#my blood bubbles atp

[needanotherseason]

‘energy maxing’ and its just me three sips of red bull away from a caffeine overdose

[weirdsht]

Disillusioned 16 . Heterogeneity

a/n: 80 pages, 20k+ words and these mfers still haven't realised their feelings... even I'm getting frustrated lol

double update this week as my sorry for being late huhu

tags: war, injuries, blood, self-doubt, anxiety, depression, atp just name every negative feeling there is, reader is rosalyn's walking headache, feelings in progress

English isn’t my first language so there will be grammatical errors

Pls don't repost my work anywhere without my permission

Constructive criticisms and any kind of interaction are more than welcome

Requests are currently closed but my ask are still open (read pinned)

Buy Me Dessert

Navigation Masterlist prev . next

Battles pile up and they win every single one. It should make _____ proud. Should make them happy. They should be celebrating and not feeling insecure.

If others are asked, they’ll say how great of a support _____ has been. Not only did they heal and support the core players of the war, but they were also in charge of differentiating the enemies. Especially during Operation Ghost.

In a way, they were like a vice commander but were more focused on locating and knowing the enemy.

However, _____ did not see it that way. Could not appreciate the efforts they had been pouring in during this war.

They are towing a line towards a dangerous mindset and they could see nothing wrong with it.

It doesn’t help that _____ grew up repressing and hiding their emotions.

Because now that they really want to, no one could tell just how hurt the healer is. Not when Cale is too busy running around everywhere and Rosalyn is not with them. _____ made sure that no one could tell just how injured they were. Just how many layers of bandages they have wrapped around their body from absorbing too many wounds.How some of those wounds have reopened so many times because they kept pushing themself. 

How deep inside they were a mess. 

Not just physically, but also mentally. They tried really hard but there’s still turmoil left from the news of their family being human traffickers. Guilt still eats away their conscience every waking day. 

Frustrations about their ability are still growing bigger and bigger.

_____ hid all of that.

If ever asked why they would argue that it was needed. This time is a time of war. Cale can’t even eat properly, so what gave them the luxury to expatiate on these useless feelings and injuries?

In addition to that, aside from the wounds that reopened here and there, they were feeling fine. The healer had taken this chance to slowly experiment reverse healing. It’s hard, in fact, 99% of the time it’s the reason why their wounds reopen. Harming people is more difficult than healing them.

It’s hard but not impossible.

But it’s still not enough to make _____ feel better. They must get stronger. Must control it better. They have to help everyone fight off the enemy.

But then…

Pop!

Like a bubble, that pressure _____ had been piling on themself burst.

It’s a very natural thing to happen. _____ is only human after all, humans are bound to explode when there’s too much pressure tightly sealed.

For _____ that pressure burst in the form of acting rashly.

No one knew what their last straw was as there were so many variables that could have added to it.

It could have been because of how the church of the Sun God spewed nonsense in front of Mary.

Could have been when Raon and Cale heard them ponder whether they could transfer dead mana to themself using their ability. (This made Cale stick the healer closer to him and Choi Han.)

Maybe it was because of those priests who acted all high and mighty but couldn’t do anything in the end.

Perhaps it was how the empire’s forces had been strutting around, acting all good when in fact they were dirty bastards.

No one can accurately pinpoint which one it is. All they knew was that _____’s bubble suddenly burst and the unfortunate victim was the dragon half-blood.

_____ who was doing their best to support and heal Choi Han while physically supporting Cale saw Raon's light attacking the Dragon half-blood. While it looked powerful, the healer knew it would not be enough, they knew that the Dragon half-blood would be able to escape.

That’s why _____ thought that if that bastard was going to escape, might as well double his suffering.

"I thought that hooded person was just your baggage but what is this..."

If Cale didn't pay attention to that half-blood's comment about the Dragon blood, he certainly paid attention to that last comment. How could he not when the half-blood suddenly had a wound near his heart that was neither from Choi Han nor Raon?

No one had stabbed him or anything. The wound literally just manifested out of nowhere. Cale has no idea where it could have come from. 

Wait, manifest out of nowhere? That's almost like…

At that moment Cale noticed that _____ was not supporting his body anymore. Before he could turn around to check on them, he heard Raon's panicked voice ringing in his head.

“B-blood..! Human, kind _____ is bleeding!”

When Cale turned around he saw nothing at first. This was because _____ made sure to not get blood on their clothes, well at least the outer layer that everyone could see. However, Cale soon saw the blood on the black bone wyvern as well as the bloody dagger on their hand.

"Just what-"

"It's fine Commander, I'm fine. Please reassure the people first, I can manage. But it would have been better if I managed to snag some of that half-dragon’s vitality…”

There’s no way anyone would believe the healer was fine. Not with the copious amount of blood dripping down on the wyvern’s bones.

“Raon please hide my dagger in your dimensional pocket for a while. I don't want anyone to see it."

_____'s voice was extremely weak as they spoke. Cale who became even more frustrated after hearing this seriously thought about ditching everyone on the ground then and there.

"You- haaaa. Choi Han make sure to support _____ when we get down."

While Choi Han was supporting _____, he made sure to pour the highest-grade potions on the healer. It might not be able to heal all their wounds as their condition is too severe, but it will help stabilize them for the time being.

Soon, Choi Han saw an opportunity to bandage _____'s wounds while Cale was talking to Cage. He would've asked for the knight healer and the mage but he knows _____ is only comfortable with their family and the Henituse servants assessing their body. 

Till this point, he didn't know the full extent of their wounds yet. He just thought the injuries they had were from healing.

However, Choi Han did not recall anyone having a stab wound so close to the heart.

At least not anyone from their forces.

"_____ just what-"

"So you see, I discovered this really funny thing I can do. I'll tell you later."

The healer weakly chuckled as if they found the situation funny. Choi Han could now understand Cale's frustration. _____'s bandages and inner layer of clothes are soaked with blood. The black robe they were currently wearing was also starting to get soaked. 

"Choi Han-nim get bandaged up already, I'm fine. I didn't work hard to heal you out there just for you to not get full treatment. I would finish the job but as you can see…"

Choi Han held back a sigh. Instead, he looked at _____ with a gaze that seemed to be asking if they were fine. The now bandaged-up healer just shooed him with their hands. The swordmaster was still reluctant to leave them alone, luckily Mary arrived. 

"Mary please look after _____ for a while."

Mary agreed and only then was Choi Han able to walk away with peace of mind.

At first _____ thought that they would not get proper treatment until they went back to the Super Rock Villa. That was why they opted to sleep on the couch in Cale's room. Luckily, Eruhaben arrived along with Pendrick. Before Cale could even get a word out about _____'s condition the Ancient Dragon was already asking the Healer Elf to heal them.

The heavily injured _____ slept through all of that.

Evening had passed and the sun was out the next time they woke up. The healer didn’t know what to expect when they woke up, but it certainly wasn’t a barrage of embarrassment.

First thing they noticed was how they had been moved from the couch to Cale’s bed. Second thing was how there’s a communication device open on the bedside table.

“Glad to see my dongsaeng is awake. There’s a lot of things we must catch up on, yes?”

_____ didn’t know whether to be embarrassed that they kept Rosalyn waiting, or be scared at the way she’s smiling…

“If you’re looking for everyone they all have several agendas to attend to. Some of them are healing soldiers while some are talking to officials.”

The previously embarrassed _____ composed themself and properly sat up on the bed.

“...I’m sorry.”

Both of them already know what the apology is for.

“I know what I did was rash. I had acted recklessly and illogical and it may have hindered some of our plans.”

The mage on the other side of the communication orb only sighed.

“Haaa, that’s not the problem. My main issue is how you got injured. Everyone cares for you and is upset about how you don’t seem to hold yourself in the same regard. We’re worried about you.”

Rosalyn could feel the headache coming when she saw the confused expression on _____’s face.

“But unnie[1], doesn’t Cale do the same thing? Like him, I’m also fine. I heal faster than average and it’s not like these wounds will leave scars.”

Forget a headache, this is a migraine.

“Dongsaeng, you do know how we feel whenever Cale coughs blood or faints right?”

“Huh? Yeah, everyone gets worried and becomes scary… oh…”

Oh indeed

“Exactly, we worry about Cale. We worry about you too. I heard Eruhaben had been sighing the whole night. That's why you better tell this unnie of yours why you did such a thing.”

“Well…”

_____ trailed off as they drank a glass of water that had been conveniently left for them.

“I don’t know honestly… But these past few days I felt as though I wasn’t doing enough. Cale is on the front lines of the war and I’m at the back and can barely do anything. It was frustrating to see the Empire try to play us around like that. Then I also feel irritated that Cale can’t even eat properly because everyone is putting pressure on him. Mary-nim being targeted by the church when she’s risking her life to help defend the kingdom is also not helping. I also think Cale's bleeding during the Henituse battle also riled me up… Unnie I’m not sure what’s happening to me… I think my emotions are getting the best of me.”

Rosalyn can see a growing pattern here…

“Did you know that you seem to mention the young master-nim every other sentence?”

As the big sister, it’s Rosalyn’s job to guide her sweet, but unaware dongsaeng.

“Huh did I? Hans told me once that we seem to be close. That must be why.”

“Is that so? Tell this unnie more about how you feel, that might help us figure out what’s happening to you.”

Rosalyn’s scary smile is gone and has been replaced with the warm smile _____ is used to.

“There were a few times when there was something warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest. It also feels odd when I’m not with Cale. Uhm like when you guys went to the Paerun Kingdom. I feel frustrated and sad whenever Cale doesn’t take care of himself but I think that’s normal… Unnie, honestly I’ve never felt this way. Is this how it feels to have friends? You know I’ve never had one before you guys.”

Laughter echoed throughout the room at the question. Rosalyn couldn’t help herself but started to feel bad when she saw the confusion on the healer’s face.

“_____, do you feel the same way towards us?”

That made _____ think for a few seconds.

“Well I also worry and love everyone else in our group but I guess not to the extent I feel towards Cale? I also don’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling from anyone else. Oh no unnie, is this how playing favourites start? I don’t want to play favourites.”

“Ahahaha! No, no don’t worry, you aren’t playing favourites. But I can’t say that what you feel for the young master is friendship.”

The confused _____ became even more confused.

“Not friendship? What could it be then?”

“That, my dongsaeng, is something you must answer yourself. But I’ll give you a clue since you’re smart. You and young master Cale read books together right?”

_____ started reminiscing all the novels they’ve read with Cale.

“We read different genres. There’s action, mystery, comedy, fantasy, drama, romance…”

Oh

Oh

_____ isn’t sure if they like where this is going.

“I knew my dongsaeng was smart!”

The mage clasped her hands to show how proud she was. Not that the healer can appreciate it since they’re currently in turmoil.

_____ started thinking about the narratives they have read in romance books. Started comparing them to how they felt about Cale.

And holy shit it fits.

It fits like a goddamn missing puzzle.

The healer doesn’t know what to do with this information.

“_____, my dongsaeng _____. It’s perfectly normal to feel that way. You’re in that perfect age where you should experience romance in your life.”

Rosalyn comforted the currently distraught _____.

“What you do with your feelings is up to you. You can act on it, you can let it pass, you can try to get over it. It’s up to you. Whatever you do, I'll support you.”

“Unnie… Thank you… Not only for this but for everything else as well.”

“Anything for my dongsaeng.”

Rosalyn smiled one last time and with that, their conversation ended.

_____ got up from the bed as soon as the communication device turned off. They then started freshening up themself by doing their usual morning routine.

A few minutes later, _____ is ready to go help Pendrick heal the soldiers. They’re even wearing their usual priest robe because they know that Cale must want to scam- uhm “spread” the word of the Sun God Church.

However not even 10 steps outside the room, Cale is there with Choi Han and Eruhaben forcing the still-injured healer back inside the bedroom.

[1] chose unnie because it sounds cuter in my opinion lol. again why can't there be a gender-neutral honorific

[dawn-iscozy]

“ like a cat in a sunny spot ” ♡ v ♡

SERIES PLAYLIST: “ swim ” - chase atlantic ♡ “ honey (are u coming?) ” - maneskin ♡ “ the summoning  ” - sleep token ♡ “ soft spot ” - keshi ♡ “ bubbly ” - colbie caillat ♡ “ kiss me ” - ed sheeran ♡ “ cotton candy ” - yungblud ♡

SERIES WARNINGS: poly, eventual ot8, named oc - “Rora”, derived from “Aurora” (soooooo original, I know), who is basically a self-insert (i’m still on the brink of denial about it). loooots of nicknames/pet names, and even more as the fic progresses (if you read the “a little warmth in winter” you’ll know most of the names already 🤭). things move pretty quickly in this, and it may stray vaguely into soulmate au territory but, like, I’m a sucker for these men and for the way I’ve written them and I just can’t stop.

apologies in advance if the timeline doesn’t make any sense, I’m going purely on vibes and my affection for these 8 men. idk if it deserves a warning, but scents are mentioned a lot in some parts and kinda littered through the rest of the fic, too (using scent profiles from a perfume/fragrance site that has a line of scents called “Smells Like a Hug From Ateez” and very limited knowledge of fragrances the members may have previously used/just the vibes they give off)

WORD COUNT: 7.9k

ADDITIONAL WARNINGS:  period/menstrual cycle, mention of blood, gets a little steamy (what's new atp), but doesn’t get far, food, hurt/comfort-ish??

♡ 18+ - no smut, but still MDNI ♡

v: teddy bear

After such an amazing weekend, Rora should have expected something less than desirable to happen soon. Though, she didn’t think it would be immediately the next day. The second she woke to her alarm at 5:30, she knew it would be a rough day. Her eyes refused to stay open, her back and hips were hurting, and there was a big red stain in her favorite sleep pants. Luckily, a simple soak while she took her morning shower was enough to get most of the stain out, and she had enough laundry to justify starting a load. 

Too frustrated with the way her morning had started and frankly, too tired, she didn’t even think to stop at a convenience store or coffee shop for a caffeine pick-me-up. But as soon as she got to work, she made a beeline for the break room and started a cup of coffee in hopes that the caffeine would wake her up and the warmth would ease her cramps. As the blessed brew was dripping, she couldn’t help but look around, eyes going almost immediately to a desk just a few down from her own. 

Jongho was already there, leaned back in his chair but obviously absorbed in whatever was on his laptop, the sleeves of his button-up shirt and cardigan pushed up his forearms. He looked so cozy, even in the sterile surroundings of the office, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to just yesterday, leaning against him on his sofa, the sounds of laughter and rain ringing through the living room. She wondered if he would let her do that again, if he would let her bask in the solid warmth of his frame or if it had just been a fluke. If, somehow, it only happened because he was humoring the situation. 

She sighed, gaze shifting to watch the steady drip of the coffee into her designated cup. Whatever it was, she couldn’t focus on it. Not if she wanted to make it through the day without crying. She rolled her eyes to herself, leaning against the counter as just the thought of crying was causing tears to prick behind her rapidly blinking eyelids. She forced her mind to go blank, to think only of the work she was about to do, and sighed with relief when the coffee machine beeped to signify the completion of her coffee. 

Grasping the mug with both hands, she walked over to her desk. She took one deep inhale, letting the smell cloud her senses, and gave a determined huff. She would make it through all the work she needed to finish by lunch, and then maybe she would get a much needed 20-30 minute power nap during her break. 

♡♡♡

She didn’t finish all the work she had wanted to finish. The coffee did nothing for her fatigue, only serving to make her jittery and unfocused, eyes fighting to close. That jitteriness led to distracted-ness, which led to her heavy eyes constantly shifting from her screen to peep at Jongho’s desk. He seemed to be working steadily, looking as professional and unbothered as ever each time she glanced over. Which was much more often than she would like to admit. 

She sighed, and her eyes shifted from her screen at the thought. Vision unfocused, brain blank, she zoned out. It was almost time for lunch. Almost time for that nap or some more caffeine. But fuck if it felt like she wouldn’t be able to make it until then, just so damn ready to go back home and curl up in bed with sweet little Teddy.

Fingers pushing through her hair, brows furrowing, she blinked the world back into focus. Her heart stopped in her chest when her eyes locked with a certain brown pair, face warming as she registered the raised brow and quirked lips. 

Her heart kicked in her chest, and she looked back to her screen. Forcing herself to focus on her work, if only for the last fifteen minutes before her lunch break. She let herself get lost in it, in reading and editing and commenting on the passages before her, pulse still thrumming away in her ears at being caught. She was so focused on making herself focus that when a hand fell on her shoulder, she startled, eyes wide and shoulders hitched nearly to her ears as she swiveled around in her chair. 

A low chuckle sounded, and she looked up to see Jongho there. His lips were spread in a dazzling smile that brought an unconscious smile to her own face, even as her heart rate was still tripping over itself from the scare and the reminder of being caught staring at him earlier. She had to pause and just blink, just stare at him for a moment, take in just how adorable his gummy smile was. 

“Finish up, and let’s go to lunch,” he said before she could come back to herself. 

“What?” She blinked at the bluntness of his statement, brain still catching up to the situation she was now in. She cleared her throat, shook her head, and she was glad that he stayed quiet and let her process what was going on.  “Oh. Where?”

“I believe I promised to take you to a certain cafe this afternoon.”

Her brows furrowed, and she wracked her brain for what he was talking about. It took an embarrassing amount of time, cheeks warming under his patient gaze. “Oh!” she exclaimed, sitting straighter in her seat, hands clasped in front of her like she might start clapping. “Yunho’s cafe?” 

Jongho grinned. “That’s the one,” he said. “Let’s go before our break is over, hmm?” 

“Oh!” Rora set into motion, scrambling to gather the things she would need to take with her into her bag and save her work. “Let’s go!” She was practically bouncing with excitement, watching Jongho with big eyes, waiting for him to lead the way. 

Yunho really wasn’t kidding when he said it was close to where she and Jongho worked - they made it down the street and through the door in less than 10 minutes. A bell rang over her head as she pushed inside, stiffening with surprise at both the sound and a sudden warm touch at her lower back. 

A low voice greeted them before the door could even swing shut behind them, and she looked up to see Yunho busy behind the counter, a man standing beside him, seemingly having paused in the middle of wiping the countertop down. The man was roughly the same height as Yunho, roughly the same size, too, from what she could tell. She could really only see his torso and up with the counter in the way, but she could tell that he was strong. The dark button-up shirt clinging to him gave more than a modest suggestion of what may lie beneath, the apron tied tightly around his waist, showcasing just how slim it was and emphasizing the broadness of his chest and shoulders. 

A shiver ran down her spine as she imagined standing in between them, how they would absolutely engulf her with their size. She read his nametag as they got closer - Mingi. His full lips parted in a bright smile that nearly engulfed his eyes. Eyes that, even in the harsh fluorescents of the space, practically sparkled upon landing on them, the shocks of blond streaked through his brown hair seemingly making them sparkle even more.

“Jongho!” Mingi called out, his lovely, low voice once more filling the mostly empty space of the cafe. “Lovely of you to finally visit us.” 

She didn’t look back to see Jongho’s reaction, but she could practically hear his eyes rolling. Her eyes shifted over to Yunho, who straightened up upon Mingi’s words. He looked right over to her, eyes wide, brows raised, lips parted in a smile. “Rora!” 

“Rora?” she glanced over at Mingi, watching as the confusion on his face faded into an amused, knowing smile, those pretty eyes trailing over her. “Ah,” he mused. “So this is who you all were talking about last night.”

“All good things, I hope,” she said, unable to stop the heat flooding her cheeks as she shot her eyes to Yunho. He simply shrugged and gave her a shit-eating grin. Her head whipped back to glance at Jongho. “Right?” 

His face was mostly blank save for the upturn at the corners of his mouth. “Your weekend was thoroughly bragged about in the group chat,” he said, brow arching. “The other three in our group are dying to meet you.”

Her face must have dropped alongside her heart, because Jongho settled a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing that didn’t happen in the shared spaces of the apartment was brought up. Not in detail, at least. You should really reward Woo for being able to keep that to himself. Guy really has trouble not saying things he shouldn’t.” 

“Tell me about it,” she murmured, forcing the joke out. The resulting soft laughter helped her to relax, and looked back over to Yunho with a barely contained pout. 

He grinned, leaning over the counter, bare forearms flexing as he leaned his weight on them. “Since it’s been brought up, though,” he started, voice low, eyes racking over her before landing back on her face. He was suddenly serious, head tilting, soft hair falling over his forehead. His lips were still smiling, though, and she took comfort in that when her heart started thumping harder in her chest. “How comfortable are you with the more…private details being shared?”

“I’m fine with any of it being shared, I just -” she paused, swallowed, sighed. Pushing her hair behind her ear, she continued,“I just want to know that it’s going to be talked about so that I’m not caught off guard by some kind of comment, especially if it’s someone I don’t already know.” She forced out a breath, licked her dry lips. “I appreciate you asking me, Yunho.”

“Of course, honey.” The smile he sent her bordered on salacious, eyes twinkling suggestively, mischievously, as they worked over her figure again. He leaned to the side, shoulder bumping against Mingi as his gaze locked with hers once again, and a shiver worked down her spine. “Wouldn’t dream of doing anything you didn’t like.” 

“We came for food, not for you to flirt,” Jongho piped up before she could respond. He leveled her with a faux serious look. “No sneaking off behind the counter with this degenerate, you hear me?” 

Mingi burst into laughter, Yunho made an offended expression, and she giggled, pushing her elbow into Jongho’s side. “You think he’s gonna take me away from you?”

“He can try,” he said, eyes so big and serious that her heart stuttered in her chest. He was completely straight-faced, and she didn’t know what he could mean with that statement. But she did begin to feel bad, wondering if she had not given him as much attention over the weekend or if he was joking in that deadpan, straight-faced way that he does sometimes. 

“Drop the claws, baby bear,” Yunho said, chuckling. She couldn’t help but giggle at the nickname, looking over at Jongho. He really did resemble a bear - big and strong but soft. She would have to change his contact name later. “No one’s gonna take her away from you. Not during work hours, at least.” 

Then Jongho’s face broke out into that big, gummy grin that filled her with so much warmth and in a surprising move, wrapped his arms around her in a back hug and rested his chin on her shoulder. 

She breathed out in surprise, but let herself sink into his embrace. He felt solid and warm against her back, like he could easily support her if she needed him to. She looked back at him, watching as he seemingly studied the menu hanging behind the counter, as his lips parted to speak. “What do you want?” he asked, eyes still trained forward. She would think that he was being casual if she couldn’t feel his heart thundering against her back. 

She grinned, letting her head tip to the side to touch his, eyes trailing back to Yunho and Mingi. They wore twin looks of adoration, eyes warm and sparkling as they took in the embrace between her and their youngest friend. She flushed when Yunho sent her a wink and cleared her throat. “Surprise me,” she said. 

Jongho’s resulting hum vibrated against her back, and she had to work hard to contain a pout when he straightened up. She was suddenly cold without his warmth against her. Arms wrapping around her middle, she leaned against the counter, only to come face to face with Mingi. There was plenty of space between them, but she could swear she felt the warmth of his breath fanning her face, could smell the coffee lingering on his tongue, could feel his eyes trailing over her face. 

Her breath caught in her throat, tongue poking out to wet her bottom lip. 

He smiled, drawing her attention to the slight imperfection of his teeth, how they were slightly cooked, so that one looked slightly longer than the other. How he nibbled those teeth into his lower lip. She took in the thickness of his lips, the plush pink of them. Her eyes moved up his face, taking in the dimple carving into his cheek, the lovely cheekbones. Over his strong nose, right to his eyes - those big, sparkly eyes that were beginning to crescent with his smile. What is with this friend group and all of them having such pretty freaking eyes? 

 “So,” he started, head tilting to the side adorably. “You’re Rora.” 

“And you’re Mingi?” she asked, reading the tag attached to the apron laid across his chest once more. She tried to keep her gaze from lingering too long on the way the straps of his apron dug into the broadness of his shoulders or the way his dark button-up stretched tightly across the muscles of his arms and chest. Her palms were practically itching to feel that obvious swell beneath them. She cleared her throat and brought her gaze back to his.

His eyes were twinkling, crinkled into full crescents now, eyebrows raised. She flushed - of course he caught her ogling him. She never was gifted in the art of subtlety. 

“I am,” he said, voice practically rumbling in her ears. She shivered at the sound of it, wondering just how low it could go. What it would take to test that out. She blinked herself out of her thoughts before they could progress into further depravity. Clearly, Yunho wasn’t the degenerate here. She almost giggled as the thought passed through her head, blinking to bring Mingi back into focus. “Something funny?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “I just had a silly thought,” she said. 

“Oh?”

“It isn’t that funny, really,” she insisted. 

Mingi hummed, the sound reverberating in his chest, and she desperately wanted to have her head on his chest, have that sound go right into her ear. She cleared her throat, feeling the heat in her cheeks moving down her neck, to her ears. “I won’t press you on it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

She startled when warmth was once again at her back, a chin on her shoulder, and Mingi chuckled. She glanced back to see Jongho with a devastating pout, but his eyes were warm, happy. She looked forward again, ignoring the heat filling her cheeks. 

“So, you work with Jongho?” Mingi asked, straightening up. 

She nodded. “I’ve worked with him for about a year now?” She smiled when Jongho hummed in agreement, the sound vibrating in her ears and against her back pleasantly. 

“And you know Woo, San, and Yunho?” 

She nodded again. “I’ve only known them for a few days, though.”

“Yeah, and they aren’t likely to be letting you go any time soon,” Jongho murmured. He sounded sulky, but she could hear the laughter in his voice, could feel his shoulders shaking with it. 

Mingi laughed, teeth flashing and eyes nearly closing. “Well, I hope that means that I’ll be seeing you again,” he said. 

She grinned. “I’ll definitely have to come here again,” she said, glancing over as Yunho made himself known, settling a tray of food and drinks onto the counter in front of her. “And feel free to accompany Youngie, Sannie, or Yunho if they ever visit.”

His tongue came out to swipe over his full lower lip. “Just might have to take you up on that,” he said. His eyes flicked to the man hovering over your shoulder. “Assuming the bear will let me.”

The chest pressed against her rumbled with laughter, and she glanced back at him. Her heart fluttered at his smile, all pretty teeth and pink gums and sparkly eyes. “You can have her any other time,” he said. His head turned, eyes moving over her face briefly. “Given her consent, of course.” 

“Of course,” Mingi readily agreed. 

Rora wasn’t able to do anything but grin back at the tall man, giggling. Yunho came back, sliding a tray across the counter, and Jongho detached himself from her back. She watched as he came to her side, grabbed the tray, and walked away. 

“He’s gonna start sulking if you take too long,” Yunho mused, leaning against the counter once more. Mingi mirrored him, and she flushed under their collective gaze. “You should go before he starts crying.”

Her brow quirked upward. She knew Yunho was joking, but still, she couldn’t imagine Jongho crying, especially not over her. Even so, she excused herself from the two tall men and followed him over to a table in the corner of the lobby. Windows lined the wall facing out into the street, and the two person table she found Jongho heading toward was awash in sunlight, plants hanging along the ceiling and windows, the light reaching all the way into the shop, all the way to the first bookcase full of various books. 

Jongho casually pulled a chair out, rounding the table without even a glance at her. Amused, she sat down and shrugged off her cardigan to let the warm light bathe her skin, folding the soft fabric to lay across her lap as she took a glance around. The shop seemed to continue past the front counter, wrapping around the back, and she itched to see what was back there, wondering if it was full of cozy spaces for customers to enjoy their time at their own leisure. 

“Here,” Jongho murmured, and she turned back to see Jongho sliding a drink and food her way. There was a large wrap, cut in half and containing just as much meat as veggies, wrapped tightly to keep it stuffed inside the tortilla, a bowl of cutely cut fruits, and a relatively large grapefruit ade that made her mouth water. 

As she and Jongho ate, she watched as the other customers in the shop made their way out. The bell over the door of the shop rang out only one other time, just as she was finishing up the first half of her wrap. 

Sipping her drink, she watched as Yunho and Mingi straightened behind the counter. “Hello,” they said simultaneously, Yunho trekking over to stand behind the register while Mingi disappeared through a door into what she assumed was the kitchen. Yunho smiled his big, puppy dog smile as the customer approached. “We can only do to-go orders right now, since we’re about to close for lunch. Is that okay?”

The customer simply nodded and ordered. It was less than five minutes before their order was completed and slid over the counter. “Have a wonderful day,” Mingi said to their retreating figure, trailing behind them to the door, locking it up and flipping a sign on the door. 

She sighed, feeling much too full to finish the rest of her food. It was delicious, but if she ate any more of it, she would be sleepy and uncomfortable for the rest of her time at work. Or, well, more uncomfortable than she had already been feeling. Covering the other half of her wrap up with the cling film from the eaten half, Rora dusted her hands off and stood. She murmured that she was going to the restroom and turned. 

She gasped, hands flying up, startled by the sudden appearance of Yunho right in front of her. He laughed, large hands gently grasping her own. “Sorry, honey,” he said, amused eyes trailing over her face until they landed on her pout. “Was just going to ask if you wanted to look around before you have to go back to work.”

Taking a breath to settle her still fast heartbeat, she glanced over at Jongho. He was taking a bite of his own food, watching the two of them with seeming disinterest. “We’ve got fifteen minutes before we have to leave,” he said. “I expect at least five more minutes of Rora time before we have to clock back in.”

Yunho was already tugging her away before she could say anything back. She sent him an apologetic look, feeling assured by the amusement painting his features as she stumbled to keep up with his tall friend’s much longer strides. They rounded the counter, and she tugged Yunho to a stop to get a better look. The space was definitely cozy, filled with all kinds of places to curl up and read. The back wall held lofted spaces just big enough for someone to lay down, and the floor had bean bags and a few sunken seating areas in the floor. Every inch of open wall space was lined with shelves and books. 

“Like it?” Yunho asked. 

Rora nodded, looking up at him. She knew she looked somewhere between adoring and starstruck, but that was how she felt about this space. “It’s really nice,” she said. “You both have worked so hard to make a nice place for your customers, and you can really tell.” 

Yunho beamed at the praise, arm sliding around her shoulders as he moved her further into the cozy space. “So you’ll visit again?” he asked. 

“Absolutely!” she said excitedly. “I can already see myself coming on a day off to sit up there -” she pointed toward the cozy lofted spaces “- and chilling out for a few hours.”

“Come around the time for our lunch break so we can spend a little time together,” he said, hands brushing over her shoulders and ghosting down her bare arms. 

“Oh?” Rora’s voice came out shakier than she would have liked, a shiver working down her spine and goosebumps appearing on her exposed skin.

“Mhm,” Yunho hummed, crowding her smaller frame, pressing her until she was forced to take a step. She shuffled forward, breath hitching in her throat when he pressed her against a wall. His body pressed against her back, hands sliding along her arms to press her hands against the wall. His head dipped down, lips ghosting the line of her neck, breath tickling her skin. She shivered. 

“You said you wouldn’t do anything at work,” she murmured. He chuckled, coaxing her to turn around, pressing her back against the wall, hands once again locked with her own, pressing them over her head. She looked up at him through her lashes, letting her fingers intertwine with his. 

“I said I wouldn’t do anything during work hours. But I’m on break right now,” he murmured, nosing at her ear. “Been thinking about getting you alone back here since you walked in.” 

“What if we get caught?” she asked breathlessly. 

“We better shut your fucking mouth then, hmm?” he murmured, nibbling along her jaw. His hand removed itself from her own, coming up to clasp over her mouth, stifling her resulting surprised noise, the whine bubbling up in her throat. “Stay quiet for me, honey.”

His hand slid down her belly, fingers toying with the top of her pants. Her heart was racing, breath catching in her throat with each brush against her skin. She gasped when a sudden sharp pain shot through her lower stomach, the dull ache in her back coming back to the forefront. Her hand gripped Yunho’s wrist to stop him unbuttoning her jeans, shaking her head to dislodge his hand from her mouth. “Fuck,” she breathed out, whined, face pressing into his chest as she fought against the urge to curl into herself. “Can’t. Started my period this morning.” 

Yunho took a deep breath, resting his cheek on the top of her head with a chuckle. His hands slid up her sides then back down to her hips, thumbs massaging in little circles that had her sighing. “Kisses, then?” he asked, trailing the lightest of kisses down the side of her face.

Rora giggled at the ticklish feeling, hand pushing through his hair. “I’m always down for kisses,” she said, pressing a kiss to his chest, tugging lightly at his hair so she could press another to his soft lips. He responded immediately, cupping the back of her head, kissing her over and over until her lips were swollen and she couldn’t catch her breath anymore. 

Her hands fisted his shirt when he started to pull away, and he humored her with one, two, three quick pecks before standing to his full height. 

“Sorry, honey,” he said, straightening her shirt and pushing loose strands of her hair behind her ears with a soft smile. Her eyes caught on his lips, satisfied to find them pinker than before, shiny in the light of the cafe. She wanted to whine, to bring his mouth back to hers. “The bear is gonna start getting restless. Wouldn’t want him coming to maul me, hmm?” 

She shook her head, teeth nibbling her bottom lip to distract herself, to keep herself from pouting. “You’re much too pretty to let that happen,” she said, looping her arm around his waist as he guided her back toward the lobby.

“Oh? Am I?”  

She glanced up at him as they walked, noticing that his ears were reddening and his eyes were firmly in front of him, like he couldn’t bring himself to look over at her. She laughed. “Very,” she said, watching as he swallowed and his shoulders came up, suddenly shy. Her heart fluttered at how adorable he suddenly was and couldn’t help it when she leaned closer to rub her cheek against his arm. 

He squeezed her closer in a quick side hug as they walked, and she giggled when they stumbled. Over and over, they tripped and swayed, but Yunho refused to take his arm from around her. She didn’t mind it, really, loving being in the silly moment with him. Loving having a moment like this, to be able to actually unwind even for a few minutes on her lunch break.

She looked up as they neared the table she had occupied with Jongho, and her brain blanked at the view of him. He was lounging back in the chair, thighs splayed wide enough that the fabric of his pants were pulled tight to showcase the muscles there. She wanted to curl up there and lean into his strong chest. The chest that had been pressed against her back less than half an hour ago. He was holding his phone with one hand, and she noticed how nice his hand was, fingers slender, palm big enough to comfortably hold a phone that she would struggle to hold. Her gaze traveled up his arm, to find his face blank.

Rora blinked and suddenly, he was looking up at her, face soft and those eyes big and sparkling, the sun shining like a halo behind him. He looked beautiful. Breathtaking, even, and her breath nearly caught in her chest. “All done?” he asked, locking his phone and setting it down on the table. 

“She’s all yours,” Yunho answered when she didn’t make a move to answer, chuckling at her starstruck gaze and giving her bottom a little pat as his arm slipped from her. 

She blinked, looking up at him. “Watch those hands, mister,” she murmured, glaring playfully as she elbowed him in the side. 

Yunho gently pushed her toward the seat she had occupied earlier, hands pressing into her shoulders lightly, fingers massaging the muscles there as he coaxed her to sit. She almost moaned aloud, head tipping back into the warmth of his body, eyes closing in the brief moment of bliss. When he stopped and stepped away from her, she whined.

He chuckled, bending down to kiss the top of her head. “Sorry, honey,” he murmured against her hair. “Gotta go make sure Mingi hasn’t burned down the kitchen.”

She refused to watch him walk away, letting her eyes track the drops of condensation beading up and sliding down the side of her drink. There was a puddle starting to accumulate beneath the cup. She pulled a few napkins from the holder on the table, letting the paper absorb the water fully before she looked up at Jongho. He was already looking at her, eyes roaming over her face, and she was almost more flustered at the fact that he seemed so not bothered by being caught doing so. 

“They really have taken a liking to you,” Jongho mused, lips pulling up into a soft smile. She watched his face as he spoke, watching for any change in emotion. She couldn’t really identify any specific emotions, but she took comfort in the fact that nothing negative seemed to be there. Just warmth. Endearment. Whether toward her or his friends, she wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want to dwell on that. He pushed his phone into his pocket and stood. “Ready to head back?” 

Rora simply nodded, slipping into her cardigan. She grabbed her things and her drink, following him to the door. He swung it open, holding it for her to walk through, and she couldn’t help but smile at the move. Before leaving, she paused, looking back to wave good-bye to Mingi and Yunho, who were back to mindlessly tidying up behind the counter. They called out their farewells - their smiles bright and their hands waving excitedly through the air - and she stepped outside.

The breeze hit her immediately, pushing through her hair. The sun warmed her face, and she couldn’t remember a time when she was happier. Or more conflicted. Her teeth nibbled her bottom lip, brows furrowing as she walked beside Jongho. Their arms brushed occasionally, their steps falling in sync. Tiny shocks went through her when their hands would come into contact, but she pulled her sleeves down over her hands, crossing her arms around her waist. 

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” she finally asked, grasping her cardigan to knead the soft material between her restless fingers. 

“Hmm?” He glanced over at her, finishing the sip he was taking from his drink and clearing his throat. His brows furrowed deeply, those eyes on her face even as she looked forward. “What?” he asked.

She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, and she looked down at the sidewalk as they walked, covered hands coming to clasp together in front of her belly. She floundered for words, unsure how to continue asking when what she was asking about wasn’t even clear to herself. The silence stretched as he allowed her the time and space to get her thoughts together and finish her question. 

She sighed. Deciding to just bite the bullet, Rora blurted out, “I fucked half your friend group over the weekend. Are you uncomfortable with what happened?” Her voice was strained despite how blunt her words were, and she found herself swallowing back tears, eyes and throat burning with a need to shed them. She sniffled around the tingling in her nose and she looked up, hoping that doing so would distract her enough to keep from crying. It didn’t do much, and when she spoke next, her voice trembled so badly she was surprised any words came out at all. Her shoulders slumped, the brief confidence leaving her almost entirely, and she refused to look at him. “You’re one of the only people I’ve been able to grow even remotely close to since I moved here, and I don’t want to ruin it or make you uncomfortable around me or your friends.” 

Rora startled when his hand wrapped around her own and she was pulled to a stop then back, his body against hers once more, front to front. His arms came around her, one around her waist and the other around her shoulders in a tight hold that caused her tears to spill over. He held the back of her head gently, fingers brushing over her hair, and she couldn’t help but sob into his neck.

“You need to take a breath, okay?” he soothed, low voice rumbling comfortingly in her ear. “Calm down, precious.”

Her heart jumped in her chest at the endearment, at the gentle tone of voice he used, but she found herself doing as he said. She took a deep inhale. Held it. Let it out slowly. Almost choking on the next breath when his hands came up to wipe at her tears, thumbs ghosting beneath her eyes. 

“There you go,” he murmured, pushing her hair back from her wet face. 

She looked up at him through her wet lashes, lower lip trembling. He looked so tender, so warm. She wanted nothing more than to curl up into him for the rest of the day. Forget work, forget her responsibilities, forget even herself.

Rora wrapped herself around him again, face buried in his chest, and every inch of her purred as his soft laughter filled her ears. She crumbled against him, went lax as his firm fingers kneaded at the tense muscles of her neck, and she released a shaky exhale. 

Luckily, after they made it back to work, the rest of the day passed by quickly. Though, that meant nothing about her levels of exhaustion. When she pushed into her apartment, she wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep. Instead, she went about her regular after work routine of showering and making a simple dinner. 

She was resting, watching a drama on the television when there was a knock on her door. Then another. And another. Then, several knocks at once. Rora pulled herself off her couch with a pained groan, cursing gravity and mother nature as she moved through her kitchen. Balancing on her tiptoes, she looked through the peephole to see three men. Or, well, the chests and shoulders of three men. Brows furrowed, she pulled the heavy door open, wincing when even such a simple move sent pain flaring up in her hips and back. 

She huffed, grumbled, swinging the door open just enough to see around the damn thing. Her grumbled curses were stopped short when she saw Jongho, San, and another man standing back against the wall of the hallway almost sheepishly, plastic bags dangling from their hands. “What -” her head tilted, eyes trailing over each of them. 

She took in the new man first, eyes immediately drawn to an almost heart-shaped spot of red beside his eye, long strands of black hair falling just so to conceal what she assumed to be a birthmark. He looked the most uncertain of the three, standing in tiny, just the slightest bit behind San even as they were standing along the wall, his form almost hidden in a large fluffy jacket. He reminded her of a kid that was dragged to a strange new place by a parent, and she wanted to coo and squish his cheeks until that scared look left his face. 

Rora’s gaze moved over to San, who was standing in the middle, dimples on full display and practically bouncing on his toes. Dressed in sweats and a zip-up hoodie that should have been oversized, but clung to his arms and chest even as the pieces of clothing fell loose around his waist and hips, opened just the slightest bit at his throat to showcase a white top underneath. She wanted to wrap her arms around him. Never let go. 

Jongho stood there, looking calm as ever. Looking even cozier in a pair of black pants and a large sweater that she wanted to steal and drown herself in. Or him. She could wrap herself around him and never let go. That was a good option, too. 

She felt their eyes on her, and she flushed, remembering that she was dressed in the comfiest (and coincidentally shortest) shorts she owned and the hoodie she stole from San (yet again). Her skin prickled as a breeze swept into her apartment, and she hurriedly ushered them inside. “What are you doing here?” she asked, eyeing San and Jongho as they busied themselves with placing the bags in their hands on the coffee table. The unnamed man hovered around them, his gorgeous face set in a smile that looked as awkward as it was pretty. 

Jongho took mercy on her and the pretty guy, indicating his friend with a tilt of his head as he walked over to relieve the man of the bag in his hand. “This is Yeosang,” he said. “San wanted to visit you, but he refused to let Sang leave his side for even a moment. So, he was forced along.” 

The pretty man - Yeosang - sent her a tiny wave and a close lipped smile that was all too precious. 

“Hi, Yeosang,” she said back, sending him a smile. “It’s nice to meet you. You can make yourself comfortable anywhere. Sorry if any cat hair gets stuck in your jacket.” Just as Rora finished speaking, a tiny meow came from the direction of her bed, and she turned to see Teddy strutting his way over, rubbing against San’s legs. 

San bent down, cooing and letting his hand smooth down the cat’s back. 

“I think he came for the cat,” she joked, watching as he lifted Teddy to let the cat lean against his chest and nose at his jaw and chin. San’s resulting smile was so tender, his eyes so warm and kind, she almost wanted to cry. “You can’t just come to my apartment unannounced and make me cry, Sannie. That’s not how this works.” She pouted jokingly even as she rubbed the wetness from her eyes with the sleeve draped over her hand. 

He sent her a grin that forced his eyes nearly shut, setting the kitty back down on the ground to pull her into a hug. “No tears, darling,” he cooed, hands cupping her cheeks to plop a kiss right on her nose. “Especially not while you’re looking so cute in my hoodie.” 

Rora giggled, pushing him away from her, all too aware of the stranger still standing to himself in her apartment as his strong hands reeled her back in. “I think your friend may need your attention more than me,” she whispered to him, tiptoeing to press a kiss to his cheek. She glanced back at Yeosang, watching silently as he shifted his stance, eyes darting around her apartment before falling to the floor where Teddy was twining his body around his ankles. His fingers twitched, brows furrowed in uncertainty. “You can pet him, Yeosangie,” she said, leaning into San when he wrapped his arms around her waist, apparently unwilling to help his friend. “He won’t bite.” 

“Oh - ah,” he startled, blinked up at her with a tiny embarrassed smile. She wanted to baby him. She wanted to baby the HECK out of him, and she was sure that everyone could tell. Even him, if his shy laugh and scrunched shoulders were anything to go by. 

She stifled a giggle and exaggerated a pout at him. He was absolutely adorable, and she wanted to smother him with affection. She looked over at Jongho, who was watching his friend flounder in the new environment with a mixture of amusement and adoration. His eyes fell on her, and she tilted her head toward his friend, mouthing a “help him”. 

His brows raised, lips ticking up at the corners, but he moved over to Yeosang. Yeosang’s eyes widened and he flinched away as his friend approached, but let himself be manhandled over to the sofa without a single complaint. Jongho pushed him to sit down in the middle of the sofa, settling himself on the end against the wall. 

She squealed when San lifted her into his arms, following his friends, sitting down with her in his lap. Rora shifted around so that she could see everyone, her back against the arm rest, though San’s arm remained around her. She ignored the tingling in her tummy at the casual displays of strength happening, focusing instead on steadying her now fluttering heartbeat. 

Teddy followed with an excited chitter, jumping into Yeosang’s lap and nuzzling right into his fuzzy jacket. Yeosang made a surprised noise, but let his hand stroke down the cat’s back, a tiny smile on his face that she wanted to coo at. She melted back into San’s warmth, arms wrapping around her tummy when it gave a sudden, sharp pull. She didn’t really eat the dinner she made when she got home, tummy too tumultuous and crampy to allow for her to feel hungry, leaving her to push the food around on her plate until she wrapped it up to save for the next day. But she would have to eat something soon so she could take some more ibuprofen. 

“What’s in the bags?” she asked, curling further into San’s lap. 

“Yunho let slip that you were on your period, and Wooyoung insisted we bring you some reinforcements.”

Rora’s ears perked at that, and she tilted her head. “Reinforcements?” 

San snorted behind her, and pulled her closer against him. He set his chin on her shoulder, letting his nose and lips brush lightly against her cheek and jaw. She shivered, enjoying the feeling of his warm breath on her skin. “Woo left before Yunho even finished talking about your visit to the cafe, and came back with all of that, demanding we bring it to you.” 

“Why didn’t he bring it himself?” she asked, pulling away from San. He whined, but kept his arms around her middle to support her as she reached for the bags on the table. When she couldn’t drag them over, she pulled the coffee table closer to the sofa to peek inside instead. She was met with a container of soup with a sticky note on the lid, various snacks, and yummy warm beverages. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. She was so excited, so happy, to see it all that she couldn’t stop the oncoming tears even if she tried. 

Rora sniffled, and something cold nudged at her shin. Teddy meowed, forcing his way into her lap. She giggled, sniffled again, accepted the snuggly cat into her arms. “I’m okay, baby,” she murmured, kissing his head. 

A hand swept down her hair and a strong arm pulled her into a wide chest. “Why are you crying?” San asked, his chuckle sending the warmest tingles through her. 

She sniffled again, wiping at her eyes. Her gaze landed on Yeosang and Jongho, and she blushed, wanting to hide just as much as she didn’t care about them seeing her with her emotions all over the place.

“I’m just really happy,” she murmured, smiling down at the kitty purring away in her lap. “Thank you for coming, and let Youngie know that I appreciate the soup and the snacks.”

“You should thank Jongho, too,” San said in a stage whisper. “He helped Woo pick the snacks.”

“Oh?” Rora asked, ignoring the way his breath tickled her skin to focus on Jongho. She hoped he could read the warmth she was feeling in that moment, hoped he could see it on her face how her heart nearly burst in her chest and her tummy fluttered. Her cheeks warmed, and she smiled softly, tilting her head to the side. “Thank you, bear.”

He shifted in his seat, sending her a smile, but his eyes refused to properly meet hers. Sliding instead to her television, where she had a show paused. “What were you watching?” he asked, clearing his throat. 

She smiled, enjoying seeing him act shy for once, but decided to let him change the subject. “I was rewatching a show I watched last year,” she said, digging out one of the snacks before settling back into San again. “I remembered it being super cozy and wanted to see if it could bring me some comfort.”

“Did it?” San asked, hand rubbing lightly down her arm. 

“Mhm.” She nodded, humming around a mouthful hazelnut chocolate spread and crunchy breadstick. 

“Then let’s watch it, hmm?” 

“I think I watched this one with Hwa,” Yeosang piped up. 

She blinked in shock, his voice lower than she imagined it would be, the roughness of it softened by a lisp. A small smile, one of endearment that she couldn’t help in the slightest, came to her face as she watched his ears turn red and that shy smile come back. 

“What did you think of it?” she asked.

“It was good.” he mumbled, ears darkening further, cheeks dusting with pink. 

“Is this the one that made you and Hwa cry?” San asked, sneaking a bite of her snack right after. 

Rora pouted at him, but it didn’t stay for long. Especially not when he reached to feed her a bite and immediately followed it up with a quick kiss that made her heart stutter as she chased for another kiss. He groaned, nipped her bottom lip, and she hummed.

Her face flushed, remembering that other people were sitting next to them. That one of those people was new to her. But she found that she didn’t care all that much anymore. In fact, she looked right at both of them, a giddy giggle bubbling up in her throat and her teeth catching her bottom lip to keep it at bay. 

San must have given Yeosang a questioning look. He cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he mumbled, scratching at his arm lightly. 

“You said this was cozy, darling,” Sannie said. She could hear the pout in his voice as he nuzzled at her cheek. 

“It is cozy,” she huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. “But maybe I also needed a good cry.” 

San hummed, pressed a kiss to her temple. She relaxed into him, and he tucked his chin over her shoulder. “Wanna keep watching it?”

She nodded enthusiastically then looked at the other two, almost squealing when they both nodded. Her hands clapped together, and she reached for the remote. San’s arms tightened around her middle, stopping her from being able to grab it. With an exaggerated sigh, she pouted at Jongho. “Can you press play?” Rora asked him. 

“Of course.” Jongho reached for the remote, and her eyes tracked his every movement as he did so. Watching as the sweater tightens over his shoulders and back, watching the muscles shift to keep his balance. She wanted to hug him, wrap her arms around him and press herself against that strong back. As if he felt her gaze on him or could tell the direction of her thoughts, his eyes slid to her, head tilting, gaze roving over her face. 

She swallowed and forced her eyes away from him and to the television as the show started up from where it was paused. 

[kazucee]

these were mostly thought of in the moment from random things i’ve noticed while replaying/playing thru the games so!! i’m nawt sure if you’re in some of these media pieces but i wanted to share em with you anyways ^^.

HSR

dan heng does things with his hands a lot. putting it on his hip, messing with his fingers. as someone who wears a wrist brace i stand behind the thought of him messing around with his, too. like oh wow this thing i need to help support a part of my body, it’s important, i NEED to mess with it in every way i can to distract myself from the environment around me.

he is also a DORK. that seal event solidified it completely for me idc 🙅🏽‍♀️🙅🏽‍♀️🙅🏽‍♀️ there was also a lil text bubble above him about his jokes within the star rail world event, and i can HEAR the awkward silence from when he does crack one. the jokes are probably so stupid, he’s the type of person to smile at his own jokes.

sunday stays in trailblazers room/space because of lack of space, and he has seen  the most atrocious things. trailblazer trying to breathe underwater in their bath, trailblazer saying “oh kafka, we’re really in it now” whilst sobbing against her wanted poster, listening to robin’s music together only for them to try and reach robin’s high notes only for BAD voice cracks to happen. 

march has low blood sugar!! it’s also why she’s prone to each a lot of sweets at once to help raise it. she has a “secret” stash of juice boxes. 

march is himeko’s master taste tester when i comes to cooking and when she’s unavailable dan hang becomes the next unfortunate target (i think that’s been confirmed thru the home event??)

MARAUDERS/HP

james’ is mixed 🙂‍↕️ i hc his dad as romani & his mom as caucasian personally. i rly see snape as wasian (totally not projecting again 👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽). i think i have said this before but i’m gonna add more to it; remus is a major uk mix (majorly welsh) and his accent skips around a LOT. there are a lot of different pronunciations in his sentences (can PERSONALLY attest to this).

lily used to straighten her hair a lot because it was a bit hard to control with the frizz which caused it to be wild. she later allowed it to just be natural because she got more comfortable with it.

sirius used to use horoscopes for relationships, but after it showed a bump with a friend (no specific) he stopped using them completely.

ron has genuinely thought that harry was into hermoine more than his own sister…..

OTHERS

sadako yamamura (rip queen) is a troll. she laughs at the weirdest times as well, and often scrutinizes you so much that you think she was staring into your soul. 

ellie williams snorts more than she actually laughs, it’s more of a go-to because she had to be more uptight when she was younger. she would also be the kind of person who sorts their skittles (no shade i do that at my almost ancient age).

if re2 (remake) leon kennedy was in that generation of when buzzfeed quizzes were popular he would take them religiously. 

ada wong is more of a pants person than a dress/skirt person actually canon im capcom, hashtag give leon dresses instead.

mark grayson (who i’ve been SAYING was fine but no one got the hype until s3 </333 ) is so stupid that he’s smart unlike the popular saying. that one artpiece w/ him in the yale shirt is so FUNNY like honey he wouldn't make it to yale in his dreams 😭😭😭

OHKA HCS OHKA HCS. Y'ALL IVE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT THIS MOMENT!

THE DANHENG ONE. I CANT HELP BUT AGREE TO EVERY SINGLE ONE. ESPECIALLY THE HANDS ONE, atp he just unconsciously does it (it's the nervous energy in him, like ik he's cool and collected half of the time but when things start getting a bit too much, one of his tells is definitely keeping his hands busy, like his face would be completely stoic then you'd see his hands folding a piece of paper to oblivion) + DORK DANHENG. OHKA YOU'RE SO RIGHT WITH THAT 😭 I'm sorry y'all you can't convince me that he's not a total forking loser, he WOULD gush about cute things inside his mind, he WOULD spend hours watching the star wars saga because he can + I'D LAUGH AT HIS JOKES. ME. I WILL. IF NO ONE GETS IT I WILL. IDCIDC.

SUNDAY 😭😭😭 him and the trailblazer are one of my favourite duos ever TT they're very calm (but secretly chaotic) x chaotic. The robin one made me cackle BWHABWHAH. They'd spend the night talking about the most stupidest of shi— "do you think we can make tree umbrellas-" "trailblazer wtfu-"

OK MARCH. MARCH? I DID NOT EXPECT THAT BUT HOLY CARP I RESONATE WITH IT? like the march HC of the season. Low blood sugar March TT OKOK BUT IMAGINE THE EXPRESS PEOPLE ALSO CARRYING LITTLE BITS OF CHOCOLATE BARS OR CANDIES FOR HER JUST INCASE TTT? this is adorable I love her sm, I'd carry around a whole ahh fridge for her + her being himekos taste tester PFTTT AND DANHENG BEING THE NEXT ONE LMFAO.

Me whenever James Potters name gets mentioned: SHSJDHSGDJSHSKS. he's definitely 100% mixed in my mind sorry but I'm not having some White British boy, give me that diversity /pos! ROMANI. I AGREE SO MUCH WITH THAT HOLY CARP. YES. PLS KEEP COOKING OHKA. pft snape as wasian, yeah I can see it LOLOLOLOL. RREEEEEMUUUSSS. YES. Banger hc, it's canon actually TT his pronunciations being different whenever it reaches a certain word and the marauders teasing him affectionately lmfao. Sirius would 100% get Remus to teach him all the different accents around Europe and such. LILY EVANS MENTIONED OMGOFNGOGMGOG, PEOPLE WHO HC LILY W/ CURLY HAIR. YOU GET ME FR. I LOVE THIS HC SM. STOP SHE'D ASK SIRIUS FOR HAIR ADVICE OR MARY FOR HAIR ADVICE. lmfao the Sirius hc is just a callout towards me because I'm such a sucker for all those horoscope bs TT, Sirius I get you, I get you so much. Mercury is in retrograde or sum shit like that. Actually I can't blame Ron 😭 Harry and Hermione really do have that kind of friendship that makes you question if they actually want each other or what—

Personally I relate because I also have a bad timing when I laugh (a menace to society) + ELLIE SNORTING AND ARRANGING HER SKITTLES LFMAOOO, ADHD BEHAVIOR DHSKDJKFJE + actually from the very limited knowledge I have of resident evil (I watched the raccoon city movie and like one of my former friends yappee about it to me) yes I can confirm, Ada Wong is a girl boss, Leon is a guy failure. Dresses for leon we scream in unison. Mark Grayson (after a quick Google search) holy heck he's fine— I'm hearing you out ohka 😭 from vibes alone I can definitely understand your point + I'm sorry but he gives useless ray of sunshine vibes and stupid orange cat vibes /AFFECTIONATE

AAAAA all your hcs are such a delight to receive and pick apart. Literally pls keep them coming because I'm DEPRIVED OF DANHENG AND MARAUDERS CONTENT + ALSO JJK (I'm not super into it but bro I love Megumi so much it's actually suffocating.) as always, such a pleasure user starcharmed 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[allthedamnlove]

https://x.com/rafiacomfort/status/1858494671829323876?s=46

sharing this because i know you love rofia and i could talk about them for hours😣💕💕

the parallels between them are like woah… and ppl expect me to believe their not endgame?? PLEASE🙂‍↔️

*Pulls up a chair*

I literally liked that tweet first HELP.

This is a very unpopular opinion but drew and fiona this season had more chemistry than rudy and madison LIKE I AM SORRY BUT I GOTTA BE HONEST WITH YALL

But I love jj as a character and I know jj as a character loved kie to death and kie will probably take a LONG TIME to forget jj. It is impractical for the pogues and rafe to go to Kildare cuz they are OUT FOR BLOOD and will go to lisbon for revenge so kie literally jumping to rafe is NAWT HAPPENING regardless of sofia. So the point I'm saying is, RIARA STOP HATING ON SOFIA YOU FREAKS

Buttt yeses OMG THE PARALLEL. Throughout s3 and s4 there are soo many dialogues and plot lines that can be explored further abt rafe and sofias relationship. The dialogue in the tweet "you are a good girl, how did that happen" itself is very cryptic. Her family which was there yet not mentioned in the story at all. The fact that both were betrayed by themselves (sofia by pushing rafe with hollis and rafe by being a bitch *YES HE IS A BITCH* and shit talking about a person who will literally give up everything for her love by saying she's a pogue behind her back) are insane parallels.

I know KNOW that drew is going to insane levels of fame and heights in acting AS HE FUCKING SHOULD but i would love a small spinoff movie abt how rafe and sofia met. The fact that they didn't even showed how they met yet throwing a proposal (WHICH I AM A OK WITH BTW, it was my favourite scene of the ENTIRE SERIES LEMME TELL U) makes "rafe" fans really weirded out and I kinda agree with them. But I say that it's the writers fault.

Drew and fiona, again and again I will say HAVE INSANE CHEMISTRY. I hate that their dynamics I'd not explored more. Rafe is very very intense and complex and the relationship between a very soft spoken normal girl and a borderline psycho murderer has so much more potential than just being a filler storyline. Rafe has been not loved truly by anyone in his life and the fact that sofia loves him truly even with the amount of minimal screentime shows that these actors are not to be made uses in scarcity

Weirdly with jjs death rafe will probably become one of the centers of the story arc butt again they will be going to Lisbon I don't know how sofia and rafes relationship will be explored. But I know that this is not the end of rofia. I hope to god thar they end up together and we see a montage of them getting married and having kids.

Butt there lies the entire shoupe deal too so im also scared abt that. But I have started praying and there's a year left so atp we can only hope that rafe and sofia end up together.

Also I feel like they should have included fiona in the cast interviews. She is so sweet and bubbly and would have made a great addition to the fun and I WANT TO SEE FIONA AND DREW INTERACT TOGETHER. I hate that even Austin was in the press tour like gtfo.

So basically if rofias not endgame, I will personally b*mb jpates residency so that they don't ruin another ship.

Also thank you so much for sending an ask. Me @araybiaaa and @lostsyren are holding the Fort for rofia so talking about it is so cathartic and less lonely. Hope you have a great day.

[skitskatdacat63]

misc lore drop day 56/?

Preface, I feel like these are getting to be too self indulgent LMAO. Practically getting to be time-period OCs, sorry!  I might stop doing these soon cause they are truly losing the plot I guess. I don’t think they’re overly ooc or anything, but maybe just a bit too much for anyone other than me, and maybe I shall put my focus onto writing ficlets.. We’ll see. I like writing them, but on some level am getting a bit too self aware about how self serving they are(fic can be indulgent but this is just my personal historical brainrot atp.) For daily things like this, I get anxious about stopping, but I’m kinda running out of ideas, or at least, on a more positive note, wanting to write narratives instead. Sorry, I talk about this in the tags all the time, I just wanna make sure I warn in advance.

At one point I wanted to draw, and maybe I will in the future, Seb and Fernando reading books together. As I said before, they’re often attached at the hip, especially in the evening, so it’s pretty normal for them to settle down like this. Sitting on the same couch, making absent commentary. Fernando’s the type to only read political, philosophical and history books. He does enjoy reading but also somewhat considers it to be a frivolity, and will only engage with it to “better himself.” Seb LOVES reading and will devour anything, I mean that’s why his statue is in the imperial library after all. They both know a lot of languages which definitely comes in handy. I digress, I thought in the drawing, it’d be funny to have thought bubbles above their head as they’re reading. Also, sorry this is soooo self indulgent. It’s very funny to imagine Fernando reading The Prince cover to cover a hundred times, because he wants to be a Machiavellian ruler. It’d be too weird for Seb to read that book because it literally discusses his ancestors, it’s a bit jarring. The reason it’s funny though is because Fernando aspires to follow the teachings in the treatise, meanwhile Seb genuinely IS pretty Machiavellian. Fernando’s sitting there reading like, oh my god this is so me. Seb will glance over at it every once in a while and be like, I don’t know, it kinda feels like satire. I think they’re both very blind to who they themselves and each other actually are. Fernando thinks he’s some cruel, magnificent leader, which he really isn’t; this doesn’t mean he’s not magnificent, rather just not in the way he thinks he is. Seb disregards the book and what it says about how being an efficient ruler, and yet he is pretty shrewd and cold-blooded when need be.

So what’s Seb reading? Don Quixote. Who does it remind him of? Fernando, of course. Though Fernando doesn’t get what Seb finds so funny. He’s an admirable man! He’s on a quest, like all of us are in life! He doesn’t give up!! Seb dies of laughter making Fernando read out the long speeches, because it suits him sooo well. I also like to imagine Seb making everyone read out Shakespeare plays with him. He definitely acts them out and everyone is just staring at him blankly as he writhes on the floor in pretend agony. He’s suspicious about how into the whole poison part in Romeo and Juliet Fernando is, considering he tends to hate romance novels(despite being a romantic.)

[silly-boi-broski]

I did it...

So, awhile ago I was talking about how I've been obsessing over Belos' backstory and stuff, so uh... I finally made the first chapter for it. It's kinda short atp, but here. Idk how far, or even if I'll continue it, but yeah.

It didn’t take much to make the man angry. 

By “the man” I mean our Uncle Thomas, he was a very strict man, even by our times standards and looking back, Caleb and I should have left earlier than we did.

He was insufferable, constantly on Caleb for nothing at all, but then again, he was the man who took us in after we were orphaned. He hung that fact over our heads, saying “You lot are only still alive because I felt enough remorse at having that damn brother of mine die. And you’re his offspring so I guess I was just required at that point.” He’d grumble when he was in one of his better moods. 

I hated the man, but he did know one thing. He knew how to command respect, and keep his power. Dangle something just out of your reach to get you to do what he says. I carried a lot of lessons over from that insufferable man… I think I owe him at least some credit, even if I was never strong enough to admit it.

Finally,  Caleb became a teenager and escaped with me to a quaint town in Connecticut that was supposed to be an escape away from all of the drama and issues. It was for a while, and we took up residence in an empty home at the edge of the town.

Then, the trials started. Accusations of witchcraft spreading like wildfires. The burnings started soon after, and Caleb and I got caught up in all of it one day when we went to watch one of them.

It was a gruesome sight, but I was transfixed with the way the witch screamed and pleaded innocent, the way the fire engulfed her body… 

Even then, I knew how fragile lives were. Even that of witches. 

Caleb pulled me aside, talked to me about it to see my thoughts… I was excited, and ended up learning more about the trials and all the ways the adults protected us from such evil witches. We started playing games, pretending to be some of the brave witch hunting men that went ahead. We were two young boys, caught up in the rush of blood thirst and lust for power. 

“Pip! I made you something!” I heard him say as he rushed into the room. I had been sitting on the floor, playing slide groat (that’s what Caleb had heard it being called at least). I picked my wooden coins off the ground, and looked over at him. I had been curious at what my older brother would have been so excited about. 

“What is it, Caleb?” I had asked in response, excitement bubbling within me. He held up a carved, wooden mask.

“It’ll help you sneak into the searches with me!” He said triumphantly, waving one of our wooden play swords above his head as I took the mask, observing it carefully, tracing a hand over every little detail. 

I had always been amazed at how good Caleb was at wood carving.

“When do we leave?”

[alarajrogers]

Everything Makes Sense: The Human Body and Energy

I wrote a thing. It is a very long thing. It probably contains very little information that most people didn’t already know, but it puts it together in a way I’ve never seen it before.

Most of it will be behind the cut but you get the first few paragraphs out here where you can see them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything Makes Sense: The Human Body and Energy

So you know how you read all this bullshit about “X improves your energy” and “Y gives you quick energy but then you crash” and “Z improves your metabolism” and it all just sounds like words? Technobabble from the world of science fiction television shows?

It may surprise you to know that practically everything you’ve ever personally observed about energy levels makes sense, as do a lot of the layperson observations you’ve heard in your life, and that there are really good reasons why being sick makes you sleepy and why exercising hard on weekends when you’re a slug all week is bad for you, and that all of this is very understandable from a layperson perspective. Or maybe not, maybe you know all this. I’ve spent years knowing all this, but recently it just dawned on me that it’s all interconnected.  All the things I know are pieces of an amazing whole.

So I’m going to explain this revelation I’ve had, and when you read it, my guess is you’ll come away thinking “But I knew all that already… but now I understand how it all works together!”

Metabolism

First, let’s talk about metabolism. What is it?

We usually use the term to mean something like “the speed at which my body does the things I’m not consciously controlling it to do.” Like, “I have a really fast metabolism, so food just runs right through me!” Or “I have a very slow metabolism so I have to be real careful about how much I drink.”

To metabolize means for a living thing to process something it has ingested. Metabolism is usually used to mean the process of converting food and nutrients into energy. Sometimes we use it to mean the levels of efficiency or speed at which a body does this, which is where we get “a fast metabolism”. Here, I’m going to try to use metabolism specifically to mean the process by which your body converts stuff to energy.

Life Energy

No, a vampire from an alien planet can’t suck it out of you, but you really do have life energy! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive.

The fundamental molecule of life energy, the thing that if it wasn’t there no life processes would be possible because they would not have any energy to work, is a battery called ATP. Its full name, adenosine triphosphate, is a bit of a mouthful, but it basically means that this is a molecule with three phosphorus atoms.

You may have learned in chemistry class, once upon a time, that chemical reactions can be endothermic – they use up energy – or exothermic – they emit energy. Fire is an exothermic reaction; you get it started with heat, usually, but it generates a lot more heat than it took to make it burn in the first place. Your baking soda and vinegar volcano from the science fair a long time ago is also an exothermic reaction. You didn’t put any energy into it to make it bubble like that. On the other hand, melting ice is endothermic. You don’t get any energy when ice melts. It uses up energy to melt.

When ATP releases one of its phosphorus atoms, it becomes ADP – adenosine diphosphate, meaning just two phosphorus atoms! This is an exothermic reaction. ATP turning into ADP is what powers pretty much every single endothermic reaction in your cells. It’s the battery that you run on.

Charging the Battery

Fortunately ADP is rechargeable! An endothermic reaction turns it back into ATP.

The mitochondria do this. You may be thinking, “aren’t they something the lady who wrote A Wrinkle In Time made up?” And you’d be close. The mitochondria appeared in the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door. Madeleine L’Engle didn’t make them up, but she did make up “farandolae”, little creatures in the mitochondria, which don’t exist as far as we know. (Although, if scientists do discover little thingies in the mitochondria that let it do its work, they’ll probably name them farandolae because scientists are big geeks.)

Mitochondria in reality are organelles, components of a cell that do work. They’re independent organelles, which have their own DNA and do all their own reproduction. The only other things we know that work like that are chloroplasts, which are only found in plants… so far. (Personally I think being able to photosynthesize from my skin would be awesome and I am eagerly awaiting the day that genetic engineering allows us to put chloroplasts in human skin, but this isn’t a thing yet.)

Mitochondria combine glucose – a molecule made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, in the formula C6H12O6 – with oxygen, an element that comprises about 22% of our atmosphere, to create carbon dioxide (there’s that di again, meaning two – carbon dioxide is one carbon and two oxygens), water (our old favorite, H2O, sometimes called “dihydrogen monoxide” as a joke about weird chemical names), and enough energy to put a phosphorus atom on a molecule of ADP. Now it’s ATP again! Glucose and oxygen combine in an exothermic reaction.

(Ever wonder why all life on earth depends on the sun? Converting CO2 and H2O into glucose and oxygen is an endothermic reaction. Plants use their chloroplasts to absorb energy from the sun so they can convert CO2 and water into glucose and oxygen. Then animals, like us, eat the plants to get the glucose, and breathe the oxygen. Without the sun, chloroplasts wouldn’t work, plants wouldn’t make glucose, and we’d all starve.)

The Basic Things We Need For This To Work

There are a lot of components going into this system.

The mitochondria need a steady supply of oxygen, but oxygen, being a highly reactive molecule, can’t just float around in the bloodstream like glucose can. (Glucose is iffy too, more on this later.) Hemoglobin, a molecule made with iron, bonds to oxygen and can carry it around safely. Red blood cells are full of hemoglobin. They float in the bloodstream, which goes everywhere in the body. Vitamin B12 is involved in the production of these red blood cells. The bloodstream also carries glucose, but hopefully not too much of it, because glucose is also a reactive molecule and if you have too much, it starts tearing shit up.

The lungs draw in the oxygen that the red blood cells carry, and expel the carbon dioxide. The heart forces the blood to go around and around in this system of blood vessels. The pancreas makes insulin, the hormone that binds up the glucose and regulates how much of it is available in your bloodstream for your cells to take. The speed with which all of this happens can be regulated by thyroid hormone, which requires iodine, and also a working thyroid.

You need all that and a million other things for the system to work perfectly. If the system does not work perfectly, you’re not making as much energy as you could be. That’s pretty obvious.

But here is the thing that’s obvious once you spell it out, and yet, we so often behave, as a society, like we don’t understand it or don’t believe it:

An optimized system still puts out a finite amount of energy at any given time.

If you were in perfect health, right now, you would still have a limited supply of life energy to work with.

We know this. But we behave as if it’s not true. As if we can power through exhaustion with willpower, because being exhausted is a flaw in the system, rather than a really obvious application of the laws of thermodynamics.

What Uses All That Energy?

We also often don’t think about the systems that use those energy, and what they use it for.

The Brain:

The brain is a huge energy hog, using up a whopping 20-25% of all of the body’s energy while awake and conscious (or dreaming – a dreaming mind is as active as a conscious one.) Asleep (but not in REM sleep), the brain still uses about 85% of that, which, lemme do some math here, is 17% if the waking mind was using 20%. A living being can drop to about 50% of that with certain types of anesthesia, but that – the minimum required for a brain to keep a body alive – is still 10% of total energy consumption.

It's not clear how much energy on top of that a very active brain needs. Estimates of how much energy complex and difficult thought consume range from 100 calories a day to 6000! It’s plainly not much on top of basic consciousness, or there’d be no such thing as a fat person doing highly intellectual work all the time, but it’s evident that it’s something.

The Muscles:

We all know about this one. Hard-working muscles use up a lot of energy. How much? Well, swimming, one of the few activities we do that can fully engage the leg muscles and the arm muscles to the same high level at the same time, can burn as much as a quarter of a normal daily intake of calories in a single hour. Most of the time our muscles are not working that hard, but anything more strenuous than vegging out on a couch does burn resources.

The Immune System:

This guy. This guy is the one everyone forgets. The immune system is hard at work all the time protecting you from infections (and, if you’re one of the zillions of people who have allergies or autoimmune disorders, things like cat dander, pollen, and yourself apparently), but when an infection has actually taken hold, the immune system goes into high gear. Most of the responses you experience when you’re sick – nausea, coughing, sneezing, runny or stuffy nose, fever – are actually things the immune system is doing to you to get rid of the infection. Nausea, to expel it through the mouth. Diarrhea, to expel it through the anus. Coughing, to expel it from the lungs, and sneezing, to expel it from the sinus cavities. Mucus, to trap it so it can be expelled. Fever, to kill it, because germs are a lot more sensitive to temperature variation than you, a large multi-celled creature, are. It takes a lot of energy to do all that. Plus there’s white blood cells and T cells and antibodies, all doing their thing.

The Digestive System:

Ever hear the expression “It takes money to make money?” That’s true of life energy as well. The work of moving your food all along the gastrointestinal tract, breaking it down, squeezing and mushing it, making the enzymes to convert it to molecules small enough to get out into the bloodstream, and then pushing the waste out – that’s a lot of effort. There’s no such thing as a free lunch!

The Reproductive System:

Making sperm costs energy. Making a lining for an egg and then expelling it if it’s not used costs energy. Firing up the hormones that cause libido costs energy. And then there’s all the energy burned by the muscles in actually having sex.

Heart and Lungs:

Typically we don’t think of these things as needing a lot of energy because, quite simply, your body’s going to take the energy it needs to run these essential systems whether you want to or not. There’s no re-allocation of baseline energy away from the heart and lungs. But in exercise, when the oxygen demands and the needs of the muscle cells to get more and more fuel increase, the heart and lungs need more energy too.

This is a rough breakdown. You have other systems – we haven’t talked about kidneys and liver and stuff like that – but we’re going to look at these systems in our simplified model.

Everything takes energy. And you have a finite pool of it. Eating more food does not give you more energy – your mitochondria can only work as fast as they can work. If you weren’t at capacity, then yes, food can give you a boost, but it consumes energy first because digestion is work, and if you’re at capacity, any extra calories get stuffed away as fat because extra circulating glucose is bad for you.

By the way, this is why sugar gives you a quick pick-me-up, and should probably be considered a stimulant! Sugar – sucrose, which is basically 2 glucose molecules smushed together, or fructose, which is glucose but in a different shape – supplies your bloodstream with glucose fast, with very little extra work. And it can start doing it in your mouth, because your saliva can break sucrose into glucose and your mucuous membranes can pull glucose into your bloodstream.

But as soon as you start ingesting sugar, your pancreas revs up your insulin production (assuming you don’t have diabetes, or that if you do, it’s type II and not so advanced that you basically don’t have your own insulin anymore.) Insulin, you may recall, is the hormone that keeps circulating glucose levels in your bloodstream down to the levels where the mitochondria can use all of it and there isn’t a lot extra. Extra glucose that nobody is using damages your blood vessels, making them harder and less elastic, which is why circulation problems are a big thing with diabetes, and why my feet are SO FUCKING COLD all winter, not that I’m bitter or anything.

So. You ate sugar, and your body prepared to balance your glucose levels with a lot of insulin. But then all you ate was sugar. You didn’t add fats or proteins or complex carbohydrates in any significant amounts to keep the glucose coming after the initial burst was over. So now you have all this insulin and it went and picked up all the extra glucose and now you know what? Not only is there no extra glucose anymore, there isn’t even enough to keep the home fires burning! Woo, dizzy. Low blood sugar hits the brain hard, because the brain is the energy hog, and feels any dip in energy levels before any other body systems do.

In short, you may have given yourself a quick burst of extra fuel, but in the long run, it may actually make your energy levels drop. And if you ate a substantial meal to go with that quick snack… now we have to send power to the digestive system. And that is why eating more food does not give you more energy unless you’re starving. (Or diabetic, more on this later.)

Energy Trade-offs:

You know the drill. Finite amount of energy. Many systems competing for it. Brain takes the most. So what happens when one system suddenly needs extra?

1.       Complex thought shuts down.

I know you’ve experienced this. You’re overtired, or you’ve just done hard exercise, or you have eaten a big meal, or you are sick. You can no longer brain at the levels you expect. Study? Maybe, but retention and comprehension will suuuuck. Math? Probably not. Reading? Depending on how difficult reading in general is for you, maybe this is just the thing, but the topic’s going to be light and easy to comprehend, like fiction, or maybe this article here that you’re reading. Or, maybe reading’s out of the picture. Watching TV? For most people, this is ideal, but if you’re autistic and have an auditory processing disorder and facial recognition issues, hoo boy. Not that I know anybody like that, or anything.

2.       Muscles need to be at rest.

Muscles don’t have to move a lot. You could be sitting on a couch. You could be laying in a lawn chair. You’re awake, but you don’t want to move your muscles because it’s hard.

When what you lack to burn your fuel is not glucose, but oxygen, you can get by sometimes. As long as there’s some oxygen. But the byproduct of making energy without enough oxygen is called lactic acid. Which is acid, and it’s in your muscles. Not good! Nobody likes extra acid in places where extra acid shouldn’t be. So your muscles burn. The good news is, the body breaks down lactic acid pretty fast. The bad news is, you may be building it up faster than the body can break it down.

Hard exercise? You’re gonna feel the burn. But you may run into this same problem attempting to walk to the bathroom if you’re very very sick, because all the energy has been re-routed to the immune system, so there’s nothing there for the muscles.

3.       Consciousness itself shuts off.

The unconscious brain still consumes a lot of energy, but we’re cutting what we can, and you being conscious is not helping here. Shut down anything we don’t immediately need to use. That includes consciousness.

If you are bleeding out and there’s not enough blood in your body to carry the fuel –

If your blood pressure is low or your heart has stopped working and so the fuel isn’t moving fast enough to where it needs to be –

If your circulating glucose is too low because there’s too much damn insulin –

If there isn’t enough water in the body, so blood pressure drops because blood is mostly water –

If you have a fever, which makes all the chemical reactions in your body go kind of screwy and inefficient –

-- You pass out. You cannot remain conscious because your body has to cut services to keep the whole thing going, and this is how.

Sometimes stupid shit triggers this reaction. Like vasovagal syncope, which can happen from triggers like extreme emotional stress or the sight of blood. Like getting blood drawn (which is probably also vasovagal syncope but seems to have a more physiological basis than some of the other things that can cause it, given that it can occur in people who are absolutely cheerful and fascinated by the fact that blood is leaving their body and not upset about it at all. Not that I would know anything about that, either.)

4.       Or, you are highly encouraged to shut down consciousness.

The digestive system is hard at work. There’s no emergency, per se, but this work would get done a lot faster and with less stress if you would just go the fuck to sleep. Thus, “carb coma” or what the cartoon “The Boondocks” called “The Itis.”

The immune system is busting its ass. Things aren’t so serious that you need to pass out. Falling asleep vs. fainting is kind of like shutting down your computer vs. suddenly losing power. You definitely want to go to sleep if the situation is not dire enough to require immediate shutdown of consciousness.

Your body needs to run nightly maintenance. Several systems that operate in low gear when you’re awake need to rev up, and your brain actually needs to do some shit to organize your memories while you’re not recording new ones, and extra energy is needed for the immune system because it’s doing nightly sweeps. Or something like that. We don’t really understand everything that sleep does for us, but we know that if we don’t get it:

-          The pancreas doesn’t work right, resulting in getting fat and maybe diabetes

-          Also high blood pressure

-          Also memories are kind of shit

-          Also the immune system doesn’t work too well

We don’t actually know how your brain would operate without sleep if it wasn’t saturated with the “go the fuck to sleep” chemical GABA, which is broken down while you’re sleeping. GABA does a lot of things, but in this context, GABA builds up in your body to send the signal to your brain to stop using so much damn energy and sleep already. And if you attempt to function mentally with high GABA levels… well, you can’t, okay? Your brain is full of GABA receptors that tell it to turn things off. So those things are turning off. How well does your computer run when it's in the middle of shutting down? I thought so.

(Actually we kind of do. There are chemicals that block tiredness. People who use these chemicals can function on significantly less sleep at significantly higher cognitive levels than people who are not on these chemicals. But the stuff like the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the immune system weakening… all that appears to still be happening. Sleep happens for a reason.)

5.       Other systems that are highly dependent on energy levels shut down.

 -          Exercised your ass off? Now your digestive and immune systems have been tamped down because the energy went to your muscles. Eating when the digestive system isn’t working at full capacity results in stomach cramps or nausea. Forcing the digestive system to work when the muscles need maximum energy levels causes muscle cramps. This is why you’re not supposed to go swimming after a big meal – muscle cramps while swimming can kill you.

-          Ate a big meal? I bet you are not feeling like having sex right now. Probably also not winning any chess tournaments. And don’t move around too much!

-          Feeling sick? Cough, runny nose, sneezing? You’re probably not too hungry. (Especially not when you have a fever. Fevers burn a lot of energy.) You probably do not feel much like having sex. Your muscles ache and you don’t want to move around much. And you are sleepy.

-          Feeling randy, baby? You are probably not also feeling hungry.

What Happens When We Game The System?

I briefly mentioned stimulants above – chemicals that artificially reroute energy levels back to the brain, improving concentration and mental acuity, at the expense of everything else.

Well, not literally everything else. Stimulants suppress pain to some slight extent, increase heart rate and blood flow, and make your muscles more eager to do work. Many people report that stimulant use also makes them horny. So those systems are in good shape too. But you know what took a hit? Your digestive system and your immune system. Now, your digestive system… you can feel that immediately. People take stimulants in order to lose weight, sometimes, because they’ll suppress your appetite. Energy rerouting to brain and muscles means the body shuts down digestion. What’s already there will get processed but let’s not add to it, okay?

You did not feel your immune system slow down and weaken. You won’t, today. But maybe tomorrow you’ll get sick. Maybe the day after that.

Oh, but you gotta work, right? The boss won’t tolerate you not coming in. So you stuff yourself full of stimulants – pseudoephedrine, dries up your nose and keeps you awake; caffeine, keeps you focused – and go to work anyway. With energy being forced away from your immune system to keep your brain and your muscles working. That’s not gonna work out well for you, now is it. You wanna pull the military off the front lines to have a parade, when you’re being actively invaded?

Keeping your brain functioning at full capacity, continuing to use your muscles, when you’re sick, will slow your recovery time, because you took the energy away from your immune system to pump it through your brain. Because the amount of energy you can produce is finite, and relatively fixed.

Oh, you can improve some things. Your blood and everything it does, and practically every chemical reaction in your body, is totally dependent on the presence of water, so stay well hydrated. Stock your body well with the vitamins and minerals you need to make all these things function. Are you getting enough oxygen, citizen? Eat food, but with the right balance of carbs and proteins and fats so that your digestive system isn’t overtaxed, you don’t end up with an insulin spike, and you’re not wasting resources. If your system lacked any of these things, then you can improve metabolic efficiency, and your energy levels, by providing them.

But stimulants can’t give you energy. They can make you feel like they did because the energy is going to places where your conscious mind can feel it… but they didn’t increase the amount of energy you have. Resources are being taken away from other areas. Your immune system is taking a serious hit right now. And you can’t feel that, but it’s gonna fuck you up later.

Brains That Have To Work Extra Hard At Basic Stuff

This is a simplified model, but: all brains are full of little modules that do things. And consciousness, ego, is actually pretty bad at most stuff. The little modules that do things are like dedicated co-processors for specific tasks. Spatial processing. Language acquisition. Basic math. Recognizing faces. Managing executive functions.

The neurotypical mind comes with a basic set of things that neurotypicals don’t even realize exist unless they study psychology or spend a lot of time with neurodivergent people, because they all have them. The thing that recognizes faces. The thing that processes sound into speech. The thing that generates speech from thought. The thing that picks up social rules. The thing that can look at letters and figure out easily and quickly how to pronounce them. The thing that tunes in to body language cues. The thing that’s always aware of how loud you’re talking. The thing that enables you to kind of guess how much time has passed. The thing that lets you control what you’re paying attention to. The thing that does basic math.

Many of these little modules need to be trained – language and math and reading don’t suddenly appear in people’s brains, they’re taught – but once trained, the little modules just… do the thing. The person doesn’t have to think about it. They no longer experience any sense of “I’m doing a thing”, it’s just happening.  

Not all neurodivergent minds have these things. Many such minds have found a workaround. Use conscious processing power, not black box processing power, because the black box isn’t there, but main cortex is. You can apply intelligence to solve problems like “who is that guy, I know that I know him” and “what are the words those people are saying” and “how do I turn those letters into a sound”. “How do I keep track of how much time I am spending on this?” “How do I make myself do shit that bores me?” We use conscious mind processing power, not the much more efficient black boxes that people aren’t even aware they have.

But what happens when energy is sucked away from the conscious mind, and we’re reduced to vegetating, still awake but without the ability to perform complex thought right now?

If we’re routing skills through the conscious mind, we will lose those skills in proportion to how much we lose the ability to think in general, as energy is drawn away from the brain. And NTs, using the much more efficient black box modules, have no idea that this is even a thing that can happen. It would take far more drastic energy loss for them to lose the work the black boxes do.

Some of us have black boxes that the average NT does not have. I can do complex worldbuilding in my head when I’m so exhausted I can’t talk anymore. There are people who just know the answers to complex arithmetic problems the way most of us just know the answer to 2 times 5. Some people have advanced spatial processing coprocessors that mean they’re almost never lost, because they’re effortlessly creating a map of their surroundings any time they go anywhere, and something in their head is tracking what direction they are in and what turns they’ve made. But some of us do not. Not all of us get a trade, skill for skill. And some of us get black boxes that turn out to be kind of useless. Like, suppose a person more or less effortlessly memorizes the name of every dinosaur ever discovered. Unless they are a paleontologist, when is that going to help?

The important thing to note here is that even a small drop in energy can cause a noticeable drop in an ND’s ability to fake being “normal”, because they are using a less efficient means of computing to perform those skills, and it cuts out on them when energy has to draw down from the brain to go somewhere else.

Spoonies

People with auto-immune disorders are constantly using high levels of energy to do useless and self-destructive shit (not that they want to, but their immune system did not ask first), because their immune system is always on high alert against things like their own nervous system. Overactive immune system consumes energy; body parts taking damage consume energy.

People with cancer or other diseases that lead them to take chemo are burning a lot of energy trying to replenish vital functional cells that the chemo keeps killing. Chemo destroys fast-dividing cells… like white blood cells, and the ones in your mucous membranes, and the ones in your hair follicles. And you can do without hair, but you sort of need your mucous membranes and your white blood cells.

People with fatigue disorders might be suffering from an auto-immune issue, or they might be suffering from a metabolic issue. For instance, low levels of thyroid hormone will cause metabolic processes across the board to slow down, drastically decreasing the available energy.

People with depression might literally actually have a fatigue disorder that manifests in not having enough energy to process serotonin and dopamine correctly. Also, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine are brain chemicals that do energy routing, having an effect on what the body is putting energy into. Failures to produce enough of those or at appropriate times, or spending energy breaking them down when you still need them, will screw with the body’s ability to deliver energy to the right places.

Whatever the reason, if you have a disorder that drains your energy… even if that’s all it does, even if it literally has no other symptoms, having something that lowers your available energy for your brain and muscles makes it literally impossible for you to function at the levels you would like to. Like, the same way it is impossible for a Chevy Malibu to go 800 miles on one tank of gas. The available energy is not there. Either it is going someplace stupid that you’d rather it didn’t, or metabolism itself just isn’t working well.

If you are neither a spoonie nor neurodivergent, odds are, your body’s working at a reasonably high level of efficiency already, so you can get a dramatic improvement when you find one of the few things you lack, and you fill that need. Hydrate? (Everything runs on water) Exercise? (Speeds up circulation, and fitness in general will cause your metabolism to be more efficient) Vitamins? (Sure, if you’re missing some, vitamins are real useful.)

But if the problem is, you’re pouring energy into activities society requires you to engage in but your brain cannot do them easily and efficiently, so they cost you a lot more than others; if the problem is, your body is wasting a lot of energy on an immune response to things that shouldn’t need an immune response; if the problem is, there’s a food your body can’t break down, so you’re eating enough to feel full but never getting enough energy from it; if the problem is, your metabolism is lacking something esoteric that almost everyone else has enough of, so it’s nearly impossible to figure out what’s missing… exercise and hydration and vitamins will not help. Or, they may help, if you were lacking them, but they won’t fix the problem.

Expecting you to just push through a lack of energy through willpower is a total misunderstanding of how the brain and body work. You cannot do what you don’t have energy to do, and if you route energy to your brain or muscles to accomplish something that requires really pushing yourself, you are taking it away from somewhere else. Probably your immune system. So you’ll get sick. And then you’ll be even more overtaxed.

It’s amazing the degree to which ignorant people think that all bodies literally work the exact same way. (And yet many of these ignoramuses think that people of a different race are somehow completely different from them in some fundamental way. Make it make sense.) What’s even worse is the number of doctors who believe that the only way bodies can malfunction are the ways they happen to know about, so anything outside their experience is fake.

But if you understand how complex the system is and how variable the things that can go wrong with it are, and you understand the role of energy, and energy distribution, in the body, it becomes obvious. You can’t force yourself to do what you don’t have the energy to do without taking it away from somewhere else.

Weight and Energy

There is no question that it’s possible for a human to get to a place where their weight is a severe drain on their energy levels. But very few people are actually there.

Muscle is heavier than fat. But muscle does the work of dragging the weight of a body around. A body with good muscle tone – fat but fit – is in a much better position, in terms of energy production and distribution, than a thin body with weak muscles.

Fat actively helps with energy conservation in the cold. A fit fat person – someone whose musculature is strong and healthy enough that they have no difficulty moving their own weight – has reserves to burn in the event of a disorder that consumes so much energy, it inhibits digestion. (To be honest, so does a weak fat person, but they’re losing energy every time they move because they’re too heavy for their own muscles. But this is true of physical weakness in general.)

Not everyone can be fit! Exercise, if you recall, is one of those things that burns a lot of energy! If you already have very little energy, you’re going to have a very hard time exercising enough to become fit.

All of this is normal. It’s natural. It makes sense. Why would being fat automatically make you less healthy in all situations than someone thin? Being underweight is correlated with a significantly shorter lifespan than being overweight.

I’m Gonna Talk About Diabetes Here

We’re told over and over that there’s a giant health crisis among Americans of increased obesity, and this is causing diabetes.

Bullshit.

Consider this. Diabetes is a disorder where you don’t produce enough insulin, but many Type II diabetics got that way because their body massively overproduced insulin to the point where they wore out their pancreatic cells. Remember when I said insulin takes circulating glucose out of the blood stream and stuffs it somewhere safe? You know where it stuffs it? Fat cells. Doctors have been telling people that being overweight causes diabetes… when we know for a fact that diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, a condition where the cells don’t respond well to insulin, so insulin levels go up, and the body’s ability to produce its own insulin is worn down by heavy overproduction. Do the math. You had high levels of insulin production for years because your cells were resistant to insulin? Insulin stores sugar in fat cells, as fat? Gosh, I wonder if the condition that led to your becoming diabetic happened to be the exact same condition that caused you to get fat!

In a case like that, losing weight wouldn’t do jack shit for your insulin, but changing the way you eat so there’s less circulating sugar in the first place would, and this would cause you to store less in your fat cells, which would cause you to lose weight. But it’s not the weight loss that helped you. You couldn’t solve your problem by cutting calories, because calories didn’t get you into this position. High levels of circulating glucose did. Exercising super hard and going on a diet and actually losing weight – which would be hard, because super high levels of insulin storing all that sugar as fat, and yet your blood sugar is still high because your cells don’t respond to the insulin, but let’s say you pull it off – that does nothing. Maybe you see an improvement in your symptoms because eating very little produces very little circulating blood sugar… though now you’ve got some other symptoms. Namely, no energy. And any improvement you experienced is temporary, because you’re addressing a symptom, not the problem.

Doctors know that insulin stores sugar as fat. Doctors know that diabetic people with Type II generate higher and higher levels of insulin as their body tries to compensate for not responding to it, until finally the cells give up and the patient needs to take artificial insulin. And yet, somehow, we are still hearing “fat causes diabetes, lose weight and you won’t get diabetes!” There’s a disconnect here.

Overclocking

I’m going to talk about something as dangerous as fuck here.

When your body’s natural systems are not regulating your blood sugar, and so you can have greater than normal levels of sugar in your bloodstream… this can make the pie higher.

Remember I said you can’t increase your energy levels by adding more fuel, because the mitochondria can only work as hard as they can work? Well, that’s not completely true. Mitochondria can apparently work harder than that, if they have access to more sugar. It’s just that more sugar is destroying your circulatory system, resulting in damage to your retinas, the nerves in your hands and feet, your ability to regulate the temperature of those extremities, the speed at which you can grow back skin in an injury, and, oh, pretty much everything else.

Get to a certain level of blood sugar and you feel like absolute shit. But in the range between that – higher than you should be but lower than the levels you can actually feel bad in – you have more energy.

This is fucking awful, to be honest. Everyone wants more energy! Energy helps you get shit done! More energy to the brain makes your brain work better.

And you want the sugar. You want the high glucose. You don’t know that’s what you want, but you know you crave sweets and carbs, and when your glucose is high (but not too high), it’s a stimulant. You’re awake, you can focus, your mental energy is good. Cut down the way they tell you that you need to, when you’re diabetic, and now you’re sluggish and depressed.

It’s killing you slowly but not doing it is depressing and hard and the slow death isn’t causing you any significant amount of suffering, until it does, and then it’s too late.

Sugar is a drug and you’re addicted. But it’s food. There are no regulations to protect you from eating all the food you want. There is no social opprobrium in general against sweet foods or carb-high snacks. (If you are fat you might suffer from this, but thin people are allowed to eat whatever the fuck they want, and honestly if you’re fat you will probably catch shit for eating a nice big steak, which is a lot better for you if you’re diabetic than a piece of toast.)

You’re overclocking your brain, the same way gamers overclock their PCs to get higher performance. Except that when they melt their CPU they can just buy a new one. You are not buying a new brain anytime soon.

I Am Not A Doctor

I didn’t go to medical school. I did study biology at the graduate school level, but no medical degree.

But everything I’m saying is backed up by pretty much any source I look at. It’s just that the conclusions that I’m drawing, while they are logical outgrowths of the things I’m saying, are for some mysterious reason not the conclusion that people who go to medical school are drawing.

Bodies are all different. Bodies are very complicated with many interlocking systems. Many, many things can go wrong with bodies. Far more things than science is fully aware of yet. Therefore it makes perfect sense that if someone is tired all the time for no good reason, there is a good reason and we just don’t know what it is. If someone can’t easily do a thing another person can do, that is absolutely normal and expected, unless that other thing is something that falls into a range that most humans can easily do. Then all of a sudden it becomes impossible to imagine that a human couldn’t do it? Bullshit. We don’t understand the brain perfectly.

It is absolutely normal that when a person’s energy levels are high, they have the resources to accomplish things they cannot do when their resources are low. The notion that if you’re disabled, there’s a thing you can’t do and you can never do it and that is the way it has to be, is nonsensical. Yes, of course some people are disabled in that way. If you have no legs, then no matter how much energy you have, you will never have legs. But you might be a lot better able to tolerate uncomfortable prosthetics when your energy levels are high.

“If you could do it today then why couldn’t you do it yesterday?” I don’t know, Karen, why couldn’t you vacuum your carpet after you’d been working all day, when you were pushing that vacuum around with no trouble last weekend? People can accomplish more when they have more energy. Doing things consumes energy. Once your energy is consumed, the fact that it can only replenish at a finite rate means you have to wait to get more. While you’re waiting, you can’t do stuff, because stuff takes energy, that you don’t have, because you used it up on other stuff. What part of this is unclear?

Being fat is a symptom of underlying conditions in most of the diseases that it’s correlated with. It’s not that being fat is unhealthy, like losing weight would make you healthy again; it’s that it is a symptom of your disorder that shows up before the more definitive symptoms do. It is possible to improve your health by exercising and changing what you eat, and sometimes, this may result in weight loss, but it wasn’t the weight loss that improved your health. It was becoming fitter (more muscle) and eating stuff that isn’t poisoning you because some of your metabolic pathways don’t work. If you don’t lose weight, you may still be getting healthier.

(I suspect it’s actually true that being fat will damage your joints. You’re putting more of a load on them, so it makes logical sense. What doesn’t make sense is to say that being fat causes diabetes and high blood pressure when we know for a fact that overly high levels of insulin cause both being fat and diabetic, and overly high levels of blood sugar cause high blood pressure, heart disease, and general circulation problems, so. Um. All of these things come from insulin resistance? That is the problem? Not the weight, that’s a symptom?)

And sometimes, sugar is an addictive drug. If you’re feeling self-satisfied because you’re not an alcoholic, and you don’t smoke, and you’ve never taken an illegal drug, but you can’t do without your blueberry muffin in the morning and your ice cream after dinner… stop feeling superior to people addicted to illegal substances or well-known vices. The only difference between them and you is that you got addicted to a substance that will kill you but that is safe for most people, and because it improves your mood and your productivity, capitalism is more than happy to let you indulge it until you drop dead.

[arrowstheory]

4SEASONS stop half step DIET 4

Life only arises in balloons. So we have an area surrounded by a membrane or a boundary between two environments, for example liquid and gas, or simply substances of different density or structure. Whether it is a specialized cell of some complex organism, or a simple amoeba, or a fungal cell, it must have a good membrane in order to live and function. If we treat our skin as a border membrane, we have a picture of human life. The skin protects us against external stimuli and must be built in such a way as to let various substances pass in both directions. And what is the skin of a crocodile that cannot scratch behind the ear with its short paws, bind wounds, or detach parasites that attack and bite it? His skin has defensive, healing and deterrent properties. In addition, little cleaner birds jump on the crocodile, pecking and cleaning the crocodile of everything bad. And potatoes, cucumbers, spiny gooseberries, beans, wheat, corn, garlic, nuts, mushrooms, and others: apples and plums covered with waxes, natural cerberozoids and tannins, which protect the surface from invasion of bacteria and other threats. What do we need for our nutrition? Of course, these waxes and tannins are poisonous to us and create garbage in the body. At the same time, we need them to keep the body resilient and strong. In what proportions? No one knows and no one has studied it globally, although current trends praise the beneficial properties of some skins, hulls and pods.

Well, everyone knows the healing and cleansing effects of potato peelings and bean hulls, which eliminate sand in the kidneys in furan and oxalate stones, and have a beneficial effect on the intestines. Now we will consider what to eat to cleanse the body and not poison it at the same time. Do not starve, but actually lose weight to your optimal body weight.

What do we see when looking at a soap bubble? The fleeting moment? Vanity of life? Vanity? Symbolists in painting often used a bubble to emphasize the transience of a beauty that would pass like one brief moment until the bubble bursts and nothing is left! And yet, this is not only a poetic allegory, but a hard fact.

A soap bubble is a membrane that separates two areas of air. What do you think? What is the pressure inside the bubble? Same as outside the bubble? Bigger? Smaller? In short, it has to be much bigger. As the pressure decreases, the bubble collapses. Until the membrane turns into a drop of slimy soap. Each person is made of bubbles, which of course have membranes that are self-regulating in terms of pressures, or rather in terms of the amount of osmotically transmitted concentrations of various substances in the form of ions. So the control of our soap bubbles is created by exchanges of fluid pressures as well as energy and electrical pressures. At the same time, the bubbles exchange micro and macro elements with the environment. Some are inorganic chemistry, others are digestion products, organic chemistry.

Here we will only focus on the mechanism of improving membrane secretion or border transport. In short, as in a fairy tale, the picture is like this: The body strives to keep its bulky, beautiful bubbles, but they are cluttered and work less and less. The body pushes their food, and we eat and eat and eat. The garbage cans in our cans increase the pressure and make us feel strong. Our outer skin-covered body balances the increase in pressure in the membranes by increasing the external pressure, outside the membranes. There is also an increase in blood pressure here. The flow rate of various substances in the plasma, and the transport of energy that controls these processes. For a while, the body can cope with it itself. But we don't - because we continue to eat to feel strength, not to have heart palpitations and "spots in front of our eyes". In the past, the skin was incised to bleed the patient's blood. The fashion for applying medical leeches has also come. All of this ended in death due to "thick neck" and "bulging eyes" and "heated cheeks". One has often heard that someone has been struck down by "lightning apoplexy." Who came up with these names? Coming back to our picture: We have more and more wilted membranes and more and more cluttered cell vacuoles. After division, young cells inherit these trash cans as well as excess passive energy carriers. It's like used batteries, except that they block the access of new batteries. (see Krebs cycle, ADP, ATP).

We, through this diet, activate the secretion of these substances suspended in idleness, stimulating them to exchange. Unnecessary potassium compounds, non-digestible magnesium, bad water, killer acetic groups are clogged, which, in terms of the similarity of chemically active combinations, are hidden in phytohormones, here, for example, indolylic acids, 3.5 to 7.11 oxyacetic acid, which is oxyacetic acid. growth hormone, but in higher concentrations, it is sprayed as a herbicide in orchards and plantations of all crops. For us, it is a poison that adds its next doses in our body, eaten with each fruit. Do not confuse herbicides with pesticides, which should be all banned immediately, not just DDT and the few others)

My diet here is aimed at the revival of cell membranes, coatings of histologically separated areas such as organs. Additionally, or actually first, the diet must activate the flow of energy (ions, body fluids) in connective tissue. Unfortunately, the functions of the flow in the connective tissue are little studied by me. We'll cover this in the chapter on capillaries and ionic health orientation.

[baekhvuns]

Thoughts on ManU vs Barca 🎤 see that's what you get for taking the piss! M🍙pe saved PSG again 😅 Ramos wtf, French and Spanish NTs in shambles 🤡 The Spurs defeating Chelsea oops

Sigh I blocked so many weirdos over the past few weeks. Also found out I met one of them at some point 🔫 I don't mind when someone travels for one or two gigs, but attending almost every stop on multiple continents and always getting barricade? And fan signs are even worse

Yeah I heard the atmosphere amongst SM's staff is not the best, even though they have so much work to do with the way SM's calendar for 2023 is FILLED. Apparently some people at Hybe aren't happy either. I'm laughing cause some stans (ekhm Armchairs) kept insisting that there's not Big 4 cause Hybe USED TO BE A SMALL LABEL. And now they're trying to buy everything?!

You're right, Hybe hops on every trend, they're not pioneers in anything except shitty unnecessary vocal processing

Noooo exams stopping you from having fun once again. Doesn't your avocado uni know kpop acts barely come to Vancouver??? But I hope Baekhyun's world tour isn't just Korea, Japan, USA, maybe SEA and perhaps London, Berlin, Paris if SM is feeling more adventurous

Please do not dance to Single Ladies in front of me, it triggers my fight or flight response 😭

No rice wine in my blood system, but lots of coffee, tea, bubble tea especially, and hot chocolate! Btw Baek the vegan spots in Seoul are banging!!! ❤

Most Brits find posh accents silly and tbh sometimes they do sound ridiculous, but what can you do lmao. Posh people are on sight 🔪 since the class system is still very alive and present in the UK

Mou vs Mbappe would be quite funny, I think both of them might lose their shit every 10 minutes 😭😭😭😭

Have you won the lottery yet? Instead of dreaming about being rich I had another Hwa dream...... well that dream won't to come true and I think it's for the best aksjaushwjajjsjaja

They're baby girling without knowing it lmao

Also they're doing dirty blonde SO DIRTY WHYYYYY. I voted black to piss people off, grey deserves better as well

Ok London isn't that cold rn and Seonghwa probably warmed up while jogging, but goddd wtf. We've been blessed by the calves tho. And here.... the slippers lol

I'm ready for more Kai serves! The wings huhu, I almost didn't notice he was half naked

Btw model, miss Tenelka has posted a new fic, I haven't read it yet, but my friend said it's model Hwa. AND I also had lavender oat milk latte and the same drink was mentioned in the fic, idk what to do with this info

Baek, what Wooyoung fencer AU, you need to focus on Yunho bestie 🤧😭

Snake Hwa agenda. Stop I was about to go to sleep at a respectable hour for a change, but HIM I'm devastated. How am I supposed to sleep

😭

And now some whiplash 🧍🏼‍♀️ - DV 💖

hello!!

Thoughts on ManU vs Barca 🎤 see that's what you get for taking the piss! M🍙pe saved PSG again 😅 Ramos wtf, French and Spanish NTs in shambles 🤡 The Spurs defeating Chelsea oops

barca played better, bodied man utd’s defenders the only good player was casmiro and thats cause starboy pedri was injured 🔫 BUT man utd was good! did u get the storm? MBAPPE ??? it was that small 5’7 boy from rosario actually, yeah but their duo is def >>> every team in shambles atp what even is going on

and waking up to this, YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL WIFE AND TWO KIDS HOW HARD IS IT TO BE A GOOD MAN 😭😭😭😭 another one for prison fc i guess and did u hear about the m***n g***n***d’s news 😭😭

Sigh I blocked so many weirdos over the past few weeks. Also found out I met one of them at some point 🔫 I don't mind when someone travels for one or two gigs, but attending almost every stop on multiple continents and always getting barricade? And fan signs are even worse

YOU MET THEM??? DBSJDHSJDHKS did u get the vibes from them,, YEAHH travelling to every stop, tiring and the $$$$??? i just want their wealth tbh <3

Yeah I heard the atmosphere amongst SM's staff is not the best, even though they have so much work to do with the way SM's calendar for 2023 is FILLED. Apparently some people at Hybe aren't happy either. I'm laughing cause some stans (ekhm Armchairs) kept insisting that there's not Big 4 cause Hybe USED TO BE A SMALL LABEL. And now they're trying to buy everything?!

iM sorry did they say there’s no big 4??? but weren’t they the ones…who made a big statement in your face type repeatedly that hybe was now big4… yEAAAHH i wonder how the sm staff’s are being held bc maybe their salary would be cut? it just seems like it’ll be a very hostile environment between two companies…no more interactions at award shows 🤚🏻 SM ARTISTS BOOKED AND BUSY GOOD FOR US 😭😭😭 AND WHAT IS THIS WHO’S SM FANS??? THIS IS NOT WE, ONLY A FEW 😭😭 anon u gotta go see this in irl

this would be ideal but i don’t think it’ll work out very easily tbh maybe like how super junior have their own label then it may!

now we using paper companies???? jail party omg prison fc is in talks for some MAJOR transfers!! this is a reborn rich episode

SHUT UP THIS IS SO FUNNY RVWKHDWKHDKW LEE SOO MAN ALWAYS GEYS THE LAST LAUGH ONCE A SCAMMER ALWAYS A SCAMMER 😭😭😭😭

You're right, Hybe hops on every trend, they're not pioneers in anything except shitty unnecessary vocal processing

YEAHH the whole sm doing the 90’s theme with snsd, shinee, exo and implementing it in their groups and no one said anything until it was hybe time and suddenly it’s a trend <3 they started the auto tune trend i guess then 😭😭

Noooo exams stopping you from having fun once again. Doesn't your avocado uni know kpop acts barely come to Vancouver??? But I hope Baekhyun's world tour isn't just Korea, Japan, USA, maybe SEA and perhaps London, Berlin, Paris if SM is feeling more adventurous

exams always stop me form having fun but canada is currently freezing in snow so there never is fun 😭😭 NO BC THEY GOTTA KNOW ATP! ANOTHER UNI HERE HAS AN ARENA WHERE EXO CAME AND THEY KNOW! THEIR EXAMS ALWAYS HAVE A SUS DATE but they also had a cheating scandal so maybe avo uni is better <3 YEAAAH i think since baek is very outspoken he’ll def have a lot of places to tour in,, remembering the exodus era he’ll def go to europe! he’s got a fascination with london <3 idk about kai tho i rmr he got threatened w knives in london apparently

Please do not dance to Single Ladies in front of me, it triggers my fight or flight response 😭 /// No rice wine in my blood system, but lots of coffee, tea, bubble tea especially, and hot chocolate! Btw Baek the vegan spots in Seoul are banging!!! ❤

LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭

WATER !!!!! WATER !!!!! ASI ASI ASI HALA WATER !!!! are they??? omg anon start a food blog im about to drop a follow!!

Most Brits find posh accents silly and tbh sometimes they do sound ridiculous, but what can you do lmao. Posh people are on sight 🔪 since the class system is still very alive and present in the UK /// Mou vs Mbappe would be quite funny, I think both of them might lose their shit every 10 minutes 😭😭😭😭

AHHHHH what a fascinating place the UK is truly, do u guys mock them when u spot them,,, what about those girlies with concealer lips and the if you don’t know me i’m m to the b 😭😭 THEY DEF WOULD FBDNDB their strategy get their clash would need a desperate documentary

Have you won the lottery yet? Instead of dreaming about being rich I had another Hwa dream...... well that dream won't to come true and I think it's for the best aksjaushwjajjsjaja

see,, now,, a 5$ lottery is quite big for me ok! SO YES I HAD THE 5$ ONE! WAITING FOR A 48 MILLION ONE ACTUALLY!! WHAT DREAM PPPT PPTT RIGHT NOW ANON 🔫🔫

They're baby girling without knowing it lmao //// Also they're doing dirty blonde SO DIRTY WHYYYYY. I voted black to piss people off, grey deserves better as well

these all baby girls are dressed like manic pixie girls in romcoms 😭😭😭 WHAT THE FUCK THEY MEAN DIRTY BLOND IS HIS WORST?????? DO THEY NOT RMR WAVE ERA?????? WHAAAAT ATINYS HAVE NO MF TASTE ALL THE 1,432 OF THEM grey deserved the angst award tbh,, peak angst

also does this not look like they’re about to drive for mercedes in f1 😭😭

Ok London isn't that cold rn and Seonghwa probably warmed up while jogging, but goddd wtf. We've been blessed by the calves tho. And here.... the slippers lol /// I'm ready for more Kai serves! The wings huhu, I almost didn't notice he was half naked

when he posted those photos, my eyes went to his feet bc why is he barefoot in that nasty ass city come on 😭😭😭 they’re all peak london boys now 🤚🏻u think if hwa was from england he’d have a posh accent and live in the buckinghamshire area

Btw model, miss Tenelka has posted a new fic, I haven't read it yet, but my friend said it's model Hwa. AND I also had lavender oat milk latte and the same drink was mentioned in the fic, idk what to do with this info

MISS TENELKADJOWRITES DIDDDDD I READ ITTT IT WAS MODEL HWA DJWKDHWKDHSK U NEED TO READ IT!!!!!!! atp, are u miss tenelka in disguise 🤨 some psychic stuff sussy 🤨

Baek, what Wooyoung fencer AU, you need to focus on Yunho bestie 🤧😭 /// Snake Hwa agenda. Stop I was about to go to sleep at a respectable hour for a change, but HIM I'm devastated. How am I supposed to sleep

nO BC HEAR ME OUT ITS A FAMILY RIVALS TO LOVERS WHERE THEYRE BOTH SO MAD AND HE CHALLENGES THE YN ON A FENCING MATCH IN A ALL WHITE ROOM IN THEIR MEGA BIG ACADEMY AND THEYRE JUST ON THEIR WAY TO KILL EACH OTHER but guess who’s been in love this entire time <3

STOP I RMR THAT VIDEO 😭😭😭😭 A SNAKE AND A DRAGON DO U RMR THE SAN ANALYSIS 😭😭😭 THE GANGSTER

😭 //// And now some whiplash 🧍🏼‍♀️ - DV 💖

anon that was not a whiplash,, that was a whole crash what the hell 😭😭😭

PLEASE FHWKFHEK

WHAT 😭😭😭

i saw this and thought that matthew mcconaughey would be the perfect schumacher if they ever did a biopic on him

i think atz would go kinda crazy if this happened AND SO IT SHOULD NOT THANK U <3

[revivelifesupplements]

Supplement Review: Innovapharm NOVAMINO

Thanks toInnovapharm, I was given the Chance to try their Amino Acid complex,Novamino, which also Comprises some other goodies.    

Now originally I was eager for whatever taste they decided to send me, because they sounded so good.     They were kind enough to send me all 4 of their tastes and boy am I glad that they did.

Electrolytes:  First off, I was very excited to see thatNovaminoincludes a decent dose of sodium and potassium in it.     Amino acid products Are Only that, BCAA’s.     This product features 220mg sodium and 170mg of potassium inside it which will help you during your workout. Potassium is something that many of those athletes don’t eat.     If we eat an avocado or a banana a day, we still never seem to hit that recommended value of our electrolytes.     Every little bit is important and will help in avoiding cramping during your workouts while this doesn’t have a enormous sum in 1 scoop.

Bravo into Innovapharm with this inclusion!

BCAA’s:  There really isn’t too much to mention about this.     You get 6g of BCAA’s in 1 scoop in a 2:1:1 ratio. The kicker here is that there are instantized.     With BCAA’s you get normally Superior taste greater solubility in water, and bioavailability.     In the long run, makes for a higher excellent acid merchandise for customers.

Betaine/Citrulline Malate:Novaminoadditionally comprises Betaine Anhydrous and Citrulline Malate to assist in your weight room performance as well.     Known as a pump and nitric oxide agent, Citrulline Malate is a Great addition to this product, despite it only being 1g.     This can Provide you a pleasant additional boost to anything pre-workout you take.     For all those of you who utilize Citrulline Malate, you know the benefits of this both in and outside of the training phase but for those people who don’t, then Citrulline can help with pumps, ATP phosphocreatine recovery, increases endurance degree, and hey, it even helps with blood circulation within the bedroom, gentlemen!

The Betaine Anhydrous included is also quite beneficial to athletes. Many preworkouts are starting to incorporate this in their label without demand of stimulants due to its many benefits like increased electricity output, increase in energy , cellular hydration, and anaerobic work capacity.     Betaine is used over time and the benefits are not something you always feel. This is an improvement that will slowly creep up to you as the weeks go on and be more evident.

The label is that of aTop-Tier amino acid productand can be a mixture that I have yet to watch replicated.     Again, props to Innovapharm for not just disclosing the label, such as utilizing sucralose and erythritol as their own sweeteners.     The product includes sugars, artificial colours, or no dyes.

Mixability:  Second to no one.     Short sweet and to the point. This is hands down the BEST blending.     You get the foam that comes with shaking a commodity but that is eliminated and first and a couple bubbles.     I have never seen particles in the bottom of the shaker cup Once I’m done using it either, another plus.     On top of this, when I end off the shaker cup, there are no remnants.     I do not need to swish the bottle around, and there was never grittiness into the item. A++ within this department.

Flavors:    Today for the moment you’ve all been waiting to get the taste inspection.     Let me first start out by saying (so that I don’t seem like a broken record) that every single taste I attempted was astounding.     I believe it unjust to speed these from my favorite to least favourite because I can drink these all day, every day of the week.     However, for the reader’s sake, I shall.

Note, for each and every taste evaluation, I used 1 scoop (12.1gram) in approximately 24oz of water. From my favorite on my 4th Favourite

Cotton Candy- I Haven’t attempted a cotton candy flavored merchandise that wasn’t an ice cream or real cotton candies.     Man did they nail this flavor. It isn’t too sweet, but it is not subtle. Imagine yourself carrying a large heaping snack of the pink and blue paradise at your Regional carnival.     It tastes exactly like those small candy bites that you get in cotton candy flavored ice cream as well.     The best part about All This is the aftertaste.     If you have a sweet tooth it goes down Simple and can be GREAT.     You would think you were cheating on your diet plan if you didn’t realize that it was an amino acid product.11/10 (the 11 isn’t a typo!)

Sweet Georgia Peach- that I was a little bit anxious to try this taste because the only cherry flavored merchandise I’d ever had was either a Snapple or Crystal mild Packet.     If You’re a lover of the crystal tea packs that are green, you will fall in love on this.     Is this sugar and sugar free, but it is possible to mix a scoop in everywhere and also be satisfied with the taste.     This taste was powerful enough that you could enjoy the taste, but also light and refreshing enough that it wasn’t like you were drinking a sugary juice.     For people who are already cutting for summer time, have a few scoops of this and toss it in a 64 ounce pitcher with some ice and lemon wedges and I promise you’ll have people asking “what beverage mix is this?!” 10/10

Fuji Apple Pear- This actually tasted like a mild apple juice.     I wouldn’t say “watered down” apple juice, but it had a lighter flavor, less sour or sweet as you’d get with a 100 percent apple juice product.     I was pleasantly surprised with this product’s aftertaste.     Usually with all the “fruit” taste products you get a sort of sour aftertaste from whatever flavoring they utilize inside but that was just as clean and refreshing since the Sweet Georgia Peach.     A must try who wouldn’t like drinking calorie free apple juice intra-workout? 10/10

Caribbean Colada- The 4th preferred taste was the Caribbean Colada. The taste tastes like pina colada flavored beverages with a emphasis on the pineapple.       Because I’m a big time pineapple lover for me , that is A-okay.     One thing that I noticed with this is the pineapple taste is not a sour “citric acidy” sour, so it tastes like real pineapple.     For me personally the taste was somewhat stronger than the others in approximately 24oz of water so I would water this down to about 32oz for my taste.     But, there are Hardly Any Excellent citrus/pineapple flavored products on the Industry today and from the ones that I have attempted, this reign’s king.10/10

Price Point-Right today it appears you can get someNovaminofrom anywhere between $30-$40 however in the Event That You use the codeMODERN40 on Innovapharm site, you get 40 percent off of Novamino, bringing it down to around $24.     That’s a deal for what you are currently getting with this item. It is highly competitive with other amino acids on the sector and have a look at the bonuses you’re getting with Novamino.

This is really a no brainer, even if you’re interested in an amino acid merchandise,look no farther than Novamino.

Innovapharm really required the amino acid market to another level.     You’re not just getting BCAA’s you’re getting a complete intra workout merchandise that over time is going to increase your workouts.     If You’re dieting, then this is a perfect beverage while sparing muscle, to satisfy cravings.     A must try for anyone who uses intra-workout products and/oramino acid products.

from revive life supplements http://revivelifesupplements.com/supplement-review-innovapharm-novamino/