#she has a higher baseline expectation of weirdness

[elizabethemerald]

The Meeting

The Beginning of the New Pantheon: Part 3

Masterpost

“What do you mean, what?” Cassie demanded. “Do you know about Olympus and the Hellenic gods?” 

“Yes, we know about the Greek gods!” Sam snapped. “We’re not stupid you know!” 

“I’m just asking!” Cassie put her hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t certain if I had actually stumbled into an alternate dimension where instead of Olympians the domains were managed by sentient mayonnaise and the oceans were filled with shredded cheese.” 

Her statement knocked both of them onto their back foot in a way that announcing she was on a mission from Zeus didn’t. Maybe they were used to higher powers reaching out with missions? 

“Has that actually happened?” Tucker asked. 

Cassie took a moment to think about all of the weird alternate realities she and Young Justice had gone through. 

“Uh… not exactly, but pretty close sometimes.” Cassie said. She pulled out her JL comm “Anyways! I’m going to call for backup. I can explain more once they are on the way.” 

“You probably won’t get very much range on that thing.” Tucker said, looking at her comm. 

“Wha…t?” She looked down at her comm in confusion. 

The top of the line Wayne Tech communication device that Red Robin had personally modded and improved even beyond the rest of the League’s equipment was now a generic two way radio. Like something fresh from the box at Radio Shack, from back when Radio Shack still existed and was popular. Her confusion changed to mounting horror as she pulled out the palm computer that was capable of hacking into the pentagon and instead revealed a flip phone capable of playing snake (maybe). 

“Ok, while not an alternate universe full of mayonnaise, Amity Park is still apparently trapped backwards in time, and all technology is forced to match. Cool. Cool. That might make calling for help a little difficult.” 

Sam looked sympathetic as Cassie tried to contain her freak out. Tucker looked curious at the thought of whatever advanced technology that might be available outside the city. Cassie took a deep breath and steadied herself. 

“I’ll go for help personally as soon as I can, but in the meantime, I’m here now. If you two or Phantom need any help, I’ll do whatever I can.” Cassie declared, her voice once more steady and sure. 

“How do you know Phantom?” Sam demanded. 

Before Cassie could respond or explain, a wailing claxon sounded, the loudspeakers screaming a warning of some kind. Both Sam and Tucker tensed and Cassie prepared for a fight, whatever was coming, she would be here to help. 

.

Donna gave a small sigh of relief as she touched down just outside Titans Tower. Nightwing was there to greet her, and it was clear that the rest of those she had asked for were already here. She led the way to the Tower’s war room. By the time she had settled at the head, the rest of the table was full. Not everyone present would be part of the New Pantheon, but she knew those who would be needed the support from the rest. 

“Thank you all for meeting me so quickly.” Donna started. “Diana, Cassie and myself have just returned after being summoned to Mount Olympus by Zeus himself.” 

Everyone in the room sat forward, laser focused on her. She had to take a steadying breath. Sure, Zeus had named her the next Queen of Olympus, and it would be her duty to guide and lead the New Pantheon, but she was not alone. She had friends here, allies, some who would share the responsibilities, some who would willingly follow her orders. They could take the domains of the gods and make something better of them, for the whole planet. 

“They gave us dire news, and a mission, a larger mission than any we have faced before.” She watched as the others tensed, ready to spring into action, so she raised her hands a little. “The Earth is not currently in any danger. The threat that they foresee will come in decades, not days.” The room relaxed, the air feeling breathable once more. “Since we have been given the time to prepare, we can prevent what they predicted from impacting the denizens of Earth.” 

“Well then, what is this threat, so that we may vanquish?” Damian demanded, his hand tightly grasping a weapon, his chest puffed out so he could make up for his short stature. Donna carefully hid, her grin, he would not appreciate being taken less seriously. 

“The Gods of Olympus are dying.” Donna said, then she continued on to explain what she, Diana and Cassie had been told. 

“I’m not certain I trust when they say that there is nothing that can be done.” Red Robin said, leaning forward while he thought. “We’ve faced impossible and improbable before and succeeded.” 

“That’s true, but in the meantime, we should consider the option that has been provided, successors to the gods chosen from among our numbers.” Donna said, she knew no matter what she said that there would be some of them who would try and find an alternative, she wasn’t certain there was one, Greeks in general and the Olympians in particular weren’t known for giving up without a fight, at least as long as they had any other option. 

“Who was chosen to be a successor?” Impulse asked, then zipped around to the other side of the table, an armful of snacks appearing in his arms. 

“I was chosen by Zeus to be his successor and the next Queen of Olympus.” Donna said. 

She had mentally braced herself for disparaging remarks or someone contesting her potential rule, instead she was surprised by the outpouring of support from her companions. Everyone seemed to feel that Zeus had chosen well and that she deserved her future role. 

“You definitely should be Queen, but I’m kind of surprised Cassie didn’t end up as Zeus’ successor considering the whole lightning lasso thing she’s got going on.” Kon said. 

“Cassie was chosen by Ares to be his successor.” 

Donna could see the other three members of Young Justice scowl at the God of War’s involvement, except Dick quickly snapped his fingers at them. 

“Hey let’s keep our diplomatic faces on for the time being. I’m sure some of us aren’t happy with some of these decisions, but the last thing we want is for this to devolve into an unnecessary conflict with the Olympians.”

She smiled at him, glad for his support. The Olympians ruled through a monarchy, and the League teams knew they needed a single leader during a crisis, but maybe this New Pantheon could rule with something more egalitarian. 

“And speaking of our Boy Wonder, Nightwing, you were chosen by Apollo to be his successor. The League’s Sunshine boy will be our God of Light.” Donna announced with a smile, but when she met Dick’s eyes she knew he could see more truth in her words. Apollo was not just a god of light, he was also a God of Truth, which made perfect sense for a detective like Dick. Plus there were few who could equal Apollo’s wrath when scorned. 

“Wait, does that mean he’s your kid?” The younger Superboy, Jon asked. 

“We are not literally becoming the gods, we are taking their place.” Donna said quickly before anyone could get any weird ideas. “So no one needs to marry their sibling, no one needs to eat their children, and I will not be leaving a bunch of demi-god bastards all over the planet.”

“If Cassie was chosen by Ares, where is she?” Impulse asked. “Did he already make her a god and we missed it?” 

“No. The Olympians agreed not to elevate anyone until all of their chosen successors were together. Cassie went to make contact with a group of heroes who were not in the League database.” Donna watched as Red Robin frowned and started to type on his wrist computer. “According to Cassie they weren’t even on the super secret Young Justice only database that the rest of us are supposed to pretend we don’t know about.” 

His frown grew more pronounced and Dick smiled and reached over and ruffled his hair. 

“So who are these heroes we’ve apparently never heard of, but have caught the attention of the Olympians?” Dick asked, half to take the attention off Tim and half out of genuine curiosity. 

“None of them have names I recognize, half of them don’t even have hero names, just regular civilian names.” Donna replied as she pulled out her copy of the list. She had less information on the new heroes as reaching out to them wasn’t her responsibility.

“Maybe it's something like Constantine?” Stephanie asked. “He’s always just known by his full name, even though his enemies call him the Hellblazer.” 

“They could also face magical threats of some kind.” Raven said, her hair floating a little and the shadow under her writhing for a moment. “Demonic incursions are usually handled without the input or knowledge of the rest of the League.”

Donna bit her lip. As a demi-god, Cassie was one of the better members of the younger heroes to face a magical threat, but it was very possible for her to get in over her head. She would trust the younger girl, but if she didn’t report back by the time the rest of Young Justice and the Teen Titans were informed and gotten over their respective fits about it, she would have to go herself to ensure that Cassie was safe. 

Though how much trouble could she really get into in the middle of the country?

[piqued-curiosity]

Honestly i slightly start to think that lot of non gay “queer peoples” homophobia comes from not having all attraction you ever showed or known being treated as an offense. Like gay people don’t have “queerness”… their baseline attraction is same sex. And that means that unless you are lucky most your first crushes are not only unrequited but actively being seen as “a threat”. Meanwhile if you like the other sex your rejection is treated differently like of course there are exceptions but in general a rejection is something more sympathetic “oh he’s just mean you deserve better” not the implications of “how dare you sexualize a girl who sees you as a friend”. So gay people carry rejection and preferences as something expected in a different way people who don’t exclusively have that experience to. Like if all your attraction has an higher chance to rejection you internalize that a bit more in regular life. Again not to generalize and there are enough bisexual people who do had a first same sex crush or are febfems but like, I don’t know the way I sometimes feel people talk about rejection from gay people especially just feels like… yeah as gay person that’s part of the deal. Meanwhile all “gay” trans people and bisexuals do know that a bigger dating pool is available in their references of life so if you fail while genuinely trying and having a connection at first it’s deeply “unfair”.

Like especially “gay” trans people have this weird mix of at once knowing they have made their datingpool smaller and yet assume that because gay and lesbian people promoted all “LOVE IS LOVE INCLUSION FOR ALL” they just join the “weird people group that will date me as they praise acceptance” with a tiny bit of not realizing that if you were bad at dating before you now thrown yourself in a smaller dating pool full of flawed individuals compared to the heterosexual bigger dating pool of flawed people. Like we are all also just humans who just happen to be gay. Sorry I’m rambling but I’ve been thinking about this a lot and while it’s true that talking to people who are same sex attracted we aren’t as split and just all people with one thing in common, some “online discourse” does make me think there are differences in experiences.

I definitely think you’re onto something!

All OSA people, straight people in particular, grow up having their OSA encouraged. We’re talking from day one with toddlers being called a ladies man, or asking a little girl if she has a boyfriend. All the media they grow up with spotlights straight couples. And most kids aren’t going to even have a gay couple in their family so there’s virtually no exposure for a lot of us. So already, you have the difference of OSA people seeing people like them everywhere celebrating their attraction, and SSA not getting that or even getting the opposite (active hostility towards SSA), right from childhood. That means that navigating OSA in teen years will be easier and celebrated, while navigating SSA will be new, scary, and discouraged. Like you said, a same sex crush is considered predatory and threatening. So SSA people, especially gay people since SSA is all we can experience, learn to hold back and to accept that love isn’t a guarantee to us. OSA people, especially straight people since OSA is all they can experience, learn that there’s plenty of fish in the sea and it’s completely fine to pursue any of them.

In short, you’re absolutely right to say that gay people in particular learn that rejection is going to be common, and that it might even be hostile. I’m sure this is why you notice with homosexual TQ+ people, they aren’t as invasive and demanding as OSA ones are. When was the last time you saw a “straight man” TIF demanding that women fuck her or they’re evil transphobes? Probably close to never, or at least not often, because she’d have been raised a lesbian, meaning she learned early on that even asking a girl out could be considered predatory, never mind demanding she sleep with you (which obviously is predatory). On the flip side, when was the last time you saw a “gay man” TIF demanding that men fuck her or they’re evil transphobes? Probably in the last couple days. Because she’d have been raised a straight girl, meaning she learned early on that she’s entitled to an opposite sex partner as it’s just part of life. And I’d say all of this applies to bi people in the same way, because you rarely see them making “get over your genital preference” demands to the same sex…it’s usually just the opposite sex.

As I said, I think you’re right! There’s absolutely a certain entitlement I notice from “queers” regarding the opposite sex that I don’t notice SSA people having towards the same sex. Just look at the entire genital preference/cotton ceiling/boxer ceiling debate, it’s basically just trying to shame gay people for not being OSA. It’s hardly ever directed at straight people. It only makes sense to me that it would come from how we’re raised to approach OSA and SSA and how these attitudes are internalised. Thank you for sending me your thoughts! 💕

[crossroadsfossil]

106 degrees

Summary:

Here’s a fun science fact: Birds consistently run at a higher temperature than humans do. It tends to range between 99 degrees fahrenheit up to 112 degrees. Hawks’ own body temperature tends to self-regulate around 106 degrees.

This is important when you get caught in an autumn rainstorm with a villian you don’t really trust.

Also known as 5 times Hawks falls asleep on Dabi

Prompt: For something fluffier, how about Hawks can't stop falling asleep on Dabi because of how hot he runs. Dabi constantly has an arm full of bird and has no clue what to do

Bonus if they still didn’t trust each other the first time it happened

A03 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31366130

Here’s a fun science fact: Birds consistently run at a higher temperature than humans do. It tends to range between 99 degrees Fahrenheit up to 112 degrees. Hawks’ own body temperature tends to self-regulate around 106 degrees.

It’s something he and Rumi discuss often, if only because Rumi liked to snuggle up to him and comments on it constantly. She has no room to talk since she also runs at a higher temperature. Granted, it’s not much higher than your usual human baseline. She runs about a hundred or a hundred and one, depending on the season.

Needless to say, Hawks is a very popular patrol partner in the winter. Add in his feathers (which are amazing insulation, despite not being meant for it) and the large fluffy jacket he’s never without, and it’s not surprising that he’s almost never alone in the cooler weather, even if most of his companions can’t keep up with him once he gets going.

Neither his feathers nor his jacket are doing him any good right now, as soaked through as they are. His day had gone from bad (a long day topped off with a meeting Dabi ‘forgot’ to tell him about) to worse (an incoming cold front) to absolutely terrible (a storm that was preceding the cold front, resulting in rain, sleet, snow, or all three since this was Japan after all).

As soon as the sky opened up, Hawks insisted they take shelter. He’d herded Dabi towards the closest abandoned warehouse. He ignored the expression Dabi sported as he broke in. He didn’t care what the villain thought or how entertained he was by the action. He was a practical man and it was abandoned. Besides, if he didn’t get out of the wind and rain, he was at serious risk of going into torpor. The gear he was wearing today wasn’t meant for repelling water and it was about as much use as an icepack in winter.

There were a list of things he didn’t want to happen around Dabi, and going into torpor was fairly high up on that list, alongside bullet points such as ‘getting drunk’, ‘getting high’ and ‘running into another hero’. The best Hawks could expect from Dabi was for the villain to light his feathers on fire. At worst, he figured Dabi wouldn’t be the only burnt nugget around after he was finished with Hawks.

“Hey birdie, I’m not opposed to a show but take me out for dinner first.” Dabi said, watching as Hawks shrugged out of his coat and feathers in one fluid movement, catching his jacket before it fell off completely. He let his feathers fall to the ground with a disgusting splat. Laundering those would be less of a hassle than laundering his jacket. He draped his jacket over a nearby box in the vain hope that it might dry a little. It probably wouldn’t, but who knows. Maybe if he annoys Dabi enough, the fire-quirk user might raise the temperature in the warehouse by a few degrees.

“Ha. Ha. Not everyone has a fire quirk, asshole.” Hawks replied, giving what remained of his wings a shake to get as much of the water out. A quick look around the warehouse revealed it wasn’t as secure as he had thought, with great gaping holes in several of the walls. He shivered as the wind blew through them and started looking for anywhere that would provide a barrier between himself and the wind. He watched enviously for a moment as Dabi rolled his shoulders and began steaming slightly, burning the moisture out of his clothes and coat.

He spotted a pile of boxes, with several piled up on three sides to make a small nook and started to walk towards it.

“So, what do you have for me?” He asked, sitting down and scooting until he hit the back ‘wall’ of boxes.

Dabi shrugged. “Nothing. Just wanted to see if you’d come.” He replied.

Hawks stared at him, not quite believing what he just heard. Dabi’s growing grin cemented the fact that he had not, in fact, misheard.

“You’re an asshole. You seriously just called me out here on a whim? I’ve got better things to do, Dabi.”

“What, rescue people? In this weather? I think not.” Dabi said, slinking towards Hawks. Instead of taking a seat on the box directly in front of him, Dabi decided that the best place to sit was practically in Hawks’ lap. He shoved the hero over and leaned against one of the boxes that made up a makeshift wall and smiled at Hawks, daring him to do anything about it.

“Dick. So what now? Are you going to suggest we play Shiritori or I-Spy to pass the time? Since you invited me out for a playdate, we might as well.”

“That is not what I did.”

“You did it on a whim. It sounds like either a playdate or you miiiiiiiiiissed meeee.” Hawks said in a sing-song tone, delighting in the way it made Dabi’s face scrunch up in irritation.

“We could play ‘how many burnt feathers does it take to get to the crispy chicken center’.” Dabi held up a palm, a blue flame flickering to life in the center of it. Hawks looked between the flame and Dabi’s face and, very pointedly, brought his hands up to warm them.

“Thanks. My fingers were getting cold.”

Dabi huffed and closed his fist, snuffing the fire out.

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

When the bird actually showed up in the storm, Dabi wasn’t sure what he was expecting. He certainly wasn’t expecting the hero to stick around, let alone break into a building. Especially not the way he had. In the split second between Hawks looking at the door and breaking in, he’d assumed the hero would use a feather to lock-pick it. It seemed like something the hero would do- sufficiently flashy enough and sounded like the sort of party trick the pigeon would learn. Instead, Hawks had pulled out one of his larger feathers, slid it into the bend of the padlock and twisted it, using the feather like a lever and cracking the lock off with brute strength.

He wouldn’t say it intrigued him, but it was damn close. There were still things about the bird he didn’t know and he was still half-convinced the hero was a spy, but shit like that definitely made him question that assumption.

The hero also annoyed the ever-loving hell out of him. More than Toga or Twice did, so he was hoping the bird would slip up and he’d have an excuse to roast the number two hero.

The storm outside had rolled in completely, throwing the warehouse into almost complete darkness. He and Hawks had stopped sniping at each other almost half an hour ago, the warehouse filled with the sound of screaming winds and hammering rain. He was pretty sure this was a new record for Hawks. If he gave a shit, he’d say something about being impressed. He didn’t give a shit and he was more interested in figuring out what the fuck was making that weird noise. It kept disturbing the quiet of the warehouse; it was almost a peeping squeak, like a chain swinging in the wind, but far more organic.

He lit up one of his palms, peering out into the darkness to see if he could spot the noise. All it did was make the shadows worse and throw the hero into an eerie light. The hero was sitting with his eyes closed, and as Dabi watched, about every third exhale the bird would shiver slightly and let out that peeping noise.

Was that… Hawks’ version of a snore?

Pretty ballsy of the hero to fall asleep next to him. Ballsy and stupid as hell. Slowly, he brought his hand closer to the bird, intent on setting at least one wing on fire.

Gold eyes blinked open, unfocused. Dabi froze, waiting for the bird to react.

Hawks did, but not in a way Dabi had been expecting.

“Fucking hell-” Dabi spat as Hawks leaned against him.

The bird was freezing.

It was like getting hit by a wet washcloth that had been sitting in a freezer, and within moments he could feel the water seeping through his clothes. The bird was freezing and soaking wet.

Then the bird shivered again, almost cuddling into Dabi’s arms. Hawks’ eyes had closed again and it left Dabi with an armful of bird and no good idea how to handle this or how to feel about it.

Logically, Hawks was probably seeking out the warmth, and hell, maybe he was like Spinner. Spinner hated the cold and was about as tolerant of it as Dabi was of the heat. Guess that might explain the sleepy-thing. Spinner mentioned something about torpor once. Dabi hadn’t been listening because Spinner was goddamn annoying.

He brought his legs up, shifting Hawks so that he was sitting sideways and half on Dabi’s lap. One of his hands came up and, against his better judgement, settled on the remaining plumage Hawks had left on his wings. They looked comically small like this, and he had been wondering about how they felt.

Right now, they felt wet and cold.

He tsked and slowly heated his hand up, combing his hand through the feathers.

Slowly, they went from feeling like wet paper to delightfully smooth and soft.

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

Normally, Hawks enjoyed waking up. He had a nice bed and decadent sheets. He usually woke with the sun, and despite having an early shift, that still usually left him with an hour he could spend just basking in the delight of a nice bed. If he left the shades open, he could do so in a puddle of sunlight.

His bed didn’t feel right this morning. Too lumpy and for a moment he tried to recall if he had brought anyone home the night before. There was a hand combing through his hair, so there was a very distinct possibility that he had left the warehouse the night before and-

His eyes flew open at the thought.

He didn’t remember leaving the warehouse and-

“Chill your tits, bird brain. Just me.” Dabi said, giving a light tug on a lock of Hawks’ hair. He ignored the pleasant way it sent shivers down his spine.

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah. That was my thought too. Lemme guess- you go into torpor?” Dabi asked.

“Do I even need to answer that right now?” Hawks’ shoulders slumped and he groaned.

Fantastic. He did exactly the thing he hadn’t wanted to do. Dabi let out a soft huff, almost a laugh but not quite. Hawks leaned back, feeling an arm against his back and keeping him from going too far. Dabi didn’t look peeved, and that raised his hackles. His eye narrowed as he tried to figure out what happened.

“What?”

“You did something.” Hawks stated, running through a checklist in his mind. He didn’t feel any burns. Nothing smelled like ash. The only real change from before he went into torpor was his hair and wings were fully dry and his clothes felt, well, not dry but not sopping wet anymore.

Oh.

OH.

Dabi noticed the grin on Hawks’ face, and started spluttering. “You were just-”

“You preened meeee.” Hawks sang, laughing at the affronted expression on Dabi’s face.

“I did not. You were dripping everywhere.”

“Uh-huh. And that included drying my wings… why?”

“....Because they were there. So shoot me if I wanted to know if you had greasy bird feathers.”

“Nope. That the same reason you decided to sweetly comb through my hair? I mean, really Dabi. If you wanted to play with my hair and wings that much, you could have at least gotten me dinner first.” Hawks teased, stifling a laugh as Dabi’s expression went from affronted to a grouchy embarrassment, before then actually lifting Hawks up and dumping him on the ground.

One- Damn. Hawks’ wasn’t heavy but he was mostly muscle so. Damn.

Two- He was just laughing harder now. To think that Dabi got shy about being caught playing with hair. He got to his feet, trying to brush the dust from his pants before giving it up as a lost cause.

“Well Hotstuff, thanks for the preen and playing heating pad. Guess we did get to know each other a little better tonight.”

Dabi flipped him off, sliding off the crates and making his way towards the door they came in through.

“Dabi?” Hawks called out. To his surprise, Dabi stopped, turning to look at him, dubiously waiting for the rest of his question. “For the next meeting, can I play with your hair?”

A moment later he was scrambling away from the fireball Dabi sent his way, despite knowing that it wasn’t a true attack and Dabi was only trying to get him to stop talking and hide his frazzled expression. Hawks watched Dabi make a beeline out the door, wheezing on his laughter as he gathered up his jacket and feathers.

Teasing Dabi was going to be so much fun.

[inconceivabl3]

This will be a long one!

Alrighty friends. My initial plan was to update the blog as we were going through the process of IVF. Truthfully, there is simply NO time for that along the way! Allow me to explain...

This is our first cycle with IVF, and I didn’t know what to expect prior to starting, but let me tell you I was just blown away by how much work goes into this process. I just assumed it would be similar to the process of IUI’s, with having a day 2 baseline sonogram and then meds for 5 days, and then your day 12 sonogram to check your lining, trigger, etc... BOY WAS I WRONG.

Honestly, so many people said the same thing to me: they had no idea what to expect with IVF so I’m just going to lay it all out on the table and be as descript as possible. Hopefully this will help some people understand the process a little better and therefore know what they’re getting involved in. :)

So cycle day 1 came pretty early for me, or at least I felt it was early. I called my RE and they had me come in for my baseline ultrasound on cycle day 2. On this baseline sonogram, the team is essentially looking to see how your uterus and ovaries look prior to starting. Are there any cysts? Growths? Areas for concern? Etc. They also draw baseline labs (estrodiol level) at this appointment. After the doctor reads the results of the sonogram and labwork, they’ll give you a call to give you instructions on dosing for your medications, which typically start that night. Note to self: definitely stay by the phone that day, these instructions are important and so is the timing of medication! Not a phone call you want to miss.

The medications that were started for me were Gonal-F and Menopur. Both of these are subcutaneous injections that are administered every 24 hours. Gonal-F is a follicle stimulant (follitropin alfa). You got it: it causes the eggs in the ovaries to develop at a faster pace than usual, and basically kicks your body into overdrive on egg production for ovulation. Menopur is also a follicle stimulant, but it contains luteinizing hormone (LH) in addition to follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). These are typically used in combination for fertility treatment.

I injected these bad boys every night at 6 PM, and oh wowzers the SIDE EFFECTS. Honey. I don't even know how to describe what I was feeling during this time. I imagine it's what menopause must feel like. I had the worst hot flashes--to the point that I felt like I was going to faint--, vertigo and dizzy spells, nausea (likely from the dizzy spells), and headaches. I didn't notice it at first, but I also bloated like crazy. I stepped on the scale the morning of my retrieval and I was literally shocked at the number I saw.

I will say, injecting yourself is a weird phenomenon. It doesn't hurt, at all. I mean that needle is so dang tiny you can barely see it lol, but there's something that just makes you hesitate every time you go to stick yourself. That may or may not have had to do with the Menopur burning like a ~BIOTCH~ upon injection. Oooof, the burn is definitely noticeable. It goes away relatively quickly, but I did take my fertility sister's advice and use cold packs she sent me. That helped right away. It's also a large volume of diluent, so it's not a super comfotable injection. The Gonal-F I never felt and it's also super small. The Menopur was 2 mL of fluid. NOPE.

Around day 6 (I believe), I was instructed to add on another injection: cetrotide. This medication is brought on board to basically prevent premature egg release or early ovulation. Because IVF has to be timed just right, all of the timing on this has to be absolutely controlled. This is why it's so important that you're seen in the office for labs and follow up sonograms every 1 to 2 days. Your team needs to evaluate your results and make sure nothing needs titration.

My estrogen was climbing pretty quickly. My baseline was 69, by the time I was told to trigger it had already reached 3,000!! That number really scared me so I looked it up to be sure that was acceptable, and apparently it is, but it had me shaking in my boots. I have not only read so much about OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome), but my friend went through it and it is definitely scary! OHSS is actually most common in younger women, those who suffer from PCOS, have rapidly rising estradiol levels, a large number of follicles and/or large sized-follicles, and also have a high AMH. Side effects to look out for with OHSS include rapid weight gain, excess bloating, urine retention or a significant decrease in your urination frequency, nausea/vomiting and shortness of breath. OHSS can actualy cause you to throw clots, so PLEASE pay attention to these side effects. It's extremely rare, but it can be fatal.

Anyways, my follicles were growing FAST and LARGE. Which you would think is good, but looking back, I think it was a sign that I was at risk for OHSS. I only did about 5 days of the cetrotide before my office called me and told me I was ready to trigger. I had a lot of follicles on both sides that were greater than 17 mm, and I was only on day 10 of medications! I was instructed to take my trigger shot that night (Ovidrel, which is another injection), and then 36 hours later, BAM, we were suiting up for egg retrieval!

The egg retrieval is quick, but can cause a lot of painful cramping, so you're completely anesthetized for it. Trust me: it's the best nap of your life! You care team uses a long needle/catheter to access the ovaries, and this is how they "retrieve" the eggs. The catheter is inserted vaginally, it's not through the abdomen. A few people had asked me that so wanted to make sure that was understood!

After my procedure, my RE came to my recovery room to tell me they retrieved 32 EGGS, which is CRAZY. (ya think I was hyper-stimulating...?) They did give me a warning that most patients lose approximately 50% of their egg count, but it was still an excellent number to start with. Some people are lucky if they get 10 eggs initially, so I was feeling ultra blessed to come out with 32. An angel or two was certainly looking out for us...

The embryologists call you on days 2, 4 and 6 to give you updates on how your eggs are progressing. I think by day 4 they typically want to see the embryo's reach a 4-cell count (meaning they're dividing appropriately), and by day 5 or 6 they should be blastocysts, which is once the embryo has formed separate cell structures and a fluid cavity. According to the literature, only 20 to 30 percent of embryos become blastocysts, and they also have a higher implantation rate.

My final embryo counts were as follows: of the 32 eggs retrieved, 26 were mature enough to fertilize. 22 of those 26 were successfully fertilized. Of the 22 fertilized, 14 became blastocysts and are currently cryopreserving!!!

Because I was borderline hyperstimulating, it was recommended we wait until next menstrual cycle to do a frozen embryo transfer. So, we'll be calling the office again on my next "cycle day 1" aka the start of a period, but this time we won't need those crazy injectables! Those are only utilized to assist with egg production and retrieval.

This is one heck of an update, and I feel like I just went on lots of tangents throughout, but I really wanted to be as specific as possible for people who have lots of questions! I'm an open book, so if there's anything I wasn't clear on, feel free to ask. Otherwise, be on the lookout for an update in a few short weeks! **crosses fingers and toes**

[sammyblep]

I said I’d post the chironatural fic today and by god I’m doing just that

Mentions of past injuries, general discomfort, nothing really explicit or gory though. At some ambiguous point in canon, after they inherit the bunker. 1000-1500 words.

untitled

Dean is flat on his back on a table, no jacket or flannel, alone in a room with a woman eyeing him. He’s trying to not watch her - trying to relax, as much as he can in this situation - but it’s impossible. He’s got no weapons on him, which feels more baring than the lack of clothes. The room has no wards up, just some bags of salt by the window and the door. The most vulnerable parts of his body are exposed, hands crossed over his stomach like that’s any protection, but it’s nothing. It’s useless.

“Hm,” Alyssa says, and Dean can’t help the way he tenses up.

It’s a far cry from how he’d normally act in this situation - pretty woman, lying down, less clothes than usual - but the thing is, he’s not here for sex. And Sam hadn’t been either when Dean tailed him to this place, which, whoof, that had been a whole thing.

No, he’s here for some kind of fancy massage, at Sam’s insistence, and he already hates it.

He flinches again as Alyssa plops down on a stool. She’s sitting by his side, where his fingers are fisted into his shirt. “Alright. Your back is ten different kinds of fucked up, so unless you wanna tell me where it hurts most, that’s where I’m gonna focus. See if we can unglue your shoulder blades from your spine, get some vertebrae back in order, maybe drop your collarbones a bit if we’re lucky. Gotta start with the legs, though, get everything in touch with what I’m gonna be doing. Sound good?”

“Fine.” Dean grunts his assent, resolutely fixing his gaze on the ceiling. Alyssa’s got some weird doohickey hanging from a hook, the kind of thing you normally see over baby’s cradles, what’s it called? He can’t remember, but it has bees at the ends of the little sticks and threads. It’s spinning in gentle circles and he decides it’s the kind of thing Cas would be fascinated by, and hell, Cas would probably find this whole thing fascinating, he wonders how the angel’s doing-

Thinking about Cas stops working when he feels hands wriggle their way under his ankles. He jerks them away, bolting upright; hands automatically going for a gun that isn’t there, a knife that’s across the room in his jacket, and ending up in front of his body in a protective stance.

“Easy, tiger.” Alyssa lifts her hands, a calming gesture. “My bad. Shoulda warned you, it’s just been a while since I got a new hunter on the table.”

“New hunter?” Dean echoes, easing back down. The job he can talk about. Anything that’ll distract him from what’s happening right now to him, and hunters - hunters are good at that. He can talk hunting all day.

“Yeah, I’ve worked with the community since before I got my license.” Alyssa’s voice is relaxed, like Dean hadn’t just reacted like a prisoner of war to her feeling his fucking ankles. “Missouri came to me one day while I was in college, told me she’d sensed me for a while now. Didn’t know I was psychic back then - just thought I was good with people.” She chuckles. “I’m gonna touch you again. Just hands under heels, no strong grabbing.”

Her hands, when she settles in, are almost too hot against his Achilles tendons. Her fingers rest gentle on his skin, and if he focuses like he’s in a fight or on a monster’s trail, he can feel the barest changes in pressure from her fingertips. And if he focuses on that, he can feel the touches rippling up his legs, like she’s walking along his nervous system and seeing what’s what inside his body. Some go higher, to his shoulders, his sternum, his - cheekbones, huh, that’s weird. 

“Psychic?” he asks, because the sensations aren’t helping his heart rate. Distractions, he needs a distraction. “Not like Sam, are you?”

“Sam’s psychic?” she responds, sounding curious, and Dean curses himself internally. “Wouldn’t’ve guessed it; he doesn’t give off energy like Missouri does. But then again, she’s the only other psychic I know, so it’s not like I have a good baseline.

“But, yes, I’m psychic. Low-level.” Dean feels the fingers on his left ankle grip a little, draw back. He suppresses a weird urge to cough. “Can’t move stuff or see the future or anything like that. I just have a real good sense of what people are feeling, which helps with the chiropractic a lot. Especially you hunters, you’re all too proud to say what’s hurting, so I gotta tune in a little to really do my job.” She says it with a cheeky grin, then frowns. “Oh, that’s a real bitch of a left knee you’ve got there, isn’t it?”

“...Yeah.” Dean feels a heavy sigh leave his lips. Psychic, and chiro-whatever hippy shit. Fantastic, great, thanks a lot Sammy. “Got dislocated a couple years ago, acts up sometimes. Isn’t too bad.”

“You want me to work on that or on your back, then? Dislocations can come back when you least expect them, and I know you need your legs for hunting.”

Memories of Bobby in a wheelchair, defeated in a way Dean had never seen him before and never wants to see again. His dad on crutches when he was twelve, and Dean���d had to drive and cook and get supplies and take care of them all because the pain was so bad his dad couldn’t stop drinking. That time Jo’d had to half-carry him off a dock because his legs were numb and he was bleeding so bad. Dozens of other incidents, hundreds. A lifetime. 

“Yeah,” he grounds out, “yeah, take care of the knee.”

Alyssa nods, and Dean shivers when her hands slip away from his ankles (and suddenly his senses kick back in full force, there’s so much happening he can’t focus he’s drowning in it and it twinges it spasms it hurts he can feel everything)

But then she’s back, one hand below the offending knee and the other atop his thigh, and the warmth he hadn’t realized he’d gotten used to spreads back through him.

“Relax, Dean,” Alyssa murmurs, barely paying attention to her own words.

Dean, to his surprise, staring up at the lazily spinning bees and thinking about everything and nothing - does just that.

[starchildrenofdustand-ashes]

My Six The Musical Review

Once again nobody cares— BUUUT I saw SixChicago yesterday with Adrianna Hicks as Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Bolyen, Abby Mueller as Seymour, Brittney Mack as Cleves,  Anna Uzele as Parr. Here are somethings I noticed (essentially this is a rundown of everything you wouldn’t get just from listening to the album lol) ((Also im so tired and its 12.28 am and im sorry for any mistakes))

❤️💚💛💗🖤💙

👑 So before the show, they were playing a ton of pop music, but it was on an instrument that kinda sounded like a lute or harpsichord. 👑 When the Queens walked out from behind the curtain in a single file line to take their place on stage, the crowd went crazy. They all came out through a tiny crack in the curtain,, but when they belt “LIIIIVE” the curtain falls to the floor as is dragged off stage. 👑During the dance breaks in Ex-Wives, they go from dancing hip hop, to dancing with each other in a style they would’ve done back then to the beat. It was cute. 👑It was so weird hearing their accents! I’m always expecting “divooced” but it felt like they were almost emphasizing the r “ divoRRced” 👑Before Catherine of Aragon starts singing in Ex-Wives she says “Remember us from PBS??” 👑When Jane Seymour sings her bit in the song she moves Stage Left and when the Queens all say “Hey!” She looks surprised and shrugs, continuing to sing 👑Anna really played up the “JA’s” during her bit and IT WAS SO CUTE (you will find I am partial to clever, bc my gay ass is in love with her.) 👑There is so much dialogue!! After they say “Chicago!! How’re you doing tonight!!” They say we are “SIIIIX” in their harmonies and “Welcome to our divorced, beheaded, LIVE TOUR” 👑Aragon says “WE HAVE SO MUCH IN STORE FOR YOU TONIGHT— WE HAVE THE RIFFS TO RUFFLE YOUR RUFFS” before she does a really sick riff 👑A few of the other queens add on to that,, I forgot what they said but then  Howard says “AND A WHOLE LOT OF HISTORY” and Parr cuts her off and says “OR AS WE SAY A WHOLE LOT OF HERSTORY” 👑then they introduce their band (who are on the stage with then) as their ladies in waiting and I was soft 👑 So then they go on to explain the deal with the show; they are all competing against each other for the crown of the “ultimate” queen based on who had to put up with the most shit from Henry 👑 When they’re going down the line to explain why they say 💛Who lasted longest was the strongest 💚The biggest sinner is obvs the winner 🖤 I have no idea what Seymour said I don’t remember DX ❤️Who was most chased is first place 💗The most glorious will be victorious 💙The winning contestant was the most protestant (but she says it so it rhymes with contestant and then all the queens look at her like ??? And she sighs and says ‘protestant’ with its correct pronunciation 👑Aragon says “How in the purgatory are they gonna choose a leading lady??” 👑”The queen to take the crown will be the one who had the biggest, the firmest, the fullest…. LOAD OF BS TO DEAL WITH FROM THE MAN WHO PUT A RING ON IT 👑There is a reprise of Ex-wives but this time they change the lyrics to “welcome to the show to the coronation” 👑💛lol Aragon cut the reprise off and was like “It doesn’t matter, because I’m the winner” and then she asked the drummer for a beat 👑💛So with the beat, Aragon begins to tell her story, and the bass is strumming the baseline for no way 👑💛”Okay, I’m thinking its… a bit weird they want me to marry my… dead husbands brother”… 👑💛So then she continues recounting the story and she says “I saw lipstick on his collar and I’m like… okAY… so now he wants to annul our marriage and moves this sidekick into mY palace and wants me in a CONVENT” and she’s on a RANT so she pauses and breathes really heavily before smiling really widely and sighing “Now… I don’t think I look that good in a wimple so I said. No. Way.”  And the song starts immediately after that 👑💛Idk what else to say except that Aragon was a total badass and Adrianna Hicks  was a fucking QUEEN 👑💛When she asks him to name when she’s ever caused him pain, she’s all the way upstage on the same platform/semi circle that the band is on, and she’s on her knees kinda begging kinda. She pauses for a LONG time and waits for an answer and her face is smug when she’s like “no?” 👑💛She said “I had the most to deal with AND I hit that high c so that crown is mine,” 👑The other Queens stop her and are like theres another really REALLY IMPORTANT one… the one that overlapped with you who is she?? The famous one that people actually care about!” Then they all start chanting “The one you’ve been waiting for” and the lighting turns green,, while they’re chanting, Anne Boleyn looks really confused and shrugs and walks to the back of the stage and picks up her phone 👑💚The Queens eventually say “The temptresssssss” and they hold it out like a snake “ANNE BOLYEN” and they sing this very choir like 👑💚They all turn to her and Anne is just sitting there cackling at whatever is on her phone and she’s like “ Whoops sorry,,” and Don’t loose your head starts 👑💚Andrea Macasaet has SUCH a high pitched voice she was absolutely ADORABLE 👑💚When she said “get ahead” she smirked and everyone laughed 👑💚Instead of her voice going down on “Pret a Manger,” it got even higher almost In a mocking French accent. 👑💚She is pissing Aragon the fuck off this entire song lol 👑💚When she says “Are you blind??” She gestures between she and Aragon 👑💚 “What was I meant to do?” Is sung like a confused toddler lol 👑💚 So the bit where they play the wedding song, all the queens bow to her and she walks past, smiling and waving and she gets to the end of the line and is like “Hold up,, let me tell you how it went down HENRY’S OUT EVERY NIGHT …. Etc” 👑💚”Bro just shut up!” Instead of mate 👑💚She even asks the band what was she meant to do, and everyone is repeating her and she screams “OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY HE REALLY WANTS TO CUT MY HEAD OFF” 👑💚and then she grins again after a long silence and she’s all smug like “I guess he really liked my head…..” While kinda licking her lips lol 👑💚DEAR GOD HER RIFFS JESUS FUCKING HREHTTLTURHGUEHURL 👑💚And she was like “yeah… that was such a weekend… I like died… and it was so extra! So im clearly the winner. So now, I have to sing a song I wrote when I found out that Catherine of Aragon had died. Its called WEAR YELLOW TO A FUNERAL SING IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS. And the bass came in and Boleyn sings “Catherine was a massive C-” and the other Queens immediately shut her up 👑Aragon and Boleyn start arguing until Seymour is like “its my turn now…” 👑Everyone looks at het before they burst out laughing, telling her ‘bye’ and ‘girl, please’ 👑And Seymour is like yeah,, I was in love and I was really really lucky. 👑🖤 And Seymour goes into this really heartbreaking monologue about how she missed her songs future and how she had a picture of her family. She said that Henry was really sweet and that she loved him 👑Boleyn cuts her off and is like “yeahhhh,, there was this one really cute time where he, like, cut my head off :) 👑🖤Seymour said that Aragon and Boleyn were badasses. Then she said that she promised to always stay by his side and didn’t yell at him back like the other two because she loved him. Then she dedicated the song to him 👑🖤Heart of Stone started and honestly,,, its not my favorite song and I usually skip it. But mY GOODNESS. Abby Mueller is a fucking goddess wow. The amount of control she has on her voice is astounding 👑🖤(fun fact abt me— I have perfect pitch lol)  they pitch changed it into A major and it transposes into B major which was SO BEAUTIFUL. It made me actually like the song lol 👑🖤Its not really eventful,, she just stands in the middle of the stage. 👑Seymour is like,, “what hurts more than a broken heart?” And  Boleyn is like “A chopped off head” 👑Almost immediately  after it transfers to Cleves and she’s like “soo he’s running out of options in England he had to expand his fields and adjust his location settings to find his next queen. We are Heading to Germany where  he got the help of Han….. 👑At some point during the song, the other queens ran off stage to get their glasses and ruffs 👑They all run back on stage in their glasses and ruffs (Cleves still hasn’t said his last name yet) and they all whisper “Holbien” 👑WELCOME TO THE HOUSE 👑lol this song is SO funny… and Cleves is so fucking adorable (she was flossing at some point). The dancing was so… German…it was hilarious. 👑So after the song is done,, the girls still have their ruffs and glasses on and it kinda turns into a mobile app like tinder.. 👑Basically there are two queens before Cleves and they all stand up and walk downstage as they are introduced, they smile and their picture is taken and they wait for about two seconds before Henry swipes left or right. 👑The two in front of Cleves are played by Parr and Howard. 👑After Cleves is selected their is a Holbein reprise 👑❤️The other queens run off taking the ruffs and Cleves is left on the stage sighing comically several times. She’s at the back of the stage sitting on a makeshift stone 👑❤️”Its the tragic story of a princess-educated, savvy, young- deemed ugly by an ulcer-ridden, wheezing, winkled man 20 years her senior.” 👑❤️WHATS A MORE DEVASTATING FATE THAN BEING FORCED INTO A BEAUTIFUL PALACE IN RICHMOND WITH MORE MONEY THAN I COULD EVER SPEND AND NO MAN TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH IT 👑❤️Get down is also key changed 👑❤️When she sings “I’m the Queen of the castle” she is skipping across the stage 👑❤️When she gives her fur to the footman, she actually takes off her coat and hands it to one of the queens. The crowd went crazy and she’s like “guys stop,’ and like acting all shy but secretly enjoying it-she says “Okurrrrrrrrr” . Then she’s like “AS YOU WERE” and everyone is quiet lol 👑❤️the part where it slows down and she’s like “SIT DOWNNN YOU DIRTTTY RrrrrrASCALLL” she opera sings it and I shat myself 👑❤️she uses her microphone as a lute lol 👑❤️YOU CANT (nope) STOP (nuh-uh) YOU CANT STOP ME 👑❤️At some point she squeezes her boob. I love her. 👑❤️after she kills us all by belting that last note she points to a girl in the front row and is like “YOU IN THE PINK DRESS!” and she gestures for her to stand up. And the girl stands up and they bop together with Cleves ad libbing in the background 👑❤️Eventually she says “Okay sugar this is my song, GET DOWN” 👑❤️And then after a moment of silence she’s like “So yeah it was really tragic…” 👑Aragon is like that doesn’t sound difficult at all and Ceves is like “oh… yeah.. I probably won’t win this thing… WELP BACK TO THE PALACE!” 👑the queens argue more and honestly it’s iconic 👑Seymour is yelling at Aragon and her voice is so loud and Cleves interrupts her and is like “guys,… I have the plague” and they all gasp and she’s like “HAHA JUST KIDDING MY LIFES AMAZING” they roll their eyes and Parr is like “our next queen! K HOWARD!” And everyone is like who??? 👑Aragon is like “ The least relevant Catherine,,” and Boleyn is like “Yeahhh i get it and I still don’t care,,,”
👑Howard is like “You’re right… I need all the help I can compete. What happened to you was terrible,, and so were you songs,,” Then she proceeded to roast everyone. She says “Anne you obviously had it worse I mean you lost your head……. Oh wait…..” 👑💗And then she says “but seriously Anna, getting rejected for your looks really sucks…. cant relate…I’m really hot…. So yeah. I can compete like this” or smthing and then all you wanna do starts. 👑💗At the beginning of the song the queens touch her everywhere and she leans into it willingly 👑💗Blowing the flute,, she winks at the audience and when she says C-D she puts her hand in front of her crotch and squeezes. 👑💗 “There was this guy… Francis and he asked me to be his little piece of aaaasssssss…istant! 👑💗The song goes from upbeat to upsetting very very quickly after Francis she starts to become less trusting and she gets more disoriented as the show goes on. 👑💗”Apparently men only hire women to get them into their private chamber… times were different then…” 👑💗When she says “He says  we have this connection,”  about Henry Seymour comes from behind her and touches her stomach — all you can see is her hand touching her sensually. She looks a little surprised and then she’s like “I guess its not so different..” 👑💗By the time we get to Thomas Culpepper she is flustered and VERY uncomfortable. The girls are all touching her now and she looks down and stares at their hand before pushing them away and finishing the end of the song. she keeps pushes them away but they keep coming back. She looks utterly heartbroken and you can see her unraveling. 👑💗THAT RIFF WAS SO GGHRSILGBRLGKJBJL 👑💗she screams “WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH” as they keep touching her and she fails as she pushes them away. 👑💗Eventually she gets them off but she ends up by herself on the stage with her face facing up and a dim pink spotlight is on her. 👑💗There is a chilling silence and then she’s smiling and says ‘YEAH and then I was beheaded and I won this competition!” 👑Then they get into another argument. Boleyn starts talking about how her beheading was more relevant because Henry humiliated her more and Aragon was like,,, um I won the humiliation game and she counts her mistresses 👑Then they start yelling about the miscarriages they had and Boleyn says she has three and Aragon says “You know what Anne BO-LOSER I HAD FIVE” and Parr is like “this is not okay, don’t compare miscarriages, thats hella insensitive” and they push her to the center and tell her to sing her song 👑Theres a random baseline again and Parr looks like she’s about to start singing but she stops and says,,”I’m good,” and tries to go off stage. They all accuse her of being a sore loser because she survived and knows that she had no chance of winning. 👑Parr is like,,, NO its pitting us against each other and the queens all groan  and make fun of her and she’s like okay,, imma sing the song then. And Katherine Howard says “Are you sure?? Are you sure you dont want to stick to backing vocals where you belong?” 👑💙And Parr softly says “Queens take a seat,” before turning to the pianist and saying “Can you give me a Bb maj7, please?” 👑💙Parr shuts down all the queens and says her life wasn’t all rainbows because she survived. And she talks about her love tom, and I never realized that the song is a letter to tom. She starts off “Dear Tom, You know I love you boy,” 👑💙 Anna Uzele was so fucking good. And Tbh,, this is my least favorite song so I don’t remember much about the staging (I’m sorry) 👑💙Side note,, parr is such a badass and an amazing woman 👑At the end of the song, she turns to the queens and is like “without Henry we all disappear ,” and Boleyn is like “I don’t get it” and parr asks “How does anyone know who we are” and Boleyn is like “mY SiX fInGeRs-“ before Aragon cuts her off and is like “Put it away, baby” 👑Parr then asks Henry the 7 and 6’s wives names and nobody can answer. “but, when we get together as a group-“ Boleyn cuts her off and is like “EVERYONE NOTICES THAT JANE CAN’T DANCE!” “NO WE COMPARE OURSELVES” 👑when Boleyn finally gets it she explains the situation like she’s an encyclopedia and it was so funny and fast and oMG 👑”UGH if we had realized this before we started we could have done something else like make a fake competition to show everyone how messed up comparing us is and then we could reclaim our story and all become the leading ladies…” “:/ and they are all saying this dialogue its just split up and I dont remember it very well 👑IF ONLY WE HAD THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE 👑then they look at each other and smirk at the audience before reprising Parr’s song as “We don’t need your love,” 👑Which was so good bc THEY DON’T NEED HENRY’S LOVE YES 👑Then they point out “We might only be remember for marrying the same man,, but why does anyone give a sh- who he is? It’s because of his,,” then they all harmonize ’SIIIIIIX WIVES’ 👑AND WE ALL HAVE A ROYAL HAPPY EVER AFTER but Boleyn cuts Seymour off and is like “But we didn’t” 👑then they go onto explain how none of them had happy endings and they’re like,, but we can rewrite them! So they do and that leads into Six which is such a soft song. 👑Six, actually starts off very slowly. It speeds up after they say “we’re six” 👑It was such an energy ending I was speechless and gold confetti poured down on them and OMG I was shaken to my core. 

[multsicorn]

multsicorn’s infinite fic playlist

some friends in a chat were talking about comfort fic!  so I have Made A List.  Ten of my very favorite fics to reread when I need a boost, in ten different fandoms.  In no order.  And with no particular theme, that I can tell.  They’re probably all more-or-less mostly self-contained enough to work even if you don’t know the canon?  Certainly the Hockey RPF fic is (cause I don’t know anything about the canon there!), and who doesn’t know HP, etc....

.... four are about fucked-up families, (cause I find that cathartic, and people dealing with it comforting), two are polyfic, (because more relationships interacting to me means ~more love~), three are really mostly about the ~feel~ of the universe, (the fun mundanity of a not-quite-mundane canon universe! or of a perfectly balanced space au), and then the last one is... about how to know if you’re in love on one side of it, and about how to get over it on the other (because how does one romance).

the ones about fucked-up families:

When The Lights Go Out, Will You Take Me With You? by narceus (Glee, Kurt/Blaine, m, ~11k).  I love the way that it punches out my heart and then puts it back together?  Lmao, that’s very personal.  But I love the way that - what can I say.  This isn’t a fic about romance, it’s a fic about family - well.  How sometimes your family is your boyfriend, and your mutual friends, how sometimes ‘family’ is something you have to leave, and real family is something you build.  ‘This is exactly what it’s like,’ and it’s wish-fulfillment, and, yes, somehow it’s both of those things.

You can run away with me any time you want.

Come Marching Home by ossapher (American Revolution RPF/Hamilton, Hamilton/Laurens, t, ~9k).  Fraught relationships with family members who think they love you but they really really don’t are my jam, and the way that this fic deals with a younger still-dependent sibling who’s caught in the middle between John and his horrible father is especially my jam.  Also, fics that transform a complicated set of characters/relationships/etc. from canon to a completely other setting thoughtfully, which this fic ‘verse has a lot of fun with.

John Laurens attempts to reconcile with his U.S. Senator dad after years of minimal contact. It's family, though, so nothing goes as planned.

Theft of Assets, Destruction of Property by Helenish (Harry Potter, Draco/Neville, e, ~23k).  I love the way that Draco here builds a life up out of nothing.  It’s very cozy from one angle, full of cooking and baking and making a house a home, but it also goes hard on the way that abused children will internalize their situation as the expected baseline of life, which I appreciate very much.

Surely it is a mistake to allow a single youthful indiscretion to cloud an already promising career.

A Month of Sundays by Kelfin (Hockey RPF, Erik Johnson/Gabriel Landeskog, m, ~69k).  I love the push-pull of a relationship that naturally slides very quickly into something very close and intimate, that keeps being pulled back from that by Erik’s internalized homophobia.  I love the way the story negotiates the very real knock-on effects of that on Gabe, his maybe-maybe-not partner, and the way the Erik negotiates ‘I love my family... but they don’t love me.’

Unlike some guys, who freak out when things get even a little bit gay, Erik is fine with this stuff. Erik's not even fazed when Gabe's attempts at flirting with him start to get semi-public, a fact that, by his own judgment, makes him at least five to seven times more tolerant than your average forward-thinking American.

the polyfics:

Everything That You Can Keep by Dira Sudis (dsudis) (Vorkosigan Saga, Aral/Jole, backgroundy Aral/Cordelia, e, ~30k).  I love this story’s negotiation of not just polyamory (and I love negotiation of polyamory stories - how two people in one relationship share feelings about yet another person, and figure things out? yes, please), but specifically of all the added complications that come out in the highly hierarchical, secretive, and loyalty-based Vor society.  When even asking about asking is a matter of trust, requested and given?  That goes straight to my id.

The impossible takes a little more time, a lot of negotiation.

Love: The Package Deal by jjtaylor (Bandom, Frank/Gerard/Lindsey/Jamia, m, ~30k).  I love the way that the different relationships are layered over and relate to each other - that’s one of the big things I like about polyfic - and the way that the amnesia smashes them together by bringing a past relationship to the present, while making the present one abstract and back to square one.  I love how the amnesia in fact smashes together all the highs and lows of eventful years’ worth of Gerard’s life: artistic success, problems with drugs and addiction... they’re all right there waiting for you.

Gerard gets a special kind of amnesia. Frank gets to reexamine his idea of acceptable relationship structures. Lots of people fail to communicate effectively, but they all sure remember how to kiss.

the cozy weirdness of the universe:

it's a new craze by attheborder (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, t, ~6k).  The development of the relationship strikes a nice balance between angst and sweetness, but what I really come back to this fic for is the fictional advice podcast!  That Aziraphale and Crowley start together, which it’s about, and the way that they sprinkle their up-close experience of history into their discussion on it - and then the way that the fandom latches onto and tries to make sense of that.  It is just, purely, A DELIGHT.

CROWLEY: I try not to make a habit of gratitude, but I must give our appreciation to everyone out there who’s been listening and subscribing to The Ineffable Plan. AZIRAPHALE: Ooh, yes, we’ve become quite popular, haven’t we? CROWLEY: Yeah, just hit number eight on the advice charts … No advertising at all. AZIRAPHALE: Mm. How … miraculous. CROWLEY: … Aziraphale. You did not.

***

Crowley and Aziraphale are very possibly the people least qualified, on the entire planet, to start up an advice podcast.

But what else is there to do when the world isn’t ending anytime soon, you’re technically on indefinite sabbatical from your lifelong careers, and you need a plausible excuse to spend more time with your best friend who you’re definitely not, absolutely not, maybe just a little, actually maybe overwhelmingly in love with?

A Resolution of Territory by arboretum (Hikaru no Go, Hikaru/Akira, e, ~10k).  I just love imagining spending my life playing Go, okay!  This fic is wonderfully immersive in a weird-but-good everyday reality, of spending your whole life immersed in a game that just fascinates you, alongside your friends - and your boyfriend, too, which is to say, the one person who shares your fascination in the most direct and deepest and mutually obsessive way.  Eventually he’s your boyfriend, of course.

The point is, life is hectic, but it's good.

The Vastness of Space by shysweetthing (Yuri on Ice, Victor/Yuuri, e, ~17k).  I love the way that the space setting here gives scope for best-friends-and-partners, for cute and amusing low-stakes shenanigans and then cleverly solved higher-stakes adventure.  I love how sweet Victor and Yuuri are in caring for each other in dire circumstances, and why they both see each other as beyond their reach in the context of this imagined world.

As chief communications officer on board the Interstellar Alliance Fleet’s Star Ship Victory, Yuuri doesn’t have to think about who he actually is on his home planet. He just has to listen to his captain, do his job, and…not fall in love with his best friend, the ship’s science officer, Victor Nikiforov.

Well. Two out of three’s not bad.

Then his mother calls with the worst possible news: She, the Empress of New Nihon, has arranged Yuuri’s marriage. There’s only one thing Yuuri can do: Fake a boyfriend, and fake one fast. Who better/worse to play that role than the friend he wishes was more? What can go wrong? It’s not like Yuuri can fall more in love...

the how does romance (with my beloved controversial otp):

if you change your mind by leetlebird (Check, Please!, Jack/Parse, e, ~35k).  I love the way this story shows Jack trying to work out what love means for him, anyway, and Kent learning to deal with and work around feelings that he thinks for most of the story are unrequited.  And the cozy jury-rigged domesticity of especially the final chapters/scenes.

Beneath the table, Jack’s hand squeezes around Kent’s knee. And -- Kent forgets. For just a few seconds, he forgets that they can’t be together, that Jack doesn’t want him in that way, that he’s trying to move on.

“We’re friends, right?” Jack says.

“Yeah, Zimms,” he says. “We’re friends.”

Or: Kent and Jack are friends, then friends-with-benefits, then maybe something more. Kent isn’t sure.

[twitchesandstitches]

some batwoman ideas

a possible solution to the question of ‘fem Batman or no’ might be to do what I did with Power Girl being the main paragon of Krypton, and have Batwoman (Kate Kane) as the more experienced heroine; Batman is still a respected hero, but Batwoman has been doing it for longer! pretty much the reputation Bruce accumulates, she’s gotten by now, and he’s following in her footsteps.

Batwoman follows the usual motif you’d expect of the Batfamily; she’s a cunning mind with absolutely ridiculous levels of skill and technique; both she and Bruce are metahumans, because EVERYONE is a metahuman here, but their powers manifest as superhuman powers of learning, physical performance, and ability retention. Hence, their powers justify the more unrealistic things Batman does in canon without the illusion of them being entirely mundane... even before the superhuman attributes come in.

Kate is older than Bruce and has been doing this for a while, and may even have personified the concept of ‘stealthy frightening hero who has a lot of tricks’, with Bruce having been her protege. THe overall tone is closer to more lighthearted or surreal takes on Batman; lots of joking, weird puns and ‘what the heck is even going on here’; imagine a blend of GRant Morrison’s direction and Kevin Conroy’s persona, and you got the general Batfamily flavor.

That said, Bruce did start the Batfamily here; Kate is a bit of a loner, but Bruce is the one who’s surprisingly good at getting people around him, but he’s in denial. She thinks this is kind of hilarious.

unlike typical batman continuity, they’re not sticklers about only sticking to baseline human potential and avoiding higher-powered technology; they use bat-themed exoskeletons, power armor and mechs pretty freely, and they’re not adverse to powering themselves up into bat/human super hybrids for a time when the situation calls for it. They do take a strict policy of reserving high power load outs for situations that DESERVE it, though!

Batman is more of a weird tales detective, while Batwoman is closer to the traditional superhero stuff; conseqeuently, Batman tends to handle villains like Victor Zsasz, Two-Face, the Penguin and other villains who tend to be a bit more grounded. Batwoman’s rogues tend to be a bit more super-themed.

Batwoman herself is still a giantess, and she’s very buxom at that; not exactly an amazon, but she is extremely fit, quite broad (mirroring the tendency to give Bruce a bulkier body type) and her bust is massive enough that no matter how big her cape is, it never quite fits over her front. She likes stylized suit emblems just to show this off a bit.

she’s got a bit of kismessitude with Power Girl; they are rivals who argue a lot and tend to have very different viewpoints, they butt heads fairly often, and they handle things in a completely different way: Power Girl is a runaway train who smashes her problems, and Batwoman handles things with more delicacy. Still, they ARE friends and hang out together. Also, they’re dating.

[sinesalvatorem]

Long Term Acid Plans

So it seems some people interpreted the blog posts I made while I was on acid - when I was trying to immediately get down some novel information while being bad at communication - more seriously than I intended. So I should specify what has happened so far and what I plan to do:

All doses I took until last week were below the threshold for actually psychadelic effects. I just took moderate doses where the main effect is stimulating learning and improving creative thinking.

(Dose zero was a test I did about two months ago of an extremely tiny amount so I could be sure I wouldn’t have an unusual adverse reaction to it. Even then I had benzos on hand to bring me down. It mostly just made me slightly loopy and made everything around me nicer.)

The first time I did a large enough dose to noticably impact thinking was the afternoon after my abuser had kind of pushed me to a ‘last straw’ sort of moment, but I didn’t have the confidence to actually upend my life to escape. Then I had a change of perspective, realised how stupid I’d been being for months, and entirely noped out of that bullshit. Since then I’ve been living somewhat precariously (until now, when I’m actually decently stable and safe), but I’m vastly happier, and I think that indicates that I made the right choice. Had I not made that choice, I wouldn’t have a life worth living today, and I have little confidence I’d have had one later either.

The second time I took acid I ended up having conversations with some friends and acquaintances that helped me realise the shape of the holes in my social presentation style. And, as such, why I was so bad at enforcing my boundaries (or having them in the first place). I also was able to make plans with some helpful people that will probably make it easier for me to unfuck my life in the long term.

The third time I took acid was in an actually controlled environment, at which point I took a full dose with psychadelic effects. This was the experience during which I tagged @aellagirl​ because I wanted to know more about fixing the effects in place. During this trip, I realised the extent to which being around other human beings causes their mental states to bleed into mine just in general, which allowed me to recognise the value of introvert time. I also learned to actually directly value maintaining my boundaries, which is admittedly not the stereotypical acid outcome, and expect to be a lot better at enforcing boundaries in the future.

I also ended up experiencing pain as pleasure, because I started interpreting all intense experience as euphoria. I was very good at sinking into specific experiences if I chose to, except that if my trip partner was in the room I would necessarily devote at least part of my mind to simulating theirs, which prevented total immersion (except that I could still do total-immersion in empathy). Furthermore, I saw entire worlds composed of beautiful shifting geometric patterns. I’m not under any illusions that this world exists, but it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and I’d love to make art of it at some point.

But taking a full dose led me to be more confident of some of the things I’d noticed at lower doses but assumed would stop being true of me at higher doses. For one thing, I was entirely lucid and had no trouble switching between short/medium/long term planning. I was directly enjoying and paying attention to each experience, but also curating the music for my trip partner and I and thinking of songs to switch to based on apparent fluctuations in my partner’s mood. Plus I never lost track of what my post-trip plans were.

The other thing was maintaining enough internal emotional control to make bad trips in general exceedingly unlikely. Generally, any time I might be tempted to feel anxious, I just notice that getting anxious would be dumb and... Don’t do that. This is also what I do when I’m sober, which is why I didn’t see a lot of risk to taking pre-psychadelic doses of acid. I’m just more confident that my sober mental skills transfer to (at least one tab of) acid than I was before. The only time I got anxious throughout the whole trip was when I purposefully induced anxiety so I could enjoy it masochistically, and it ended the moment it was no longer the thing I wanted to explore.

I also had no trouble managing the emotions of my trip partner throughout (which I later realised might be its own issue) and, when she went nonverbal near the end, I started liveblogging aloud her thoughts and emotional state since it felt unfair that she could no longer do this for herself. (I was mostly right throughout this, which I could confirm because she reinforcement-learning!trained me by nodding and shaking her head.)

Having now experienced acid three times, with the most recent one having major (and mostly positive) effects, I want to figure out how to fix some of these effects in place. And my first step is... Not taking acid. In fact, I plan to avoid intoxicants in general for about a month.

My goal is to see how much of the temporary mental shifts due to acid I can fix in place into my sober life using just mindset-regulation. As is evidenced from the “Just don’t get anxious” thing, I’m reasonably good at altering mental states with just conscious attention. I’ve currently been working to keep the masochism on fulltime, which seems to be partially working. I’m hoping other aspects of sensory perception while tripping are also things I can bake in long term.

I think I’m unusually well poised to do this because, well, my baseline is actually unusually acid-like. I have near-unlimited patience in a lot of situations, like waiting for the train, because I have little difficulty immersing myself in my current sensory environment and appreciating each tiny fluctuation. I have a generally rose-tinted perception of, well, everything, because I mentally filter my attention to focus on the good over the bad, and to feel the good components of any experience more strongly than the bad ones. By default, I have whatever the reverse of depression is. Plus I have enough conscious control over this that I can hear the same piece of music five different ways sequentially just by adjusting my filter of what components of the piece are most salient. (It’s really fun to point out different elements of a piece to someone in real time and have their face light up as they notice it and their experience shifts :D)

I’m already a universal love kind of person and find it easy to fall into other people’s experiences through empathy. Plus, given time to zone out and self-focus, I can drastically alter my mental state at will using meditation-adjacent things I developed for myself. Oh, and since I was 12 I’ve been able to move sensations of heat around through my body basically at will in ways that have led the more woo-y people around me to declare that I’m close to “Awakening” while I rolled my eyes.

It’s worth noting that, despite having always been a human composed entirely of ecstasy and acid, I’ve never really fallen into mysticism because of this. I’m just not easy to convince of wishy-washy stuff, even if the wishy-washy stuff attempts to flatter my biases. Especially if the wishy-washy stuff flatters my biases. Oh, so my weird successes with meditation prove that I’m more awakened than other people? What reason do I have outside of my ego to possibly believe that?

See also: Me not thinking my acid visions depict a real place, and the fact that at no point on my trip did I lose the feeling that there was an important sense in which my trip partner and I were distinct people. (She lost that sense, though. Admittedly, I sort of trolled her by mimicking her motions and body language at times to increase this effect, because I’m a terrible person.)

However, at the same time, I’m certainly not convinced enough of my own uniqueness not to think I could possibly experience ego death, loss of lucidity, and a sudden devotion to glowing racoons. But, well, those aren’t things I particularly want? I mean, maybe very temporary ego death, but temporary is the key. I want to use acid to steal techniques for improving my existence, but I don’t want to experience values drift on what my goals are or even whether to have goals.

This is part of why I’m trying to see how much progress I can make during a period of sobriety (which I’m having while in a much more comfortable/stable environment), and why I want to know what the effects of acid-drift are from @aellagirl​ in as much detail as possible. (Do you have notes or blog posts you were writing during the process, so I can do timeline analysis?)

[unreechable]

the other day, I was talking with a friend about how I used to be jealous of my ex because in my mind he got to move on faster than I did because he had a relationship to distract him. of course I don't know any facts and anything I think about his life and any conjecture was based on what I saw on the internet and knew from my past experiences with him. Anyways, I found myself wanting to be with someone so that it could help me get over my ex because it seemed like that helped him. But all I was doing was making up facts about someone else's life in my head and then trying to match them too. Like sis that didn't make sense lol! Anyways, my standards went way up after my relationslip for myself and for my next partner because I knew what I never wanted to experience or tolerate again from myself and from them. Because my standards basically skyrocketed, I basically gave up on dating, assuming no one I would meet in my area would fit the criteria and I was also afraid that if they did, I wouldn't be worthy of them because I hadn't taken enough time to heal yet and therefore wasn't ready for a healthy relationship yet. I mean it's not a requirement to be like 99% healed before a new relationship but I wanted to bring in the least amount of baggage from my last relationship into my new one. Anyways, that was like fall 17 to spring 18 that I was feeling all extra ready but also apprehensive about a new relationship which was weird because I didn't have a single person in mind I actually wanted to date plus I was still at Tech so it wasn't gonna be a priority anyways. Then of course summer 18 I was working and had more time to date but wasn't really interested in anyone still because #high standards and I never really put myself in New spaces so the only people I knew were Tech students and alum, neither group I wanted to delve into again. Then of course Fall '18 I moved to a whole other continent and I basically told myself I wasn't gonna date anyone here because I didn't plan on living here after my 1 year was up. I told myself I was just gonna have #fun while I was here and nothing too serious. Now that I've been here for 6 months, my standards/expectations have gone up even higher because I've been taken on #real dates, which has been new because I've never been #dating before. Anyways, it's like now I have the expectations for someone to take me on nice, quality dates while also having the other characteristics I want in a partner. Which sounds obvious like duh girl that should be the baseline. But considering I used to make it my profession to only date broke men, this was new for me. Nigeria has surely taught me alot in different areas of life, dating included. Im focused less on finding or looking for a partner and more on just enjoying the experiences I have with these various people. anyways, back to my conversation with my friend. She made me think about how being out of a relationship for these last 2 years has really made me discover my own self and it sounds corny but I really did have to find myself and I have been ever since. I truly know what I like and don't like. Red flags aren't so easily ignored anymore. I don't compare potential partners to my ex. I don't prioritize other people before myself. I'm not nearly as gullible as I used to be. I actually have strong convictions. I found God and my own spirituality. Like I've come soooo far. I'm not sure I would've taken the time and energy to do all of this if I didn't have to by trial and error and if I had jumped into a relationship right after my ex. Everyone's different and so everyone copes differently. Things just work differently for people too. Life is mad weird and teaches you so much. Mostly and recently, It's taught me not to compare myself to anyone. And especially not my ex. Though I wish him the best in life always, I never want to be him. So why would I want to mimic him in that regard? The grass always looks greener on the other side. You never know. That's why you should just tend to yours and mind yours.

[evilisk-played]

Labyrinthine December Pt 1: I Compare Stats

(Somehow, I feel like a Cho-Marisa portrait might be appropriate here because look at that beefy MAG stat)

So I went compared all the stats one by one (HP, ATK, DEF, MAG, MND and SPD). What I did for this is use the stats of each character's current, theoretical maxed out level. Part of this so I know where I should be allocating bonus points to get characters up to speed. The other half is that comparing current stats would be off because some characters are at the level cap, while others are 40 levels behind. This way was the most “equal” way of comparing stats I could think of. 

Now, without further ado...

= = =

Characters by Health Points

Komachi is the highest at 50k HP. This is no surprise at all; Komachi's whole gimmick is that she has stupid huge HP but zero defense.

Following Komachi are:

Meiling (29k), Remilia (26k), Youmu and Yuugi (25k), Sakuya (24k), Suika (23k), Flandre (22k), Wriggle and Reimu (21k), Mokou, Eirin, Ran and Rinnosuke (20k) and Yukari (19k)

These stats are really surprising.

Meiling and Remilia have always been my back up tanks, so it's a bit shocking to see them growing more health than the other characters.

Yukari, Ran and Eirin all being on the lower end of tank health is surprising too.

It seems that if I'm underusing any characters here, it's Wriggle and Youmu.

For comparison, here are the characters with the lowest amount of health:

Patchouli (7k), Kaguya (8k), Suwako (11k), Marisa and Rumia (12k), Orin (13k) and Chen and Minoriko (15k)

Almost all these results are expected... except for Rumia. Geez Rumia. I've been thinking about how to use her as a backup healer for Reimu, and this makes her seem really unflattering (because her other stats are also abysmal).

= = =

Characters by SP (I can't remember what the S is for)

The leaders in this category are:

Patchouli and Marisa (1.1k), Reimu (1k), Yukari, Kaguya, Sanae and Ran (900), Eirin and Alice (800)

...but this isn't a category I'm particularly interested in; every character runs out of SP at some point, I usually just swap em out at that point. The only thing worth pointing out is that Reimu, Kaguya and, Sanae and Alice have surprisingly good SP growth. All the other characters I have intentionally cultivated to have higher SP (because they require more frequent usage of their skills. Marisa especially relies on extra SP to make Master Spark more damaging)

= = =

Characters by Attack

Since there are a truck load of characters that have zero reliance on the ATK stat, let's just pay attention to characters with the highest ATK stats. That is:

Flandre (26k), Yuugi (22k), Suika (19k), Remilia (18k), Aya, Komachi and Suwako (17k) and Chen, Youmu, Nitori and Rinnosuke (16k),

Seeing these attack stats really confuses me.

Flandre being top isn't a surprise (she's the ultimate fire power character)

Yuugi having second highest is weird as I’ve been intentionally cultivating her HP and DEF with bonus points. Seems like I can continue that trend.

Aya, Komachi and Suwako is a really weird result. Those first two don't come off as having remarkable attack power, while Suwako is one of my nukes and she outdamages these other characters by a ton. I have to assume her attacks rely on hybrid (ATK + MAG) formulas.

Chen, Nitori and Youmu explains why Youmu seems so weak. Chen's damage isn't impressive *at all*, it's the fact that she can attack like four to five turns in a row before the enemy can that makes her damage output good. Cirno and Sakuya being at 12k and 13k ATK respectively only corroborate this theory of 16k being rather low (because Cirno and Sakuya are *very* underwhelming considering their attack power).

Nitori, on the other hand, has a really good formula on her Cannon so she can definitely get away with having 16k ATK. Youmu, on the other hand, is supposed to be a nuke, yet she's not even on par with the other nukes in this category (Flandre at 26k, Yuugi at 22k, Suika at 19k, Suwako at 17k). It seems that if I'm going to build to her being a nuke, I need to up that damage big time.

Not shown here is Orin's pititful attack at 13k. I also might need to up her ATK (depending on her skill formulas)

= = =

Characters by Defense

Leading the defense pack is Tenshi "The Wall" Hinanawi at 15k. 15k isn't as impressive as you'd think (the highest MND character has 20k MND) but this is less of an issue for Tenshi as her gimmick is having amazing DEF and MND.

After Tenshi is Yuugi, also at 15k. Then you got Meiling (14k), Youmu and Remilia (12k), Rinnosuke and Sakuya (10k), Yukari, Eirin and Wriggle (9k), Ran (8k), Mokou, Alice and Aya (7k) and then Suika, Kaguya and Reisen (6k)

These statistics are shocking, to say the least.

Meiling is surprisingly more capable than I expected. Youmu being on par with Remilia, and higher than Sakuya, Ran and Yukari, is very confusing. She doesn't feel as tanky as any of those characters (though perhaps the issue has been less of DEF and more of resistances?)

The real shockers here are Ran, Suika and Yukari. These three are like my three most common tank characters. When I play, their tankiness feels like they’re closer to Eirin and Sakuya's values (that's 9k and 10k respectively). Thinking on it, these three characters have the common ability to self-buff themselves. Knowing that about 6k - 9k is the baseline defense you need really makes me reconsider my approach.

Also, Wriggle, Alice and Mokou are tankier than I'd given them credit for.

On the lower end of the spectrum, Minoriko, Sanae and Rumia have stupidly low DEF and this only vindicates my feeling of those three being fragile.

= = =

Characters by Magic

Okay, so this section feels like it's massively under-performing in relation to the attack category.

Starting off the Magic category is Marisa at 25k. This... is not good. First off, it's not even higher than the ATK cap at 26k. What's worse is that Marisa's magic stat is massively inflated with skillpoints. No seriously, Marisa has been doping with about a MAG Level of 92. For comparison, most characters haven’t hit past X stat Level 30/40. It’s absurd, and it’s not a natural amount. (Thinking on it, Komachi’s 50k health might be in a similar position, though I know for a fact that she’s not up to HP Level 92. Only Marisa has an absurd level).

Removing Marisa from the equation, our natural lead is Patchouli at 20k. Yeah, that's a big gap. Patchouli is kind of redeemed by also having 20k MND, making her a balance of 20k-ish MAG AND MND (the closest comparison on the phsyical side is 22k ATK / 15k DEF with Yuugi).

With that said, all the other characters seem to be massively under-performing here.

After Patchy at 20k, you have Alice, Flandre and Kaguya at 16k. That’s 4k lower than Patchy, which is shocking. Even worse is that one of these three is *just* a hybrid attacker (Flandre, who also holds the highest ATK). Kaguya being up there isn’t surprising, as Hourai Barrage is just MAG murder. Alice being there is surprising.

Then there’s Suwako, Sanae and Ran at 15k. After looking it up, Suwako is actually NOT a hybrid, she just has high ATK and MAG stats (with individual ATK and MAG spells). This is weird, to say the least (because again, that doesn’t explain Youmu’s poor output). This number doesn’t seem impressive, given that Sanae and Ran are pure support (and Ran’s attacks have never struck me as impressive). It does make me reconsider having Sanae as some sort of attacker though...

After that are Mokou and Yukari (14k), Eirin and Yuyuko (13k), Reimu, Rumia, Iku and Reisen (12k), Cirno and Rinnosuke (11k) and then Minoriko and Orin (10k).

Again, it seems everyone's under-achieving in this category. The only stats I can understand are Cirno's (she's a very mediocre attacker, so 11k makes sense), Eirin (her healing isn't MAG reliant, so I've been buffing her tankiness) and Sanae and Reimu (they rely on MAG for their healing formulas). Oh and Patchouli (she tracks) and Marisa (she doping)

Everyone else is underperforming. Mokou, Yuyuko, Reisen and Orin are all behind with their phys ATK cuonterparts. I should probably focus on MAG for them now. (Minoriko also needs a boost, she is not on par with her fellow healers *at all*)

= = =

Characters by MND

Conversely, it seems that MND is more balanced among my party.

Patchouli leads with a whopping 23k (this is more than I initially remembered as 20/20 for MAG MND). I kinda realized that between Marisa, Suwako, Nitori, Yuugi, Chen and some others that I didn't really need more nukes. What I don't have, however, is a MND tank, so that's the goal for Patchy now and she seems to be doing it damn good.

Following her is the Wall at 15k.

Then it's Yuyuko and Reimu (14k), Yukari and Marisa (13k), Kaguya, Sanae, Alice and Iku (12k), Suika, Orin and Ran (11k), Rinnosuke, Minoriko and Eirin at 10k, and then stragglers at 9k (Nitori), 8k (Remilia, Wriggle, Rumia) and 7k (Mokou, Sakuya, Meiling)

Some notably low MND characters are Yuugi, Reisen and Youmu who are about 5k and under. Reisen and Youmu being at 5k explains a LOT about their survivability, to be honest.

Some of the interesting results are Yuyuko and Reimu almost being at Tenshi's level, Marisa being on par with Yukari, Kaguya, Alice and Iku at 12k, Nitori at 9k and the 7k and 8k club.

It's a bit shocking that 7k to 11k is where all my tanks are, because that's not very tanky at all!

= = =

Characters by Speed This is another category that I'm de-emphasizing. Here's the actual full list of speeds:

800 Chen 600 Aya 500 Cirno, Orin 400 Reimu, Marisa, Remi, Sakuya, Nitori, Ran, Reisen, Flandre Hi-300 Mokou, Suika, Suwako, Komachi, Alice, Wriggle Lo-300 Rinnosuke, Kaguya, Eirin, Sanae, Youmu, Rumia, Yuugi, Sanae, Meiling, Minoriko 200 Patchy, Tenshi, Yukari, Yuyuko

I think I can effectively tier characters as Gotta Go Fast (800), Ayayaya (600), Fast (500), Not-So-Fast (400), Officially Slow (Upper 300), Very Slow (Lower 300), Focus Speed (200)

This list is pretty surprising, as some characters don't feel as fast as they're portrayed. I think this is down to the fact that "delay / cooldowns" on skills exist.

Like it really makes you think that Reimu might be at 400 speed, but with her cooldowns, she's closer to all the other healers (at Lo-300).

(Also, Rumia, what's wrong with you? Don't you have ANY good stats?)

= = =

The results

I've learned a lot about my party through this analysis. Here are some of my preliminary thoughts.

Suika: it seems like she's a character I've given far too much credit, because her stats don't seem so great on paper. I think having an easy buff (Missing Power) is what gives her so much mileage to me. I’ll have to use her stats as a guide for “which characters could be tanky enough with enough buffs”

Orin: I'm not giving her enough credit. I think comparing her to Aya and Chen has warped my expectations of her, because I can make Cirno work, despite her having less impressive speed overall. I definitely need to figure out how she works.

Yuyuko: she sounds like a character I should be adding if only to serve as an MND tank. I still think her speed is godawful, but maybe I should be adding her to bossfights regardless.

Alice and Mokou: their stats seem really interesting and malleable. I really have to figure out what their roles are going to be, thankfully it seems like I have a lot of freedom to shape their roles.

Komachi: I can't believe her ATK is that high. I think I might have been underutilizing her as an attacker this whole time. Even if she's no Suwako, I think I can treat her as a SPI nuke for battles where Yuyuko might not work.

Rinnosuke: Rinnosuke’s stats were impressive in all categories... why the heck have I not been using him?

Rumia: wait, no, she still looks really unimpressive.

Anyway, I’m gonna start finally adding those bonus points tomorrow. I feel like I might need to make a backup save, in case things turn out bad.

[gaiatheorist]

The drugs don’t work. (For me.)

This is a weird one. Awake at midnight last night, I did what I do, and browsed the news. My disrupted sleep is partly due to the brain injuries, and partly ‘just’ the situation I find myself in. There’s the potential for some well-meaning but insensitive soul to suggest warm milk, no screen-time, ‘meaningful’ breathing, and the plethora of other things you ‘should’ do when you can’t sleep. Nobody has suggested sleeping tablets to me, yet, but there’s a whole internet out there, is it my melatonin, my seratonin, my magnesium? (I don’t know if magnesium has anything to do with anything, apparently it can impact on the binding of the vitamin D I’m probably deficient in, though.) 

Can’t sleep? Take a ‘Kalm’, or a ‘Nytol’, or Valerian root, or Mankuna honey in warm milk, or something from Gwyneth Paltrow’s weird range. Lavender worked really well for someone’s auntie Gladys, and so-and-so swears by chamomile tea. I’m making fun of myself, there, because if there’s a herbal/holistic remedy, I’ll try that before the ‘chemical’, synthesised alternatives. (’Chemical’ in quote-marks, as a nod to Tim Minchin, who rightly points out that ‘Everything is chemical, EVERYTHING.’) That tendency to stick to herbs, essential oils, and food-based medicine, rather than prescribed medicine infuriates my son, it would do, he’s studying Chemistry, he understands the ‘hard’ science stuff that baffles me. He’s 20 in a few weeks, and he’s been to the doctor four times in his entire life. Fucithalmic acid drops for conjunctivitis when he was a baby. I finished the course, and then treated with eyebright and breastmilk, he’s never had a re-occurrence. Septic tonsillitis in 2010, treated with Amoxcycillin, of course he couldn’t tell the doctor whether he was allergic to Penicillin, that was his first course of antibiotics, ever. Back down, I didn’t home-school him, and he was allowed to watch TV, he’s had all of his routine immunisations, and the optional extra Meningitis one. (That the doctor didn’t know whether he’d had, but I did, because I knew which year it started being offered as a routine school-age immunisation.) 

The kid implicitly trusts ‘modern’ medicine. Most people, who don’t run around in tinfoil hats, calling consumer conspiracy on everything, trust modern medicine. That’s what I’m wrestling with this morning. (Not literally, I’ve pushed the patient information leaflet to the side of my pack of antihistamines, so I don’t get frustrated about opening the box at the ‘wrong’ end. Apparently they’re set that way for right-handed people, and you can avoid opening the ‘wrong’ end of the pack by feeling for the braille, I don’t know.) What I’m over-processing is the “Antidepressants work!” news stories. There’s no reason at all for me to over-process it, the first line in one of them was something along the theme of “Antidepressants work for patients with a diagnosis of depression.” Case closed, I don’t have ‘depression’, my current ‘unfit for work’ certificate states “Stress related problem, previous SAH.” (I’ve abbreviated ‘Subarachnoid Haemorrhage’, because my GP spelled it wrong, I don’t suppose he’s written it as many times as I have in the last 3 years.) 

What I’m pre-planning butting heads against is that DWP, PIP, and ATOS are highly likely to point out that I’m not ‘on’ anti-depressants. That’s fine, they can do that, there is no diagnosis of depression anywhere in my last 3 years of medical notes, I can point to the page where the Workplace Well-being doctor has reported “Gives a clear account of herself, and, to her credit, is not depressed.” (If they’re referencing the ‘Depression?’ on my admission notes following the haemorrhage, I’ll politely point out that what the ex actually said to the medics was “I think she’s got depression, but I don’t know if she’s on anything.” I tore into him about that, when I was in my angry/confrontational stage, and he was in his confused/traumatised stage. Unkind.) 

It’s great that antidepressants work for some people, I wish those people all the goodwill in the world, dragging oneself through the mire of poor mental health is draining, if there’s a chemical lift that helps, use it. What I’m mindful of is that the medics have never found a dosage of this-or-that that worked for me. I have episodes of low mood, sometimes very low mood, but they pass. I make them pass, because I cannot exist in that state, in that state, I’m barely functional, forcing myself to ‘go through the motions’, it’s soul-sucking. There are lots of days when I just-don’t-want-to, I know my own pattern, and, although I’ll allow myself the odd ‘off’ day, three-in-a-row is my trigger-point. I had three-in-a-row a couple of weekends back, so presented to the GP, because ‘failure to seek or follow medical advice’ is also a flag-of-concern in me. If he’d prescribed, I would have taken the pills, I had the proof of low-income entitlement to free prescriptions in my bag, just in case. 

He knows me, he’s been my GP since I was about 14, as much as I’m just one more in a sea of faces to him, he actually remembered that they’ve tried me on pretty much every SSRI and antidepressant, with very limited effect. A bit like the dodgy Johann Hari, I ‘revert to baseline’ within months on any antidepressant, and they either have to increase the dosage, or, once they hit the median lethal dosage bar, switch me to another variant. Antidepressants don’t work on ‘me’, because, for the majority of the time, it’s not depression. (Yes, there’s the resistance-in-me to being in that foggy-vague don’t-care state, but, if he’d prescribed, I would have taken them, and tried to monitor myself closely, through the “I can’t feel my leg, but it will probably be fine in an hour or so.” episodes, that are scary enough when you ARE fully lucid. The third, inoperable aneurysm is sitting in an area of brain governing the majority of my motor function, as well as the blood supply to my retinas being impacted upon my the surgery to the second aneurysm, sucks to be me.)

‘On paper’, I probably ‘should’ be depressed. That being the assumed-case, a year on antidepressants ‘should’, theoretically, stabilise me, maybe they’ll throw in a bit of CBT, to make me magically forget that, on top of everything else, I nearly died, and now have brain injuries? Yeah, I’m pulling my socks up, and person-ing up, but I do still have lumps of metal where there used to be functional brain cells, that’s not going to go away, or ‘get better.’

At some point, I don’t know when, I’ll be called in for a DWP ‘work capability assessment.’ I’m not looking forward to that one bit, and I expect that the same person who ticks the box to say I can lift an empty box will also query why I’m not on antidepressants. I need to not be a smart-arse at that point, and question how they’re a qualified doctor AND a manual handling of loads assessor. I also need to remember to state verbally, and ensure it is recorded, every time an action or activity causes me distress or discomfort. I’m going to end up losing my voice. Have that, CBT practitioners, one of my ‘behaviours’ is not-disclosing discomfort or distress, so I don’t upset other people.

I’m rambling. I’m awaiting my PIP tribunal date, where I will likely be asked why I’m not on antidepressants. I’m awaiting my DWP ‘work capability assessment’, again, I’m likely to be told, by a box-ticker that I’d be ‘all better’ with a dose of Prozac. (Prozac brand-name now expired, it’s generic fluoxetine, and my last experience of it had me on 60mg/day, with little impact, they can’t put me on a higher dose than that, due to my BMI.) I’m also waiting on an appointment with Neuro-psychology, I have tried very hard to self-manage the brain injuries, but the cognitive fatigue and disturbed sleep still persist, there’s an ironic chuckle, there, because a lot of the side-effects of my brain injuries are also consistent with depressive traits. I know the difference in me, and ‘trying’ me on antidepressants would be similar to bashing a ganglion with the family bible, just a distraction technique, and a fairly dangerous one, at that.

What I’m wary of is the powers-that-be taking the headlines and research about the efficacy of antidepressants as a one-size-fits-all silver bullet against all-that-ails-everyone. Antidepressants have limited effectiveness on me, I have no diagnosis of depression, they’d be as well giving me sugar-tablets, or something to prevent testicular inflammation. If I had a diagnosis of depression, I would have given up on the systems-and-processes already, as a demonstrable number of people have, some permanently. Not-all-antidepressants are suitable for ‘all’ people, I had to advise my own GP that one variant he was ‘trying’ me on, nearly 10 years ago, was linked to suicidal and self-harming ideation. That’s specific to me, I’m a historical self-harmer, standard ‘not all’ disclaimer here. There are myriad noted side-effects with antidepressants, I’ll throw in ‘weight gain’ as an example, even if there’s no underlying eating disorder, whacking on 3st in 2 years, like I did is hardly a confidence-boost for a person who is already experiencing low mood. The side-effects are probably under-reported, between the depressive state of there being no point, and the cloudy sheep-sleep of ‘it does not matter’, some people just won’t report. Throw in the dismissive “It could be worse!” lines some doctors are still fond of when people who do report are sent away as neurotic, and the reporting is further compromised.

Antidepressants DO work, very effectively for some people, and I’m genuinely pleased that a bit of a chemical crutch helps them to live, rather than just existing. My concern is that these articles will be taken out of context, and that the flavour-of-the-month SSRI will be seen as a magic wand. (No, head, ‘they’ are not going to fortify the tap-water with fluoxetine, to make us all immune to depression, that’s silly.) Mental health services are stretched way beyond capacity, and ‘modern life is rubbish’, the fabled increase to MH services is a nonsense, it’s superficial, the new intake of ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ practitioners will probably start going off sick themselves very soon. (I have a friend who’s VERY disturbed, recently allocated for talking therapy with a girl just out of college, that would have been potentially harmful for both of them, so he discontinued. The intervention has probably been recorded as completed and successful.)  Antidepressants are very effective for some people, but, in others, they’re a sticking plaster over an arterial wound, I’m worried that some people, who really do need more than a pat on the head, and some ‘magic medicine’ are going to be very badly treated. If there’s a perception that  Prozac is panacea, some people will be very badly harmed by it.

If the drugs work for you, that’s great, I’m not here to demonise them. There is nothing wrong with taking the right medication for the right condition, nothing at all. My worry is that it becomes a blanket-catch-all, a first-resort, and that some people will slip through the net, disappear off radar, and not have different, underlying conditions, that depressive symptoms coincide with addressed.