personalities, conspiracy theories, or anything else. It seeks viable hosts in which to replicate and improve itself through variants.

And because of Donald Trump's ignorance and arrogance, because of his nepotism, because of his belief that he cannot be conquered, over 600,000 Americans have died due to COVID-19. Furthermore, his sewing of conspiracy theories, lies, deception, misinformation, etc have caused a large portion of our country to doubt cold, hard facts, to doubt credible experts, to doubt medical professionals, to doubt experts in communicable disease in favor of what have been deemed the only sources of credible information - Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Donald Trump and his enablers have sewed seeds of discord and doubt in their followers to the extent that facts are viewed as fiction. They have willfully spread lies about this virus and about the vaccines.

And all the while, Christians who have conflated their loyalty to party with their faith are praying for an end to this pandemic when one has been staring them in the faces for months. God's gift of science - that effort to know God's amazing work - quickly discovered a way to neutralize a global pandemic. The answer to our prayers is already here in the form of a vaccine. It is a fact that COVID-19 is deadly serious and it's only getting worse with the Delta Variant. It's also a fact that the vaccines are miraculously safe and effective. We don't know with certainty the long-term effects of COVID or the vaccines, but we do know a lot about the short-term and medium-term effects of them. COVID-19 is deadly, and it also damages multiple organs systems within the body, even in cases with few symptoms, leading to what will likely be long-term disabilities. The vaccines may have some minor risks that are easily treatable, but their benefits outweigh the risks by multiple orders of magnitude. Additionally, almost all vaccine injuries occur in the very near term, so with the data we have, it's logical to believe that the vaccines will be safe in the long-term, whereas COVID continues to show us that it will be devastating in the long-term.

The vaccines are the answer to our prayers, and it continues to befuddle me as to why so many right-leaning Christians refuse to acknowledge that fact.

I'll go a few steps further and say some things that have been on my heart. The job of the Christian this side of the resurrection is to be a witness for Christ and a light in this world. By promoting false conspiracy theories, by propping up wicked men and their actions, by denying facts and science, and by latching onto verifiably false beliefs, the Christian-Right has weakened the credibility of its witness for Jesus. If our role as Christians is to talk credibly to non-believers about Jesus and his saving work, why would any non-believer believe us about an invisible God if we are promoting verifiably false information? When we deny proven truth, facts, science, and reality, we hurt the credibility of our witness for Jesus. Our job isn't to try and look good for our fellow Christians - it's to be a credible witness for Jesus.

I'll end this with a desperate plea for everybody to get vaccinated who is medically able to do so as well as an excerpt from the writings of Martin Luther on the plague:

"Others sin on the right hand. They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him. God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health.

If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a suicide in God’s eyes. By the same reasoning a person might forego eating and drinking, clothing and shelter, and boldly proclaim his faith that if God wanted to preserve him from starvation and cold, he could do so without food and clothing. Actually that would be suicide. It is even more shameful for a person to pay no heed to his own body and to fail to protect it against the plague the best he is able, and then to infect and poison others who might have remained alive if he had taken care of his body as he should have. He is thus responsible before God for his neighbor’s death and is a murderer many times over. Indeed, such people behave as though a house were burning in the city and nobody were trying to put the fire out. Instead they give leeway to the flames so that the whole city is consumed, saying that if God so willed, he could save the city without water to quench the fire.

No, my dear friends, that is no good. Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body? You ought to think this way: “Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God."

[phgq]

NegOr fights back against Covid-19 despite challenges

#PHnews: NegOr fights back against Covid-19 despite challenges

DUMAGUETE CITY – Health and other authorities in Negros Oriental have cited the resilience of the people in the province and the cooperation among government officials and the private sector in containing the spread of the coronavirus disease (2019) more than its neighboring provinces throughout the year 2020.

In January, when the world was still groping for more information on the novel coronavirus, later named as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019, the provincial government was literally caught flat-footed when the first two cases of Covid-19 in the Philippines were reported to have travel history to Negros Oriental.

They were a Chinese couple who had traveled from Wuhan to Negros Oriental via Hong Kong, and visited some places here, and stayed at different accommodations between January 22 to 25, until they flew back to Manila.

Upon arrival, both went to a hospital and were diagnosed with Covid-19. The 44-year-old-male succumbed to the viral disease, reported to be the first fatality outside of China.

The death, which Health Sec. Francisco Duque reported in early February, sent the public here into panic mode as the provincial government initially created a surveillance and monitoring team with Gov. Roel Degamo, Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion, and the provincial Department of Health (DOH), headed by Dr. Socrates Villamor meeting to map out a contingency plan with other agencies.

But there were no contingency measures back then on how to address the new highly-infectious coronavirus that had already claimed countless lives in Wuhan, and testing for Covid-19 in the following weeks and months had to be done in Australia in the absence of facilities in the Philippines as yet.

The accommodation facilities where the Chinese couple had stayed while in the province were locked down for disinfection, and the first contact-tracing commenced with those coming in close contact with them subjected to 14-day mandatory quarantine.

Fortunately, not one of them tested positive for the Covid-19 from the two imported cases.

In March, the first fatality in Negros Oriental was reported, still, another “imported” case because the patient had a travel history to Greenhills, Metro Manila before his return here and his hospital admission where he died days later.

Pretty soon, direct contacts to the first fatality here were reported to have contracted the virus, and while some recovered from symptoms while under home quarantine, a family member of the deceased also died later of Covid-19.

Tight restrictions imposed

By the middle of March, after the fatalities and the first few cases of Covid-19 in Negros Oriental were reported, Degamo issued an executive order placing the province under general community quarantine (GCQ).

This led to restrictions in travel, limited movements of people and vehicles, the imposition of curfew, and the setting up of quarantine control points or checkpoints at strategic locations.

As in many other areas in the Philippines, government officials were also looking at different ways to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, and by April, Degamo declared a stricter lockdown, the enhanced community quarantine.

Everyone's daily grind practically rolled to a stop. The streets were empty of public transport, and only those with quarantine passes were authorized to leave their homes to stockpile food and other essentials on certain days.

No graduation exercises were held, business establishments shut down, people were told to stay at home, masses at different churches were canceled, and those exempted for various reasons also had restricted movement.

The provincial Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) met constantly to draft out measures that would ensure the safety of the general public.

People went on panic-buying spree earlier before the quarantine restrictions, but suddenly, surgical masks and alcohol ran out, and those that were being sold were priced five or 10 times more than their original cost.

When the national government announced that locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) were already allowed to return, the provincial government and the local government units (LGUs) found themselves in a quandary on how to address the impending problem.

The number of Covid-19 cases in the succeeding months was a “handful” without a local or community transmission being forecast back then.

Many cases were of the returning residents, who were believed to have acquired the infection outside Negros Oriental.

Adrian Sedillo, provincial IATF-EID executive director, said that the slow spread of the infections was attributed to people observing health and safety protocols and LGUs were doing their best to attend to their respective positive cases.

By the end of April, the provincial government was preparing to downgrade to GCQ in May because there were no new confirmed positive Covid-19 cases in the last three weeks.

The transition carried with it some minor easing up of restrictions, such as allowing the resumption of masses but with only 10 people allowed at one time, public transport began operating again, and some other services also opened up.

Border security between the other provinces, however, was still very tight.

Spike in cases

Throughout the year, Sedillo said the provincial IATF and their counterparts in the LGUs constantly faced a barrage of challenges as the scenario constantly changed.

He said that LGUs were now mandated by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to set up their own quarantine/isolation facilities.

This became a problem at first because the LGUs could not find the proper venue that would ensure the safety of the suspect or positive cases and the front-liners.

Schools, gymnasiums, and even barangay halls were utilized as quarantine facilities.

Sedillo noted that this arrangement was helpful because now the LGUs were directly involved in the reception of LSIs and ROFs, monitoring of suspect cases, and attending to confirmed cases unless those with severe symptoms who needed to be hospitalized.

But in the late third quarter of the year and onwards, the cases of positive infections began to rise, with local transmissions already being eyed, still without an official declaration from the provincial or local IATFs.

This triggered a call-out from groups of medical doctors who warned of a surge of cases with the easing up of restrictions.

They pushed for voluntary self-quarantine as the positive cases started to slowly rise, and while anticipating an increase, described the situation in the province as “alarming”.

Looking at the graph of the positive cases in Negros Oriental, the sudden spike started with what the doctors called a “super spreader”, referring to an authorized person outside of residence (APOR) who had a history of travel to Metro Manila and who tested positive of the virus upon his return here.

Before his return, the province had only a minimal number of positive infections.

Since then, the cases continued on an uphill climb, mainly attributed not just to the APOR but also to large gatherings such as the Dumaguete fiesta celebration in November, and the Christmas and New Year holiday celebrations.

Accomplishments

Despite the many challenges that the province had faced, government and health authorities went on with innovations and other measures to control the spread of the virus.

The provincial government built its own Covid-19 isolation facility at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital (NOPH) that included 34 single-bed rooms with individual ventilators and also established its molecular diagnostic laboratory (NOPHML) to hasten testing for the coronavirus.

The NOPHML was built on a PHP20-million fund from President Rodrigo Duterte’s Bayanihan Grant, with a donation of between PHP12 million to PHP14 million from geothermal power leader Energy Development Corporation, which donated two reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines and other equipment.

The province also established a “tent city” at the oval of the Perdices Memorial Coliseum here if hospitals were overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases.

Sedillo said the past year was a roller-coaster ride with Covid-19, considering that there were also restrictions from the national government and the problem with government agencies “not coordinating with their efforts”, but still, the resilience of Oriental Negrenses has allowed for the province to avoid a bloated scenario of infections.

Unlike neighboring provinces and cities, such as Negros Occidental and its capital, Bacolod City, and Cebu City, “our province is still considered to have a low rate of infections”, he said.

At the close of the year, the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in Negros Oriental was pegged at 937, broken down into 763 recoveries, 146 active infections, and 28 deaths, as reported by Assistant Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Liland Estacion, in a year-end virtual presser on Thursday.

Estacion noted that the percentage of recoveries outweighs the number of deaths or the active positive cases at a given time.

But she said that “let us not be complacent. Let us not let our guard down. The Covid-19 virus is still here and even with a vaccine already made available in other countries, it might be a while before it reaches us here”.

She appealed to the people to continue observing health and safety protocols and observing the so-called three C’s – close physical contact with others, confined places, and crowds.

“If we love our family and our friends, then let us do our part by cooperating with authorities and heeding their call to refrain from doing certain things that would compromise not just us but other people, too”, she said.

Sedillo and Estacion, while expecting the numbers to still rise after the holidays are over, are hopeful of a downward trend in Covid-19 cases in the new year, if everyone involved would only do their part.

Negros Oriental is still under a modified general community quarantine and restrictions have already been eased by as much as 50 percent, such as restaurants, masses, and public transport although classes are still held online and via blended learning with the use of modules. (PNA)

  ***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "NegOr fights back against Covid-19 despite challenges." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1126137 (accessed January 02, 2021 at 03:19AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "NegOr fights back against Covid-19 despite challenges." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1126137 (archived).

[brettzjacksonblog]

Crisis Preparation: How To Prepare Your Crypto Holdings For Inheritance

Crisis is here, and potential pandemic at the hands of the coronavirus is catching many crypto investors off-guard and provoking panic around ever turn. In the event of the inevitable happening sooner than expected, are crypto investors truly prepared for a worst-case scenario, especially when it comes to providing loved ones access to any potential crypto inheritance? The answer is likely no, however, here are some tips on how can get up to speed in case of catastrophe. The Entire World Is in Fear and Panic Over the Coronavirus Outbreak Humans by nature are procrastinators. We know being prepared saves us stress, energy, and money in the long run, but we often wait until the last minute due to being too focused on our social lives, work, or getting some much-needed rest and relaxation. This lackadaisical behavior is causing the entire world to be caught off guard by an unexpected black swan event: the rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus. Related Reading | Is the Coronavirus The Black Swan Event That Crushes Cryptocurrency?  In a little over two short months since the outbreak was first discovered in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has spread to most nations, infected over 100,000, and taken the lives of over 4,382 people. These numbers are climbing by the day, and due to how powerful of a contagion the virus is, a full-scale outbreak is expected. Events everywhere are being canceled, transportation and travel are hindered and even discouraged, and growth in the economy is slowing as a result. It’s caused complete panic across the globe, fearing not only an economic meltdown but a pandemic that rivals the plague and countless others that took the lives of millions throughout history. Possible death is a scenario that everyone should consider in crisis, and prepare for, hence why legal documents like a will exist. Serious question. If something bad happened to you and you died, does your spouse, family, whoever you'd want, know how to access your crypto accounts? Do they know where your 2FA is if needed? Or is that all going to be lost along with you? — Josh McGruff (@JoshMcGruff) March 11, 2020 How to Prepare Your Crypto Inheritance In Case of Catastrophe If you hold a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, including this in a will is the first major step to take. Identifying who you want the funds to go to, and who you want responsible are steps two and three. Beyond this, because of the intricacies involved with cryptocurrency technology, there are additional steps that are required to access funds that are often beyond what is necessary for traditional assets. Crypto assets are locked away behind cryptography and can only be accessed via private key. Those with higher levels of protection over their accounts, use additional fail-safes such as two-factor authentication. Will your loved ones be able to access your crypto when you’re gone? Will they need instructions on how to do so? Unfortunately, regardless of how morbid the subject is, most family members likely need some coaching on how to use the new tech in the event of an emergency situation. There are many additional challenges, such as bestowing a private key to a loved one and risking having them access your funds before you are actually deceased. But these challenges must be faced. Related Reading | Bolster Your Personal Opsec With This Crypto Investor Checklist Funerals are expensive, and losing the income of a provider can be crippling in addition to the heartache of losing a loved one. Be responsible and plan for a crisis, long before it happens. For more tips on how to prepare a cryptocurrency inheritance, we recommend the book Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners by Pamela Morgan and a foreword from Bitcoin evangelist Andreas M. Antonopoulos. from CryptoCracken SMFeed https://ift.tt/33aosVy via IFTTT

[michaelbennettcrypto]

Crisis Preparation: How To Prepare Your Crypto Holdings For Inheritance

Crisis is here, and potential pandemic at the hands of the coronavirus is catching many crypto investors off-guard and provoking panic around ever turn. In the event of the inevitable happening sooner than expected, are crypto investors truly prepared for a worst-case scenario, especially when it comes to providing loved ones access to any potential crypto inheritance? The answer is likely no, however, here are some tips on how can get up to speed in case of catastrophe. The Entire World Is in Fear and Panic Over the Coronavirus Outbreak Humans by nature are procrastinators. We know being prepared saves us stress, energy, and money in the long run, but we often wait until the last minute due to being too focused on our social lives, work, or getting some much-needed rest and relaxation. This lackadaisical behavior is causing the entire world to be caught off guard by an unexpected black swan event: the rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus. Related Reading | Is the Coronavirus The Black Swan Event That Crushes Cryptocurrency?  In a little over two short months since the outbreak was first discovered in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has spread to most nations, infected over 100,000, and taken the lives of over 4,382 people. These numbers are climbing by the day, and due to how powerful of a contagion the virus is, a full-scale outbreak is expected. Events everywhere are being canceled, transportation and travel are hindered and even discouraged, and growth in the economy is slowing as a result. It’s caused complete panic across the globe, fearing not only an economic meltdown but a pandemic that rivals the plague and countless others that took the lives of millions throughout history. Possible death is a scenario that everyone should consider in crisis, and prepare for, hence why legal documents like a will exist. Serious question. If something bad happened to you and you died, does your spouse, family, whoever you'd want, know how to access your crypto accounts? Do they know where your 2FA is if needed? Or is that all going to be lost along with you? — Josh McGruff (@JoshMcGruff) March 11, 2020 How to Prepare Your Crypto Inheritance In Case of Catastrophe If you hold a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, including this in a will is the first major step to take. Identifying who you want the funds to go to, and who you want responsible are steps two and three. Beyond this, because of the intricacies involved with cryptocurrency technology, there are additional steps that are required to access funds that are often beyond what is necessary for traditional assets. Crypto assets are locked away behind cryptography and can only be accessed via private key. Those with higher levels of protection over their accounts, use additional fail-safes such as two-factor authentication. Will your loved ones be able to access your crypto when you’re gone? Will they need instructions on how to do so? Unfortunately, regardless of how morbid the subject is, most family members likely need some coaching on how to use the new tech in the event of an emergency situation. There are many additional challenges, such as bestowing a private key to a loved one and risking having them access your funds before you are actually deceased. But these challenges must be faced. Related Reading | Bolster Your Personal Opsec With This Crypto Investor Checklist Funerals are expensive, and losing the income of a provider can be crippling in addition to the heartache of losing a loved one. Be responsible and plan for a crisis, long before it happens. For more tips on how to prepare a cryptocurrency inheritance, we recommend the book Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners by Pamela Morgan and a foreword from Bitcoin evangelist Andreas M. Antonopoulos. from Cryptocracken WP https://ift.tt/33aosVy via IFTTT

[joshuajacksonlyblog]

Crisis Preparation: How To Prepare Your Crypto Holdings For Inheritance

Crisis is here, and potential pandemic at the hands of the coronavirus is catching many crypto investors off-guard and provoking panic around ever turn. In the event of the inevitable happening sooner than expected, are crypto investors truly prepared for a worst-case scenario, especially when it comes to providing loved ones access to any potential crypto inheritance? The answer is likely no, however, here are some tips on how can get up to speed in case of catastrophe. The Entire World Is in Fear and Panic Over the Coronavirus Outbreak Humans by nature are procrastinators. We know being prepared saves us stress, energy, and money in the long run, but we often wait until the last minute due to being too focused on our social lives, work, or getting some much-needed rest and relaxation. This lackadaisical behavior is causing the entire world to be caught off guard by an unexpected black swan event: the rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus. Related Reading | Is the Coronavirus The Black Swan Event That Crushes Cryptocurrency?  In a little over two short months since the outbreak was first discovered in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has spread to most nations, infected over 100,000, and taken the lives of over 4,382 people. These numbers are climbing by the day, and due to how powerful of a contagion the virus is, a full-scale outbreak is expected. Events everywhere are being canceled, transportation and travel are hindered and even discouraged, and growth in the economy is slowing as a result. It’s caused complete panic across the globe, fearing not only an economic meltdown but a pandemic that rivals the plague and countless others that took the lives of millions throughout history. Possible death is a scenario that everyone should consider in crisis, and prepare for, hence why legal documents like a will exist. Serious question. If something bad happened to you and you died, does your spouse, family, whoever you'd want, know how to access your crypto accounts? Do they know where your 2FA is if needed? Or is that all going to be lost along with you? — Josh McGruff (@JoshMcGruff) March 11, 2020 How to Prepare Your Crypto Inheritance In Case of Catastrophe If you hold a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, including this in a will is the first major step to take. Identifying who you want the funds to go to, and who you want responsible are steps two and three. Beyond this, because of the intricacies involved with cryptocurrency technology, there are additional steps that are required to access funds that are often beyond what is necessary for traditional assets. Crypto assets are locked away behind cryptography and can only be accessed via private key. Those with higher levels of protection over their accounts, use additional fail-safes such as two-factor authentication. Will your loved ones be able to access your crypto when you’re gone? Will they need instructions on how to do so? Unfortunately, regardless of how morbid the subject is, most family members likely need some coaching on how to use the new tech in the event of an emergency situation. There are many additional challenges, such as bestowing a private key to a loved one and risking having them access your funds before you are actually deceased. But these challenges must be faced. Related Reading | Bolster Your Personal Opsec With This Crypto Investor Checklist Funerals are expensive, and losing the income of a provider can be crippling in addition to the heartache of losing a loved one. Be responsible and plan for a crisis, long before it happens. For more tips on how to prepare a cryptocurrency inheritance, we recommend the book Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners by Pamela Morgan and a foreword from Bitcoin evangelist Andreas M. Antonopoulos. from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/33aosVy via IFTTT

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

So this is a guy that I've meaning to write about since last October, and I finally got to read all his issues! Besides an X-Men annual, his sole appearances are in the four-issue miniseries “X-Men: Time Gliders” that are really hard to get a hold of because they were part of a Hardee's meal in the 90s, not sold at comic book store. His name is Empyrean aka Jonathan Chambers and let me just start by saying I hate his civilian name because it totally makes me mix him up with Jonothan “Chamber” Starsmore. He's introduced in an X-Men annual as an ambiguous figure, suspected by the X-Men of wrongdoing but not necessarily a bad guy...and then in the Time Gliders goes full-on horrible evil dick with a plan to spread the Legacy Virus throughout different points in the past so more people will have it in the future, thus he can control them with the relief his powers provide to the mutants who suffer from it. Wow, what an asshole!

His powers are...kind of ambiguous? It was common in the 90s for characters to have overly-complicated powers, or powers that varied from issue to issue because of writers changing. Marvunapp describes him as being able to feed off the physical and emotional pain of dying people all over the world, and fire it back at others as painful energy blasts. UncannyXMen.net defined his power as the ability to feed off the bio-energy signatures of other mutants, which could inhibit their powers while allowing him to then use the energy to cause painful feedback in their bodies. Whatever the exact specifics are, the basics seem to be that Empyrean can leech the pain and/or powers of other mutants, and use the energy to attack others. His public identity is not that of a mutant super-villain, but as an apparently human man who is a major figure in the media for writing a book entitled Fatal Attractions: Mutants & Men. You'll notice that the title is similar to the book written by Haven, who also was an apparently “normal” human that was really a supervillain. Her book was called “Man, Mutant, & The New Humanity” and like this book, Fatal Attractions, despite its title, advocated human/mutant peace, and praised the X-Men, saying they should be applauded for their “noble cause” rather than hated. Despite this being unusually good press for the X-Men ,Beast still dismissed the book as merely being “entertaining pop psychology”. That's gratitude for ya! According to Jean Grey, “He uses a combination of good looks, smooth talking, and emotional poignancy to get his message across which was, according to Cyclops, “Unity. Harmony. Basically the same ideals espoused by the professor.” He became got really famous and became a “media scientist” who made the rounds on numerous big-time talk shows such as Nightline (where he debated with Graydon Creed) and Geraldo (where he was hit by a chair). We're not told who hit him with the chair, but I like to think it was by Graydon Creed. As a note, Fatal Attractions is stated to be his second book---I'm not sure what the first one was, or if it's ever stated. His book proved so lucrative that he became wealthy enough to purchase a private island in the Florida Keys. The previous owner was the CEO for weapons developer company called Advanced Idea Mechanics, meaning that, as Gambit put it, “the house is prob'ly quite a bit more'n a house”. Joining Chambers on the island were two scientists he hired to work for him: Dr. Josef Kleinbaumm and Dr. Nancy Alter. Kleinbaumm was an expert in viral infections, Alter in eugenics. Alter was also part of Professor Xavier's “underground railroad” of mutant sympathizers, and she called Xavier one night to report that the island had some new residents...the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants! Needless to say, the X-Men had to go investigate to make sure nobody was up to anything naughty. The X-Men had one team call ahead and ask permission to come, so Empyrean welcomed them as guests. But they also sent a secret second team to come in through the basement, where they were caught by the Brotherhood of Mutants. Naturally, a fight ensued, but Empyrean intervened to split it up, using his powers against both sides of the conflict and revealing himself to the X-Men as a mutant. He claimed that he intended his home, which he called Empyrean (rather than calling himself that, as mentioned) was to be a place of peace for those in pain. Pyro backed him, calling it a haven, a hospital, a refuge, and, less flatteringly, a leper colony for people like him revealing that he was dying from the Legacy Virus. Apparently, when Empyrean drained the energy of those afflicted with the virus, he alleviated their pain as well. In return, Pyro allowed himself to be studied as a guinea pig by the scientists that Empyrean had on the island working to cure the virus. The X-Men didn't believe this, claiming that Empyrean was simply using Pyro, and aimed to use others like him, to sap their energy for his own purposes Pyro retaliated that he was the one using Empyrean, and that, as he was the one who was dying, it was his choice and he deserved the dignity of that choice. It was then that Kwannon, who was then a member of the X-Men and still believing herself to be the real Psylocke, spoke up. She revealed that she too was suffering from the Legacy Virus, which she had kept hidden from her teammates, and agreed that the X-Men had no right to be judging these people. Empyrean extended an invitation to her to stay as well, but she said that her own choice in how to die would be “fighting all the way” rather than “stagnating”...which, despite what she just said about not judging, sounds really judgmental to me, but whatever, I guess? Empyrean added his agreement to Kwannon and Pyro, that it is up to the individual how they die, and said that he did not deny he may have ulterior motives for developing this haven, such as personal profit...but asked if that was really so bad, for the peace and comfort that the ailing mutants would receive in return? The X-Men departed, but not before Cyclops warned him to practice what he preached in his book, and not to let “the uninformed” turn his words of “beauty and wisdom” into “actions of hate and ignorance”. Empyrean asked “What if it simply can't be helped, Mr. Summers?” which is a reasonable question---how is Empyrean to blame if some idiot misinterprets his book? Kwannon answers by saying she'll kill him. Uh, okay then. Empyrean is played up as quite sinister in this issue, but he doesn't actually do anything bad, or even threaten or hint at it. He did bad stuff AFTER this, but at this point he wasn't doing anything, and even if he were, the X-Men don't know about it. All he's doing is offering a safe place for mutants afflicted with the Legacy Virus, even those who are criminals, to live out the rest of their short lives in peace, and to use his powers to take their pain away. The fact that this involves him absorbing their energy should not be reason to be suspicions of him, since it's not like he can help how his powers work. I think the writers intended to just drop hints that he might not be all that he seems, make him a little mysterious and ambiguous, but they had the X-Men really jump the gun and it just makes them look like jerks instead, even though they turned out to be right. This is a flaw in writing, by the way; your protagonists should not “just know” someone is bad, and their negative actions towards them should not be excused by it turning out that their “hunch” was right; that's like firing a gun at random into a crowd and saying it's okay because it turns out the person who got hit turned out to be a child abuser or something. This happened with Haven too, so I'm wondering if it was yet another trait of 1990s writing. In any case, Empyrean showed his true colors soon enough in the X-Men: Time Glider series. These comics were not released in stores, but instead were given as part of a Hardee's meal, like how a small toy usually is. He also started being referred to as Empyrean by name in this miniseries, while previously he was called by his civilian surname and it was merely his island that was called Empyrean. Beast has developed a time machine called a Time Glider. He plans to use it to travel back in time and halt the Legacy Virus before it begins. Empyrean learns of this and plans to steal the Time Glider for himself, so he can do the opposite—spread the Legacy Virus to multiple points in history so that there will be countless mutants infected in the modern day! Why? So he can leech their energy from them and his mutant power will be supreme! Why does he want his mutant power to be supreme? Uh...reasons? It's never explained and that annoys me. It's also never explained why he NEEDS for the mutants he leeches this power from to be infected, because he CLEARLY takes it from the X-Men in his X-Men Annual appearance? I think the writers might have, as usual for the 90s, gotten a little confused and tweaked his powers around. Such is the fate of many a 90s character. Also, this is just me, but more than a cliché “I just want my powers to be bigger for no reason” vilain motivation, I prefer the idea that  like many real-life doctors and caretakers, he grew to enjoy the power he had as the only source of solace for so many.  Thus, he wants that many more people to stay sick and thus dependent on him to alleviate their pain at his hospice island. I think that's more unique and concrete/sensible. Anyway, Empyrean, who is now behaving much more cruelly to the Brotherhood, tells them he wants the Time Glider in order to save mutantkind and to prevent the X-Men from causing damage to the timestream, and forces the Brotherhood to steal it from the X-Men. And he thinks about how even the X-Men will be infected and then he can “absorb the powers that consume them” and how he will then “reign supreme” whatever that means...seriously, I really like my idea for a motive much better. Long story short, he succeeds, and uses the Time Glider to disappear into the timestream. Beast uses technology to easily retrieve the Time Glider back with just the push of a button, but Empyrean isn't with it. He was, unfortunately, left behind in the time of the dinosaurs, and the last we see of him he's about to become food for a hungry T-rex. I like Empyrean. I like the ambiguity that he started out with, I like the “public figure promoting mutant/human peace but isn't out as a mutant himself” thing (similar to Xavier), I like the idea of a bad guy who still supports mutant/human peace, and I like the idea of how he's doing something genuinely good---alleviating the pain of others and giving them a place to live---but for selfish/evil reasons, even if I didn't really like how generic/vague those reasons turned out to be. As with many 90s bad guys, I think more could have been done with him, and the Time Gliders plot was frankly a waste. Here's some trivia on him: - His father, Timothy Chambers, was also a mutant. It is never stated what his abilities were, only that he could not control them. He died in a car crash when Jonathan was thirteen. Curiously, in the weeks before his death, he had aged rapidly, so that he appeared decades older than he actually was. It is unknown if this was connected to his mutant abilities, or to Jonathan's own energy-sapping abilities, or something else. When Cyclops (who did not know at the time that Empyrean himself was a mutant, only that his father had been) asked Empyrean if he really believed in what he'd written promoting mutant/human peace, Empyrean replied that he wouldn't ask that if he'd seen his father's body. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by this, perhaps that one couldn't help being sympathetic to mutants after seeing someone age hyper-rapidly. - A green glow appears from his eyes when he uses his powers - Empyrean was both his codename and the name he gave to his island/sanctuary for Legacy victims - He is 6'3 and 195 lbs according to his trading card. Notice how many 1990s X-villains were six feet or taller and had long hair? Fabian Cortez (also a ponytail!), Exodus, Francisco Milan, Reignfire, Gideon (another ponytail)!), Omega Red, Monsoon...I'm sure the list gets even longer if you include heroes like Shatterstar and Adam-X. The 90s had a type! - He dons a suit in public but at home he frequently wears yellow kimono depicting large green and black Asian dragon. As a villain, he wears a golden costume and helmet. 

- Gyrich (an anti-mutant government agent) also paid a visit to Empyrean's island on the same night that the X-Men did. He sent in the Crimson Commando and Avalanche (at the time still working for the government) to investigate, and they ended up re-joining the Brotherhood instead. Gyrich tried to reclaim them, especially the Commando (who had recently been enhaned into a cyborg, costing the government billions of dollars) but Empyrean would not allow it. Rather than fighting Gyrich, however, he threatened to spill secrets of his anti-mutant government exploits to the media, such as the Sentinel program Project: Wideawake. Presumably, Avalanche and the Commando must have told him these things, as there's no way he could have otherwise known them. No matter how Empyrean came by the information, however, it sufficed to successfully drive Gyrich away. - At least he's not a homophobe (I actually headcanon him as gay, since he seemed really PERSONALLY offended by Blob's really quite minor innuendo)