#pre AIDS

[circuitmouse]

Tom Bianchi captures Fire Island Pines in the 70s

[saintaviator]

been doin redraws as warmups w these two dorks ^^ ID in alt text!

[iztea]

put him in crutches

[erlandious]

Do yall think Silco gave Jinx that hairstyle or it just kinda happened and he went “oh lmao I did that too”

[kas-eddie-munson]

whelp, there's a part two now

Part 1

~~~

Eddie always loved Halloween.  He liked dressing up and putting on a persona, pretending to be someone else for a while.

He wasn’t expecting to have fun this year, but there was that twinge of hope again.  Henderson and his friends decided they were too old to trick-or-treat, so them and some of the older teens were meeting up at Steve’s house for a party.

Honestly anything to get him out of the house had to be better than nothing, right?

Steve told Eddie he’d pick him up at 6:30, which he did.  He explained in the car that the kids might get there early, and that Robin was guarding the snacks so they wouldn’t all get devoured before half the guests arrived.

Eddie watched Steve as he drove.  Tried to get a read on him.  Tapped his knuckles against the window, a habit he’d been told by multiple people was irritating over the years.  No response.  Bounced his leg a bit so his boot would tap against the floor.

Steve glanced over at a stop sign.

“You okay?”

Eddie stopped moving his leg and told him he was fine.

Eddie wondered whether he heard or saw him moving.  Noted the way Steve looked directly at him while he spoke.

He wasn’t sure why Steve didn’t say anything about it.  He didn’t have a lot of time to inspect Steve’s appointment summary the other day.  Didn’t spot a date.  It had to be pretty recent, though.  He supposed it’s not like they were super close.

Parked outside his house, Steve got out and brought Eddie his chair, leading the way down a sidewalk to his back patio.  The sliding back door was nearly level with the ground, though Eddie still had to move his chair over the bump backwards.

Once inside it was clear the party had already started.  Loud music blasted and all the kids talked over each other.  Dustin called out for him from across the room and soon Eddie was surrounded by the kids, telling him they were glad he made it to the party.  If he was alone he might have cried.

It took a minute for the kids to realize he was trying to move further into the house, but eventually they moved over, and he found the table with food on it.

On the way back he lingered in the doorway as Steve stood off to the side, eyebrows furrowed.  He asked a couple questions about the conversation that were lost to the teens talking over each other, if someone could repeat that or if he heard a word correctly.  His hand clenched around his drink.

Maybe Eddie wasn’t the only one who felt alone in a room full of people.

Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6

[howgalling]

ambulon and first aid!!! more of a cyber look than my previous designs for them, hehe. first aid is a first responder- and considering its cyberpunk, the body armor is ESSENTIAL lol/

[shellsinadune]

thinking about how in falsettos, hiv/aids is portrayed the way real illness often is: a sudden, devastating interruption to someone's life. march of the falsettos never brings up hiv/aids, and it's not until halfway through falsettoland that we get any indication that something's wrong. no foreshadowing, just immediate and unexpected pain.

we know these characters, there's time to love them for who they are before this happens to them. whizzer isn't just The AIDS Patient, marvin isn't just The Partner or The One Who's Next, charlotte isn't just The Doctor. they're people, and they had whole lives before any of this, and we as the audience get to see that. we see their friendship and their petty fights and their eventual love story and their redemption from their flaws.

they all have a trajectory their lives are on. and then disease comes along and crushes it and any hope for things to return to how it was. it's painfully realistic. by not talking about hiv/aids until it hits, it tells a more complete story of the aids crisis than a story that starts after the character's illness does.

[kindaeccentric]

The subject of the painting is Gauguin's 13-year-old native "wife" Teha'amana (called Tehura in his letters), who one night, according to Gauguin, was lying in fear when he arrived home late: "immobile, naked, lying face downward flat on the bed with the eyes inordinately large with fear [...] Might she not with my frightened face take me for one of the demons and specters, one of the Tupapaus, with which the legends of her race people sleepless nights?" Gauguin was suffering from advanced venereal disease when he came to Tahiti, and he passed it onto Teha'amana, who was his first sexual partner on the island.

'The Adoration of the Shepherds With a Donor.' Palma Vecchio. A contemporary of my maker, Marius De Romanus, also a fine painter, albeit one of lesser skill. In fact, the donor in the title was my maker. The canvas painted in my maker's studio. And in this case, the donation was…What is the modern word for it? In kind. This is Amadeo.

He's 20 years here. He was rescued from a brothel when he was 15, named… named Arun then, I think. I cannot be sure. The abuse in the brothel was such that he cannot be sure that's what his… parents named him. Arun. The parents that sent him to work on a merchant boat in Delhi when in actuality they had sold him…into slavery to the ship's captain. All… fragments. Shackled on the boat. The brothel. My maker's purchase. His renaming me.

His reluctance to share the Dark Gift, knowing what it would do to his beloved Amadeo. I served him with all my heart. Basked in his mercy, his worshipful mercy. Still… Amadeo had a skill. And if a friend wandered into town, I was occasionally… donated.

Meatier in the forearms, but then this was… seven years before I was stricken with illness, before I was turned, and imbued with my powers.

---

don't mind me, I'm just thinking aloud about art as a form of colonial violence when artists take part in the sexual exploitation of underage people of color, name changing, orientalism, monstrosity, and blood+sex-transmittable diseases in the context of Armand

[lets-try-some-writing]

The Rot: Patient Zero

An infection is spreading across all of Cybertron and not a spark knows what is going on. Ratchet has been called upon to inspect patient zero to try and find the cause of all this. It ends as well as one might expect.

This is a little gift for my dear friend @spreadwardiard and their fantastic fic The Rot.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Where is the patient?” The datapad in Ratchet’s servo cracked as he clutched it a little too tightly. He cursed softly and strode forward with greater speed, First Aid scurrying alongside him.

“We have found several infected patients, but the one we are going to is in the far room, the most secure part of the facility.” First Aid supplied with a hint of worry in his voice. Ratchet hummed and looked over the datapad again. 

Hundreds of reports of a strange virus infecting the lower levels had begun to spread like a wildfire. Every few kliks there was another ping and yet another designation added to the growing list of those infected with the virus. This was an outbreak, and it was growing worse at rapid speed. Ratchet had already given the order to close off the upper regions of Iacon, but the middle and lower levels were being overtaken by whatever this was.

They needed to understand it and find a cure fast. There had been no casualties yet, but Ratchet had seen the Rust Plague. He knew how quickly something so simple as a mere respiratory malfunction could turn deadly. 

“We believe this is patient zero, correct?” Ratchet inquired as he passed by several holding cells where infected individuals were pacing mindlessly. Looking over them briefly, they seemed… lost. Their optics were hazy and their movements disjointed. Most were mumbling about nonsense, but there was a common theme that left a worrying fear nagging at the back of Ratchet’s mind.

“Hungry… need… energon.” Ratchet grimaced slightly as he passed by a particularly delirious patient. The mech was leaking oral fluids, seemingly without any care whatsoever. His frame seemed gaunt, almost emaciated. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Yes, the patient we are going to meet is indeed the one we believe to be the original carrier of the virus. He was at a bar at the time and the infection has spread from that location since. And while we do have enforcers down there trying to keep things in order-” First Aid fidgeted and stepped back hastily as one patient flew against the bars separating him from the hall. The patient’s face was the embodiment of madness, and his expression was lopsided, almost as though he’d had a spark attack and was still recovering.

“What do we know so far? What are the symptoms?” The mech gurgled worryingly as Ratchet grabbed First Aid by the arm and pushed on. First Aid stumbled for a moment before replying. Ratchet took care to not look at any of the patients in the optic directly. He hated keeping patients behind bars, but they were too dangerous to be interacted with. 

“Severe hunger, madness, disorientation, mobility loss, and in the most severe cases, plating loss. It seems to be a degenerative virus that weakens the frame over time.” Ratchet nodded and passed First Aid the datapad as they approached a door. It was thick, black proof based on the structure of it. A wise place to keep patient zero.

“Give me a hazmat suit. I am not going in there just to catch whatever this is.” First Aid was quick to follow the given order and collected a suit from the nearby lockers. Within a klik, his apprentice was back by his side with the materials. Ratchet always hated the suites, but they were useful despite their appearance.

Neon green boots and leg coverings slid on first, kept in place by straps that were fitted over his shoulders. They dug into his seams, but with the covers coming up to his mid waist, there would be no risk of fluid getting near his exposed cabling or plating. Next came the gown with First Aid had to get a stool to help Ratchet get into. The thing was also disgustingly bright green and it fell over his helm without issue. Getting his arms into the sleeves was a nightmare with his arm guards, but he managed. 

Gloves were strapped onto his wrists with tight bindings and the cuffs of his sleeves were tucked into the gloves just to be safe. As if he didn’t look ridiculous enough, the helm piece of the whole suit was quickly put into place. It was a relatively simple design. A draping helm cover fell down from his helm to his shoulders, held in place by straps under his chin. Then to top it all off, a cone shaped, almost beak like visor was slipped into place and locked on. The thing was almost entirely air tight, but there was plenty of room around his intake and optics so that he could run his air filtration systems without issue.

He looked like a hot mess, but he was ready. The bright purple mark of the medic stood proudly on his chest as he gestured for First Aid to step away and made his way through the door into patient zero’s containment chamber. 

“You are… Springstep, correct?” Ratchet called out, his voice coming out somewhat staticy through the communicator built into his mask. The mech in front of him had his arms bound behind his back, a safety measure to ensure he didn’t hurt himself or any staff. If they were doing things properly or if they had more time, the mech would have been given better accommodations.

As it was, patient zero was simply too dangerous to be handled properly.

“Yes? You are… a doctor?” The mech questioned, his optics hazy and uncertain as he looked Ratchet up and down. Ratchet made a noise of affirmation and edged closer to examine the mech. 

“I am. My designation is Ratchet.” Cautiously Ratchet shuffled forward until he was about a foot away from the mech. Springstep looked terrible just from a quick physical glance over. His complexion was awful, his facial protoform sunken in enough that it seemed as though it was stretched too thin. His frame was boney, his hips jutting out awkwardly almost as if he hadn’t had a decent fueling in stellar cycles. 

According to his files, he had been perfectly healthy up until about three cycles ago. Such rapid loss of mass was highly concerning. Perhaps it was a parasite? That would account for the lack of nutrients in the patient. However, it did not rationalize why the virus was spreading so rapidly. 

“Tell me how you are feeling and when your symptoms began to show themselves.” Ratchet ordered as he dutifully began running scans from a safe distance. Springstep was startlingly low on fuel. His systems were resorting to consumption of excess mass in order to keep functioning. There was no way a mech who was perfectly healthy mere cycles prior should have been suffering from third degree energon deficiency. 

“Rotted… broken… my insides burn… my processor… all foggy… started down at the docks.” Springstep attempted to speak, but his glyphs were broken and disjointed. Ratchet grimaced beneath his mask. This mech wasn’t going to make it. Such severe speech impediments combined with his frame’s state did not speak positively of his chances of survival. 

“Where by the docks did you encounter this virus? Do you know?” Ratchet continued his line of questioning even as he began sending pings back to the other medics outside. 

[[Lock down the lower levels entirely. Priority individuals and essential workers are to be moved to the upper levels and secured immediately. Begin administration of hazmat suit instruction to all medical personnel. Not a spark is to be seen without a suit from this point onward.]]

“Don’t… know…” Springstep trailed off and Ratchet frowned. This was just like the Rust Plague, and yet so much worse all at the same time. The virus was spreading just as fast, but the effects were worse, or rather more intense. The rust killed a mech slowly through corroding their insides. Whatever this was worked at an  accelerated rate and with incredible efficiency. It hadn’t even been three cycles and already patient zero was going to drop dead.

A lockdown was the bare minimum.

“Thank you Springstep. I will have one of my associates administer a sedative to help ease the pain-” Ratchet trailed off as Springstep lurched forward, his frame heaving as he purged green goo onto the ground. Springstep’s optics widened and cycled rapidly as he struggled. Ratchet knew that look, it was a sign of madness, the swift clarity before death that faded away into insanity. 

He didn’t hesitate to turn around and run.

Time seemed to slow as he crashed into the door, hurriedly trying to punch in the code to exit as Springstep growled like a wild animal and snapped his restraints. Energon rushed from the mech’s wounds, but he was rapid as he skidded forward, no intelligence remaining in his gaze.

“STAY BACK!” Ratchet lifted an arm just in time for Springstep to collide with him. The mech’s jaw clamped down tight on his arm, denta digging deep and tearing through protective plastic sheeting. Ratchet winced as pinpricks of pain shot up his arm from where Springstep’s denta had dug into him. But he did not waste another moment in kicking Springstep to the ground and rushing through the door as it opened.

He couldn’t use his servos to hurt a patient, but no one said anything about his pedes. 

“Sir! Are you alright!?” First Aid hurried forward, a welder in his servo. He was quick to begin welding the minor cut closed, and Ratchet allowed it. Once his apprentice was done, Ratchet sighed and pulled off his mask.

“I will be fine, but this is far worse than I thought. My orders still stand, but I want every sparkling in upper Iacon put in stasis for the time being. They won’t last more than thirty kliks under this virus.” First Aid nodded and began taking notes, but Ratchet did not wait around. His frame suddenly ached with exhaustion which he chalked up to having to beat a patient into the ground on short notice. It had been a long cycle of handling the situation. He needed rest. There wasn’t much he could do until his orders were implemented anyway.

[[This is a direct order from the CMO of Cybertron. The situation has been deemed a medical emergency for all of Cybertron. From now until the situation is dealt with, medical orders take precedence over all others. Comply or be removed from major cities effective immediately.]] 

He groaned as his message was sent out to every mech of importance in Iacon. His helm pounded and he found he didn’t have the will to make the long march back to his hab. He had a work office nearby. He would stop by there and take a nap as he’d done plenty of times before.

“By the Allspark, this is bad.” He murmured as he arrived at his office and stepped inside. He hadn’t even bothered to remove the suit. His limbs felt like lead and his helm pounded so much that he could hardly see straight. This wasn’t good. 

The bite on his arm burned and his very frame felt as though it were struggling to keep functioning. He hardly had enough time to close the door behind him before he fell to the ground, spark deep exhaustion pulling at him along with bursts of pain he couldn’t fight. 

His optics flickered and he weakly tried to move, to do anything. His limbs would not obey him, and as he lay on the hard ground heaving, he wanted to curse. He should have known better than to march off as soon as he’d interacted with a patient. At the time he had just been so very- -tired.

[er-cryptid]

Common Medical Emergencies

Patreon

[icantalk710]

Wish the party loyalist "stop making Harris look bad bc Trump" people would realize that a) denying reality is exactly what the right does and b) it is on the candidate to win votes by not being a genocide enabling sellout moderate getting endorsed by the fucking Cheneys for her hawkishness on foreign policy while promising little for people at home, not on the voter disillusioned by said issues that the candidate could rectify

[eepylesbean]

ALL MY STUCKY BITCHES

IF U HAVE HULU OR SHOWTIME WATCH THE NEW SHOW "FELLOW TRAVELERS" RIGHT NEOWWW!!!

ITS THEM IN A DIFFERENT FONT I SWEAR TO YOU!!!

[cielosuerte]

so fucking busy the rest of the year. being alive is awesome :]

[bookwyrminspiration]

fillinf out all the stupid forms and ordering a stupid transcript to explain to the stupid financial aid people that the reason I have so many stupid credits but am not in my stupid degree program yet is because they're stupid transfers from stupid OTHER college and stupid OTHER degrees and most of the stupid credits are not! actually! relevant! to my stupid CURRENT degree paths!

[mariocki]

The Black Room (1982)

"I just want to know one thing up front: are there any restrictions?"

"Restrictions? No, none. This isn't the YMCA."

[moonchild-in-blue]

what have been your favorite songs off of clancy so far??? i’ve been so amazed by that album and i wanna hear your thoughts!!

AAAA OKAY. I'm just gonna copy here my ranking from last night after the 1st album listen. Mind you, before yesterday I made a point not to listen to any of the re-release singles and avoided ALL video spoilers, so I went in completely blind .

^ i forgot about Navigating and i put it on the same tier as Midwest

(okay i rambled and this is all jumbled together so - more thoughts under)

I still need to listen to it a few more times today so I can properly rank them but yeah. Routine / Oldies are my top ones for sure, with Backslide / At the Risk / Snap Back falling riiight under. Those three kinda broke me ngl.

Lavish for sure will go up in the ranking because I love it so so much it's SO fun haha.

The Craving I prefer Jenna's version over the single - just different feels. The single version I'd place it with Next Semester.

But yeah, I was sobbing pathetically on Oldies Station, and again on At The Risk lmao. BACKSLIDE!!! BROKE MY HEART!!! NOT EVEN GONNA TALK ABOUT THE VIDEO OTHERWISE!!! WOOOOOOO

Emotional Damage x200

Me and my friend were talking about it, and we both agree that Clancy feels like an amalgamation of every previous album. There is something so heavy and personal about it, very reminiscent of Self Titled, that we haven't seen in a while (since Blurryface I'd say). Not that Trench wasn't personal, but it feels incredibly lore-heavy (aside from Smithereens and The Legend <- i can't listen to it now because yeah. Same thing for me).

Obviously you got Neon Gravestones and Redecorate on SAI (WHICH I LOVE, will take no slander), but yeah.

*Oh and Leave the City - same vibes as Paladin sort of.

Clancy is special. It feels much more intimate. Much more emotionally charged. Trench felt like an album for the fans; SAI is the fun experimental let's go team one. But Clancy 1000% feels like this is for him. Like a letter to past and future versions of Tyler - does this make sense?

Sorry I think I rambled a bit much lol - I might do a proper review or whatever once I gave the album a few more spins but yeah! Right off the bat I am in love with it, if feeling a little too called out by some songs 🥲✌️

But yeah. What about you???? What até your thoughts on the album??? What are you favs????