#if i walked up to any english speaking human on this earth rn and asked them to complete the sentence:

[merlions]

I absolutely love so much how youtube doesnt let people submit suggested subtitles to unsubtitled youtube videos if the uploader didn't add them, and how it instead defaults to auto generated captions.

do AIs sleep, perchance dream? ah, there's the ru- oh sorry wait. "I asked her up"

[black-strike-otp]

part 78

I edited pieces of this kinda late so I’m not sure how it lines up but at least it’s done I guess?? Eeeehhh... Can’t really say I care rn

Their wagging glossias were delayed as Blackout left the room for a short time in search of the other medic. Although Infiltrator assured him he had everything under control, he still felt uneasy about leaving the pair behind. Still, he could tell by the glances that the two were sharing that there was something to be said that his audios likely didn’t need to hear.

It didn’t take too terribly long to find Knock Out, but it did take forever for the slagging fool to willingly follow him to the med-bay. It was like convincing a sparkling to do something you wanted when they were focused on something shiny and far more interesting. As a mech not used to work but pampering, he took his time on their stroll. Stopping to talk, stopping to check things, stopping just to reveal in his reflection in anything mildly shiny on the way.

Blackout had been half tempted to haul him up, throw him over his shoulder, and just carry the tiny little mech to the med-bay. But he resisted, purely because he knew doing so would only attract unwanted attention as he’d squeal and squawk.

After they had finally emerged from the maze of halls and useless waste of time pausing every few nanokliks, they stepped into what felt like a new room. The air seemed much thicker than when Blackout had left. Infiltrator resided on the berth at Nighthawk’s side, and raised his helm up as they came in from his tutor’s chassis. He slunk off much as one would imagine a cat to do so, stepping between them and Nighthawk’s berth. With the scrapping of his claws as he landed, Nighthawk’s optics that had been online but murky and dull of light, seemed to grow brighter as he turned to look at him.

Something about his faceplate made Blackout feel like they’d walked in on something private despite the closed off deadpan on the seeker’s face. Still, neither turned them away and the idiot flashy mech didn’t seem to notice. His thoughts were all in his ego, and he flaunted himself like a model as he sauntered in with a glorious display of deep reds and golds to affirm that he had returned.

Knock Out brought news that Lord Megatron had definitely heard about Infiltrator being rescued from Starscream’s room. The flashy sports car declared that the warlord was not terribly surprised, and then continued gossiping how from the way their leader had expressed himself he didn’t seem like he was going to come after Blackout anytime soon.

But one could never expect much when it came to the crazed Decepticon Leader. One day, there was a very real possibility he would bring down the ceiling upon any of them. It no longer mattered how faithful and trustworthy you seemed, your lengthy reputation and history was all null and void. There would be a time when Blackout had a sinking feeling a knife was going to be put to his throat again, but he wouldn’t see it coming.

Nighthawk appeared just as skeptical. He took off his HUD viewers and laid back as Infiltrator insisted and listening. There was a scowl throughout much of Knock Out’s statement on the seeker’s faceplate up until some words would slip in from the great Megatron himself. In those moments, the anger grew, but so did his concern. It would bring a slightly haunted look to his gaze as he met Blackout’s stare.

They were stuck on the Nemesis itself; the ship with the most powerful Decepticons, under the rule of a mech who clearly thought little of them, with everything to lose.

“I would have never thought that you were online, Blackout,” Knock Out admitted. “I don’t think anyone would have made a gamble on that. I’m sure Lord Megatron is already contemplating where best to put use of your abilities, but first we’ll need to see about getting you all Earth module alt-modes.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say Earth?” Nighthawk disrupted. “Earth alt-modes?”

Knock Out appeared utterly doped. For a moment he seemed to just stand there, staring at Nighthawk like he expected the other medic to throw a ‘gotcha’ his way. When he didn’t, the suave red grounder gave an extravagant gesture with his right arm, flaunting his figure in the light like the conceited mech he was.

“Earth in the native English tongue is the word for dirt,” Knock Out explained. “Earth is the planet we’re just outside of the atmospheric conditions of. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it. The head of Unicron himself resides within its core.”

“Unicron isn’t real,” Blackout grunted. “Or if he is, he’s long since gone. Primus himself, if he is real, would have seen to that.”

“This coming from the mech everyone refers to as being a spawn of Unicron,” Knock Out answered in response, flicking a servo towards Blackout as he rolled his hip.

“The planet built itself around Unicron’s helm,” the grounder medic went on. “Lord Megatron himself aided in putting Unicron back into stasis... after consuming unhealthy levels of dark energon.”

“D-Dark- Dark energon you say?” Infiltrator repeated with horror.

“The same ghoulish purple stuff that brings strength and takes an edge off the mind, if you ask me,” confirmed the scarlet Aston Martin. “Earth’s been a big deal ever since that and the conflict with Optimus Prime and his marginal little crew of Autobots took up residence there and declared it a home to Cybertronians. The resident species, humans, don’t know that we live on their planet. So we take on appearances of their primitive but sometimes attractive machinery.”

“I’m not doing that,” Blackout stated flatly.

Shaking his helm, Knock Out shook a digit at him. “You have no say in the matter. Every bot on this ship has an Earth-bound alternative mode to resemble that of their home planet models. These cars, planes, trains- well, you name it, they’re all non-sentient forms of transportation to these organic squishies. Disgusting as they may be, they have good taste. In fact, they do happen to have a government aircraft named the Nighthawk...”

From the exam table, Nighthawk perked his horns forward and his optics grew brighter. He leaned a bit in Knock Out’s direction with a curious light in his optics.

“An aircraft that bares my name?” he muttered curiously.

“Oh yes,” the grounder purred in answer. He looked around for a moment before spotting what he was looking for.

Reaching over, Knock Out picked up his datapad. He started typing quickly and moving through various files and images. Less than a minute later, he held out his pad in the seeker medic’s direction while he placed his HUD viewer back on.

Nighthawk gave a surprised whistle of appreciation. “Not bad.”

“As a mech of high esteem and grand taste, I’ll have to agree with you. It just screams of glory and handsomeness, don’t you think? Look at the structure of the wings-”

“Wait a nanoklik,” Blackout cut in loudly. “You’re telling me that we have to pretend to be these flesh-creatures you speak ofs transportation? You’re kidding me. I’m not letting any organic based-”

“You won’t be letting them ride in you,” Knock Out assured him, shuddering violently. “The very idea of one of those defile disease-ridden creatures and their smeary filthy servos anyway near my lustrous frame makes me cringe. No, we are as the Autobots say, ‘robots in disguise’. Because these underdeveloped creatures do not listen to their ancient cultures that show Cybertronians have visited their world before, they have not realized alien life has been on their planet. They are close-minded and think they are revolutionary. They’ve only left their planet to go as far as their lunar moon. If we were to run around waging a war openly as we are here, the species would go into chaos.”

Tearing his optics away from the datapad in his servo, Nighthawk set it upon the berth. “What’s stopping Megatron from showing these humans who we are if they are so primitive? Surely they wouldn’t pose a threat to him.”

Knock Out gave a shrug at that. “Personally I’m glad they don’t know we’re here. If they did, I would get the entertainment out of their social media, music, movies, television shows... Don’t look so shocked, they do have culture. I don’t know our liege's every thought. I would just as well guess he doesn’t want the added trouble and attention. Their weapons can not compare to ours, but enough of them may cause an inconvenience. It’s simpler to let them be ignorant of our presence.”

“Their numbers are that great?” the robotic wvyren asked with awe.

“By the billions. For their small planet, they overpopulate and ravage their world and swarm. Their breeding production is vile and gestation period is much, much faster than a Cybertronians.”

“Fascinating,” Blackout slowly droned in the most unimpressed tone imaginable.

As the three doctors continued to discuss the indigenous beasts and Knock Out started to pull up more photography for the others to look at, Blackout looked on boredly. His attention lacked; especially knowing he was going to be forced to take on some different look to hide himself from the eyes of these ugly naked shells of skin that wore cloth for protection. He was going to put off that particular quest for as long as he could manage. If he was lucky, they’d be gone before they reentered the Earth’s atmosphere.

That brought a curiosity into his helm.

“Knock Out,” he interjected loudly, “Why is the Nemesis outside of the planet’s orbit?”

Glancing with a vexed gaze back at him, the grounder answered quickly, “Soundwave picked up the signals of Cybertronians traveling through. Lord Megatron had the ship sent out to investigate. My best guess says that we’re probably going back to Earth right now. The Autobot’s groundbridge can’t reach us in space. Then again, they can’t pinpoint out exact location on the planet either, since the Nemesis includes a cloaking device.”

“That’s right,” Nighthawk mumbled quietly. “The Nemesis used to be the body of Trypticon before he was forced into this state. Is he still functional?”

The grounder medic shook his helm. “Negative. Life signs show he’s offline. The Autobot’s destroyed him.”

Giving a pitied sound in the back of his throat, the seeker medic turned his optics to move around the room. There was a light in his optics that shone with respect. Trypticon was an abused massive city-sized mech tortured into believing that Lord Megatron’s will was the only way, and he had succumb by serving that principle.

“Where are the Autobot’s?” Blackout implored.

“Suggested studies say somewhere in Nevada, although we’ve not yet discovered their base,” the small mech admitted.

“Nevada?” Infiltrator quietly chimed in.

“Ah- yes, a dirtball with some rather wonderful roads to travel. Well, those not littered with potholes,” Knock Out ventured. “Nevada is a state within the governmental run territory of the United States. Look I’m no authority on the history of this planet; if you’re curious on those matters, I suggest checking the logged database on it. It’s rather trivial and bland. The species itself is very hateful with a history of violence upon itself.”

“Not unlike our own,” Nighthawk whimsically added in, with a swift nod of agreement from his assistant.

Rolling his optics at all the interruptions, Blackout spoke deep in his chassis as he growled at the sports car, “This is why Lord Megatron has been on this particular world so long? He is after Optimus Prime, and had yet to finish him off and discover his location, along with all his Autobots?”

“That, and he wants to conquer the planet. Sometimes.”

Helpful. Megatron had discussed wanting to rule over all the creatures of the universe with an iron fist at some vague point. It didn’t surprise Blackout to hear this.

All of this just seemed like a fool's errand. If the Autobots could not leave the planet due to only obtaining groundbridge technology, Lord Megatron should leave behind a sizable team and go off-planet to continue destroying the rest of the Autobots to move forward with his plan. He truly was obsessed now. Everything centered around his revenge of Optimus Prime. No other bots mattered. All he wanted to do was extinguish his old friend’s spark. The cause no longer had a voice or a meaning. Cybertron was dead, their freedom gone and shackled to the tyrant who was going to lead them away from this system.

It was unnerving to realize that all the years he had heard bots mock him for his supreme loyalty of being a dog that they were right. He was so blindly faithful that he didn’t see his own worth diminishing even back then. If he didn’t come back from a mission, Lord Megatron would not have cared. He would have sent another to finish the job himself, or would have went himself. He had been serving out of trust for a friend who no longer saw him as a friend; for glory, for the drive, the work, the bloodshed, the idea long lost in a sea of savage brutality and a desire to simply kill without question.

“Blackout,” Nighthawk spoke up, catching his attention. “Do you want to have a look at some of these transporters? They’re so interesting. Some of these were clearly made with an eye for fashion.”

“I’ll pass,” he grunted.

“If you think their vehicles, boats, and aircrafts are interesting, wait until you see their entertainment section,” Knock Out practically sang with glee, rubbing his servos together. “Or the other strange beings on their planets. The evolution on this planet is very unlike Cybertron. Whereas we had subspecies and different alt-mode productions, this planet is filled with trillions of different species and single-celled organisms, diseases and bacteria. Humans are the primary species of the planet as their intelligence leads them to be the alphas more or less, but there are other creatures.”

“Cats, dogs,” the Aston Martin turned slightly to Blackout before looking to Nighthawk once more, “Elephants, giant pandas, birds. And that’s just surface level; that’s not even considering their undiscovered regions of aquatic life.”

“Amazing,” Nighthawk hummed. “A bot could study this world forever. It has such a crazy history; Blackout, look at the... dinosaurs that once roamed on this planet before the humans. By Primus’ it’s almost like a younger Cybertron but with more variety than even our homeworld and made up of organic life forms.”

“Do not compare us to organics,” Blackout clipped in response.

“Have a thing against humans?” Nighthawk sharply quipped. “You haven’t even met them yet, or should I say looked at their datafiles and culture. Who knows, given the right time or place, you might have liked a human if you’d met one.”

“That human would have to be rather extraordinary for me to look at it twice,” he retorted with annoyance. “Look at them Nighthawk, they’re soft and probably ooze liquids.”

Raising his digit up towards him threateningly, the seeker medic tisked at him as he scolded, “You know you leak liquids too from time to time.”

He gave an unpleasant snarl in response that was deep enough in volume and notes to shake objects in the room.

Huffing out a stream of hot air, the dragonic beast stood from his haunches and flicked his wings outward from his body in answer to Blackout’s threatening sound. He turned a sharp optic towards the big mech before circling around the berth to nudge at his teacher. Although Nighthawk grumbled a little, he seemed to understand the gesture well enough and reclined back to a suitable position. His servo went out to rest on Infiltrator’s shoulder as he drew his wings back against his frame.

Releasing a vent, Blackout dragged a servo over his faceplate and dropped it at his side. “I’m going to head to my room,” he managed to speak in a slightly growly edge. “Nighthawk, just focus on your recovery at the moment.”

The next words out of his mouth he loathed, but felt needed to be said.

“Thank you both for making sure this slagger didn’t offline.”

“Oooh appreciation~ I do like the sound of that,” Knock Out purred with joy.

“Like I was going to let him offline,” Infiltrator snorted, appearing slightly vexed with his attitude still.

Ah well, he couldn’t please them all.

“If you need anything, have me pinged,” he grunted.

Being a smart aft, Nighthawk gave a coy smile as he stated, “Well, I would like you to get a sense of humor, a decent personality, oh- and a new section of armor so that I don’t have patchwork over my gutted chassis for the rest of my life.”

Between Knock Out’s look of shock and Blackout’s, it was impossible to tell who was more surprised by the statement.

“I saved your life for you to insult me like this?” he fumed.

Instantly, the cherry red seeker’s wings gave a slight ‘fwap’ as they moved and hit the berth. His faceplate looked slightly pained by the reminder.

“I was... joking,” he managed to mutter. His optics didn’t quite look Blackout’s.

A sense of guilt slapped Blackout in the faceplate. Ahh to Pit, he didn’t want this remorse; the old fool. He should have realized he was jabbing at him as usual.

“You know while I’m at it, maybe I’ll look for you a working processor,” he offered, giving an apologetic curve to his lips.

Nighthawk gave the impression of a smile in response to that.

“Well, when he leaves, we go lights dim,” Knock Out stated. “A medic’s got to get his beauty rest~”

“Thanks, Knock Out, but I already look pretty damn fine. You know, besides the hole.”

“Is this always how he deals with pain?” the grounder asked under his breath.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the drugs you put in him,” Blackout offered, chuckling. “You going to be okay lying there with him Infiltrator? We can always look for another berth for you, or you can-”

“I’m fine where I am, thank you,” the drake announced in quick reply. His frame bunched down as he crouched and suddenly sprang up silently, his claws rasping on the berth as he made room for himself. He settled down beside his mentor and slowly pulled out one wing to lay across Nighthawk like a blanket as his chin rested on the seeker’s arm.

Blackout shrugged. “If you change your mind-”

“I won’t.”

Okay, he’d have to lay off on jesting with the seeker for a while, or the dragon was going to try taking off his leg and beating him with it from the sound of it.

Giving a short nod to Knock Out, Blackout turned and made haste for the door. He hoped that Scorponok and Novastrike were doing alright without him. He hadn’t expected to be so caught up in conversation and trying to worm things out of that grounder medic.

Glancing over his shoulder as he stepped through the threshold, he looked to Nighthawk as he put a servo on Infiltrator. He seemed rather drained but was offering a slight smile to his companion as he nestled against his arm.

Turning his helm away, Blackout stepped the rest of the way through the door so that it closed, and made his way down the hall alone.

[hishotandhaywireheart]

Survey from Esther~

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Janina Gavankar - Don't Look Down The Irrepressibles - Two Men In Love The Irrepressibles - The Arrow Flor - Warm Blood Shearwater - Animal Life Bastille - Laura Palmer 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? I'm overwhelmed by this question and can't pick a single answer, sorry lol. This is like asking me what my favorite Pokémon is. 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. I'm in a dog boarding facility's kitchen at the moment, no books in sight, I'm afraid. But I am reading the first book of the Raven Cycle series in audio form, if that helps 4: What do you think about most? What a question. Art? Animals? 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? It's my boyfriend saying he's going to sleep :3 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? *Gamagoori voice* I sleep in the nude 7: What’s your strangest talent? Even though I am not a smoker [unless you count a couple of hookahs per year], I can tell the brand of a cigarette by the smell of the smoke. The smell on someone's clothes, I know immediately what brand it is. Mixture of childhood exposure, sensory sensitivity, and the jobs I've worked lol. 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) Girls are powerful. Boys are powerful. 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? I dunno. Maybe? 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? Uhh. Not a thing that occurs to me to do, to be honest lol 11: Do you have any strange phobias? Big phobia of hypodermic needles, or generally anything like a splinter, tiny shard of glass or hook getting underneath my skin. Phobic of getting pregnant. I guess those are weird. 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? Uhhh probably? 13: What’s your religion? What a complicated question lol. Simple answer: I'm pagan. But there is literally nothing simple about my endless thoughts about spirituality 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Taking a walk in the woods, or sitting by a stream or body of water [water sources are especially sacred parts of nature for me] 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Both. But I love taking photos and nobody really takes any photos of me. So I guess behind. Especially when it's behind a Polaroid. 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? Shearwater. Honorable mention to the Irrepressibles. 17: What was the last lie you told? Fuck if I know 18: Do you believe in karma? Not really. But as always I believe in the awesome power of the brain. 19: What does your URL mean? It's my name with "Irrepressible" after it, in the style of Jamie Irrepressible, the vocalist of, well, you can probably guess which band. 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Weakness - I'm extremely prone to gaslighting and self doubt about my own reality. Strength - I might not be a fan of abrupt change, but I am very adaptable, given time to adjust. 21: Who is your celebrity crush? None 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? No, sadly. Remember what I said about my irrational fear of stepping on hooks or sharp objects? Interferes with my sacred need to swim in every lake I see. 23: How do you vent your anger? Ideally, art. Drawing, writing, even recording myself ranting to my microphone about it. 24: Do you have a collection of anything? I collect retro Pokémon merchandise and certain old video games. :> this makes me sound like a massive genwunner but rest assured, it's just an Aesthetic™ 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Text, to be honest. Us auties generally do better communicating in text based media. Skype calls are useful at times but I've always found them too awkward with delays and such to use reliably. 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Hmmm. Tentatively, yes? 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? Sound I hate: male voices shouting. Sound I love: music bouncing off walls and becoming ethereal and far away. 28: What’s your biggest “what if”? What if I don't understand what this question is asking me? 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts, no. I talk about them a lot though because the idea of them is dear and important to me, but literally, no, I have no belief in some vaporized version of your personality that goes on after death. Aliens, I assume are a matter of inevitability. But I don't believe we will probably ever find or meet them in the foreseeable future. Humans think they are much more fascinating than they actually are. Aliens are not crawling all over themselves to build technology just to come fly over to our house and meet us. Sry 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. Air both times lol 31: Smell the air. What do you smell? The heat coming on at work because morning is here. Faint dog poop smell. Gonna have to tidy that up lol 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? Buttfuck nowhere, West Virginia 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East Coast, if we're talking america 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? I don't have an opposite gender 35: To you, what is the meaning of life? To create something meaningful and beautiful, and to enjoy myself to the fullest while helping others whenever possible 36: Define Art. If it makes you think about whether or not it's art, then it's art. 37: Do you believe in luck? Uhh. Like as an actual outside force that decides whether good or bad stuff will happen to me, no. 38: What’s the weather like right now? Coldddd 39: What time is it? 6 am. Time to get off work! 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Yes, I drive, don't love it but glad I am able. No, but I did run over a bin once 41: What was the last book you read? A book about the history of heterosexuality as a concept, fascinating read actually 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? As a kid I liked it but it's kinda gross now 43: Do you have any nicknames? Many 44: What was the last film you saw? Can't remember a film rn but I am currently watching The Story Of Film which I CANNOT recommend enough, it is a documentary series about, well, the history of cinema and even if you don't care about movie making... It will absorb you completely and make you not only care but be totally fascinated. I adore it. 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? You know, I've been really lucky. Never broken bone or needed stitches or even like, been to the hospital, lol. I think I chipped my shin bone on a brick stair once. And a couple years ago I missed a stair going down and sprained my ankle, and my work refused to let me spend any time off my feet so I was crying from pain in front of customers lol. But it healed fast once I had a brace. No problem. 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? I dunno. I was taught as a child that if you touch their wing dust even a little, they will lose their flight and die. So probably I haven't. Even though I now know this isn't quite true. 47: Do you have any obsessions right now? The Story of Film, some bands, getting sucked back deep into my lifelong love Pokémon again lol 48: What’s your sexual orientation? Pansexual, or: Why Are Gender And Genital Shape Our Main Social Indicator Of Romantic Or Sexual Preferences, Of All Things, That's Really Weird And I Can't Relate, Please Save Me From This Bizarro World 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? Oh yes, plenty back in school 50: Do you believe in magic? Ahh. I believe in the power of will. I believe in the ability to make your own life full of magic via willpower. I believe in the harmless use of willpower to try and cause a change in your environment. I believe the force exercised by children known dismissively as "imagination" have incredible power to influence the mind and soul. I have no belief in a metaphysical force in the universe called "magic" that could describe basically anything and everything unknown to current science. If you ask me flat-out, I will say yes, I believe in magic. But this is more of what I mean. I don't believe in "magic", except that I do. Adamantly. 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? I do not tend to forget. Forgive is a matter of situation. But I don't forget. And I am quite the talented ice prince when it comes to freezing someone entirely out of my life. This includes immediate family. I only speak to my little sister out of my entire family. 52: What is your astrological sign? Taurus-Gemini cusp! 53: Do you save money or spend it? Spend :T 54: What’s the last thing you purchased? Bread, milk and a couple very cheap, very pink, very glittery nail polishes. My weakness. 55: Love or lust? Yes. 56: In a relationship? Yep 57: How many relationships have you had? Uhh... Many? Serious, deep romantic relationships, which I suspect is your real question: three. 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Nope 59: Where were you yesterday? Home, and briefly out at the store. 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? My nails are pink and glittery. 61: Are you wearing socks right now? Yep. I wear two pairs to work because my super comfy work shoes are just the tiniest bit too big. 62: What’s your favourite animal? You asked the impossible question. Today, your answer is: praying mantis. Specifically praying mantis godmothers. Ask me again in two hours for an entirely different answer. 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Sorry, too socially awkward for this prompt 64: Where is your best friend? In bed, it is very late and/or early. 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. Don't really have favorites? Just people and stuff I like. 66: What is your heritage? Whitey white. Scots Irish, English, a bit of German, and like everything else you can expect from a family that's been in America about as long as a white devil could possibly be. My mother is a hobbyist genealogist, so this isn't just typical white folks bullshit, I'm vaguely more educated on my roots. I am in fact a distant cousin of notable American politician of the 19th century, Henry Clay. 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Playing Pokémon Blue! Beating the game for literally the first time ever! 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? Uh. Um. Oh god, I don't know lmao 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes, everyone has, normalize it 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Hmmm. Yes. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Lose my job bitches, and maybe hope to go viral and boost my chances of getting a new job for doing this thing lol 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? A-Maybe. At least a few people. B-Travel, make good art, write my will, get my affairs in order. C- Yes, for a while. 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. Trust obvs 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Many. First one that comes to mind is Empire by Jukebox the Ghost 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? Nope 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Being best friends and trying to understand one another and willing to be open and honest, no ego in the way 77: How can I win your heart? Buy me sushi. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Yes. 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? To not have children. 80: What size shoes do you wear? American size seven in men's, nine in women's. Sometimes half a size up or down. 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? No idea. I should get thinking on that. 82: What is your favourite word? Don't really have one favorite tbh 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Glowing lights, core imagery 84: What is a saying you say a lot? Hell yeah 85: What’s the last song you listened to? Maxiimo Park - Going Missing 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Long story short: indigo. 87: What is your current desktop picture? Some Pokémon, I forget which. 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? A random white supremacist, maybe, but honestly, I probably wouldn't press it 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? No idea rn 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? I'd be quite disturbed because I cut my teeth on Ocarina of Time and was very creeped out by ReDeads 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Shapeshifting. Always my answer. Covers being an animal, or being a child, or flying, or swimming. 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? First thought is a marching band performance from high school. Second thought is back in that car in the vast moonlit Utah desert. 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Bad math teachers. Gave me a complex about math and didn't improve me as a person in any way like most of the others did. 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? No interest 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Japan motherfuckers 96: Do you have any relatives in jail? Not that I'm aware of but I couldn't care less tbh 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? If I have, I must have been very small. 98: Ever been on a plane? Yep, just twice. 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? If they actually absorbed what I had to say? Love yourselves. Love each other. Endeavor to understand each other. Try to figure out what you were taught wrong about yourself and your fellow humans, and unlearn those things. Embrace humanity in all its diversity. Open up and be vulnerable.

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: High in the Mornings, and Measuring Tape Aerobics

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Ask D'Mine: High in the Mornings, and Measuring Tape Aerobics

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Ask D'Mine! That would be our weekly advice column, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois. This week, Wil takes on the issues of high blood sugars in the mornings and whether us people with diabetes can just use a measuring tape around our waists to gauge our health. What, you say? Keep reading!

Got your own questions? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Carol, type 2 from California, writes: Newly diagnosed diabetic here. Watching the grams of carbohydrates and testing blood sugar. The blood sugar is high in the morning — why is this so after approximately 8+ hours of fasting, i.e. sleep?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Because your liver has sprung a leak. Oh, don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds. But let's talk liver. Now, on a plate with onions, I can't stand liver. I don't think there's a food in the world that I hate more. Hell, to me, would be a place with nothing but liver to eat.

But in a living organism, the liver is frickin' amazing. In humans it's the largest classic organ (your skin, technically an organ, is actually the largest). Your liver takes up quite a bit of space on the right side of your chest, more or less below your bottom rib. It weighs in at three pounds, and is the ultimate multi-tasking organ. I mean, if you think about it, most of your body's sundry parts do one thing, and one thing only. Not the liver. For instance, it makes digestive juices, like bile. It filters nasty stuff like alcohol and Tylenol out of your blood. It produces cholesterol and regulates amino acids. In fact, no shit, the liver does more than 500 different tasks.

But most relevant to those of us with diabetes: the liver is a giant sugar battery. Yep. That stupid bunny with the drum and the pink ears has nothing on the human liver. One of the liver's key functions is to store sugar and then release it later when it's needed. Like, say, between meals. Or when you're sleeping.

All the body's other organs, in fact every one of the 60-90 trillion cells that make up your carcass and hide, eat all the frickin' time. But you can't eat constantly, because, for one thing, you need to sleep. You also need to update your Facebook status and pay attention to your loved ones. So the body's solution to that problem is the liver. It stores extra glucose when you eat, and releases it as needed to keep the fuel coming when you aren't eating.

It's a very elegant system. But as you know, diabetes screws up all the elegant systems of our bodies, and it's very common for type 2s to suffer from an insidious syndrome called LLS, or Leaky Liver Syndrome.

OK. I made that up.

It's really called nocturnal hepatic glucose release. But Leaky Liver sounds so much more fun.

Now, there's really not anything wrong with the LLS liver. It's more like crossed wires than broken gaskets. It's just a hormonal problem that leads to the liver releasing more glucose than the body needs. It shows up most commonly just as you described: you wake up with higher blood sugar than you went to bed with.

(I guess before the flamers burn me at the stake I should point out that less commonly.[W2] elevated morning sugars can also be caused by sleep disturbances such as sleep apnea, nightmares, sleep walking to 7-11 for a Big Gulp and a burrito, or alien abduction; but the liver thing is the most common cause of elevated morning blood sugar.)

So how to fix it? You gotta see your doc for that, but the two most common treatments are to use either metformin, a pill that fixes the gasket on the leaky faucet; or NPH insulin, an intermediate-acting insulin that mops up the water that's dripping from that leaky faucet, so to speak.

Oh, and the third option, if your doc says it's OK, is to do nothing. If the morning blood sugars are only a tad high, and come back down as soon as you start moving your body with the sunrise, no action may be the best course of action.

So now you know why. It's common. It's part and parcel of type 2 diabetes. And there's no reason to get mad at your liver. After all, it's still doing its other 499 jobs pretty well.

Cheryl, type 1 from Texas, writes: I read that to check your health with diabetes, you should skip the scale and grab a measuring tape: your waist should be less than half your height to keep heart disease at bay. Is there anything to this? Or is it just another media-hyped myth?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: I hadn't heard the waist to height ratio before, but there's truth to the measuring tape and heart stuff. In fact, there's plenty of good evidence that if your waistline exceeds 40 inches for dudes and 35 inches for chicks, you're at higher risk for bad heart stuff. You know, like heart disease, heart attack, stroke, and death. Stuff like that.

How on earth were these numbers chosen? Simply by tracking the health outcomes of people with diabetes and seeing at what point people with increasingly large waist circumferences have increasingly bad outcomes, heart disease-wise.

Now, the more inches above target you are, the higher your risk. It's like that tornado rating scale where an f-4 is a whole hell of a lot more destructive than an f-3. Just ask Dorothy.

So, what if you are a lady with, oh... I dunno...a 57-inch waist? Are you likely to get down to the low-risk 35 inches? Frankly, no. Not very likely at all. But here's the thing. You don't need to have a Barbie Doll waist to lower your risk of heart disease. Remember what I told you about the tornados? Any reduction in waist circumference is a reduction in heart disease risk. Maybe you can't get to 35 inches. But 47 is better than 57. Hell, 55 is better than 57. Every inch counts.

And as diabetes is a HUGE risk factor for heart disease in the first place, it behooves us to fix any other risk factors that are in our power to fix, the so-called modifiable risk factors.

Now, a quick note on how to measure your waist size, because it may not be the same as your pants size: You might be one of those old men who wears the waistline of your pants around your nipples, or one of those street punks who wears your waistline at your knees to show off your stylish boxer shorts. A medical waist circumference is defined as: the measurement from the top of the iliac crest in a horizontal plane around the abdomen. Say what?? In English, this means measure around your middle, being sure to go from the top of your hips around through your belly button. And don't suck your gut in when you're doing this. That's cheating. A cloth tape measure is used because the metal ones kink, bend, snap, or cut your skin and give crappy and inaccurate results.

But wait a cotton pickin' moment. Who has cloth tape measures anymore? I happen to have one 'cause my mom was an avid sewer. But of course, I have a solution for you. Just use a piece of string, yarn, or rope. Or chain, if you're one of those kinky types or have been reading 50 Shades of Grey.

Just wrap the string, or whatever, across the proper part of your body, then measure the string with a ruler, yard stick, or metal tape measure. Ta-da! There's your waist circumference. Easy-peasy, as my son likes to say.

Oh. And since you asked, my waist circumference is 38 inches. Well, OK. 38-and-a-half. Or maybe 39-and-three-quarters. I'm six feet tall and my lying piece of shit bathroom scale says I'm 191 pounds. That gives me a body mass index of 25.9, technically overweight. So the tape measure says I'm OK and the scale says I'm not. Should I kick the scale to the curb?

I don't think so. One thing I like about scales is that problems show up there first. If I've put on five pounds, Mr. Scale will tell me if I ask. If I put on five pounds my clothes won't tell me. For one thing, I'll probably stretch them out as I pack on the pounds. For another thing, weight is distributed all over your body. Not just on your waistline.

Like all things in diabetes, scales and tape measures are just different arrows in our quivers. And if I need to defend myself from diabetes with a metaphorical bow and arrow, I want as many frickin' arrows in my quiver as I can get.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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