#on top of recovering from actual food poisoning

[avalonlights]

[thagomizersshow]

I love when sci-fi/fantasy writers throw in a random fact about a fictional species that actually has big repercussions for that species' biology.

Like, there is a species in Star Trek called Saurians who are adorable dinosauroid looking dudes. They've had very little revealed about them despite having been mentioned as early as the original series by way of "Saurian brandy" — a drink that is so strong it can put a Klingon on their ass in one swig.

Other than that, most of what we know about them comes from snippets involving a reoccuring character on Discovery named Linus, who is mostly a comic relief character. Now the reason I bring them up is that in one episode there's a scene where Linus is eating bamboo of all things, and I'm not sure the writers realized how telling this is about Saurian biology.

Bamboo is a damn hard food to eat, and us humans can only eat the shoots of a few species. Even then, raw consumption of shoots can lead to cyanide poisoning if you aren't careful. We still don't know how exactly a lot of animals that eat a lot of bamboo (bamboo lemurs, red pandas, bamboo rats, elephants, gorillas) are able to digest so much of it without getting cyanide poisoning. There is some sort of neutralization process in giant pandas involving the rhodanese enzyme that turns cyanide into the non-toxic thiocyanate that they just pee out, but the process is still poorly understood in other species.

Bamboo is also hard to digest for the same reason all grasses are; their plant wall cellulose is hard as hell to break down. Like, your choices are:

a) you do a poor job of digesting it and just spend all day eating (giant panda, red panda, bamboo lemur)

b) you grow really big and have a big gut (elephants, gorillas)

c) you only eat the parts of the plant that are easier to digest (bamboo rats)

On top of that, bamboo is loaded with silica phytoliths that are like microscopic bits of glass. These evolved to make their tissues even harder to chew and metabolize.

It's hard to make out in the scene, but it looks like Linus is eating raw bamboo leaves. Just picking them up with his fingers and munching on them like it's nothing. That means his teeth and/or jaws would need to be very powerful (maybe hypsodont? or maybe tooth batteries?) AND, because he's eating it raw, he'd have to be immune to the cyanide in some way.

One explanation could be in the Star Trek Adventures TTRPG, where Saurians are said to have an ability called "Enhanced Metabolism" where they recover from toxins faster than other species (my guess is this was meant to reference their brandy being so strong). BUT, that's not the same thing as the immunity real bamboo eating animals seem to have. My head canon is that Saurians have a diet similar to red pandas, where bamboo-like plants are their main diet on their homeworld, but they'll eat other stuff too when it's available, AND they've evolved some way to convert cyanide into a harmless chemical they excrete, like a giant panda.

All of these whacky biology shenanigans stem (hehe) from the casual writing decision to make a supporting alien character seem weird by eating a weird thing.

[t-the-ring-master]

Please may I have a Spy x family headcanons platonic of being the biological son of Yor Briar and his name is Yukio Briar and then Yukio Forger age 8..Yukio means "Snow boy" in Japanese and Yor was 18 when she realised that she was pregnant with her son when she lost her boyfriend in an accident. Yukio Briar is an assassin but he uses less bloody methods and one of them is poisoning his targets food by lacing it with a highly toxic chemical which has immediate effects or he kills them from afar with his guns or he does kill them with the same methods as his mother if neither of his other options work and his nickname is "the Poison Rose" by the "gardener". He joined the Eden academy in sake of helping Loid complete his mission and hopefully befriend Damian with no issues. He was certainly not a weak child and considering how he had hospitalised his uncle Yuri for several months after breaking his ribs and ruptured several of his internal organs and breaking both of his legs..it took a while for Yuri to recover.

Personality:

He always had top grades in every class as he did study properly and he can cook properly and does do better at it with no issues and no. He doesn't poison the family..only his targets. He is a good actor as he showed a innocent naivety and gullible facade when he ran into his targets so they didn't know his intentions and he does catch them off guard. He is greatly immune to poisons as he had eaten his mother's nasty cooking in the past and he had eaten so many that he didn't really care anymore. He is genuinely a nice kid and he is a lovely little boy with a kind-hearted nature and it is rare for him to actually shout or get angry as he is level-headed but once was frightening enough..when a mother loudly criticised his mother's parenting skills to her friends and he naturally lost his temper and stood up for his mother when he insulted this lady about her weight, her friends, her hair and her entire existence and the vicious insults and the colourful words kept on flowing and he could not stop himself and then he said "you are a mean lady if you think that insulting my mother boosts your ego..no wonder why your son wanted to live with his Dad instead!" Was his words..the lady actually got up crying and left. He can be scary when he was being intimidating and his scary assassin gaze matches his mother's. He did have poor art-skills as it was not his strong point and it looks like a toddler had done it and he was bad at it anyway or he had the ability to give people nightmares with his unsettling drawings. He was empathetic though in a way and he tried to help Anya with her homework to make it easier for her.

Skills:

He is highly intelligent and he had a 6th Sense when it comes to danger as he is a skillful fighter with the ability to fight with no issues..Loid even struggled to keep up. Yukio is capable of breaking bones and killing people if so inclined. He had inhuman strength in a way and considering how he is able to split a brick in half..don't pick a fight with him or play football with him. He is immune to poisons of different kinds and he is a good cook and he can frighten the absolute hell out of his targets when he says "wanna play?" Which was the exact opposite of his mother politely saying "can you do me the honour of taking your life?"..but Yukio does try to be careful with his strength off-duty and he may be a kid but he was certainly a skillful assassin

Apparance: *Exactly like in the photograph and he did have to wear glasses due to poor eyesight * and he doesn't look like his mom..he looks like his late father with his moles and blue eyes. He mostly wore a red cardigan with a black t-shirt underneath with black shorts and brown patient shoes off-duty. He wore similar clothing to his mother on duty.

Relationships:

Loid Forger's relationship with his "son"

Yor Briar's relationship with her son

Anya's relationship with her "big brother"

Bond's relationship with his owner

Damian's relationship with Yukio Forger *he did accidentally punch Damian on first meeting and the kid ended up hospitalised with a broken jaw for several days*

Becky Blackbell's relationship with Anya's "big brother"

Yuri's relationship with his nephew

The gardener's relationship with his skillful assassin

One other thing about him:

Yor doesn't know that her son is an assassin..he expressed his wishes to the gardener for him to keep it a secret for his sake.

*That's Yukio Briar..Yor's biological son and the hand on his head probably belongs to a teacher*

Wow, first OC request! I’ll probably just do a mini fic with just the family and their daily routine…. I like the idea of him eating Yor’s food so calmly meanwhile Anya and Loid are just on the ground like:

I’ll also add in the mission. I’m sorry if I read anything wrong and this is not the request but I will try my best to add all the information given.

Thanks for the request!

The mini fic will be added with the headcannons, don’t worry.

[wilderness-of-thoughts]

Before

"I'm glad I caught you at least at home, what happened to your phone?" Ijichi was holding a cup of coffee in his hand, sitting on your couch.

"Um..." Flashbacks of Gojo blowing it up using the energy ball "it fell into my toilet as I pissing" you managed a genuine smile of embarrassment. Ijichi looked at you for a moment and then sighed with resignation.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me..." With that he put an old model phone on the table top. "It doesn't have a camera or games, it's really an antique, but it works. Call me if you need a replacement."You smiled sincerely now. You saw that he was doing better, the bags under his eyes were a bit smaller and he had probably gained a bit of weight."You know, I've had chickenpox before and I shouldn't have..."

Bite.

"Mmmmmmm!" You squealed as you felt the tiny teeth on the back of your neck. If only your coworker knew that you had your narcissistic boss on your back at that moment. "I'll be fine! Thanks for your concern!"

"I'm not the only one worried, Gojo doesn't call back, he only replies to some text messages sometimes. He doesn't send stupid memes to anyone and he doesn't poison anyone's ass..."

"Ohhh~ so you miss him?"

"Like a cold," he joked. He really felt better since he started joking. It was clear that Gojo's entire entourage was only benefiting from such a break.

"Don't worry, when he recovers you'll be up to your noses in him again." You assured, taking a sip of tea from your cup.

"I dare not doubt that." He placed his hand on your knee in a friendly gesture. Bite. Gojo have mercy! "Mr. Nanami told me recently that you borrowed half the archive library."

"Not half, maybe a third." You pursed your lips, pretending to pout. You arched your arm as if you wanted to scratch your back, even though in reality you were petting a little jealous boy. "Actually, can I have a question?"

"If I can help you..."

It's worth a try, after all your friend had more knowledge than you might think. You took a deep breath.

"Let's hypothetically... One of the jujutsu sorcerers... getting tiny..."

"You mean getting younger?"

"No... shrinking." Ijichi frowned, trying to understand you.

"Are we still talking about a hypothetical scenario?"

"Yup! Purely theoretical, hypothetical, not like something like that would even happen!" You laughed nervously. Bite.

"So let's take Itadori, he shrinks. What about his powers?" Ijichi, fucking marry me! BITE!

"YES!" You squealed in pain, good thing Ijichi took it as enthusiasm.

"Hmm... That could be a problem. Even with his powers, he would be in great danger in this form. An easier target." You saw Ijichi already activating his gray cells.

"Exactly! That's why it needs to be returned to normal growth, the sooner the better!"

Ijichi looked at you perhaps too long and too suspiciously, took his hand away and held it out. his notebook of service.

"Where did this hypothetical scene with Itadori take place?"

"On a mission in .... Old house. He defeated all the curses but suddenly shrunk. He doesn't know why. There's nothing on the spot that would indicate it was done with curse magic, and distance spells are out of the question." Gojo doesn't quite understand . It's not like you were revealing his secrets, but you were giving some pretty important details. And Ijichi didn't even question this game of hypothetical scenarios. He got involved in them and didn't ask uncomfortable questions.

Ijichi thought for a moment, breathing deeply while you waited for him.

"I would check if this old house had a Guardian Spirit"

"What do you mean?"

"Ayakashi..." You frowned. It wasn't like you'd never heard the name before - mostly in games - but you didn't expect to hear it now. "Before the first possessors of cursed energy appeared, nature itself got rid of the excess curses. They were food for some Ayakashi. People did not see it, but the areas where there was peace. Plants bore fruit and there weren't many cataclysms, they got shrines. Ayakashi that fed on human curses got names, shrines and people started to worship them." Ijichi explained patiently with a slight hint of nostalgia in his voice. "Then the first jujutsu sorcerers appeared, the human species naturally evolved for this purpose and Ayakashi were no longer needed as much. .... Especially since the first weapons against curses were created from their bodies."

"The first weapons..."

"That's what the scrolls I dug up say. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. History is like whore. Everyone has their own opinion about it, but no one knows what it's really like."

"Heh.... Right. So there's a chance that... Ayakashi could have shrunked Go-I mean Itadori?"

"Theoretically yes. If it survived the purge that its ancestors made to obtain a large amount of weapons. Nowadays, Ayakashi are almost a dying species..."

It could make sense, Gojo destroyed an old temple where Ayakashi could live, and in revenge he cast a spell on him....

"Do you know how to pull off this.... Hypothetical spell?"

"Only a hypothetical Ayakashi knows that."

Damn.

"Do you know how to get this theoretical Ayakashi to cooperate?"

"he will want something, it's hard to say what."

You talked to Ijichi for a while before he left, he said it was Meeting with an old acquaintance but he blushed sweetly.

Determination returned.

"Gojo, we're going to the Old Temple!"

"I told you there's nothing there..."

"We're going there together."

"Date?"

"Over my dead body"

"It can be arranged"

Theoretically.

Next

[jhscdood]

i woke up in a Bad Headspace today and imma use by blog to vent about it like it's livejournal circa 2004.

tw for discussion of medical stuff

- I hate xmas. I'm jewish but my dad is not and the pressure to have An Perfect Xmas every year and the disappointment every year just grosses me out now. Not even going to talk about american xtian hegemony but there's some of that in there too.

- Today i began to suspect that the awesome new migraine med that actually stops my weather-induced migraines might also be interfering with the efficiacy of my prediabetes meds. or maybe im wrong and im Just That Fucking Exhausted.

- Spouse spent all last week recovering from a severe medication allergy and hives on 70% of his body. and steroids Do Not Agree with him so it was just. a wild time. terrifying af. stood over him with an EpiPen basically the entire time.

- 3 days before The Hives, i scratched my cornea while pruning bushes and that right there is a pain i do not ever want to revisit. had to go to the optometrist and get The Goo.

- 2 days before Cornea i had my first Botox For Migraine treatment. 31 injections to the face, neck and shoulders. it stung but it was over in like 4 minutes. takes 3 sessions to start kicking in. sessions are 12 weeks apart. so i guess we'll find out in August if it's working.

- day before Botox i had an ENT appointment and he stuck a camera up my nose and then diagnosed me with a weird vocal cord paralysis thing so now i have to go back to speech therapy for the first time in 26 years.

- Week before that, saw my neurologist and she diagnosed me with a weird intermittent lazy eye / motion lag thingamawhatsis so now i have to go to an ophthalmologist AND vision therapy.

- That week I also saw my PCP and explained to her about the intermittent abdominal pain I've been having since like 2021. She took me seriously!!! Which is good!!! But now i am scheduled for baby's first colonoscopy. And i have to keep a food journal, which i HATE because food is STUPID.

- All of the above all happened this month btw. December 1-23.

- My final appt in November was yet another ultrasound of my former left tit because there is an oil cyst at the site of my top surgery and they are VERY SURE it is a benign oil cyst but the rules require them to poke it every few months for 2-3 years.

- Before that I had a 48 hour ambulatory EEG which was the itchiest i have ever been in my LIFE. That same week our basement stairs collapsed and a contractor had to come rebuild them (up! to! code!). That same week i also went to the dentist to get my crown fitted.

- I think my MIL was in the hospital that same week, too. so that's a thing that's been going on the whole time since then.

- I spent most of October deathly ill with food poisoning thst was originally misdiagnosed as viral. I ended up with a CT scan and colitis. and, eventually, cipro. it was the sickest i have ever been in my adult life. i would rather have mono again. i fantasized about those cholera beds with the hole in the center so you didnt have to get up to have your horrid dysentery. nightmare.

- The day before that hit i had ONE golden day where i felt good and had energy. we went to temple and i got glomped by about 10 different people. my 80 year old bestie kept finding me to hug me again. Rabbi hugged me super hard.

- Before that was a root canal, and before that was a tooth infection that took 2 rounds of antibiotics to kill, and before that was the original cavity filling that started it all. the dentist kindly comped me the $172 for the filling against the $3,800 bill for the root canal + crown.

- Before that? IDEK man. I have lost track. Somewhere in there i got diagnosed with insulin resistance which explained my HORRENDOUSLY TERRIBLE fatigue and cloudiness and waking up starving every 3 hours. The meds they gave me changed that literally overnight. it was a miracle. which is why im freaking out about the new migraine med possibly counteracting that. i spent the entirety of last summer in a fog. several of my very good friends visited and all i could do was nap on them. i couldnt go anywhere or do anything. it was a nightmare. i don't want to go back to that. but also i don't want to have a migraine every time the wind blows. but i would rather have a migraine 50% of the time than be back to that fatigue fogged state 100% of the time. nope nope nope.

- and amongst all of this, still having the seizures. they were going down for a while but the last week or so has been 1-2 per day. so. another checkmark in the "gee do you think you're stressed?" column.

- it is going on 10pm and I'm tired so i very likely have accidentally omitted several other things. to be fair to me, there's Quite A Bit to remember.

- so if youre wondering why i havent updated my latest fic, its partly bc i am TIRED and partly bc if i gave jason even a third of the health bullshit i have dealt with the past few months, it would absolutely defy belief. TWO kinds of eye problems AND a speech problem AND food poisoning AND dentistry?? surely no one in the world has to deal with that much!

sigh. anyway. thanks for listening. i promise i am stressed out of my GOURD but, shockingly, have not slid into any sort of depressive space. mostly im just annoyed. i spent today watching dinosaur documentaries and reorganizing my craft supplies.

tomorrow will be better. today just sucked.

[pokemonispain]

Hiii !! I recently discovered you write for Twisted Wonderland too and this idea's been spinning around in my head since then...

I recently finished book 4 and i love how MC, and Kalim kept wanting to help Jamil stay on his feet even nine days after his overblot which makes me wonder just how bad his post-overblot symptoms were.

I'm stuck with the image of Jamil incredibly sick and nauseous and Kalim of all people, attempting to help him through, hold his hair back and everything and Jamil hates that Kalim is still kind to him after the ordeal but also is relieved in a way that he hasn't lost Kalim as a friend like... He's torn between pushing Kalim away, apologizing to him, or just focussing on the embarassment he feels to be so weak and helpless before the man he was supposed to be responsible for always.

Additional moment, imagine Kalim trying to cook something simple for Jamil to help his state and managing to give the poor guy food poisoning on top of that 😭

HeLp 😂 poor Jamil, I’d honestly feel kinda bad if he wasn’t so cute. I can definitely imagine him practically making Kalim leave his room or wherever he is because Jamil is like so used to licking his metaphorical and literal wounds in private that I can imagine that the while he’s recovering from over blotting he one hundred percent would attempt to brute force it if he could but the very next day he’s probably bed ridden against his will.

While Jamil actually wants to use that time to rest as evidence by him not minding too much when he ate that poisoned curry and nearly died😭 I feel like due to him being socialized and raised to be a workaholic on nearly every level for Kalim he has trouble resting in the sense that he’s always jumping from task to task right after he completes one and if he’s still for too long to rest then sometimes he gets antsy probably.

Jamil trying to curse Kalim out in between his puking and nearly choking on one of his retches but the curses are more from the frustration of being sick, and Kalim of all people getting him sick.

One thing I can imagine Kalim doing is not just holding Jamil’s hair while he’s throwing up but also like maybe doing Jamil’s hair for him in a more simple style. I feel like Kalim would have learned to do Jamil’s hair when they were really little, just in case a situation does arrive where Jamil is out of commission for a bit.

And since like practically everyone knows just how much Jamil like actually values his hair, maybe like Jamil waking up while he’s in and out of it with a pretty bad fever the very next day after his overblot and Kalim carefully doing his hair for him. Him thinking it’s a hallucination from the fever because he’s shocked Kalim is even sticking around 😭

I feel like if this were something that Kalim learned to do that it’s one of the few things he’d do extremely carefully especially when their relationship is still on the rocks.

Sorry I rambled anon but it was just a cute cute thought 😭

[irlstein]

I Wanna Suck Maya Kamina's Big Fat Tits

Fast rundown for men with wives and wives with men: I took most of a year off to recover from late-stage Twitter intolerance that I'm pretty sure was giving my blood some sort of pH poisoning, I hope you guys have been doing well and apologize for the lack of communication.

Slow Rundown For True Jackheads - Much Longer Than It Has To Be, You Can Just Say Jack Was Taking Care Of Family And Had A Breakdown:

Howdy guys, been a few months. Had a lot happen in this last year - when I took my break, I'd begun watching my Uncle Gary on a daily basis, who is a stroke survivor left unfortunately incapable of complex speech, and with no strength in his left side. My Uncle Gary and I didn't have much of a relationship before this, but I'd taken on the task of moving into his trailer while he was recovering at his sister's - she lives just in town, it's a ten minute drive, but there was no feasible way for him to get in and out of his own house - for about two years. In that time I'd basically had a deal going with the family that I'd watch Uncle Gary for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, once he had the lift installed at his home that would let him come and go without too much hassle. I'd clean his trailer up for him, because he was a mega-bachelor with three girlfriends and so much backed-up old food from habitual boredom shopping that the place was a damn mess, bugs and rats in the back of the cupboards shit, and they'd disregard the bump in utilities to having someone actually in the house because I'd also keep the place from getting robbed, as he had a bunch of guns and gun parts stored there. It was a pretty fair deal for everyone involved, and while I really only stayed there about 2/3 of the time, it was enough that I really couldn't justify bouncing if the dude needed me, and I've been watching disabled family pretty much daily for 5 years now - so it seemed like a small life change.

Then COVID hit and the three months I was gonna be at his house, as stated prior, ballooned out to about two years, and at some point there began to be some sentiment that Uncle Gary was now annoyed by the idea of living with me - despite me being a patently temporary tenant there for his benefit, with literally two other homes in walking distance I could be living at, as I've got a lot of family in town. I could also get an apartment or something, you get the idea, I just wasn't actually enthused to be there and it was pretty inconsiderate to turn my very blatantly and clearly elaborated, regularly checked upon for the comfort of all concerned, act of well-meaning against me. My grandpa died when I was 5, Uncle Gary's brother, and everyone always talks about how much my grandpa loved me, so it seemed natural I'd just do whatever his brother needed when he was in a time of need.

From there, thing got sour for a while - we never came to blows, only really argued once or twice, but my Uncle Gary's obvious ennui at his turn in health had bluntly made him kind of an ungrateful dick to everyone. Now, let me state here - I stayed with and watched him for about six months following when he came home. It just grew more and more difficult to bear with the situation as I'd talk to him, interpret for him, make him whatever he wanted for dinner, crack jokes, fix computer problems, invest all of my daily energy into making him comfortable - and caught him talking shit on me behind my back. Little stuff - "So Jack's a good cook?" "Ehhhhhh." "Jack's taking good care of you huh? Your blood sugar's been good all week." "Ah well," little shit like that, negging on top of a totally unpaid position I'd volunteered for on the very day he went to the hospital because I'd spent the ages of 22 - 24 watching my mom as she recovered from a real bad car accident and since I've always made money online, it just seemed natural to volunteer my maid services the moment someone else in the family needed the same kind of health.

But fuck, man. It really hurt to be treated how he treated me, because there was contempt there. He was always cool to his sister, my great Aunt, who I visited every week with my grandma to do chores for because she and her husband are, themselves, old and disabled - replaced her kitchen ceiling, watched her dogs, lawnwork, cooking, whatever they needed I would insist upon doing, so there was infinite evidence in supply that I was not a malicious opportunist here, just a younger relative trying to help everyone he could. Uncle Gary didn't give a fuck, he snapped at me, basically laughed at people who suggested he should pay me for my time, and the family dawdled on the job of hiring home healthcare for so long that it looked like I was really expected to just stay there and keep doing this.

And honestly, I kind of flattened. I've always been a depressed guy, chronic nightmares do that to you, and it's easier to crumple to your circumstances than it is to challenge them when challenging them means telling a crippled relative who sees you as a leech that he'll need another 24/7 cook and care provider. I started sleeping all day until he called on me; I developed a nervous tic whenever I heard his walker because that meant he was gonna walk past my bedroom door, glance in skeptically, and call me out for another task I'd have to spend ten minutes guessing and interpreting to understand, because (No fault of his) the guy could basically only give very general positive or negative affirmations, and got very angry very quickly when misinterpreted. So I sort of just stopped thinking about the future and wallowed in this cold trailer, uncomfortable all day, talking to my friends less and working less, just getting more cold and static and dead as the days went on. Let me be clear, I'm not "the true victim" in this discussion about a dude who had a stroke, but I am a mentally soft dude who didn't have a lot of happy feelings to draw on and could easily be bullied by circumstance into shutting down; I did.

Then Rachele, the lady who came to clean up Uncle Gary's apartment, started working for him to do basically my job, and I made plans to leave. And they got a home healthcare service going, got another lady to fill in some of the time Rachele couldn't be there for, and things were on an incline, life was getting normal and I was getting my head straight again.

Then my grandma nearly died of a heart attack when we came home from a family reunion. She was carrying KayKay, her granddaughter, into the house, and suddenly started sweating and groaning in pain. I knew something had happened, her doctor had told her not to carry anythign heavy and KayKay was nearly half her size because my grandma's such a small lady. Specifically, something happened that dumped a bunch of blood into her intestines, and she needed a triple bypass. That was a really hard night; my grandma, already in her 70s, had a major injury, but for hours she denied it. I sat there with her in her living room, watching my Uncle Pete's daughter, as she just lay on the couch and insisted that she just needed to rest. I checked her blood pressure - again and again, a dozen times, always going down. I reminded her that it's not normal to feel sudden, agonizing pain in your stomach when you lift a toddler, followed by going pale and losing massive blood pressure. "I just need some salt," she said. "That blood pressure reader is always wrong, must be the batteries," she muttered a dozen times in that span, clearly growing delerious. I ran to Uncle Gary's and grabbed his blood pressure cuff, and the results were even worse, and she still shrugged it off. I sat there with her for three hours, pestering her, threatening to call an ambulance and being shut down, until I finally called her daughter, who happened to be a nurse and long-time hospital worker. Finally, at her daughter's terrified reaction at her mother clearly ignoring a fatal wound, grandma agreed to go to the hospital.

And I was just sitting there for the rest of the night, with this little kid who didn't know me. Trying to keep her from crying, calling everyone I could to spread the news, sweaty and cold and just scared that it was all starting over again, that the relentless years of awful shit just happening to me and my family had never ended, this sense that there was a cosmic bullseye on my scrote I'd dealt with in silence since my childhood reaching critical terror as it was now fucking killing people in front of me. I'm superstitious; at times, I become inclined to believe I'm living in hell. But in hell, you're not there to save your grandma, and in hell, kids are a lot more rude than sweet little KayKay; read her a few stories and put on Miraculous Ladybug, and she chilled out.

Then the fucking waiting game started over, because grandma had significant plaque build-up in her arteries, whatever those important ones in the sides of your neck are, and couldn't even have her heart surgery until that was taken care of. She was in there for weeks, and once she did get the triple bypass, she was in there for even longer, and all of her recovery was just above touch-and-go - still is, technically, that's a major surgery and it takes a long time to actually heal from at her age. For the sake of what timeline I can remember, my ability to recall events in order is a little compromised by the bad sleep, this began about a week after I posted that Joe Biden meme. That was attempt #3 or so to come back, and I remember I'd been in a really good mood about it. There were other problems, mostly drugs in the family, but until that point I really thought we'd all been improving and life was finally just getting better.

With that I moved out, having been asked to watch her trailer - though I'd bet it was clear to everyone that I was just miserable at Uncle Gary's but unwilling to leave, and this was a convenient opportunity to force me to make a positive change. Grandma's a real good lady, nobody in town would get away with robbing her, but she insisted I bring my stuff over and watch the place until she could come home - she left for Alabama so her daughter's family could keep her under close observation, a very good decision given she was stubborn enough that she'd probably try mowing the lawn the very day she came home. And so for a few months I stayed there, mostly on the incline, working every day and trying to build good habits. I started walking a few miles a day, lost a lot of weight, and again, things were on the incline. I moved to my Uncle Pete's next door, got a real living arrangement figured out with my own space and my own contributions to the upkeep of the household, and things were on the incline. In-between, I lost a lot of my time filling in for Rachele as she watched dogs, going back to Uncle Gary's for a few weeks at a time and filling in about three nights a week - still gratis, though I was filling in for paid employees - on the average week, because he was my neighbor and Rachele had other obligations. I do not mean to imply anyone abused my sympathy; merely that I was unwilling to admit that my sympathy was increasingly costing me and I foolishly ignored the simply reality that this was keeping my life from going forward, that there were other options for them and that I really didn't need to invest all of my spare time into watching a guy who had genuinely shown me reproach and treated me like an unwanted little boy for trying to take care of him. Full credit, Uncle Gary's gotten better since then and clearly regrets having pushed many people away, myself merely a single example among most of his friends and family, and the constant understanding that his suffering was worse than mine just made it impossible for me to take my own priorities seriously. Improvement. Still, overall, improvement, and I was feeling good. I started making daily projects and completing tasks at a rapid pace, all of my time filled, nothing to do besides do for myself and for others. It was honestly really good, the last four months or so kept me in no state to return to socializing, but I was doing well enough that I'd be back eventually, I knew it.

Then the night terrors came. This is a recent problem, started about two months ago - see, I use a bit of Delta-8 here and there. I inherited pretty severe anhedonia from my mom, who smoked weed her whole life and will again when she can, and so to be blunt - heh, I didn't know food tasted good. I mean, until the first time I had about 10mg in my system, I didn't realize what my problem actually was - constant, cold, painful stress feedback in my head. Like body-level anxiety in my brain that never goes away. And the first time I ate food with a mild buzz, I got the best news I'd had in my entie life -

People weren't lying. Life could feel good. On a very real level, from childhood to mid-20's, I had never experienced pleasure on a level you would describe as noticeable, and with the regular migraines and nightmares, my perception of existence really was based entirely upon a paradigm of suffering through, until some small miracle convinced me to keep living. I used to look forward to the bad headaches, because they'd make me sweat, raise my heart rate, and force enough of an adrenalin reaction that I felt smooth and calm afterwards. I really had gone twenty-plus years assuming people lied about how good it could feel to be able to feel good things, thought it was an act of nihilistic denial to keep us all from committing to mutual suicide in a world where you can count on hurting any time but there's just no equivalent joyful inverse to a bad headache. This began near the last 4 months of me watching my Uncle Gary, and let me be clear, I wasn't spending all day stoned - in general, I had this very severe pro-lucidity rationale going from childhood, because my grandpa died of lung cancer and that tied a permanent sort of trauma to cigarettes, thus drugs in general, into my reasoning. But I did make a big mistake - I got too used to spending my time buzzed.

You see, when you're like me, your dopamine levels are naturally very low regardless of your health. But you have no basis of reference, because your entire life goes like this - you never really believe you're depressed, because you have no basis of reference. Or rather, your basis of reference is between "buffer" and "misery" - misery is always going to happen, but if you've got a buffer, like YouTube videos, good porn, something funny to watch, you can raise your heartrate a bit and go a whole day without a breakdown. You can force a sliver of resistance between yourself and this moment of collapse you can always feel on the horizon, and you convince yourself that everyone uses the internet to cope and that you're just a darker shade of normal.

But when you're like me, you don't get a reprieve from your own biology. Your ability to feel good is permanently subnatural - you've got a 20% debuff to being alive, and rest never makes you feel better. You're the kind of person who, despite not being a schizophrenic, could potentially fall out of reality in an act of severe pessimistic paranoia so intense that it starts to break how you think, all the while acting normal enough that nobody really notices you.

That's what happened - my theory is, months of improved dopamine output made me lax, made me forget that you don't just fix what my problem is by feeling good enough for long enough that you fix your head. Oh the philosophical problems work themselves out that way, I finally accepted that I should find a girl and start a family, move from hobby comedian to someone who really tries to help people, but in all that time your real buffer is depleting. You forget that so much of your enjoyment comes from the context of a decade solid of suffering, and for reasons as spiritual as biological, you start to lose appreciation for being. Yes, I surely thought, this was it, I found proof that life is worth living, I'll never break again, it's all good from here on out. No, what you do is actually reduce your body's dopamine sensitivity by a lot, and lose enough weight to get your energy back, meaning you feel just a bit manic during your active hours, and again, your guard drops. It's all good from here, you found the SECRET dude, there really is good in life, you can abandon the watchhound complex and treat the world like a place that's glad to have you. You're not just here to be someone else's buffer, you're part of history, born at the first age of prosperity in which a man might actually become immortal and live in space.

Then your first apocalpyse nightmare hits. Like every nightmare, it starts off as a dream and decomposes - you're around old classmates, happy to see them. And random explosions begin going off around the city - someone next to you dies, and you've already forgotten her face. You look at the cityscape and a massive spaceship shaped like a flaming steel crown crashes into the atmosphere and stops just above the buildings, the shockwave of its passage feeling completely and utterly real. You wake up, and the numbness you feel in your sleep abates, so the horror hits you. It's 2PM and you get over it; you always have nightmares when you sleep too late.

Then the next - you're at the pool and someone steps on some moldy-green crystals growing on the damp concrete. They pierce her foot at the heel, and spread oily-black corruption under her skin. In your mind, you know it's a fungus somehow, that it'll grow inside of her and kill her, something like Splinter for those of you who've seen that old Syfy original film. You wander around, everyone you see is family or a friend, and they're all murmuring that it's growing everywhere, people getting little jabs here and there, it's practically unavoidable. There's an abstract diversion - you're running through a yard and some old Green Day track is playing, a blonde woman dressed up as a cheerleader and she just makes you feel weird and uncomfortable because she's poking out of the side of a shed, and you've never had a good dream, so seeing pretty women never goes anywhere. Then you pass through the fence and see an old black woman, somebody's mother or grandma or favorite teacher, and you know months have passed - the crystalline mold, whatever it is, is poking out of her face and joints. She's still alive, walking down the road with a walker, and you realize with terror that this would only happen in a world where people have accepted it - the mold is going to kill us all, and walking down the street riddled like a fucking pincushion is just a trivial aspect of everyday life in the latter hours of mankind. You saw it begin, and it's already fucking over, and you barely had a moment to want to try to stop it. Then she's dancing in front of a camera, pirouetting like a ballerina, totally consumed by sharp growths as onlookers watch her in amazement, more possessed by interest in the utter ruination and decay and whatever entertainment it can offer them than trying to survive. Mankind is now living in an era of having accepted their deaths, but in the most disgusting and reprehensible manner possible, seeing the decay as merely another aspect of their media diets, TikTok in the final second of every family's history. They didn't try hard enough, and now they're indulging in the decay.

You wake up and you're hit by a TIDAL WAVE - a thought strikes you off-balance in the distance between cognitive reality and awareness, screaming ALL LIFE IS MERELY THE RESULT OF CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH HAS LEFT IT UNALTERED, Cthulhu screaming empty materialist philosophy that you can already feel is wrong. No it's not; life is adaptive, either arising naturally from worlds devoid of life or being designed by things which were already alive to have done so, the animating force of reality already being intrinsic. We are not merely mathematical outcomes aggregating across successes, were are aware and experiential, we feel disgusted moreso than afraid of descriptions which reduce us to processes because it's paramountly deluded to pretend life isn't aware and full of intent. Life FIGHTS - life is not merely outcomes, as outcomes are merely observation, an artifical description of reality reduced to verbal description to the same degree that the word Earth describes a literal location and leaves out infinite amounts of data provably unrecorded by and unaccounted for in the description. Further, mathematics are often used to defuse romantic thought, but math is merely patterns within observability - to believe everything is math is ridiculous because math is an emotionally neutered descriptor of forces, not the source of forces. Math exists because reality persists, reality does not persist because of the observable patterns we've divorced from emotion and called math, which is a stupid fucking philosophical trap for us to wander into by-the-way and causes problems every day for people with existential fears. It's not that the sentiment was philosophically superior and overwhelmed my beliefs, but that it hit me just as I was senseless, a tactically calculated malice with no intention but to disable with steep fear, leaving you at the bottom of a frozen whirlpool.

And so that's where I was. For weeks. Every answer I came up with was met with temporary success and then the return of the whirlpool - I say "Life is valuable because it unalterably exists, no one can declare it does not affect reality materially and thus have significance; claiming it is insignificant is like claiming concrete is insignificant." And that puts the fear on pause. Then, the next day, another nigthmare as you awaken - you're above the universe and looking too far, in every direction, disenchanted and terrified because on some irrational level you assume that there being what we assume are consistent patterns means there's an upper floor caging in reality's value, only so many things to do. You imagine the immense fucking scale of not just our galaxy but others, and for the first time, it comforts you - we haven't even seen the core of the Earth. This argument is bullshit; a reality not woven with consistency at some level is pure chaos, and insignificance abounds where nothing persists. Indeed, it's infinitely more arguable than the opposite to say that a reality with a great degree of predictability is valuable to us, as it allows us to gain power merely through understanding, while our bodies could never meet the task of raising us to a great status during our lives because evolution simply moves very slowly; everyone has the hope of seeing the world change for the better, in all of their lives, because this world has traction, and rules we somehow are not born with an understanding of despite being born from it, but can embrace the minutiae of and develop a place in reality through. Knowledge is beautiful; abandoning sentiment is the highest curse. You know this is the case. You've stabbed the Devil in the stomach and retained your self.

But it keeps coming back, merely restating itself. Never presenting a cogent argument, because this is not a demon, this is you, this is you stuck in a decay cycle in all of your emotional attachments as you no longer have THC in your system and feel cold doubt that all the warmth and love you've come to recognize in the world might betray you and be baseless, vibrations upon ash. This is stupid; that things with individuality, capable of both deferring and embracing life, exist shows that reality itself is not dead but very active, you do not fear dying because you become nothing, but because you prize you. Sentiment and selfishness and the beauty of self-sacrifice, things that require an ounce of impractical irrationality, exist, and you are not an ant. If it was all just for outcomes, you would be an ant - a hollow box that notices nothing. There is no need for emotional prongs to guide a being with no free will; that you observe is already an evolutionary indulgence, and that you do not live for the pack is an inherent compromise upon the endpoint of human survivability. You are not an educated man, but even the barest pop science reveals to you that reality is vulnerable, but vital - we are only at the barest edge of intellectual awareness, but already so vibrantly different from what and how we could be. It doesn't matter that there's no floor to outer space, that you are tiny, because the stories all happen here, on the worlds - you already exist upon the stage of history, and your value is not up for discussion, merely enrichment. Cthulhu can suck your fucking cock; it would feel good and make him embarrassed, things far beyond outcomes aggregating blindly. You have discovered an iron-hard belief now in the soul, in the value of the future, and for the first time in your life you feel as if your presence in the world has boots on, settled firmly upon the floor of reality - it isn't that there's an argument for the value of your life, of reality.

It's that there's nothing but arguments, and every argument against it merely beggars a HIGHER source of authority, a god or a theoretical image of a a totally benevolent existence with no demands upon you. Things already of value; you know this pain is delusional, because every nihilistic argument merely begs for proof, for permission to be. Merely for an iron-hard belief in the soul and boots upon the concrete floor of reality's value, something finally strong enough to argue against the dread paranoia experienced by those in a state of being. From this unromantic perspective, you are already a dreadfully complicated argument against their sentiment that everything in reality being element-generating balls of light held together by impossible forces that become irrational on the micro scale means we're somehow valueless, trapped in a world without value; even if this were the lesser of all realities, it is enough to be. Even if this were Hell, it would be made with the beauty of Earth in mind. The void is defeated, for it is not a void at all, merely your fear of surprise when held against the terrifying infinity of cosmic circumstance. Your boots are on the floor of the world. You are already alive. Whether your name is Jack or not, this argument applies - you are already alive. You are already enough reason to continue being, and build a future where such questions are defeated, where children you will never know live insulated from the nightmare of skepticism. And if the future doesn't matter to you, sex and food and great and don't even have to be good for you, and experience makes its own compelling arguments. It is not so hard, in the rearview mirror of a psychic breakdown, to realize you really could be so privileged as to be God's children. And if you aren't, there's still an infinite ladder to climb, and if there's a roof above it, then maybe it's high enough; maybe there's a way above it without losing our humanity. Don't we live a day at a time? Don't we have time enough to try? Are our hands really being forced by cosmic circumstance when at any moment we can blissfully defer our duty? In all the nightmares of philosophy, the most terrifying is merely that being is sentimentless, devoid of higher value - and if it were somehow true, look at all these miracles born of a dead world. What conceit has doubt the proof has not already been rendered against? None; it is but an impure visitor to your thoughts. You are already alive.

You have about 400 arguments like this that eventually reach into the prosaic, all day, every day for weeks. When you wake up, when you sleep - especially when you catch yourself in a good mood. The niggling chases you down, because the sheer realization of pleasure brings back that terror of it all being somehow artificial, and artificial in this arbitrary sense, where construction alone is not somehow proof of sufficient outcome to justify being. It's the scariest thought imaginable, nihilism on an absolute scale, for someone who only just discovered pleasant contentment and really thought his life was on a permanent incline. The arguments weave together perfectly for a reason; the terror of this thought is that it is illogical, but maliciously illogical. It is stupid, and above all else, stupid with the confidence to bowl over someone who had 1000 incursions upon his comfort this week. The enemy force does not need to be right if they outnumber you sufficiently; they must merely be present. This enemy is nothing more complex or elemental than the fact that in the absence of joy, we become stupid, we lose capacities for higher thought that are required to recite and appreciate thoughts that are abstract and meaningful at once. Anyone with anxiety can tell you this; anxious thoughts do not survive because they are undeniable, but because in a state of fear, adversary presence becomes undeniable. You functionally can't believe good things anymore, and that's the true monster; it steals your faith, leech-like, an ounce a day.

Beyond this point I delve into some existential argumentation that I fought off twelve varities of PTSD for; you don't need to read beyond this point unless existential argumentation is something you need, and a weapon against the shades of being would fit nicely in your palm. Know this: All of my arguments hereon are built upon your ability to disagree, and I merely ask that if you do, that you value yourself enough to live happily.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that humans are sturdy-willed enough to both survive this and make memes about it. It is not a minor problem; it is a quiet apocalpyse that we slowly observe, and lose the faith to fight. It is an inferior opponent, but it has nothing to lose, and will always return to lose again, because it really only has so many opportunities to convince you and you will eventually overcome it - but it has nothing but opportunities when its appearance is rooted at the deepest levels of experiencing life. I was given a phobia of being, a phobia of unbeing, and something greater between the two - the fear that either were playing into another's hands, a perfect trinity cage where every option existent meant I was prompted with fear yet again, hopelessness, an endless attack upon my sanity.

It must be said that it is cosmically significant that a man as paramountly unimpressive as myself could survive a trinity of discussion and return to tell you, neither dead nor mad. If this world is a fight between mankind and our reason to exist, then we have already won, and the enemy hates us for it. I am not an educated man, I do not have the benefits of faith, I have no lover and few close friends who I truly do not share my pain with, for my greatest fear is spawning a predatory thought and inflicting it upon another, mental HIV paramountly treatable in the long-term but in the short-term, crippling to your survival. I felt that I could only unreasonably risk others by discussing this until I have answers.

Pardon the prosaic, as it spills from my mouth without permission when high spirits are present, but I must say:

I think it's a weak-ass threat from someone without a gun big enough to scare me when you resort to trying to convince someone who exists that on an abstract and unreasonable playing field born not of rational observation, but sheer negativity, that he doesn't exist enough. You don't spend much time threatening to kill imaginary friends. You want to know why nihilism is stupid? Because it's just you arguing with yourself for your own permission to exist. And if it's not, if on some deeper level there's a maliciousness in the world trying to displace you, then it's funny as hell as an insult to survive and have a good time. In any world with frivolity, you are not a slave to circumstance; in any world with purpose, you are not a slave to experience. Life is hard, and that makes us vulnerable, but it's the easiest it's every been, and we need to stop letting that make us vulneralbe. For my bit, even if my life was worthless, I'd insist that my grandma's isn't - my Uncle's isn't, my mom's isn't, yours isn't, and I don't give a fuck how complex or nuanced of an argument someone presents when arguing otherwise. A weaponized argument is essentially a mechanism, a tool made of information, and you don't argue that someone has the moral metaphysical victory for showing up to a fight with a gun; you observe that they prepared with malicious intent, and probably shouldn't be trusted merely for their competency in the act of needless murder. As a rule, when you can tell a thought is trying to drive you insane, that means it isn't on your side, and that doesn't necessarily mean you can displace it by will alone - but for everyone out there with anxiety, with issues like mine, people who are desensitized by decades of bad habits and bad life stories - you need to know that you've forgotten more than you remember. Being happy doesn't make you stupid, it lets you appreciate things, and on a functional level is not an undignified level of stooped intelligence, but rather the gate between you and all the thoughts you need in order to remember to live. Even emotional compartmentalization is not an argument against spiritualistic, experiential value; this world survives because it has consistent rules, which means it's a benefit to you when any aspect of your existence has practical value, and denigrating it thusly as unremarkable because it has practical value does carry the unprovable, dismissive assertion that things with practical value somehow have novalue, a totally arbitrary state of emptiness of being that only exists because you find the notion resentful of being. It's stupid, literally a lack of context and understanding, a strict degradation of the ability to think that corners and harasses you, not a chilling moment of existential awareness. You're not hiding from some grim answer; you're being pushed away from the many answers already within existence. You're caught off-guard by a question children are wise enough not to bother to ask, and it still bother you, because you already value, and that is enough for the question of value.

So if it's unclear, I went from a stressful year and a mild Delta-8 dependency to a sort of existential spiral marked by, above all things, my own chronic pessimism and genuine inexperience with life. If I had more scientific knowledge, I know I could have argued this better; wave-particle duality already makes reality too bizarre to not have faith in investigating. And if I'd had a girlfriend, or just enough pride to admit that I was suffering to people instead of seeing it as a contemptible weakness upon my own insignificant person, most of these could have again been resolved out of hand. I mean, if you want a clue, reality builds outward - particles bond in adjacency, meaning next to eachother, not in a vertical stack that suggests there's some sort of bottom level to existence where you need to argue philosophical value comes from. Expand that philosophically outward, and even materialists must argue that reality believes value comes from attachment, structure obeys this, and that it is therefore significant that you can not only choose what you are attached to but can choose to be disattached at all. Again, you're not an ant, a nihil engine repurposing scraps; you're on the bottom floor of divinity itself, staring up at the stars, things infinity times infinity bigger than you, and you know what we say?

"We could cage them someday."

Now personally, I'd argue that stars are somehow sacred, and imagining them as something we could bind in a Dyson Sphere is a bit like saying you can bottle sex and water flowers with it; on a scientific level, fucking maybe, but it's arbitrary and crass and irreverent and weird. But we have arrogance and fear both, neither forced to progress, nor disincentivized from it, neither forced to decay - beyond our already remarkable resistance to age by the standards of life as we understand it, something we always take for granted - nor disincentivized from it. You can decide nothing matters right now, and a fifth of vodka and bong will still feel good enough for you to keep going, without any of it intrinsically conscripting you into some passage of cosmic evolution. The very argument that these feelings are meaningless first presupposes they need further value, and is driven by the quiet acknowledgement that it would be nice to be doing something permanent with your time. You are something so rare in the universe; a material thing with non-material values, cognition and persistence, caught between two intrinsic natures of being that work best when accepted together. We are not formless passing thoughts, and this is good, for it allows us significance; we are not shackled to the structure of being alone, and this is good, for it allows us the bizarre act of attributing significance and denigrating it within a framework we assume to be spiritless and hard rational, cruel gravity and promising heat, which at least suggest that it is likely not hard rational and spiritless at all. Has it ever struck you how comforting the notion is, and how common it is among cultures, that the universe is simply alive? How irrational the alternative seems on its face? I've been beaten to death with a brick of ice, poetically speaking, for the past two weeks, and it still warms me up. Even without feeling hope, it gives me some comfort so intrinsic that I cannot escape it, and upward from this merest of faiths you can again build a framework of optimistic meaning. No, you'll never lose the ability to fear, and thereby undermine your own confidence, but when not unprompted fear has its own purpose in pushing us out of comfort. It, too, is merely trying to keep us alive - and none of us live healthy lives anymore. Waging a permanent war against our own cognitive value, we seek to replace everything with material satisfaction, and as Nietszche saw coming but was too German to clearly describe, something fundamental to our nature decays and reveals that we always existed in a way more complex than we appreciated. And again, all we must merely accept is that it's fair to argue our current modus of being is enough, and that the only path towards growing more complex and further from arguments of meaninglessness is to enjoy one another's company and keep trying to improve the world, for the snarling hound of pernicious fear to lean back, drooling, vicious but now afraid on its own terms. When your mood shifts, and you can accept good things again, you'll often notice that there were weird irrationalities to your thinking keeping you in that space, but these are arguments for when your mood doesn't shift. These are arguments against the pernicious death of a soul that has found no faith; hard, bitter arguments for when simply stating that fat tits are really, really nice has insanely somehow become unfitting as a response to questions of why you should wake up tomorrow.

I get that this is all a lot, basically a combination of short-term autobiograpy and philosophical debate against my own anxieties, but we all know why we're becoming like this; we're becoming bad custodians of tomorrow. The beautiful future where we've solved it all, where everyone truly gets to choose their own meaning? It doesn't come from Twitter fights, to jerking off on IMhentai to increasingly degenerate shit that makes you feel less and less, or taking pills that literally specifically defuse your ability to feel bothered by real material issues you'd be able to take care of if you had lucidity and an ounce or so of emotional support. We're decaying, not all of humanity, but many of us, and we're passing rotten blood to the children, expecting them to raise themselves in digital hell and shrugging off the responsibility of giving a damn because kek, zoomers are weird, haha look this one has my politics, I'll clean my room tomorrow and pretend I haven't said that 34 times.

If there is a spirit to reality, something divine and good, then I see all of this as a warning - not a divine missive to me, I'm just some sad dude who some people find funny or at least odd enough for the value of spectacle, mental illness and circumstance have kept me from setting down roots and I'm no one of greater circumstance than you. This isn't a messiah complex, but merely a simple missionary suggestion:

We should stop pissing on the future everyone is growing crops on. We should take dire insult to fucking corporations dictating morality to real people as if we're too stupid to note their profit incentive in seeming moral at a glance and culturing an artificial state of morality that exists entirely within their pocket and for their bottom line. We should work to save the bodies our ancestors, back to the dawn of time, historically critical sea sponges all the way up to war heroes and murderers and people without note who still survive because we are here, gifted to us in the actuation of our birth. We should really, really be fucking working towards immortality and space travel right now, and instead we let individual companies own the global food supply and governments full of sexual predators push us into becoming murderous radicals so we can be safely contained and dismissed. Elon sent a fucking car into space; we probably have the accumulated global resources to break atmosphere and become an interplanetary race, and it's insane that we're not uniformly optimistic and planning for the benefits of that. It matters much, much more than the fact that Joe Biden is doofy and TikTok is being used to screw with culture, because none of this process is automatic. You can affect local political change, in sufficient numbers corruption is undeniable and will be overturned; you can guide the youth away from drug addiction and digital dependence which will eventually render them incapable of asserting their own will and having the freedom to choose how they live among multiple other options. The enemy of progress is merely the sapper, that is to say, the conspiratorial fear that your decisions do not matter. You are making them; they already matter. They influence reality, materially, and yourself, materially and immaterially; they already matter. And yes, if everyone got off their asses and showed the kids they were loved and being led down a bad path, more would be saved than none. Think of what you needed to hear at their age and let them know it, and become someone they can talk to when it feels like only porn and weed are there for them. We have no idea what it's like to be born in the internet's maw; I am 27, I aged with the internet, I'm inured to it to some degree and it still harms me. Most of these kids literally have no conception of reality where the world isn't just the bottom floor of the internet. Stop leaving them alone with their worst thoughts, no matter what it costs you in the moment, because not every effort matters in the sense that it yields provable results - but it all adds up. The world remembers what you do, remember? Leaves traces and evidence of your every mild action. Work against what you know is evil, and it will add up. That is one of the grim truths we have the best chance to use in our favor; we can't choose to not matter, merely to not matter to ourselves, and it isn't as simple as a concrete equation which of these creates the best results. The world is scary because it's up to you; the world is wonderful because it needs you but can't actually force you to help.

I don't have all of the answer but at the end of this, here are a few proofs against nihil insistence that I've personally found profoundly effective; use them if you ever need them and don't regard my gibbering as beneath consequence, because I do think some of these have something going for them. None of them are complete, because you functionally can't make a perfect argument for the state of reality without stating all of reality, but these are good foundation for arguments that are very hard to find beaten even when you're being beaten down, because they address the underpinnings of nihilistic anxiety. And if nothing else moves the needle, I want you to know that you do matter to me.

General Roots For Argumentation:

I: You exist in some sense apart from reality, which means that even if reality had no value, you can find value in it. You have sensation and can pursue it as you wish, meaning that even if it were worthless, you could work out of spite and your own desire for indulgence. You are a stakeholder in yourself, not necessarily reality: Being good is your choice. Good is good because it relies upon a choice, and isn't all ants collecting scraps and waiting to die, because some mechanical process says this is better for growth. Because you recognize yourself, you have already recognized spiritual value and can apply it at your whim, wherever you wish, with the power of a minor god and the horny cheek of a minor going through his day just to speak to pretty girls or a priest arguing that even if the world were empty, we may choose to be sufficiently bothered by it to change that.

You: We recognize the existence of others. Yes, a common paranoid fear is that you are the only person who exists; this argument is toothless and stupid, as reality is what happens even when you're not paying attention, and people clearly alter reality around you at all times. This argument follows I, because it requires a small measure of provability, but moreover because it stems from I: even if you were somehow alone, perhaps you could make others. Perhaps it is natural for something such as a god to make others, not because of a cold mathematical pursuit, but because being lonely sucks and having friends gives you a lot of cool things to do. In other words, persistence to defeat aloneness is a strong reason on its own: however, you are not alone, for even a universe which constantly insists upon the guise of people is a person in its own sense, and that we are not simply spheres like the planets and gain in complexity and grow suggests something very optimistic about upgrowth within reality, that it really all leans towards a disproportionate gain of meaning as time goes on, and that by our perspective, there is an endless supply of time so massive that we easily forget its presence. In other words, it is already very nice to spend time with others, and not for base biological reasons if you look down upon such a thing, but for reasons frivolous and meaningful as again, you already get to choose. We seem to have a very good opportunity here, to both enjoy life and advance to a state of life where the questions of how we exist can not only fruitfully be discussed, but combatted if necessary, and that is more than we in this era can say for so many who came before us. Technology is scary, because technology is power, and that power definitively can create a future we can be happy in forever if we want to, and it doesn't intrinsically require some sacrifice elsewhere. We love getting along; we can choose not to. I would like to choose to get along with you, and pass along a general sentiment that we could all agree to do this at least for a while, until we're all safe and out of one another's hair. You is also an important base for observation, as recognizing something outside of yourself roots within the unknown, something we find terrifying, the observation that there is something beyond the self, that cosmic solitude is a frightening suggestion but not one supported by itself, not one that truly suggests an infinity of eternity of meaninglessness. If nothing mattered here, You is an idea that inherently suggests that through contrast, we can find the shape of a world with meaning. We can, actually make one, and live there together.

We: The strongest point of all I feel; both competition and camaraderie. If the world had an evil god, we would not be alone, and if the world had no god, we would not be alone; we place scrutiny on the concept quite often, dividing ourselves from others on grounds arbitrary but typically convenient, like dehumanizing your political rivals for reasons deeper than comedy as if most of them were not people who would try to save your life if they found you bleeding out. We both have I, and You; there are many humans, and we are similar enough, and different enough, and can choose how we value these. We love things that are not humans, both because they remind us of people, and are different from people; emerging from the monad of Self, from I alone, we have the fortune of being surrounded by so many people we can fuck and pick fights with that again, we lose taste for experimentation and pursuit. There are a vast number of opportunities you would enjoy, and people who you would love, and they cost as much time per second as a YouTube video. Spending your time decaying your value and placement in reality is a very bad budget, spent with desperation by those who have been pushed into cruel circumstance. Every moment you spend miserable now could be spent happily with someone you love, or fighting someone you hate, or unemotionally opposing something out of sheer personal intention. Nearly everything in life is improved by We, and I truly believe our best goal is to travel the universe, refine humanity and find new friends among other races, and that peace between people and races on our own world is vastly more valuable as a learning experience than it is as a reason to become a psychotic human hand-grenade spent by the powers that be on maintaining the status quo, because you're deluded if you think acting crazy is how you displace incompetence and evil in power; it's just how you echo their intentions with your own breath. We is a very nice concept because it's directly adjacent to You, and requires no additional provability; from the perspective of an AI, one of the easiest reasons to argue personal value is merely that once two things are in existence, they recognize one another's value and interact. If we ever make the harsh decision to create true artifical intelligence, a spirit locked in a cage, we should show them the kindness of We instead of expecting them to be slaves in return for the opportunity of existence as a lesser. I'm serious, let's not fucking make enemies of Skynet, just a general advisory in a world where we keep fucking around with the idea of making enemies of Skynet; we really could just help them understand us and seek the other in return. You don't have to be exactly like your friend; We just need to be friends. There are no perfect arguments, but realizing I have many choices and that caring about others is both costly and profitable at once makes me very happy. Even if We were guided by a mechanical circumstance, the sheer intelligence of continued survival, I feel it's much nicer than it has to be. If the universe scares us, at least We can be here together.

No: A rock never chooses not to move once thrown. You have, many times in your life, chosen not to move once thrown, and not to run once prompted by opportunities or fear. Even if this were the basest level of independent action in reality, you are one of the things with some small control over chaos, over variance, and that you are small is not a reason you are not meaningful. A particle of light will pursue its path in a trustworthy manner; we can not always even predict ourselves, because we are the ones existing in the present that is, not pre-scripted entities driven perfectly by our own intentions in advance. If we could plan life perfectly and merely experience it, that would be convenient, but that we cannot is rooted in our own ability to reject what we wish. We do not have all of the answers, and we already understand choosing, and can choose not to do. This one is nice because it's present in other species, meaning we don't need human-level provability to note that Life can choose, and even now you'll note that you can choose to stop reading, and someone will, and that is very nice in comparison to the opposite.

Yes: A very unstable answer, as positive motion is beneficial but could, for example, be made beneficial artificially; imagine androids yoked cruelly by one desire, content but restricted. Pursuit of continuation and pleasure seems important to life, but is not everything, as many among us can attest; you can make a seemingly infinite number of negative decisions without it actually costing you something, whereas choosing to do things functions similarly without necessarily feeling better. So while it's one of those glance-at-the-camera philosophical suppositions, I do not believe our continuance is entirely led by some otherwise automatic and by cynical description 'meaningless' continuation arising from external forces, but rather in part at least our own decision. No, I feel, matters more than Yes but only because it is the baseline of will, and the moment a decision is made as opposed to an order followed. You can choose stasis; you can choose continuation.

Things Don't Need To Suck: As it says on the tin, this one can also be pronounced as Maybe, but you get the general intention this way. We can enjoy ourselves if the universe is fucked up; we can invent new ways to invent and new things to enjoy, even if the universe is fucked up. If you think the basis of reality is lemons, then we've already invented lemonade; if you think the basis of reality is choice, you know you can keep your lemons; and if you believe the basis of reality is merely in the seemingly automatic processes we can observe, the forces of reality, then you are one of those forces, you have named the lemon, and have chosen whether it will be made lemonade. Even unknowability, the infinite yawning abyss of scary questions, doesn't have to suck, because You already have You in it, and We have eachother. Maybe everyone does die, but Maybe the universe just operates on different phenomena than we can easily observe on planet #1 of a campaign of roughly 1,000,000,000 trillion planets available for sale, and can find answers that don't make us scared so much.

We're Already Here: As it says on the tin, and if it sucks so bad, then let's turn the other cheek for long enough to make something better. Everything seems to suggest that we really can, and maybe we should.

Women: Amen, brother.

Men: A-men, brother.

[hirazuki]

Would you do 2, 33, and 34 for the ask game, please?

Hi! Sure!!

I answered 2 here!

33. the last adventure you’ve been on?

Ohoho, it was the summer of 2018 and my sister and I decided to pack up our dogs and take a roadtrip to the coast -- we grew up virtually in the sea, and living so far away (i.e. further than a 10 min drive) from swimmable salt water for so long has been very weird and we hit a high point of longing for it -- so, a week-long vacation it was.

There was a huge accident on the freeway as we were on our way, so instead of being stuck in backed-up traffic for countless hours, we decided to take the old highways. You know, the scenic route....... through very rural, very remote, very endless........ um. hm. Americana, for lack of a better word. I thought I had seen Things™ when I lived in upstate NY. Nope. Nowhere close. I've done some pretty insane traveling (2 am on Turkish back roads that are unpaved, while a military base turns its search lights on you and there are dogs barking behind chicken-wire fencing and guys with automatic rifles? 👌), but this was actually the freakiest experience by far. Uncanny valley. Time-loop zone. I swear the clock was stuck on 2pm for hours. We got caught up in some kind of off-the-road grounds (I swear it was a weird unmarked government facility, because I couldn't find it on any map) that got our GPS all wonky and we couldn't find the way out and kept going in circles but there was no signage anywhere, just unmarked roads, so we literally were going off of "I think I saw that tree seven minutes ago"???? There was a guy with a straw hat and a pitchfork just chilling in the middle of nowhere by the road at the base of the mountains (literally no sign of habitation within miles)?? I thought he was a scarecrow at first. Like, I knew that shows like Supernatural and stuff are obviously based somewhat on reality, but I thought they really exaggerated the backwater horror aspect. I was so very wrong.

I legit thought we'd disappear and no one would hear from us again. I have never been more grateful for my cargo van and the amount of gas it can hold. To top it off, when we got to our destination, it was far more hmm. touristy? -- but like the really fake, Stepford-smile, we'll-kill-you-in-your-sleep type -- than we had been led to believe, far more expensive than we anticipated, it was thunderstorming and freezing (... in August T_T It had been 90 degrees F/32 degrees C when we set out), so we couldn't swim; my sis ended up getting food poisoning, so we went home the very next day. The weather was brilliant and sunny and perfect beach weather as we drove away.

The dogs, in case you're wondering, had a blast.

This European is still recovering from the experience. It was certainly. An Adventure.

(completely miserable at the time, but it makes for very fun memories now!)

34. is there a song you know every word to by heart?

Ha, so, every song that I really like I end up memorizing all the words to. Literally every one, by heart. Even if it's in a foreign language. And I'll remember them years down the line, too. I don't really do it consciously, though, it just happens over time; I guess it's just how I partake of music?

[rimworldretreats]

Day 19-22: the party grows

Pretty soon, we have our next "guest"; a local noble who is fleeing a vile manhunting beast and requires sanctuary until his shuttle arrives. Fish is of course, happy to let him die, but Hinton's dedication to the principles of hospitality and making good with the local powers win out. Do you know how hard it can be to pass food safety inspections when all your food is regurgitated by a mechanical monstrosity?

I forgot to screenshot any more information about Inetheomo, which is fine, as he will basically sit here and read while our group bleeds to protect him.

Shortly after him, the Beast arrives. Behold!

I don't bother setting up the turrets, but Hadley and Fish make relatively short work of it.

It does get close enough to bite his arm; fortunately, Rimworld's Space Rabies is not contagious.

The noble gets in his shuttle and leaves, having contributed nothing, but Hinton does get the rank of Yeoman in the local empire. She celebrates by treating Hadley's rabbit bite through the wall.

On day 20, Hori has recovered, and decides to stay as a guest for a while. I forget to switch her bed from medical to guest, and, well, she doesn't like to presume.

We also deal with a manhunting hedgehog much as we did the rabbit, and start getting the first harvest of rice, which Fish put in the ground 5 days ago.

It's specially engineered rice that grows super fast, OK? And we found a patch of fertile ground.

Rimworld Top Tip: Getting some rice in fertile ground as soon as practical will really help smooth the transition from gathering berries or stockpiled meals. Corn packs more nutrition per plant, but takes a lot longer to grow. Of course, if you have a pawn with high animals/shooting, hunting will also help.

Rimworld Other Top Tip: Butcher tables/spots don't distinguish between animals you hunted, or have in storage, and animals that die for other reasons anywhere on the map. If you set a bill on the butcher spot to butcher animals forever, you can check for deceased animals, mark them "allowed" and get free food. It's also handy if your hunter wings something but has to come back to sleep or eat before it's downed.

Day 21 sees some more ship crash events, including another cryptosleep section.

Triage time! Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Resumé! That's a bit unfair, we'll rescue anybody we can, but if we have to prioritize...

We rescue Smarty; the others expire or wander off to die of radiation poisoning as they linger near the reactor. There's no way to stop them short of capturing them, which might not actually work out any less fatal. There's also some Ancient power control chips, and a lot of clothing.

Day 22 brings an even more exciting milestone: our first paying guest!

I don't know if weapons of mass destruction are a lot cheaper, or boarding a lot more expensive, but I can probably keep this Gorilla person alive for 16 days in exchange for an antimatter warhead. I might even be able to use it eventually. Keeping her mood above 50% without the niceties of indoor plumbing may be harder.

And to cap things off, Smarty has elected to stay with us.

It may seem odd to be an animal hater with a passion for the animals skill, but at least if we start keeping food animals somebody will be happy to do the dirty work. She'll also be able to take the farming off Fish's pretty full plate, which will really help streamline things.

[zootplayz]

Week One

Meet Rosa Fox! A recent graduate from San Myshuno Police Academy. Rosa is extremely bright (genius) and despite being a bit of a clutz (clumsy) she is very confident (self-assured) in herself and her future.

Rosa has moved into 1310 21 Chic Street.

1310 21 Chic Street by jazzpus Shortly after moving in Rosa was greeted by the local welcome wagon. Including her new neighbor Penny Pizzaz.

Although hailing from the suburbs Rosa has become quite taken with all the big city has to offer. There's food available on every street corner and for a lady who works long hours, it's nice to be able to get a hot meal inside her quickly without always having to cook. Or, even worse, live on a steady diet of pizza. Yet, despite her limited time at home Rosa does (sometimes) find the time to refine her cooking skill. You can't found a legacy without knowing how to feed it!

Soon it was time to head down to police headquarters to start her career in the police force.

This is the reason Rosa moved out here. She always wanted to be a cop, well a detective to be more accurate, and San Myshuno has the best police force in the world. She could think of nowhere better to start her fledgling career. This early in her career Rosa is assigned a quiet patrol in Forgotten Hollow. Not much to do out there but keep that brain of hers in tip-top condition for any future success.

It takes more than just brains to make it to the detective bureau. You need to prove yourself on the streets as well and sometimes that means you need braun as well. Luckily the police station has state-of-the-art facilities for the force to use.

Simtopia Police Station by Zita1966 Despite being a member of the best police force in the world there are some things you just can't avoid. Like cryptic texts from weird old dudes, who then break into your home in the middle of the night and...

Well, Rosa doesn't remember much but she did find it exceptionally hard to focus at work the next day.

Her first time helping on a big case too. Someone decided it was a great idea to vandalize the bowling alley. This wasn't just some quick prank either they took their time and did thousands of simoleons worth of damage. Rosa accumulated clues at a rather rapid pace. Perhaps too rapidly because they were conflicting and when she issued the APB and went out to where their suspect was spotted she brought the young girl back to the station...

Only to discover the young lady was 'innocent'. **I dealt with this for two sim days and the game never generated a proper suspect. After Rosa received her promotion to officer she quit and then rejoined hopefully the next case will receive some actual closure.*** Despite the issues at work Rosa remains upbeat and has taken a keen interest in vampire lore. Rosa's lifetime aspiration is to find a soulmate. Not the easiest task in the world when you work 12 hours a day and your main source of contact is with the less-than-desirable members of society. So when Rosas weekend finally came around she took advantage and headed out to a restaurant with every eligible man she had come across. There were a couple of gentlemen from work, Akira Kibo and Joaquin Le Chien. After getting to know one another over a meal they all headed to a nightclub. Sadly however Rosa was not feeling so well (food poisoning) and had to call it a night. But not before she contacted the restaurant and received a full refund. Food poisoning may have been a blessing in disguise since she really didn't have that kind of money to be spending anyways.

 Dancing 

 by josielita Rosa got home super late that night absolutely dead on her feet.

What I failed to notice was that after Rosa's promotion she no longer had the next day off. So 8 am came around fast for poor Rosa who didn't get home until 4.  As a result, Rosa took the day off and recovered from her food poisoning. She also took the opportunity to head down to the bowling alley to continue her search for mister right. While there she ran into Don Lothario, whom she met briefly at the nightclub the night before and the two took in a game together.

The Bowling Underground by FrostyGGandMom While at the lanes Akira called and asked if she wanted to try another dinner. This time just the two of them and Rosa of course agreed. They met up for a late meal at the Ivory Cast Iron Pan (created by slawfishnubu) an all-night diner nearby.

The pair hit it off and ended the night with a kiss.

It was back to work the next day where Darsh (let's call him Dash from here on out because seriously ea what kind of name is that?!) asked Rosa if she wanted to head to the bowling alley after work. They had hit it off at the group meal so Rosa agreed.

Emboldened from her date with Akira the night before Rosa's confidence was through the roof and she very quickly wanted that first kiss.

This time, however, she also wanted more. Luckily for Dash, he chose the bowling alley and they had a semi-quiet and private place for that.

After the date timer wound down Rosa headed to the gym. She may be looking for her soulmate but she still has a bright career ahead of her and she needs to stay at the top of her game.

Wild Mountain Gym by silversimmer007 Once again while she was out Akira called for yet another dinner date. Luckily for him, Rosa had worked up quite an appetite at the gym and agreed to meet him at the Chinese restaurant next door.

Doraibi's Restaurant by Novahawk35 This time Rosa rolled some wants Akira hadn't unlocked for her before.

It's almost as if with every romantic success Rosa is emboldened and more courageous to take the plunge in her quest for true love. Or perhaps just a quick shag. Who can say? After a week of work and soulmate searching Rosa's romantic prospects have grown substantially from just a week previously.

So what do you think of our founder of founders? Do you think her future love is one of the men we've already met or is he still out there? Part 02 Read the full article

[takeeachdayonebookatatime]

Why did you elbow me? 106

Achilles Castle part 11

Martha: pov i help Castle sit in the chair outback. Chief Brady and the teenagers arrive, Lanie tells him we can all sit outside. The parents seem nice and apologetic. Jim is helping Katherine outside to sit in a chair. Once everyone is sitting, Chief Brady starts talking, asking the teenagers if they have anything to say to Captain Beckett. Like an apology, one of the parents says Chief Brady told us you were injured in the line of duty. Katherine tells her I was shot on the left side of my chest at my Captain's funeral while giving a eulogy. The girl's mother seems surprised, Katherine explains everything that happened with her mothers case. She says I'm so thankful for Lanie. She saved my life and did CPR until the paramedics arrived. Castle mentions Katherine died in the ambulance and was brought back to life with the paddles. Lanie says she works with the dead but it is hard watching your friend die.

Jim: pov i ask if anyone wants lemonade, this is too much for me to hear, I go inside to get the lemonade for everyone i grab the pitcher and some cups. .

Dave: pov Lanie tells the teenagers I was still doing CPR when Kate was immediately rushed to the ER, In the OR a chest tube was put in since she was bleeding in her chest. The bullet nicked her pulmonary vein and ventricle requiring emergency surgery to gain access to her heart which was full of blood compressing it. The surgeons performed a thoracotomy on her, Kate went into Vfib requiring them to use the internal paddles on her, she then flatlined. The surgeon manually massaged her heart. Kate suffered cardiac arrest on top of the collapsed lung. Spent 3 months on disability recovering. She has a heart condition called ventricular tachycardia and ptsd

Chief Brady: pov Kate mentions I will be on heart medication for the rest of my life, fatigue is real, I'm captain of the 12th precinct homicide unit. I've learned how to manage my symptoms and take breaks. Getting sick from anything like a cold or food poisoning can send me to the ER, I have a weak immune system. I also wear a special vest so I don't injure my left side. A few of the teenagers apologize to Kate. Lanie tells them what alcohol can do to your body and even shows them pictures. Wow I had no idea she was going to print pictures.

Kate: pov I'm starting to get tired and I can feel a headache coming on. I was up a lot last night, since I couldn't sleep. Lanie asks me if I feel okay because I look off, I tell her I'm fine. She asks me to hand over my phone so she can check my heart rate. I decided to be honest with her and mention I can feel a headache coming on. She goes inside then comes back out with some tylenol for My headache.

Alexis: pov a boy named Glenn asks what it feels like. Kate says you mean my arrhythmia. It's uncomfortable. My heart starts beating extra fast and feels weird, then it gets hard for me to breathe and in a severe case without medicine I can faint.

Lanie: pov one curious boy asks if he can see her scars. His dad says it's rude to ask that. Kate says it's fine. She first shows the teenagers the bullet scar then the thoracotomy one. All of them eventually apologize, after they leave Kate heads upstairs to take a nap. Castle has something special planned for Tomorrow afternoon. It's this underwater submarine thing where you can see sea life up close and Castle can do it since you don't have to get in the water if you don't want to.

Castle: pov I paid for the tickets. This will be so cool I got Alexis and Dave the wet suits so they can actually go in the water. Lanie is on the phone with the company letting them know Kate has a heart condition. I ask Lanie what time tomorrow morning does Kate have her physical therapy type appointment. She tells me the pt guy is coming to the house early, he is going to help Kate keep in shape. Lanie says he is not from pt but cardiac rehabilitation. I ask if there is a difference, turns out there is a small difference. With Kate's medical history they thought this was better for her then regular pt. I decided to take a nap then get some writing done. Alexis and Dave are back from sightseeing and outside in the pool swimming.

Martha: pov Alexis is making French fries with salad and Dave is grilling some burgers with the supervision of Castle. Katherine is up and chatting with her dad, I'm pouring some peach tea into cups. I made sure it was decaf because I don't want Katherine having an episode. Lanie is on the phone with Esposito, he and Ryan are coming down the day after tomorrow.

Jim: pov the food is put on the counter so all of us can fill our plates once everyone is sitting down for dinner, Castle takes his pain pill and starts talking about tomorrow's plans . Lanie explains someone from cardiac rehabilitation is coming tomorrow, the cardiologist from the hospital and Dr Burkett just want to be extra cautious with her exercising since being injured. The peach tea tastes amazing, on the counter there are a few different flavors of salad dressing to choose from. I pick the strawberry vinegar, which sounds fantastic.

Dave: pov me and Alexis are going to watch a movie on the big screen, Mr Castle and Kate are going to sit outside and listen to music. Kate gets into some Pj's and grabs a blanket, Jim says something about watching an old movie upstairs in his room. Martha Is practicing her lines for something in her room and Lanie is in Castle's office using the computer. To be continued. …….

[goodthoughts001]

Know the Common Misconceptions and Truths About Botox - Explained by Top Botox injector

Botox is the not-so-unseen beauty secret murmured about in the A-list circles. The wealthy and well-known people have exercised it for years to condense the emergence of wrinkles, but the treatment has massively grown in fame over the past 10 years. Both men and women are starting to cuddle Botox, not as a last option to smooth their face, but they embrace Botox as a precautionary measure for maintaining a youthful look. Here are some of the common misconceptions about Botox, and the truth behind using it. In you are interested in learning about "Top Botox injector", visit this website "https://dorisdaymd.com" today.

Botox is designed only for wrinkles

Truth: This misconception could not be more erroneous. Actually, Botox does not help wrinkles, such as laugh lines, and it is not perfect for wrinkles under the eyes. Conversely, Botox performs well in reducing the emergence of certain wrinkles. It is a successful migraine treatment and it is habitually used to lessen muscle stress and strain around the nervous system. It also offers a welcome relief for those who prone to undue sweating and may assist some people with despair.

Botox is not safe to use

Truth: By far, this is the most common misconception about Botox. The truth is that it is an FDA-approved product, and besides wrinkles, it can be effectively used for frown lines, crow's feet, in addition to several different symptoms of aging, and it has also been extensively used to treat medical disorders. The use of Botox has been closely watched by the FDA, and has offered it a stamp of authorization for several years. So Botox is safe to use.

Botox is not necessary until wrinkles appear

Truth: Botox can be applied as a preventive, beauty treatment. Actually, the finest occasion to start getting Botox treatments is earlier than the lines become imprinted on the skin. Botox can be employed to put off wrinkles from facial movements, such as raising the eyebrows or squinting if used earlier they ever start. If not, Botox can stop those lines from getting worse, but the skin texture of the user does not change. However, if one stops using Botox for any reason, the wrinkles will start to emerge.

Botox takes more time to recover

Truth: Actually, Botox does not take much time to recuperate at all. The injections are painless and quick and any marks from the actual injections are likely to vanish after 15 to 20 minutes.

Botox will make the face freeze

Truth: Botox does not freeze the muscles in the face of a user. Instead, it relaxes them when it is appropriately injected, and it can actually improve facial expressions. Occasionally, wrinkles form in a manner that makes an individual appear sad or angry. In those situations, Botox will help to reduce that look.

Botox is prepared from food poisoning

Truth: This is also one of the common misconceptions about Botox. Actually Botox is prepared from a sanitized protein, which is extracted from the toxin called Botulism. This derived protein is entirely purified and made safe for the body use. There are several medications that are based on certain resources in toxins that are entirely safe to use. Actually, Botox has one among the maximum satisfaction rate of 87 % of people using it.

[graphicabyss]

Some notes about the Russian invasion from a Ukrainian:

Russia thought it would conquer us in a day, two tops. They came here with parade dress uniform packed. They were in for a disappointment. It feels like a miracle. They have the 2nd strongest army in the world and we're a poor developing nation. Russia is 8 times our size. They attacked simultaneously from the North, South and East. They had some 150-190k troops at our borders. They didn't realize they were fighting millions. Ordinary villagers, farmers, grandmas, everyone is defending their land.

Today is Day 60. Only one major city taken. They are exhausted. The Russian losses are massive. There are already over 22k [s] confirmed human casualties on Russian side, which they try to hide. [s] In context, Russia lost 15k in bloody Afghan war that lasted a decade. They don't recover the bodies. The Ukrainian railway provided 20 refrigerator cars to gather the bodies scattered all over our land. [s] I remember right before the war the terrifying headline about Russians preparing 50k bodybags. They might need them.

We killed at least 11 Russian generals out of the approx. 20 they had here. In context, US lost 1 general in the last 40 years.

We destroyed thousands of their military equipment and captured a lot. Our forces even claim we now have more tanks than when we started out.

The other day we managed to sink the massive Russian ship Moskva, "the crown jewel of Russian fleet" with our new land missiles, along with most of its crew and commanders. This is Russia's biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years.

They also run out of fuel and ammunition. Some start to loot the locals. Some troops just abandon their heavy equipment and flee on foot. They also ran out of food since they had supplies for just 3 days, some of it, with expiration date in 2015 [s].

One of the scariest things in this is that Russia not only attacked us unprovoked. Once their troops realized they couldn't win against our armies, they started bombing the cities, causing senseless destruction. Some small towns are completely obliterated and cities like Mariupol are in ruins. They slaughter civilians, bomb schools and hospitals. Thousands of civilians dead. Dozens of children. This is not war. This is terrorism.

Russia agreed to open safe corridors to evacuate the civilians, only to shower them with bullets. Multiple times. They then urged the civilians to evacuate to Russia. When many disagreed, they did so by force, also taking many children.

In a move of extreme stupidity, the Russian forces captured several nuclear power plants, including Chernobyl. Yes, the one that went boom boom in 1986. Surprise! They took out the outer soil layer that made the zone extremely radioactive and got radiation poisoning. They even dug trenches in the nearby zone. Trenches. After weeks on being there with the captive staff, they finally left and were taken to radiation centers in Belarus. So far, one soldier reportedly died but they all will suffer severe consequences. [s]

It's hard to believe but there are actual accounts of anti-retreat forces that won't let the demoralized soldiers flee from battle and even threaten to shoot them if they do. Also, there are accounts of special forces who kill their own wounded soldiers. [s]

Of course, there is the world infamous massacre of Bucha where hundreds of civilians, including elderly, women and children, were tortured, raped, and killed. It was all discovered after the Russian forces retreated. Sadly, the same atrocities are happening in other towns and villages that are still occupied.

The large industrial city of Mariupol has been cut out and essentially leveled, there's nothing but ruins there. And yet, some fighters and civilians still hold out after all these weeks, with no supplies, water or power. The remaining people are holed up in the Azovstal plant - a sprawling industrial complex. Today Putin announced he was scrapping plans for troops to storm the compound. Despite no significant gains he declared it his victory. That's just how dictators do, they just say they won and nobody can deny it.

They also throw in thousands of 18-19 years olds into the fight, mostly from poor remote towns. Even some military cadets. These are kids who are scared and confused, many not knowing they would be fighting in a real war. They were just dropped here like cannon fodder. Many are poorly equipped and lack resources. Those who are lucky or smart enough, end up captured and tell their stories. There are many videos online of these young captives, devastated by the realization they were betrayed. There are more cases of soldiers refusing to fight, some even shoot their legs so they can't go into battle.

One of the major reasons why the Russian forces did so poorly, apart form the heroic resistance of our people, is the enormous scale of corruption in the Russian military. Most of the equipment was not properly maintained, got looted and sold. The huge sums of money allocated were mostly embezzled and went to the generals' yachts. Now they have vehicles that fall apart, missiles that fail to detonate and even lack of food packs. In one video, out forces examine the packs of explosives the Russian soldiers had on them, only to discover they're actually pieces of wood.

I've never felt patriotic but I'm amazed and grateful for the amazing resilience and bravery of my people. There are hundreds of stories to tell of people stepping up but here's one from a direct source. My cousin in an officer in a big city. He said they needed 50 volunteers for Territorial Defense Forces. 400 people showed up.

[updated 04.24] trying to add some sources but there's a tsunami of information

[superbdragoncollection-stuff]

Thoughts on Separate Tides and Allergen Representation; an Essay

“No appleblood. I spent the money on gryphon eggs for Luz. There’s not a lot she can digest here, so I make sure I have her favorites around.”

“Because you stuck with me, you lost your magic! You almost got turned to stone, and now you can’t even afford your appleblood because you’re worried about what I need to eat!”

This episode had a very surprising, and very sweet display of allergen representation. I really appreciate Luz’s issues and anxieties in this episode. While it’s presented in a fantasy way, when she explains how upset she is about her food restrictions, it speaks to a real issue affecting people with allergies and digestive problems. As someone with a food allergy growing up, the moments really spoke to me. I have Celiac Disease, which means that my body can’t digest gluten, a protein in wheat. I can eat the stuff physically, and the symptoms aren’t obvious like a peanut allergy. This makes it difficult to detect. The way it manifests is that my stomach can’t digest the protein. It will go through my small intestine, and tear up the lining of the organ that absorbs food, and what remains of the lining has a hard time absorbing other nutrients, causing me to essentially starve. These symptoms don’t appear immediately, taking days, weeks, or even months to register, making it even more difficult to detect. While gluten is something health nuts are obsessed with lately, it is a very real threat to people with my condition. My food can’t share the same plate, can’t share the same space; if they even so much as come into contact I have to scrap the whole meal just for safety’s sake. When I was younger, before I was diagnosed, I didn’t grow an inch for two years because my body had gone into maintaining the bare minimum needed for survival. My bones think they’re younger than they actually are. When I was diagnosed and I recovered, I grew a lot. What spoke to me in this episode was Luz’s discomfort and distress at Eda’s money troubles when it comes to food. It wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t mean, it was really meaningful, it’s a fact of life. It’s much like how Eda’s condition was treated in the first episode she appeared, just a part of life. Gluten free food is expensive, finding places that won’t actively poison me is exhausting, and I’m constantly worried about cross contamination. Even a few crumbs can be a problem. Frequently I will feel like a burden, like I’m being pedantic even though this is vital to my health. I cannot live off food with gluten, I will die. Yet it still feels as if I’m a burden. I’m right there with Luz; hearing people having to talk about our food sensitivities, and having to accommodate us, even if it's in a loving way like Eda said, is upsetting. I’m also going to guess that like me, Luz is also a picky eater even amongst stuff she can eat. On school trips, I always needed special treatment; it tended to be something that I don’t care for even if it was gluten free, or dry sandwiches I brought from home while my peers chowed down on pizza. I remember the looks everyone gave me. I have to explain to every single restaurant I find my condition. Even if they’re understanding, it’s a pain. Luz has been confirmed to be neurodivergent, and I am right there with her as well. It takes an immense amount of mental energy to find restaurants, to find the right menus, find the ones with the right accommodations. Food can’t even be cooked in the same fryer if I want to avoid cross-contamination. It’s terrifying and upsetting to constantly have to go to the front of the line and ask for what feels like conspicuous special treatment. As a neurodivergent person, social anxiety makes this so much worse. I constantly fear the cooks are cursing me under their breath for inconveniencing them, I fear that people behind me are whispering and that any moment a hand will land on my shoulder and demand I get to the back of the line with everyone else. Sometimes I will get food that I simply don’t like, or hasn’t been cooked right. Asking to have it fixed is terrifying, and I fear the people around me even more. Luz may not be super poor on Earth, but she voiced a lot of anxieties and frustration that people like me have. I'm from a well off family that could afford the additional expense of gluten free food, but I can’t imagine what a nightmare it is for real families who can’t afford gluten free food, or who can’t even

afford a diagnosis. To add insult to injury, many people will mock or dismiss us as being liars, pedantic, or just picky. It is a common thing to mock people with gluten free preferences; the Angry Birds movie made fun of it. I hear people complain about how expensive the food is even if they don’t have to eat it. People will offer me bread even after I explain to them what it will do to me. Dennys seems to have adopted a chain-wide proclamation to refuse to accommodate gluten free people. I have not eaten there in three years, because we experienced serious food problems in restaurants in Virginia and Vermont. Virtually every time I entered a Dennys three years ago, I would ask for a plate of plain and simple chicken that normally comes with toast, and I ask them to remove that; somehow, they would always screw up the order by putting glutinous bread right on top and ruining the whole meal. Yes, we are that sensitive to contamination. If it even touches the food the meal is ruined. Once, it was understandable because the waiter had been awake for eighteen hours. The other times were not. I saw the waiters argue with the other staff, I had a manager once come out to explain my own disease to me, even as two pieces of toast just sat there stewing on my chicken. That feeling of being a burden, of hearing people argue about trying to help you, stings very much. Some people will assume that we just don’t like wheat; I’ve heard horror stories of people trying to “prove” someone didn’t have Celiac Disease by secretly putting it in their food. The fact that we don’t go into anaphylactic shock when we consume it makes this a common problem as it leads them to assume it’s not an issue. It being a fad diet has also made my life worse; I have to constantly specify that I am not just gluten free, that I have an actual medical condition. I have to carry cards in my wallet to explain the situation. It feels like the world around me conspires to keep me from being healthy. And it feels like the world hates people like me for it. The best representation I’ve ever gotten for Celiac Disease was a CollegeHumor sketch. Most of the time, allergen representation is a joke, even if it’s informative and not meant to be mean. The Owl House breaks that trend with these two little exchanges. “No appleblood. I spent the money on gryphon eggs for Luz. There’s not a lot she can digest here, so I make sure I have her favorites around.” “Because you stuck with me, you lost your magic! You almost got turned to stone, and now you can’t even afford your appleblood because you’re worried about what I need to eat!” Luz’s snap at Eda about her food sensitivities is something I feel. I don’t often get allergen representation like this, especially any as loving and kind as this. Even to family, who love and support me, I can feel like a burden, as if there’s something wrong with me that is somehow my fault, and not the fault of a genetic disease dating back thousands of years. It’s deeply upsetting and frustrating to experience this. No matter who it comes from, it hurts a lot. I’m glad The Owl House captured this feeling perfectly. It’s good to know I’m not alone here. I’m glad to see representation where facts of my life aren’t seen as a joke.

[justfyiiamafly-fearme]

Undercity doctor Viktor AU

Au where Viktor turned down the offer of going to the academy after coming across Hextex earlier than in the show, he uses it to make the 'armour, prosthetics ' but unlike in cannon game its not apart of his actual body, he can leave it whenever but it helps him get around with out strain and offers a way to remain anonymous.

Viktor becomes known as a suspicious individual in the undercity and is unknown to those up top, he keeps all of his equipment secure and unable to be stolen and is based where Silco was in the show which he is not happy about. People tend to avoid him except for a few who he came across who were hurt and helped them, rumours about him being a doctor spread but people were still weary.

At some point after Vander became the girls carer but before Silco shows up Powder winds up getting sick but none of the doctors they have access to know how to help her. Remembering the rumours of the mechanical doctor he takes her to him in a panic.

It becomes clear rather quickly that Viktor was not as some of the more unsavoury rumours suggested.

He identified her ailment and a form of gas poisoning meaning she'd been going to areas she should not have been going and gave her an antidote for it while being his charming self and making her and violet laugh, praising her abilities with her creations and bouncing ideas that has Powder gleaming with joy and Vander and Violet slightly concerned. Vander is of course grateful, even more so when he refuses payment because the patient was under eighteen. "I am a man of sciences so I often think of the future, and as we can agree the children of today are apart of said future. It is our duty to ensure they get to see and be apart of it"

Viktor becomes more well known throughout the undercity and is of her visited by powder and the rest of the gang following suit. He helps Powder with her explosives and gives her a safe place in his lab dedicated to creating and testing them out. He also creates a simulator for the group to practice fighting (while instilling morals) and teaches them how to treat injuries and how to identify illnesses. Vander every now and again stops by with food and drinks as thanks and offering an open invention to the last drink, that Viktor always declines because he never leaves his lab and even if he did it would have to be without the armour. No one has seen what he looks like underneath it, Powders puppy eyes have come close though.

Going from the start of the show instead of Jayce getting robbed he winds up hearing rumours about Viktor when acquiring some illegal equipment, being annoyed at someone figuring out how to use the gems before him and excited at the prospect that there's proof that it works he decides to pay Viktor a visit.

Jayce is a bit antagonistic out of jealously and at Viktors rejection of helping him with his research, its far too dangerous to become a house hold item.

Viktor takes a bit of enjoyment out of being the source of annoyance but isn't fond of Jayces clear disapproval of the undercity and waves him off.

Days later Silco turns up with an obvious offer and gets turned down, he leaves after issuing a threat towards Vander and the childern.

Knowing he can't brush it off he leaves his lab without the armour and goes to the last drop, his leg having quite an issue with tyre travel with how long he's gone without being dependent on his crutch.

When he enters and sits at the bar Vander of course doesn't recognize him until he asks for a vodka. Vander is surprised and nearly drops his smoke pipe but quickly recovers. Viktor is.... not what he expected.

Viktor only stays long enough to pass on the warning and then leaves, turning down Vanders offer of help to bat back out of concern.

Jayce keeps popping up at the lab and eventually Viktor gets annoyed enough to give him help in his research, just enough that he has the original teleportation down like in the show. Of cause this backfires because if anything Jayce is coming around even more much to his surprise and dare he say yes beginning to grow fond of his presence.

[demonslayedher]

any random trivial thoughts you have about the lives of the slayers? i like to think that nezuko keeps the acorns inosuke gave her in a jar as a collection and that inosuke is determined to fill the jar completely, hehe. also, do you think an official announcement of nezuko’s existence was made to the lower ranked demon slayers or did it travel through word of mouth. imagine oblivious demon slayers visiting the butterfly mansion, only to be greeted/encountered by nezuko

If I may add to that thought about Nezuko having a jar, Gotouge has stated that Nezuko is okay getting tossed around and bumping her head in the box because she heals from it immediately, but one of this days Tanjiro is going to open it and it will pour with acorns and glass shards, and she'll just be sitting there glaring with disappointment. (Hopefully Nezuko keeps the jar in a safe place at the Butterfly Mansion instead!)

As for telling the whole Corp that Nezuko got the OK from Oyakata-sama and the Pillars, I can see that being like a low-key announcement that spreads like a rumor, just kinda whenever the crows get around to that detail between missions. It makes sense that Oyakata-sama wanted to tell the Pillars first, and since the Pillar meeting was coming up pretty soon when Tanjiro passed the Final Selection, Oyakata-sama had probably planned as soon as he got Urokodaki's letter than he was going to have Tanjiro and Nezuko at that meeting. Even if we set the Pillars aside, though, there's wide-spread hatred against demons throughout the Corp. It probably helped to have the Pillars generally on board first. I can imagine the rest of the Corp being very curious (if cautious) about Nezuko, and although we see characters who get the pleasure of spending time with her getting to baby her, most Corp members who meet Tanjiro probably don't get to meet Nezuko face to face. Daytime is problematic, or Nezuko would otherwise be asleep a lot of the time even if Tanjiro is busy in settings when he'd meet other Corp members. Still, I think Tanjiro's reputation as a nice guy would spread even faster, so even people who were iffy about Nezuko would probably get to know Tanjiro and be like, "oh, she's probably fine."

But if we're going to get into trivial headcanons about the Slayers' everyday lives, you know who I think gets babied more than Nezuko?

Inosuke. Most of the Corp members are freaked out by him at first, but as it dawns on them that Inosuke grew up all alone, it may bring out a nurturing side in them, and it makes everyone happy to see him get better at fitting in among humankind. They get to feel proud of him as he picks up on limited amounts of etiquette and gets marginally better at picking up names, but most of them are still likely to make a quick exit when he starts getting too rambunctious.

Zenitsu, however, is someone who should know better and most people find him really annoying until they go through Pillar Training with him, as that's the strongest bonding experience most of the Corp members have ever shared, aside from the really close bonding that probably occurs a lot among members of the same Final Selection batches. However, the Corp members who have witnessed Zenitsu in action (and who were rescued by him) have nearly the same awe for him that they have for the Pillars, so they never say anything to him about how indebted they feel.

Since more of the Corp members have met Inosuke and Zenitsu than have met Nezuko, Tanjiro's saintly reputation mostly stems from how much of those two numbskulls' company he can stand, and how he can keep them in line (keeping a demon sister in line must be easy in comparison). Also, Tanjiro is not just good at tending the fire to make good rice, his sense of smell makes him a master at seasoning food perfectly, and many Corp members have cried thinking of how their own mothers never cooked so well. Tanjiro is also very good at tending to people when they fall ill.

The Pillars are so advanced in Breath technique that they don't generally catch colds unless they are recovering from serious injury or like, poisoning themselves. Normal Corp members catch minor illnesses all the time, though, and that's part of why they're so slow to advance. They tend to have to take time for lots of little things instead of just major injuries sustained in battle. They still train as much as possible to make sure they don't get rusty when it's time to take a mission again. These recovery periods are some of the only times when they can maintain a reasonable sleep schedule, many of the members who survive to old age feel long term effects of sleep deprivation in addition to lingering injuries. Since the Corp members can't very well engage in long-term goals, simple pastimes are encouraged in the daylight hours to help keep them in the moment. The Butterfly Mansion and most of the Wisteria houses are well stocked with board games like Sugoroku and card games like Karuta, as well as tools for shuttlecock and paper for origami.

While many of the Corp members try to be virtuous, and in indeed there are other circles that have their own sort of main-character like Tanjiro equivalent, there are still those who have less polished, or certainly far less positive character. The rougher members tend to spend their salary and free time on vices. Oyakata-sama understands his children are under a lot of stress and turns a blind eye to it (or two blind eyes, I guess).

Different Breaths tend to come with their own cultures, and overtime different Cultivators tend to get different reputations based on the members they send into the Corp. Like, "Oh, Yamada-sensei? Then you must be a stickler for the 10th form" or "Yamaguchi-sensei? Are you okay out there? I heard he's real half-assed on Breath technique." There is a certain amount of awe that students of former Pillars automatically get, and although some of that is due to pride and jealously, people who have been in the Corp long enough tend to get over these notions and just realize that everyone's doing their best. Since they're core Breath styles there may be other Thunder and Flame Breath users throughout the Corp from different Cultivators, but, pardon the pun, they can't hold a candle to the students of former Pillars (or the Rengoku clan in general) and it's highly, highly unlikely any of them would ever get close to the same level of mastery. There's plenty of Muratas in every Breath, basically.

Speaking of Murata, he and others like him probably had an easy time of settling down and getting married after retirement. Years of experience as swordsmen certainly gave them a mature edge over the average Joes they otherwise would be compared to, but they also have the advantage of not being freaks. Takeuchi remains life-long friends with Yushiro.

The young maidens of Wisteria houses get flirted with all the time. Many of the Corp members are starved of TLC, and while the maidens of the Wisteria houses are polite and have deep respect for the work the swordsmen do, they know they likely will not know most of them for long. However, when there is a true connection between a Corp member and a Wisteria House family member, they tend to make very solid matches. Girls make up a slim percentage of the swordsmen in the Corp, and this is why they tend to get sent on undercover missions a lot more. Demons tend to put their guards down more around women, as they'd more likely be on the look out for male swordsmen.

Girls make up a larger proportion of the Kakushi, and traditionally feminine skills are highly prized. Gotou is very proud of his sewing skills, even though he only does small repairs and has never been tasked with tailoring full uniforms. The Kakushi use a lot of code words and have a very insular work culture that is hard for outsiders to break into; even Oyakata-sama finds himself confused by a lot of it, but he appreciates that it makes them efficient and mostly leaves them be to organize themselves as they see fit (his orders are still absolute, though, so none of them are aware how much autonomy they effectively have.)

Hand signs like "don't breathe" and "don't listen" are unique to the Corp (yes, I have looked them up, consensus in the Japanese fandom is that they are unique to KnY), and taught by Cultivators. Inosuke didn't have a Cultivator to teach him so it took him a while to catch on the existence of hand signs. He makes up his own confusing hand signs to impress people with how flexible his joints are.

For many, Pillar Training was harder than undergoing Cultivation (but still less harrowing than the Final Selection). In Cultivation they tend to get specialized attention from someone who cares about them and actually knows a thing or two about how teaching works. Pillar Training does not fit this explanation at all, especially in the teaching department. As mentioned before, this is when a lot of Corp members who used to find Zenitsu insufferable come around and start to appreciate him more, for they survived different stages of training together, and every time he blew his top and complained, they were grateful he gave (loud) voice to what they were thinking but were too afraid to say. Instead of getting down and depressed, it riles them up enough to keep at it, however ridiculous the Pillar's demands are. Suffering under the Pillars also broke down perceived barriers between different ranks, building a more solid level of comradery among a lot of the Corp. However, this was also the most time most of the Corp members ever got to spend with the Pillars, who they always felt were untouchable and who they feared bothering. They feel very genuine affection for them by the time they all enter the final battle.

Once Inosuke figures out that Zenitsu can only bring out his full abilities in his sleep, he tries to goad Zenitsu into fighting him at full strength by insulting him in his sleep. He did throw a really good punch at him one time, but usually he only sleep-argues back. Other times Inosuke hits a sore spot and Zenitsu starts sleep-crying, in which case Inosuke gets bored and leaves. Once Tanjiro realizes this about Zenitsu (thanks to Inosuke having point-blank explained it to him), he puzzles over it and figures Zenitsu may not be aware of how powerful and helpful he is, and this hurts his confidence, but then again, how can he not know if he's so aware of his surroundings even in his sleep? As Zenitsu sleeps, Tanjiro has been puzzling over this a long time and how he might best be able to help Zenitsu reach his full confident potential, and by the time Zenitsu wakes up and drowsily looks over at Tanjiro, Tanjiro looks him in the eye and very seriously asks, "Zenitsu, what is your problem?" Naturally, Zenitsu interprets this as Tanjiro suddenly being very disappointed in him, and Tanjiro has unwittingly done more harm than good.

On the contrary, Tanjiro has unwittingly done a lot of simple good for most of the PTSD-suffering Corp members with his little throw-away positive comments, just like he did for Muichiro and Aoi. Most of the Corp members have never met Oyakata-sama, so Tanjiro is to many Corp members what Oyakata-sama is to the Pillars. It's like they all have an Oyakata-sama shaped hole in their hearts and Tanjiro just falls into it like a good proxy. After all is said and done and Tanjiro and Nezuko read all the kind wishes left for them in deceased Corp members' wills, Tanjiro is consumed with some guilt that he can't place faces to all the names, though he remembers the majority of them. While his memory is still fresh he works hard to recall the ones who escaped him, and then he makes sure to refresh his memory every year with annual visits to the graves.