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clxckwork-sun-n-moon · 2 years

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clockwork I am so normal about this specific prompt:

"your lover gets clingy when sick so now you've to deal with their adorable, bubbly but sick, half dozing version. you love them, so no complaints"

WAIT ANOTHER ONE FOR YOU

"or your lover's sick habit is being too stubborn to let someone else help"

these were very cute and I couldn't not combo them together

Sick Days || Default (Moon & Sun x Reader)

Part 1.

Animatronics don't get sick. This was something you've known for a long time. It was practically knowledge before you even knew about animatronics as entities themselves. Common understanding followed that a being without an immune system or biological functions couldn't physically get sick.

And yet, you were witness to animatronics being sick.

There tended to be variations of ailments. Sometimes the joint mechanisms seized up, almost like a cramp. Sometimes some muck or well-aimed glitter package got in the face, interfering with the eye camera lenses and endoskeleton interior. Sometimes it was a general matter of wear-and-tear. You likened it to your aging phone at times, the way that sometimes it would jump from 50% to 13% battery, before staying on 6% for the next two hours until it died abruptly. When reflected into an animatronic, you would be witness to the individual suddenly slowing down out of nowhere, acting rather shaky and fatigued, almost as if suffering from being severe lightheaded. This would drag on and on until out of nowhere the individual would shut down and leave you with a haphazard pile of limbs. Or they would allow themselves to go back to either a servicing team down in the basement or just their charging pod.

Whenever it seemed to start happening to the Glamrocks, they would be quickly shepherded away by another member of staff before some precious guest in attendance had to witness their favourite rockstar going off-script, so you weren't entirely certain if the effects were the same among all the animatronics. But with Sun and Moon, you had hands-on experience for certain - especially since getting them to Parts & Services to get their battery checked was a no-no until the daycare was cleared, alongside a whole world of other issues to manage. It could leave you in a heavy pickle....quite literally, if it came to physically carrying them around. Neither of you were in a good position if their limbs decided to buckle and stop being of any use.

While that was all the physical side-effect of the battery issues, you couldn't help but notice certainly behavioural effects too. Ones that definitely reminded you of people when ill.

Part 1a. - Sun

The day was winding down to an end, and you were not trying to hide how glad you were of it. Six hours of racing after kids, no matter how sweet or bubbly they were, could not be looked happily upon when you'd realised that Sun was beginning to seem droopy and sleepy about three hours into your shift.

His shoulders slouched inwards, curling inwards more like Moon than his usual bouncy tall self. Even his sunrays seemed to be melting, although you were certain was just a trick of your eyes following along with how slumped over his full body posture was. You were well-learned of his tendency to flamboyantly trip over, to the delight of the little ones, but by the time he'd stumbled and face-planted at least four times within the space of an hour, you were getting the picture that this wasn't a jester routine. Even a few of the kids were cautious in coming over to help him back to his feet.

"How's your battery doing, Sunny?" you asked him as he wobbled over towards your desk.

"Just fine, sunshine! Abso-doodley-lutely fine! We're having a wonderful, wonderful time!" he replied, voice warbling slightly in and out of pitch.

You stared back at him, unconvinced. His slouching shoulders curled in further, like he was trying to shrink back into the ground as he squeezed his hands together.

"There may be some technical difficulties going on," he mumbled.

"You feeling up for a Parts & Services visit?"

"Not at all! Fit as a fiddle!"

"That wasn't an actual question. You're going after this shift."

"But sunflower!" Sun leaned in over the desk, getting very close up to your face. His grin had shifted down into a woeful expression, eyes a little wider as if going for the world's best/worst puppy dog expression attempt. "What if I don't need to go to Parts & Services? What if - What if I just need a nap?"

"You...You've told me multiple times you can't sleep."

"Just a small nap. Just a little sleep." Lifting his hand, Sun squeezed his thumb and forefinger together, neverminding the fact he was nearly draped over your shoulder. Glancing him over, you let out a long sigh.

"Fine. We'll see how you're doing after a recharge boost," you said with a gentle smile, poking his cheeky. Immediately he straightened up, hands flying up into the air before he brought them back down and around you, pulling you into a tight hug.

"Thank you! Thank you sunshine! There's a reason you're our favourite, our loveliest sunflower," he chirped away, before promptly slumping completely against you.

"Is Mister Sun okay?" one of the kids running by asked you.

"He's fine. He's just a bit tired," you reassured them, slinging an arm around Sun to shift him better and so he wasn't outright crushing you. He giggled quietly, his voice box echoing and repeating himself: "lovely, lovely, loveliest sunflower, favourite sunflower". This perhaps you could live with.

You'd expected him to go back to running around with the kids, even in this state, but he seemed perfectly content to perch on the desk. Taking on-board his dizziness and mindless happy mumbling, you sat forward more to keep better watch. But then you felt weights clench around your waist, and glanced down to see Sun's arms locked around you in what looked like a loose hug but felt like a metal trap.

"It's okay, I'm staying here," you reassured him. A static-y grumble was the response, but his grip loosened more significantly. It certainly made it easier to help sign out the children when pick-up time arrived, although it was harder to explain why the daycare attendant was hooked onto the assistant and not...doing attendant things. The general explanation of 'the battery started running out earlier than expected' was frowned on but not argued with. Just another reason for people to complain about animatronics being put in charge of things like childcare.

But soon enough, it was just you and Sun in a large empty daycare, and you were faced with the next challenge - getting a blanket of an animatronic from the ground floor to the celestials' upstairs room where their charging pod was located.

Part 1b. - Moon

When you heard Moon's familiar chortle, you could hear something was different. Off, more like. The key was off-kilter, warbling in and out of his usual tone like someone was trying to shove his voice box in and out of auto-tune.

"Hi Moon," you called out into the empty and the dark, swinging your flashlight around slowly. No sign of a drifting shadow or red eyes bobbing around the ceiling.

Another chuckle, this time closer.

"Hello friend," Moon whispered through the air. "Shh, shh, quiet now. Quiet for sleepy times and resting. Naptime, we're going to have naptime."

This was a lot more disjointed and rambling than Moon's usual level of disjointed rambling. Squinting up, you glanced around more nervously. Was the virus ticking back over? That usually came with more aggressive behaviour though and right now all you were getting was incoherent giggles and mumbles about sleepy and rest - oh.

"Did Sun overwork again today?" you asked Moon. One of the major downsides of two AIs in one body was that if one AI ran the battery charge down a lot without taking pause to recharge, then the other AI had to deal with the low battery issues. And that meant you had to deal with a mildly delirious Moon.

"Busy Sun, busy as a bee. Buzzing here and there and here and there and - " Wire spun rapidly from overhead, and you had enough sense to step backwards quickly as Moon literally dropped down into where you'd been. "Hello!"

"AH!"

"Shhhhh." He swung forward, still dangling off the wire, pressing a finger against your lips. "Quiet time, starlight."

"Sorry," you whispered back. This was something you could deal with, being a bit quieter than usual. "Are you okay, Moon?"

"Sleepy, sleepy." Moon started to hum the intro lines to Mr Sandman as his wire continued to unspool, finally landing him on the floor to stand up on shaky legs. On instinct you offered him an arm to keep him steady, and he wrapped both of his arms around your shoulders.

"Good starlight, sweet starlight," he mumbled, beginning to nuzzle into the top of your head. "You'll see us through the night."

"I know you're on rota to do security, but I really think you need to recharge tonight instead," you said firmly.

"How can I sleep when my starlight is out tonight?" Moon warbled, voice modulating back in and out. His fingers ghosted over your cheek, tendering cupping your face as he pressed his face-plate to your head in what you assumed to be a kiss. If your torch were switched off you could probably have lit the way with how your cheeks were glowing. Without further comment, you wrapped your arms around Moon's arms and began to trek through the Pizzaplex, carrying the animatronic like a large, painfully heavy backpack. So long as he didn't realise you were carrying him back to the celestial's room (and in his current condition, you highly doubted it), you were in the clear to fumble along and listen to sweet nothing mumbled against your ear.

Part 2. - You

Animatronics could not get sick, technically speaking. You however were fully at risk of whatever viral illness or flu or cold came drifting your way from the crowds of people that swarmed through the Pizzaplex on a daily basis. And you did. Often enough that you ran out of sick days within the first five months of your starting year, and shifted instead for coming in wearing a high-grade face mask and with a bottle of hand sanitiser clipped to your belt. It was rarely bad enough that you considered needing to go via the walk-in doctor's clinic on the way home, it was more general coughs, headaches that would frequently transfer into migraines, and a plethora of other non-lethal symptoms.

The one ease of guilt you could get through was altering your work schedule so you would be far away from other people. Evening shift cleaning up after guests, night shift of security work, early morning prep work. Anything so you'd be out of the way but still able to plow through your work hours.

Unfortunately your coworkers couldn't carry infections or sicknesses and therefore made sure you were aware of their upset.

You pushed a janitorial cart into the daycare area, having peeked through the windows to make sure any and all people had left. Sun was in the process of his own clean-up, filing scattered papers into drawers of the craft cabinet and picking up stray crayons off the floor. Hearing the door open and close behind you, he swivelled back upright, head going through a spin at the sight of you.

"Hello sunshine!" he chirped.

"Hiya Sun," you replied, hoping that your rasping throat didn't carry too badly, that he wouldn't notice. But the facemask had to have been enough of a giveaway if your tragic vocal chords weren't, and Sun's head slowly tilted to the side.

"You're not seeming very chipper there," he said, setting another drum onto a stack but still cautiously looking over you. Trying to ignore the watchful stare, you began to replace trash bags from the various bins around the daycare.

"Oh, I'm fine. I'm functional," you called back, waving an airy hand as you dropped a full trash bag into the cart. "Just don't expect me to be very chatty."

"Hmmm..."

When Sun didn't respond again, you assumed he'd gone back to his cleaning up. But once you turned back around, several bricks of coloured paper in your arms, he was so close behind you that you very much dropped the paper blocks with shock.

"F- Sun!" you hissed, ducking down to grab the paper with Sun swooping down to assist. He shuffled the wrapped blocks onto the desk next to you, and pressed his hand against your forehead.

"Mmm...higher temperature than normal," he said quietly. "No coughing, inflamed throat - "

"It's just a run-of-the-mill cold. See, I've got this on." You tapped your finger against your mask. "No worry about it spreading."

"Cute." He tapped your mask also. "Freddy design."

"Well, you have to wear Fazbear employee appropriate facemask covers if you come in with one, and the merchandise shop apparently doesn't stock Sun and Moon ones," you explained with a huff of disappointment.

"Shame, shame. But you're still sick."

"Not too sick."

"Admittance from the guilty!" Sun slung his arm around you, the long limb managing to wrap around your shoulders and up so he could pat the top of your head. "You are sentenced to mandatory rest break with frequent hydration! We have refillable bottles and a water stand just for these reasons."

"I need to finish off my checklist, Sun! I can't just...sit in the daycare until my hours are up," you said, wriggling free of his grip and returning back to bringing out the restocking items.

"Why not?"

"Because I'll get a warning if I don't? And too many warnings means no more job." Setting the last pack of coloured pencils on the desk, you gave him a warm look. His hands squeezed together over his chest, head tilted to the side as he looked down at you with....disappointment? Sadness? It took the nugget of guilt in your chest and amplified it.

"Sun."

"Yes, friend?"

"I'm going to finish up my checklist, except for my last daycare things, and then I'll come back and finish my shift here. Maybe my last few chores will take up the rest of my hours."

"Okay. Thank you, sunshine." Leaning down, he bopped the nose of his face-plate against your forehead. "Take it easy, and come back here right away if you start feeling worse." His hand cupped your cheek, thumb rubbing slow circles before he nudged at your shoulder. "Go, go on friend. Don't stay too long or I might change my mind."

With one last smile over your shoulder, you shuffled your janitor cart back out from the room. The rest of your duties blurred by - not because they were fast to do, but because your head began to ache and turned your perception of time into a funk of molasses. By the time you finally returned to the daycare doors, the lights were out behind the large windows. A new pang of guilt hit you, that you weren't able to say goodnight to Sun before Moon stepped out.

Pushing open the door, you switched on your flashlight to light the way back over to the storage cupboard. Just a couple boxes of restocking left, snack bars for the kiddos, which was a good thing because from the looks of it there were only half of the snacks left. No immediate sign of Moon which was normal. But as you shut the cupboard door, you felt arms wrap around your waist and promptly drag you upwards.

"MOON."

"Starlight needs to rest."

"That was my last task I - WHY AM I-" Your half-yelled words of indignation are cut short by your throat trying to twist itself inward, pain turning into dry coughs.

"Last task means no more tasks for you to do. Now you rest." You were vaguely aware of the walls blurring around you, whether from speed of ascent or your mind deciding it was time to check out, that this was far too much to deal with. Moon finally came to a stop, setting you both down on the balcony overlooking the daycare. Inside it was dimly lit, and...cleaned? Set up? A pile of blankets and pillows had been put together in one corner of the room, with a handful of snacks and two bottles of water.

"...That for me?" you asked, sluggish in comprehension.

"Yes." Moon's hands pushed into your back, ushering you forward.

"I - I really don't think -"

"Rest until shift is up. You promised Sun." Goddammit, you had done that, hadn't you? With a slow exhale, you sank down into the pillow pile, watching as Moon settled down right behind you. It didn't take much effort on his part to make you lay down against him, a pillow under your head and a cool hand across your forehead.

"Thank you," you murmured. Moon's eyes flickered down, gentle red and white, and his smile softened.

"Rest," he insisted. You complied, letting your body slump down into the cozy nest, Moon's lullaby ticking through your ears.

#answered #clockwork writings #zelda7999 #friendly neighborhood mutual #moon x reader #sun x reader #fnaf sun #fnaf moon

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antrunner · 10 months

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hey bestie can tell me about Kyle's origin story like how he vecame green lantern if possible can you explain how the others besides hal became green lantern

OF COURSE

so, kyle's origin is the most interesting and compelling to me, but in order to fully understand his start, we need a bit of context.

Hal Jordan. ya know him ya love him or maybe you cant stand his ass. he'd been The Green Lantern for decades!! but suddenly its the 80s. and he's exhausted. he's worn down and tired. and the 80's are like a minefield for him as he tries to find what he wants to do with his life. feeling lost and beaten down (both metaphorically and literally). then theres a reign of the supermen crossover thing where Mongul destroys the entirety of Coast City

7 million people dead in an instant, a lot of which were Hal's friends, family and neighbors. He grew up there and suddenly it's all gone and it's just a crater left. It breaks that final thread for him and he creates a massive construct of the city. The Guardians (the corps bosses) HATE this because rings aren't supposed to be used for personal reasons, so they revoke his ring.

Hal gets pissed and runs back to Oa in an attempt to argue with them... and it turns deadly. VERY deadly. Out of the 3000-4000 lanterns, only a handful survive Hal's rampage. He kills every Guardian except one (Ganthet), and absorbs the power from the central battery.

Anyways, long story short, Kyle is literally at the club and walks outside to get some fresh air and Ganthet goes "you'll have to do i guess" and gives him it. LMAO yeah that's his origin story. 100% CHANCE AND LUCK. it's fucking awesome. because it's completely different from all the other lanterns, who are chosen specifically by the guardians and the rings. like John and Guy for example. Guy was the second choice for Hal, but happened to be further away when Abin Sur (Hal's predecessor) died. John was then Hal's replacement. (I haven't read a whole lot about them since i'm working my way through some other runs, but thats the gist of it!)

Kyle, on the other hand, was completely alone, untrained, and also caught up in the middle of a cosmic massacre. It's really fun watching him figure things out and the ups and downs of his life. to me, being a 20-something year old art major too, his story resonates extremely deeply with me. Ron Marz has some AMAZING writing too. Highly recommend reading Green Lantern 1990 (kyle's run starts at around #50). It's super fun and engaging and we get to see Parallax (Hal) vs Kyle and how sometimes violence really genuinely isn't the answer, and sometimes people just need a friend to talk to. it's so freaking awesome

Lmk if you need more info I didn't wanna infodump too much today........ teehee

#dc #dc comics #<- i love writing that #kyle rayner #green lantern

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4aceclover · 4 months

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Shadow house theory

So I have an interesting theory that I don't think many people have actually taken into consideration, this one centers around our deer Blue Rose Mistress Barbara and her living doll Barbie.

Specifically Barbara herself and the amount of soot that she produces. Is it possible that what we're seeing in those moments or she's producing so much soot that it gives her a lot of pain is her having an emotional / mental breakdown

First things first what is an (emotional) mental breakdown (I'm sticking with mental but this can also apply to emotional breakdowns as well)

A period of severe emotional distress during which a person may feel paralyzed and entirely incapable of coping with challenges

Some of the symptoms of this may include (but are limited to):

Mental changes-

Depression

Emotional numbness

Loss of interest

Mood swings

Panic attacks

Sleep disruptions

Anxiety

Social withdrawal

No motivation

Paranoia

Personality changes-

Avoiding social events

Paranoia

Feeling hopeless and or helpless

Loss of interest

Physical changes-

Change in appetite

Exhaustion

Fatigue

Chest pain

Now let's go back and look at Barbara as a whole specifically how her character is presented to us and her relationships with some of the other characters

What do we know about Barbara explicitly well she-

Tends to get annoyed by things very quickly even for no reason sometimes

Has trust issues

Constantly comparing yourself to the previous starburst and everyone around her

Is constantly putting on a brave face when in reality she's nervous and terrified about everything she does

Says anything she does or tries to do will inevitably end up in failure and that it was all for nothing

Because of the way Barbie tends to look all the time she's seen as very hostile and someone you don't want to get too close to or piss off

Made it to where the star bearers didn't have to help in cleaning

Holds in a lot of her emotions

Has seizures which causes her immense pain as she releases her soot

Has no control over her soot expulsion

Is highly emotional like Kate

Used to be a lot like emilico

Her flower represents unacquainted love

Always puts her in the star bearers first even if it means hurting others in the children wing she supposed to be taking care of

Is easily manipulated

Doesn't realize that the cream she was given that was supposed to help Barbies scar heel is actually a poison

Is being used by Thomas as a living battery until she dies meaning she was never going to become an adult

And this is just the surface level stuff about this poor girl her relationships with others show what kind of person she used to be and is now

One of the first pieces of evidence to support the fact that she might be having mental breakdowns every time she releases her soot it's because of this manga panels from chapter 50

This panel reveals that because Barbara holds in all of her feelings about how she feels inadequate as a star-bearer, her fear and so many other things it, and how much it affects her soot at the same time.

We've seen time and time again that the shadows can only produce soot when they're feeling negative emotions, however one easy to overlook detail is the fact that depending on what influence they gain from their living doll it will determine their Emotional State

For example Matilda and Louise there both happy-go-lucky girls with very kind-hearted living dolls, therefore their soot quantity is much lower, than someone like John who because of the influence he received from his living doll which was Shaun's impulsiveness, he has a much higher quantity as he uses his emotions to make decisions. He's more intuition than he is brain.

Characters who have extremely low soot quantities usually have higher amounts of positive emotions we see that in both Shirley and Matilda they both have low soot quantities but they have some of the best personalities, they're kind-hearted, sweet, lively and mischievous

And considering the show and manga have made it clear that at one point Barbie and Barbara were a lot like Emilico and Kate it suddenly makes it clear why Barbara has so much soot coming out of her the only thing she was lacking was Kate's confidence.

(And remember before ever meeting Christopher and MaryRose she was always super emotional, but she had much better control over her emotions, something we see when MaryRose offers a hand to her and she thinks she's teasing her causing her anger to expel a lot of soot around her body, but not nearly to the point we see now in the story!)

And it would also explain why it's so painful for her it's a form of a seizure, because of her anxiety & social withdrawness, it ends up causing her to have a panic attack which is in the form of these seizures. Since her soot makes up around 60% of the power Shadow house produces in a day, it's incredibly painful for her to keep that all in. Which is another way of saying how it's incredibly painful for someone to keep all of their negative emotions in and have them explode at random points, which would also explain her mood swings, exhaustion, and her trying to avoid any sort of social activity with people she doesn't trust (which is a form of paranoia). All of this is because she's constantly bottling up her feelings and having them explode which many people can say (myself included) bottling up your negative feelings is exhausting

And the fact that she doesn't want anyone to see her in this state in her mind she doesn't want people to see how weak she is, (which is honestly heartbreaking) because it's basically her being the most vulnerable. That's why she lets Barbie insult her so much, it's so she can get rid of more of the soot, but it's also her way of basically acknowledging how she feels about herself. She truly believes every horrible thing Barbie says to her is true, she thinks that way and Barbie reciprocates those feelings to her face when she's in this state, which only makes it worse, (but both of them don't even realize this because their kids who haven't been taught anything about their own mental health). Plus this also explains the way Barbie behaves. The story at one point made it clear that she used to be a lot like Emilico standing up for people who were weaker than her making friends with people who were like Rum, but after Christopher left the adult wing and they were betrayed by Rosemary and MaryRose she completely changed how she behaved in order to match what she believed a strong face should look like and act like.

We even see the consequences of her explosive anger and unpredictable mood swings (and to be honest evidence of herself hatred)

Once she realizes that she can't do what she wants to do for the children's wing on her own after feeling betrayed by MaryRose and Christopher supposedly going to the adult wing she felt helpless which caused her to lose control of her emotions causing an extreme soot explosion injuring the one person who stood by her side trying to calm her down

This perfectly highlights how in a mental breakdown you end up accidentally hurting people close to you, and I honestly believe that this was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to herself hatred. It was already bad enough that everything else around her happened, but that was stuff she just couldn't control, but right here is where we see her lose control over her emotions and her soot, causing her to hurt the person dearest to her. You know for a fact she blames herself for this even if Barbie herself never told her how much this hurt her, tried to tell her it wasn't her fault, or even tried to dismiss the situation as a whole, Barbara probably blames herself because it was indeed her fault

(an interesting fact I just realized is that if Barbie really did try to tell Barbara that she doesn't mind that she hurt her because she knows it was an accident, "she didn't mean to hurt me" then that mentality is a lot like pink pearl (volleyball) in the sense that she's making excuses for why Barbara did what she, did but she's not acknowledging her own pain, she's not acknowledging the fact that she was badly hurt)

This panel from chapter 107 absolutely confirms the fact that not only does she bottle up her motions to a dangerous degree, but has feelings for someone she doesn't even know that he could be dead. She knew about unification before this, but she doesn't know that unifying with Barbie would mean she would lose her, and that's important because it shows just how desperate she is to see Christopher again. She's willing to put her own living doll's life on the line if it means seeing someone she doesn't even know is dead

She bottled her own feelings, pushing down her feelings of love she felt for Christopher and because she never once acted on those feelings they were told him before he went to the adult wing she had to carry on those feelings of love, betrayal, paranoia, fear and anxiety with her this whole time.

All she wanted was for comrade to be by her side someone she can look up to and admire someone who would be there for her but she kept on getting hurt because she opened up herself to somebody else.

But ironically enough the manga is giving us someone else that she doesn't even realize she's opening up to in the form of Patrick someone who could be the next person who could help her

(after all her Arc is all about finding someone that she can trust and love with her feelings without being hurt again, and his Arc is about finding a way to deal with his feelings of love while trying to protect people who are weaker than him. Both of their ark's work because she needs somebody to save herself from these dark feelings that she has, and he failed once to save somebody who was in love with him. Now with Barbara in a compromising position that she's in she could be the next person that comes his way, but this time unlike Margaret he could actually end up saving her, bringing both of their stories together. After all why would they make so many parallels between Emilico and what Barbie used to be if they weren't planning something big with this story)

So what do you guys think am I over analyzing this or do you think I might have a little bit of a point this is just me looking into this kind of stuff it broke my heart seeing Barbara and such a scary state in the more I thought about it the more it really did look like it was trying to call out the mental state of these kids

#shadows house theory #Shadow's house barbara #shadows house barbie #mental breakdowns #personal theory #one of a few to many #Shadow's house #it's just a theory #don't take it too seriously please

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sapphicgarland · 5 months

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karkat or Dave playing animal crossing for the first time and getting really into it please!!!!

I interpreted this as davekat as it gave me more room to work with since I could have dialogue. It was a bit hard to expand on the prompt since there's no conflict but I did my best! I hope I made it cute enough to be interesting

“Okay, so how does this thing work?” Karkat asks as if they haven't had a Nintendo Switch for a whole year now.

Dave just shakes his head and gets up from the couch, once again showing him how to set it up. “How are you this bad with electronics?”

“Listen, last time I tried to do something more complicated than open a Google Chrome window I got a computer virus so bad it killed my crab dad. I think I'm allowed to just give up and accept that I shouldn't touch this shit.”

“Maybe you're right,” Dave says with a bit of a smile. “Okay, I got it hooked up. Ready?” He asks as he sits back down on the couch.

Karkat follows and sits next to him, grabbing his pair of controllers. “Ready!”

“Okay, so, Jade said this isn't immediately two player so I figured we'll take turns setting up our characters and stuff and then play it together?”

Karkat nods in agreement, so Dave starts up his profile first and opens up Animal Crossing for the first time. “This game better be worth the $50 plus tax or I'm making Jade pay us back.”

Karkat laughs a bit and playfully slaps Dave's arm, a gesture that Dave has gotten used to over the years. No more flinching now that he knows it's a safe affection. “Shut up, I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, it's not like we can't afford it.”

Dave just shrugs and goes quiet as the game continues. He mumbles the dialogue and text aloud so that he's not skipping too fast or too slow for Karkat. Karkat gives a chuckle, which causes Dave to stop and look at him. “what?”

“Oh, I just like the little voices,” he says with another chuckle. Dave cracks a small smile and nods in agreement before continuing.

“pick your style…oh yes. The two genders; short hair or ponytail,” Dave chuckles.

“Hey they say style!” Karkat chuckles. “which will you choose?”

Dave lingers for a moment before just picking the short hair, non-pony tail one with a shrug and continues on. They debate on which island to pick before finally settling on the one with the River cutting the island straight through into 3 sections, and finally moving on.

“If you could only bring one thing…huh. What do you think, babe?” Dave asks.

Karkat thinks for a moment, “well, presumably there'd be something edible on the island. I'd say a lamp? Though I'd prefer aflashlight.”

“That makes sense but there'd be no electricity. Once the battery dies you're screwed if you can't make a fire.”

“You'd have to make a fire anyway to cook a lot of the food you'd be eating.”

“Ah but if you bring food you can buy yourself time until you can make weapons and figure out what's edible or not.”

“See, this is why I always say a survival guide based on the biome and general geographical location of the island.” *karkat says with a huff,* “why isn't that an option??”

Dave rolls his eyes and picks lamp, a small smile on his face, “because they don't have your brain, I guess.”

They move on and finally arrive on the island. Their first two villagers are Canberra and Raold. They rush through Tom Nook's dialogue a bit, Dave reading it out loud quickly. They're bored at first, too much exposition for their taste. Though, Karkat isn't complaining, and Dave knows that this is just how games work sometimes. It probably means there's very little non-skippable dialogue for the rest of the game.

“Finally.” Dave says as they are released into the wild to explore.”okay, we've gotta put up our tent. Where are we putting this bad boy, babe?”

“Uhhh probably pretty close to the plaza right? I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of walking back and forth.”

“Agreed. I'm sure there's a way to move it in the future.” Dave sets the tent right next to the plaza. They go back and Dave finishes the beginning missions while Karkat watches. Eventually, Karkat's Head is in Dave's lap, just quietly watching as Dave gets their island ready. It takes a bit but eventually Dave stops and looks down,* “Okay, ready to join?”

Karkat nods and sits up. They switch profiles so that Karkat can get his character ready.

“Okay, so should I just keep going or do we wanna switch back to your profile?” Karkat asks once his character is ready and his tent is placed.

Dave shrugs, “Nah. Go ahead and do some…uh….collecting? I was about to say mining,” he chuckled, “this isn't minecraft. Whatevering. I'll watch you for a while.

Karkat nods and just continues. Eventually Dave's head is on Karkat's lap, watching Karkat play. This continues for a couple of hours actually. Before long, almost everything that can be set up in just a day with no time travel is already set up. They switch profiles so that Dave can finish up some stuff that only he had permission to do (much to Karkat’s snarky disapproval).

“I'm not sure what else to do for right now." Dave says after about another hour of playing with Karkat's Head in his lap. His hand goes down to pet through Karkat's hair a little. "I feel like we should wait for all this stuff to open up y'know? Like the museum and stuff.”

Karkat nods, “I mean we could grind a bit and get a bunch of…what was it, bells? But I don't want to sell all the resources and find out we actually needed them. Oh, we could bug the villagers, though.

Dave smiles a bit and nods, going to talk to Raold first and then Canberra. They both smile.

“aw the villagers are kind of cute. Okay, okay, I see what Jade meant,” Karkat admits. “I really like this game. It's cozy and really relaxing.”

Dave nods in agreement, “this is fun. We should play tomorrow too.”

#fanfiction #davekat #oneshot #answered #homestuck #animal crosing new horizons

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vvatchword · 1 year

Text

Freewrite Traveler versus Alphasmart Neo 2

So I have an Alphasmart Neo 2 and a Freewrite Traveler. One of these cost me about $300. The other cost me $30. And I'm about to give you a review because I love one of these things more than the other.

The Alphasmart Neo 2 is from the 00s and was used in classrooms to help kids practice typing without the distraction of a computer attached to the Internet. They come with some basic little functions like a calculator and are powered by three AAA batteries. They have eight files that can contain 10,000 words each, can copy, cut, and paste, and you can go back into the document to edit. There are no Undo or Redo functions. To transfer the files to your PC, you hook up a cable while the Alphasmart and your word processor of choice are turned on. That easy. The batteries last for-e-ver. I'm taking about years. I am on my second set of batteries and I've owned this dealio for five years or so with almost daily use. This thing cost me $30 plus s&h a few years ago. Word has gotten out about these, so they're more expensive than that these days, but not significantly so--maybe $50? You'll see some being sold for $100 or so but that's ridiculous tbh.

At the time I purchased the Alphasmart, i had already backed the Freewrite Traveler on Kickstarter for about $300. I felt pretty dumb and wondered if I would regret my choice.

As it turns out: yes. I do.

The Traveler uses the same kind of screen as a Kindle, has three files of infinite words each, is rechargeable, and can back up your work to the cloud and send your files to your email address. It's sleek, small, and exceptionally cute. I just like looking at it. But after getting it, I couldn't help but compare it to the Alphasmart, which kicks its ass every day.

Recharging sounds fine, but it runs out of juice FAST. A full day's work will knock it out; I ran out of juice anywhere from three days to three weeks, depending on how much I was using it. Inevitably there is a point you forget to recharge and wham bam fuck you ma'am, it's going to take four hours to charge now and you can't use it if it wound down to 0% while you were sleeping. It posts to the cloud, which you'd think is great--infinite words! Back it up anywhere you find free WiFi!--but to do this, you need to sign up for Postbox, a service through Freewrite, which means that if the company dies, so does the cloud feature. You can also transfer your files via the charging cable, so they thought of this, but it feels dangerous and a little disingenuous, not gonna lie.

Unlike the Alphasmart, you can't copy, cut, paste, or edit. When I say you can't edit, I mean that you can't arrow up to some previous point in the story and add or delete. The point of this feature--and it is a feature!--is to emulate typewriters and encourage first draft flow. Problem is, that's just not how I write. For $300, or whatever it's selling for now, I want to be able to use cut, copy, and paste, maybe even redo and undo, and I want to be able to go back and add extra bullshit. Also, the full-sized Freewrite has a backlight, but the Traveler does not. Why does my $300 machine not have a goddamn backlight.

The Traveler also has a hint of lag and it drives me fucking crazy. This may not be a problem for you if you hunt and peck or are a slower typist, but I type almost as fast as I think. I have gotten up to 190 wpm before. Long story short, Traveler can't keep up--but Alphasmart can!

The Alphasmart is also more comfortable to type on and takes up about as much room in a bag as the Traveler does--just lengthwise rather than width-wise, if it makes sense. The Traveler is better for a purse, perhaps, but it's just bulky enough that I sometimes found it troublesome to make room in my bags. It's about the size of a clutch when folded up.

At one point, I got caught in a rainstorm while my Alphasmart was in my backpack. The rain seeped into my backpack and ruined a book. Meanwhile the Alphasmart was like lol whatever do you feel like writing queen?

Anyway, I'm going to see if I can't sell my Freewrite. I'd rather have a second Alphasmart rofl

#alphasmart #freewrite #writing #vvatchword

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jovialtorchlight · 5 months

Text

THE WITCH--A ONE ACT PLAY by JONNY BOLDUC

The Witch

A play by Jonny BOLDUC

CHARACTERS:

JONNY: Male, 20-50

A young man. Troubled, disheveled.

WITCH: Female, 20-50

A mystical and enigmatic guide, similarly troubled.

JACOBY

Male, 10-18

A scared young boy.

GLEN:

Male, 20-50

The embodiment of evil.

CHARLIE:

Male, 40-70

A barfly who dies.

THERAPIST:

Any gender, 40-70

A kind professional.

SAWED MAN:

Any Gender. 20-70

A soul claimed by evil.

EMT/BYSTANDER

COP/ GUARD

BOUNCER/NURSE

JONNY:

Lights up on Jonny, centerstage. He is in a flannel shirt and has a pitchfork, dressed like he just he is in a barn. He addresses the audience directly. He is telling a story.

Three months. Doesn’t seem real. The days blur by like a roar. What did I do today, even? Well, I went out to the barn. Our barn. I found two dead, newborn goats in a corner. Black and brown, tiny, the size of puppies, twins. The mother looked at me like she always did; huge marble eyes dilated, sideways, like they were about to bulge out of her skull.

My farmhouse, a farmhouse that used to be ours, was down a small hill from the paddock, a half acre fenced off with a barn built at the crest of the hill. I could see it from the small wooden slat in the stall door. The baby goats were born in a bad way. It wasn’t their fault. It was November, and even with a heated blanket and the insulation of the hay, the cold air wrapped around them, their spirits slowly fading. Even in April, the normal birthing season, on the cusp of spring, it was normal to lose a few babies.

November seemed to take farm life with greed. Earlier in the month, a fisher cat had chewed through the wire of the coop and slaughtered 13 turkeys, leaving decapitated bodies piled up against the doors of the coop.

Half of life is keeping wolves from the door, I thought as I bent over to cradle the dead goats in my arms.

And the wolves are drawn to the scent of blood.

And there was no shortage of wolves, or blood. The whole farmed reeked of pain. At first, everything was coated in a thick film of memory. Even the pots and the pans, the coffee maker. The pang of “that was once ours.” The knowledge that she touched this mug, cupped it in her palms, let the steam rise into the chilly morning air, leaving the floating scent of coffee lifting through the house.

I snapped back to the dead goats in my arms, limp, limbs flapping around awkwardly, the mother staring at me.

It’s hard to figure out what a goat knows. Did she want a snack of grain? Most definitely. Did she miss her babies? Maybe. Sometimes, they seem like bleating animatronics, only interested in food, screaming, and breaking shit. Other times they stare at you, long tongues lopsided, eyes sideways, looking at something beyond you, understanding what exists beyond what’s here.

The Witch taught me how to feel that connection. That communion. Not the evil, biblical pentagram shit. But a link to something beyond. Once you know it’s present, you can feel it.

Animals are a vessel. And it’s not a dark energy they draw from, a dark message from an abyssal place. It’s just another place, another place we go when we’re done being here. Most of the time, it works out fine.

The witch also taught me that everything can be perverted, can take on a new form, a terrible form. Scene jumps to a parking lot, where the Witch, rubbing her hands together for warmth, is stranded outside of her car.

JONNY:

Hey there. Battery dead?

WITCH:

Startled.

Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you. Yeah, it is.

JONNY:

I have cables in the back.

WITCH:

Oh, you don’t need to--

JONNY:

No problem at all.

JONNY attaches the wires to the invisible car.

SFX: Car starting

WITCH:

Freezing.

Thank..you.

JONNY:

You got some snowflakes in your scalp.

WITCH:

What?

JONNY:

Akwardly.

I assume it’s not dandruff.

WITCH:

Uh…

JONNY:

I mean, uh, it would be ok if it was dandruff--

WITCH:

Laughing.

It’s not. Thank you. I’ve been waiting for almost an hour.

JONNY:

Not a problem. Get in your car before you freeze. See you around. WITCH exits. Lights dim on JONNY. I’d like to say that it was love at first sight, that I knew she was a witch, that I felt her presence and knew that she was going to gradually teach me that I was fundamentally wrong about the universe, about the way things worked, about life and love and joy and terror.

But as I drove out of the Walmart parking lot, the sky was just the sky, the cold was just cold, and the emptiness of a half lived life swam around me. Days, as they often do, turned into weeks. We kept circling each other. Sometimes I noticed her, sometimes she noticed me; at least three or four times a week. In gas stations, waiting rooms, checkout lines. It became a bit of a joke shared by two near strangers; we were always together, by complete accident.

It was a hot July day, and I was at the town beach, lying on a towel. I had been reading a book, but I closed it, and laid it on top of my eyes so the beating of the sun wouldn’t blind me.

Monlouge breaks. We are at a beach, several weeks later. JONNY sheds his shirt and pants to a layer of swimgear underneath. WITCH is sitting on a beach chair wearing dark sunglasses and a sunhat. JONNY lays down on a towel.

I could feel my skin tightening into a sunburn, so I sat up. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her.

JONNY:

You again? Jonny smiles.

WITCH:

Yep. looks like it. Grins back.

JONNY:

I’m starting to think you’re following me.

WITCH:

Grin fades. Her tone is suddenly very, very dire.

I’m not. Are you following me?

JONNY:

“Uh...no. And look, I’m sorry if I spooked you. It was a half-baked joke. Starts to get up.

WITCH:

It’s okay. I didn’t think so. I just had to be sure. What’s your name?

JONNY:

Jonny. What’s yours?

WITCH:

Ignoring the question. She concentrates out into the audience, her voice falling into a sharp whisper. She points. That boy out by the floating dock is going to drown. Things are about to fall into place.

JONNY:

Back into narration.

Six or seven children were standing in the corner of the floating dock, trying to sink it. They did; and the other half of the dock rose into the air.

A boy who looked to be about ten was standing on a particularly pitched part of the float. As it rose sharply, he slipped, smashed his face off of the wood, and, before his friends could catch him, slipped off into the water.

Before I registered what I was doing, I was in the water, running, as fast as Icould; diving into the water, stroke after stroke, kids screaming, parents from the beach yelling.

Lights up on a boy, some distance from Jonny.

Rapid fire delivery. Frantic.

JACOBY:

He was swimming quickly, and he was at the dock, I gasped and I swallowed more water and he dived under and he opened his eyes

JONNY:

I couldn’t see anything, just a chain attached to the slimey underneath of the dock to the bottom of the lake; breath running out, I followed the chain to the rocky bottom;

JACOBY:

But I wasn’t there either. He looked back up, and saw me, face down, under the dock. He

JONNY:

Pushed from the bottom upwards, running out of breath. I grabbed the boy’s limp body, and dragged him out from under the dock with a final push before I inhaled a lung full of lakewater. I felt the fire hit my lungs, I pushed his body up above the surface of the water and some hands grabbed him and while I wheezed and coughed—

O.S VOICE:

OH GOD HE’S NOT BREATHING!

JONNY:

No, I thought, I just saved him, just grabbed him, I should have saved him, and I thrashed as I lost strength and before I lost consciousness I felt hands grab me and pull me—

People rush around JONNY, who stands still, slow motion in the middle of the chaos. Two EMTS lift Jacoby onto stretcher and hurry him offstage.

Everything should have been fine. EMTs were having lunch at the hotdog stand up the road; they heard the screaming and came on the scene while I was underwater. The boy was under the dock for just under a minute. The guy who jumped in right behind me was a lifeguard. The guy swimming behind him was a former Navy S.E.A.L.

On that hot July day, everything lined up. We should have been able to save that boy—I’d learn later, from his mother, that his name was Jacoby—and he should have been the one, blue lipped, shivering, on the back of the ambulance, having his vitals monitored, coughing up water.

While I was unconscious, I had a dream.

BLACKOUT. Lights come up. Three distinct spotlights, the rest of the stage as black as possible. JONNY, the WITCH with her beach-chair, and JACOBY each occupy a space onstage.

JACOBY:

Sobbing, stifling sniffling. Where’s my mom?

WITCH:

The spotlight follows her as she moves to JACOBY. She embraces him, and puts a hand on his head.

She’s not here now, but you can visit her later. Why don’t we go take a walk? There are some people up by the hot-dog stand who would love to see you, Jacoby.

JACOBY:

Oh...okay. JACOBY begins to move, but he suddenly whips around and stares at JONNY.

Terrified. Who is that? Out on the dock? Is he the bad? Is he going to--

JONNY:

No, no, buddy, I’m a friend, I tried to help you--

JACOBY:

He shouldn’t be here. JACOBY looks as if he is going to bolt.

WITCH:

Stern, like a mother. Jacoby, you need to turn toward me. Please. You don’t have to be afraid. He is a friend.

JACOBY:

JACOBY begins to writhe. Lights make it look like energy is bursting from his skin.

WITCH:

JACOBY!

JACOBY:

It’s so hot…all this light…I can’t…

Red. Everything is washed in red. JONNY begins to narrate.

JONNY:

Breathless.

I felt myself burn into him, felt my consciousness blend into his—for a moment--Add strobe effect—I had to stand—had to stop this— I felt my chest tighten as his eyes fixed on me and I felt the way his smashed face felt when it hit the dock and scraped against the wood and how his head pounded and he slipped and the way he tried to swim up before he lost consciousness and the way the water filled his lungs—I saw the writhing and the fear, the red open sore of the sky, the dark hue of the beach suddenly vast and endless, a void, drawing me and the boy in like a magnet, like we were being pulled; I had to stand up, do something—

BLACKOUT. In the blackout, which lasts a second or two, JONNY moves next to JACOBY and the WITCH.

WITCH:

Thank you, Jacoby. Thank you for trusting us. Now, I need you to get out of the water, Jacoby.

JACOBY:

I don’t know if I can. Subtle hints that he is escalating; perhaps a strobe flashing once.

WITCH:

You can. You can, Jacoby.

JACOBY:

Turns to JONNY.

I’ll do it if he jumps in.

WITCH:

Addressing JONNY. Friend. You don’t have to jump.

JACOBY:

Petulant. Yes he does! I won’t do it if he doesn’t!

JONNY:

Narrating. I looked down at the water. It was black, oily, bubbling. I glanced back at Jacoby. I didn’t know what was going to happen to him if I didn’t jump. But the fear in my chest told me he would be lost, swallowed up by whatever this oily water was.

Breaking back.

Alright. On the count of three.

BOTH:

One.

Two.

Three.

JONNY jumps. BLACKOUT.

SCENE 2

JONNY:

Laying down on a stretcher stage center, with an EMT leaning over him... Lights dim on JONNY and an EMT.

JONNY coughs.

Where is he? Where’s Jacoby?

EMT:

Woah, take it easy. Who’s Jacoby?

JONNY:

Speaking hurts. The kid. Underwater. Jacoby.

Silence. After a pause.

EMT:

His parents said they didn’t know you. How do you know his name?

JONNY:

A bad liar. Somebody yelled it. How long was I unconscious?

EMT:

Three minutes. No matter what happened to Jacoby, it wasn’t your fault. You tried to save him.

JONNY STANDS. EMT’s exit, wheeling the stretcher off. The BEACH scene is over, and JONNY is narrating.

JONNY:

For a while, I convinced myself that the the dream was my mind responding to the influx of trauma and the lack of oxygen and the exhaustion. A few days passed. Jacoby’s family called me a few times, told me it wasn’t my fault, that I was a hero for trying to save him. They asked me to come to his funeral. I couldn’t. I could barely leave my apartment. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jacoby. Or the black, oily water.

And in my dreams, I was standing on the edge of the dock, staring at the bubbling void and Jacoby's blue bloated bloody face rose up from the depths and he was sobbing, asking me why I didn’t swim faster, why I couldn’t save him.

When I drank, I fell asleep and I didn’t have dreams. So I took to drinking.

Hard. We are now in the interior of a car. There is an open bottle of whiskey barely concealed underneath a coat in the drivers seat. JONNY is driving. He mimes falling asleep. SOUND FX: CRASH. JONNY stumbles out of his car; from the opposite side of the stage, the Witch stumbles out of hers. A small crowd forms around.

JONNY:

Drunkenly. Anyone have any---uh, Listerine? Or Tik Tacks?

JONNY and the WITCH notice eachother.

WITCH:

It’s…you.

JONNY:

Sure is. Your eyes are bloodshot as fuck. Also, you smell like…a…whiskey…factory. I do too. Damn it. Tell me, when I jumped, did Jacob…

WITCH:

He made it.

A bystander approaches.

BYSTANDER:

Are you both…drunk?

JONNY:

Then why am I…

WITCH:

Having the dreams? You jumped in.

Blue lights flash.

JONNY:

I had to. I had to jump.

WITCH:

Smiling. Once we sober up and post bail, we have to talk.

COPS ENTER.

JONNY:

The Witch was right. We both got arrested. My coat fell off the bottle during the force of the crash. I glanced at it. It was almost empty. I did a quick calculation; I had been drinking heavy for six months. I didn’t even notice when the bottle was gone. The bottle was the first thing the cop saw. I saw him put on some gloves and grab it. Another cop car rolled in.

COP:

Not really a question. You been drinking, sir?

JONNY:

Addressing audience. I shouldn’t have said anything. Should have waited for my lawyer. But I just wanted to get it over with.

Addressing COP.

Yes.

COP: To the Witch.

And you, miss?

WITCH:

Yes.

COP:

Do you two know eachother?

BOTH:

No.

JONNY:

That was the first lie we told. Addressing the audience as he he is cuffed and led away by the COP.

We both blew the same blood alcohol level. Way over. Both JONNY and the WITCH are sitting in the back of a cop car. We decided, subconsciously, that the back of a copcar wasn’t a good place to talk.

It is silent, cut by bursts of SXF: Radio chatter. JONNY leads his head back, and closes his eyes. The WITCH is asleep as well.

For the first time in six months, when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see Jacoby. I saw her face. I understood her. I knew she was as tired as I was. She had the same dreams of Jacoby dying. When we got to the jail, we were separated. I spent a night in County, sobered up, and posted bail. First time. No convictions. Not even a speeding ticket. $500, only bail condition not to drink.

I knew I’d probably be back behind bars. I already knew I needed a drink. I should have called a lawyer first thing. Called my parents to tell them I’d got into trouble and probably lost my job and needed help and I was so sorry— But I didn’t . The first thing I did—and I mean the first thing—was to try and find the Witch.

COP is now a GUARD who is handing JONNY his belongings.

JONNY:

The woman I was brought in with--do you know if she’s been released?

GUARD:

Fuck off. Get out of here. Here’s your stuff. One uncharged phone, a lighter, and a wallet with 14 dollars in cash.

JONNY:

JONNY leaves, and sits at a table, drinking a coffee. There was a Cafe down the street. I got a coffee, and sat. The morning’s paper was on the stand. We were sure to be in there. Sure enough, I flipped to the local section of the paper, greeted by my mugshot, and hers. Headline read, “two arrested after drunk drivers slam into each other.”

But I had something important. Her name. I never told her that I learned her name from her mugshot. I left my coffee on the table, and left the cafe without paying for the paper.

As JONNY leaps up from the table, he walks, and delivers these lines to the the audience. As he does, a basic apartment with a chair is set behind him.

It was a two hour walk back to my apartment, but I made it. I charged my phone. About 100 voicemails and missed calls, from my mom, my dad, my sister. My work. I was fired.

SOUND SXF: Phone ringing. Witch appears with a phone on the other side of the stage.

WITCH:

Hey, I found your number in the phone book...I found your address, too. I’m coming over.

JONNY:

What?

WITCH:

Bursts through the door. Looks around. Her tone is playful.

Wow, this place is a shithole. All carpeted, right? Even the bathroom?

JONNY:

Yeah, how did you--

WITCH:

Been here before. Your closet is full of booze bottles and pizza bozes towering like a pyramid. You’re not going to get your damage deposit back, and you’re fine with that. The “living” room is a futon pad on the floor with a TV and a Playstation hooked up, and your bedroom is a mattress on the floor. You use an oversized flannel as a blanket.

JONNY:

Uh. Yeah. How--

WITCH:

You still hungover?

JONNY:

Yeah.

WITCH:

Well, clear the pizza box off that chair and we can talk.

JONNY:

Hastily moves a pizza box.

I’m sorry my apartment is such a mess.

WITCH:

I was just giving you shit. Mine is just as bad.

JONNY:

Sits across from the Witch. They are silent, but not uncomfortably.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so goddamn tired.

WITCH:

Me too. But it feels like we’re both back from the brink of whatever the hell had happened to us. Like we’re finally sitting down, gasping for breath, not drowning, happy to be safe.

JONNY:

Or at least pretending to be safe.

WITCH:

Right.

JONNY:

So…what happened on the beach?

The Witch puts her head in her hands, slumps down. She looks up.

WITCH:

It’s hard to explain. It’s no so much a ‘what was that,’ as a ‘where were we?” type question.

JONNY:

Jacoby…was dead, right?

WITCH nods.

Were we dead too? Did I die-

WITCH:

Snapping. No. No, we weren’t dead. Jacoby died, we survived.

JONNY:

I’m sorry. I just thought:

WITCH:

I’m sorry. Jonny. I’ve been...going to that place...for a long, long time. As long as I can remember. And I’ve never had anyone else come with me. Usually, it’s easy. I offer a hand, tell them everything is going to be fine, and we walk. Sometimes, things get fucked up. The...bad thing comes.

JONNY sits in stunned silence. The WITCH gets up, goes to a fridge, and grabs a beer. She treats the kitchen as if it’s her own, as if she knows where everything is.

Usually, when things get as bad as they did with Jacoby, I can’t save them. I...I try the best I can. But you...you saved him. You jumped in the water. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

JONNY:

Sorry, what? What did I do? How did I save him?

WITCH:

He wasn’t going to go. He was going to get claimed by that...black shit, the oil. You helped him go beyond. I want to see if you can do it again. But I need you to promise me something.

JONNY:

Gazes at her.

Anything.

WITCH:

You have to trust me. Please trust me. JONNY nods. The WITCH smiles, downs the entire beer in three gulps, and bounds out the door.

JONNY:

As he follows, he breaks, and addresses the audience. I would have followed her anywhere.

SCENE 3

Lights up outside a dive bar called the “Blue Goose.” JONNY and WITCH are standing.

WITCH:

This is my favorite place. Shoulder to shoulder, shoes stick to the floor if you stand in one place for too long.

JONNY:

Are we going inside?

WITCH:

No. Someone is going to come out of that bar. They’re going to trip on the sidewalk, and when they fall, they’re going to get hit by a car.

JONNY:

What? We have to stop it--

WITCH:

I’ve tried. So many times. But we can’t. When it happens, let me do the talking, please.

CHARLIE stumbles from out of the bar. CHARLIE is in his late ‘60s. A BOUNCER trails behind him.

BOUNCER:

Go sleep it off, Charlie.

CHARLIE wobbles, tries to catch himself, and falls over, onto the road. SXF of screeching tires. Bouncer screams.

JONNY:

A car raced over Charlie’s body with a thud, limbs caught in the wheels, bones snapping off like twigs. Parts of the man spilled out onto the road, crushed open like a smashed jack-o-lantern. Then, everything shifted.

A striking shift in lighting. Stage is black again. A spotlight lights JONNY and the WITCH, and a separate beam illuminates CHARLIE.

CHARLIE:

Looking down at his hands. What happened? How am I sober?

WITCH:

I’m sorry, Charlie.

CHARLIE:

Who are you? Points at JONNY. Who is he?

WITCH:

Friends. We’re here to help you, Charlie. There’s a few people waiting for you around the corner.

CHARLIE:

Who?

WITCH:

Nancy.

CHARLIE crumbles to the ground, sobbing. A light pulsates for a second, the same pulsation that happened with JACOBY.

WITCH:

I know. You miss her. She’d love to see you, Charlie. But we have to go. We can’t stay here.

CHARLIE:

Why?

WITCH:

“Because it’s not safe.”

CHARLIE:

Okay.

He rises. As he rises, a sickly green lights up the stage. SXF of a screech tires. CHARLIE convulses, tendrils of sick light and smoke burst out of him. The scene is sickly green chaos.

JONNY leaps in front of Charlie, and pull him in close, as if to protect him. SXF of a car whizzing by.

To JONNY.

You saved me.

JONNY:

We need to go. Before it comes back.

They walk offstage, the WITCH holding JONNY’s hand. JONNY comes back onstage, addressing the audience.

She slept over on the couch that night. With her there, even in the other room, I could sleep soundly. In the morning, I took her to get some coffee.

WITCH comes onstage and they both sit at a table.

To the WITCH. So, where do you live?

WITCH:

Presses her mug tightly into her palm. Nowhere. I got kicked out of my apartment after I was arrested.

JONNY:

TO audience. I knew it was crazy, inviting someone I had just rear ended in a drunken bender to live with me. But I felt like I knew her. Like we had already met, that some deep part of me had studied her before, like she had spoken to me and I had listened.

To WITCH. Do you want to move in?

WITCH:

Smiling. Sure. The WITCH addresses the audience.

WITCH:

Jonny moved in with me. We cleaned the place up. We went to court, lost our licenses for six months, and I managed to get a job at a Subway around the corner. His parents helped us out with rent until Jonny got a job at a newspaper. We managed to be happy. JONNY learned how to help people die. He learned how to exit death if things were getting bad, how to sense if the bad thing was coming.

The first time we kissed, it was a few days before Christmas. We had been semi-platonic up until that point. We were watching the Grinch. Not the Jim Carrey one, the old school cartoon. I found it romantic, I guess. I leaned into him.

Our first kiss was on the pullout couch I slept on, and after that, I slept in the bedroom with him. The next morning, I got up before him and made eggs. She came into the kitchen, got a running start, and jumped on my back. I spun around, shifting her, and kissed him again. I grabbed his hand. And for a year and a half, we never let go. We were happy. Together.

And we kept going to the other place. We kept saving people, walking with them. Someone would die. We would be there. We would help them along.

One night, I went to work. And Jonny fell asleep on the couch. WITCH exits.

JONNY:

A dream. Jacoby wasn’t there. I knew something was wrong. The dead can come in dreams, and they often do, and when the Witch and I would talk to each other about visits, it was almost like we were talking about old friends. Alvin was doing fine. Jen had managed to move on. Curtis was getting there. Mike was a piece of shit, but he was slowly learning how to not be an asshole. The dreams followed a format. But Jacoby never showed up. He wasn’t ok.

Lights up, mirroring the beach scene, JACOBY standing on the dock.

JACOBY:

Robotic. I’m going to sink it. I’m going to sink it. I’m going to loose my balance. I’m going to fall in. I’m going to drown, bloated, blue--

JONNY:

NO!

JACOBY:

You have to jump in. You have to save me. You couldn’t. I was under the dock, drowning, and you couldn’t save me. Step in. Save me.

JONNY:

JONNY steps out of his spotlight. He yelps in pain. It is like stepping into hot coals.

WITCH:

O.S

Jonny. Don’t. Please. You can’t save him.

JONNY:

You said he was okay. He’s not okay.

WITCH:

VOICE quivering. Please, turn around. You can’t do this.

JONNY:

Dives into the oil.

WITCH:

Screaming. JONNY!

JONNY, in the black, makes terrible noises as if he is choking. WITCH exits. Lights flood black on. JONNY is gasping, hands to his neck, emerging from the dream.

JONNY:

I need a fucking drink. JONNY goes to the pantry and grabs a bottle of whiskey. He grabs a shot glass, but sets it down, and insteads opts for a pint glass, filling it, and chugging it. He does the same, again. He is now addressing the audience.

I felt heavy, like the gunk had latched onto my soul. I was back in the days after Jacoby died, back to thinking that if I drank I could get rid of the stain of not being able to save him. But this was different. This time, I couldn’t save Jacoby’s soul. Reality snarled at me, bit me in the face. I was a drunk. I had a criminal record. I was broke, in way over my head. And who was she, this woman I was obsessing over, the woman who I called the witch? I had the distinct feeling that I was being drawn into something that I couldn’t quite understand. I was fucking with people’s souls. Something deeper than myself, something far, far more important than me.

I didn’t want to be drawn into anything. All I wanted to do was drink myself to death. The stakes were incredible, and I knew that I was utterly unable to deal with whatever the hell happened again if it happened again.

JONNY goes to the fridge and takes a bottle of chilled rum. He puts it in a paper bag.

I left my apartment with the intention of finally fucking dying.

EXIT. END SCENE.

SCENE 4

Dark streets of Lewiston, Maine, between three and four in the morning. JONNY is stumbling, wandering. A lost soul. The WITCH speaks from offstage.

WITCH:

Lewiston, Maine is an old factory town, mills empty; a town rooted in the whirling mechanics of the past, where the fog stopped rolling and the factories shut down. A bridge connects Lewiston and Auburn. Jonny had been blacked out, and subsequently, came too on the bridge.

The jump might not have killed him, but the river, in the winter, was fierce, overflowing; rapid. If he jumped, it could be over. And I guess that’s what he wanted. He wanted whatever happened to him, whateverhe almost did to Jacoby, to never happen again.

JONNY reaches a guardrail. He lifts a leg over it. The Witch appears on the other side of the stage.

Turn around.

Blue lights flash.

JONNY:

It has to be now.

WITCH:

Jonny, turn around.

Jonny stumbles, passes out beside the guardrail. He’s safe.

JONNY:

They pumped my stomach and they stabilized me. While I slept, I was back at the beach, this time, on the shore. I looked down at myself, and I was coated with tarry oil; I couldn’t breathe, my lips were sealed shut by the glob, sticking to my skin, and I failed, trying to gasp, mouth sealed shut; and I couldn’t see through the oil that had solidified on my eyes, I was buried alive, standing up, and I was flailing, and I was going to die—

I felt myself scrubbed away. I felt the tar removed, but by bit, first from the mouth, so I could breathe, the eyes, so I could see, and finally, I stood whole and clean.

Someone was scrubbing my back. I turned around. It was the Witch.

WITCH:

Furious. Why didn’t you turn around? You promised you would trust me.

JONNY:

I..I couldn’t. Whatever happened to Jacoby was my fault. I shouldn’t have been there…

WITCH:

Look at me. It’s not your fault. But you have to listen to me. Please. I only have so much to give, and tonight, you took most of it. When you see me, I’m going to be weak. I’m not going to be myself. But still, for the love of everything, you have to trust me.

JONNY:

I...I always trust…

WITCH:

No. Angry again. If you trusted me, you would have turned around. Whatever that thing was on the dock, it wasn’t Jacoby. It wanted you to dive in, and you fell right into it.

JONNY:

I’m sorry…

WITCH:

Anger dies. Sadness rises. I don’t forgive you, not yet. I… I...can’t carry this weight on my own. Anyone can be ruined, Jonny. I love you. You can’t be the one who ruins me.

JONNY:

To the audience. I woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by family, with an incredible guilt. And not because I had just tried to kill myself. But because I had hurt the one who had tried to save me. The one who wanted me to be ok. I could almost feel the Witch, almost feel how that oil had set into her, how I put that heavy stone on her chest. I spent a day in bed at the hospital. They put me on some sedatives. The next day, they sent me to a psychward.

NURSE enters. She is giving JONNY a tour of the ward. JONNY is shuffling behind.

NURSE:

This is the nurses’ stations. Line up for evening meds after dinner. Here are the showers…

The WITCH, looking incredibly awful--hair in a ragged mess, wearing dirty sweatpants--sits in a chair. The NURSE and JONNY pass by. JONNY almost walks by, but sees the WITCH. He stares at her. She doesn’t recognize him. The NURSE keeps walking, unaware that JONNY has paused.

We have group at noon, three, and six…

JONNY:

. To audience. It looked like she hadn’t washed for days. Her long hair was filthy, ends frayed, and she stared off into the distance. She looked at me, but her eyes danced off somewhere else. And, for a moment, they went black, like someone had dipped her irises in oil.

NURSE:

Hey! You can’t be in there! Jonathan!

JONNY moves stage center. WITCH and the NURSE leave.

JONNY:

The nurses wouldn’t let me in her room. I couldn’t talk to her. I spent a lot of my time sleeping, trying to reach out to the witch, trying to meet her again. But I didn’t know how. There had to be a ritual, some way to get to that place, the beach, the inbetween, as she called it. But every time we went to that place, she touched me. Her touch was the gateway. And I couldn’t get near her. She spent most of her time locked in her room. Days turned into weeks. I kept sleeping. The ward was a secure floor, the rooms consisting of two beds, a desk, and a locker. My roommate was named Joe. For the first few weeks, he was detoxing, so he was in bed almost as much as I was.

When it was meal time, we gathered in the hallway, where we all lined up while the food cart rolled in and we were served, one by one. Most everyone in the ward were detoxing, or alcoholics, or had OD’d, and it wasn’t like insane people in straightjackets. Everyone was quiet.

Scene shifts to the ward cafeteria.

We got our food and went into the kitchen, where they had us sign out forks and knives so no one could try to kill themselves in the bathroom. There wasn’t much talking. We were all hungover, scared, or in withdrawal. Until the stranger came in.

JONNY is sitting, eating. A LINE of 2-3 people has formed, and an ORDERLY is handing out food. A wild, greasy, unkempt man with hair long to his back, a pencil-thin mustache and long fingernails shuffles on with his mouth half open, in a complete daze. He walks right into the back of a woman waiting in line. She turns around, starts to say the word “sorry,” and he swings on her, screaming--

GLEN:

Don’t FUCKING TOUCH ME YOU FUCKING CUNT!

The caferia erupts. NURSES grab GLEN, and one takes the woman, who is bleeding from the face offstage. They drag GLEN offstage, leaving the stage bare, except for JONNY.

JONNY:

He was carted off to the isolation room and sedated. Dinner was normal. I went to bed. I woke up in the morning to screaming coming from the TV room.. MAN screams. JONNY dashes to the TV room. The asshole from yesterday’s breakfast barracaded himself inside by sticking a chair underneath the handle so it couldn’t open from the outside. The nurses were banging at the door and the patients were lining the hallway; the door to the ward flung open and five security guards poured in and pushed us back away from the door to the room.

LIGHTS transform. Stage is black, spare a spotlight on GLEN, who is holding a butterknife to a man’s throat and sawing at it. The man is thrashing, trying to get GLENN OFF, but GLEN has him in a hold. A spotlight pops up on JONNY, who is just to the left of them.

JONNY: It’s over. He’s dead. Put the knife down.

GLEN:

Yellowed teeth in a wide grin.

It’s not over! It’s not over, we’re just getting warmed up, you fucking idiot! I already got his fucking soul! I cracked his bones and I splattered his blood on the white wall and he’s mine! Just like Jacoby!

JONNY:

Launches himself at Glen, but as he does, it is like an explosion catapults him backwards. The man with the sawed throat begins to cough, hacking. If possible, he hacks up black liquid.

GLEN:

This ain’t what you’re used to, bucko. Usually, that bitch you call a witch makes everything ok, right? Polly Anne takes them around the corner into forever peace. Well, I’m a greedy bastard. I want you, boy. I want everyone. And God damn am I going to take you.

Sawed throat man convulses. LIGHTS pulsate. GLEN hovers over him. The sawed man is screaming in pain. On the other side of the stage, in the black, the WITCH has come out with a chair, and is sitting, comatose. JONNY breaks as if he is going to tackle GLEN, but runs straight past, to the WITCH.

GLEN:

YOU FUCKING COWARD!

BLACKOUT on GLEN. Spotlight up on the Witch. Using black paper mache, she looks like a burned corpse. She is breathing laborously. JONNY is panting.

Where'd ya go? Where’d ya go? To save your fucking whore of a girlfriend? I fucked her already. I’m gunna fuck ya both! Gunna rip you apart! Gunna make you watch her.

JONNY pulls the same move GLENN did and uses a chair to prop the door closed. He hastily begins to peel layer after layer of the void off of the WITCH.

Inch by inch, the WITCH is revealed. Her mouth is uncovered. She gasps. Her eyes are uncovered. She blinks.

JONNY:

I will never let anything like this happen again, I swear to you. GLEN breaks through, into the room. JONNY squares off with him. With whatever special effects your theater can muster, GLEN unhinges his jaw, a monster with innumerable teeth, skin dancing up like an oil flame. This is his dreadful form. JONNY holds the WITCH in his arms as GLEN hovers over them. The WITCH feebly raises her arms. GLEN freezes. JONNY and the WITCH scurry OFFSTAGE.

END SCENE.

SCENE 5.

A therapist’s office. JONNY is still clad in hospital robes, and is speaking with a therapist.

THERAPIST:

I’m proud of you. You’ve been doing the work.

JONNY:

Thanks.

THERAPIST:

Are the meds working?

JONNY:

Yeah.

THERAPIST:

Do you think you’re ready to leave?

JONNY:

I think so.

THERAPIST:

What’s your support system at home? What’s your discharge plan?

JONNY:

I’m going home to live with my parents. I’ll get a job at the corner store near my house. My parent’s insurance covers therapy.

THERAPIST:

Great.

THERAPIST gets up and leaves. JONNY addresses the audience.

JONNY:

I recovered, I guess. Or I played along enough to get discharged. After Glen was arrested and sent to a max-security ward upstate, I decided to just complete the therapeutic coloring pages and say what I thought they wanted to hear. The witch kept a distance. When she did look at me, she glanced at me, like she was ashamed, like she was the one who had fucked up royally. I knew she needed to be apart, I knew she needed to recover. So I left the ward withough saying goodbye.

A day later, I was in a minivan, my silent dad driving, my mom in the passenger's seat, smiling faintly. It was raining.

MOM:

O.S

It’s good to have you home.

JONNY:

And, for a while at least, it was good to be home. The Witch gnawed at me, though. I missed her.

Sometimes, when I rose at night, alone, I’d think she was there, trick myself into thinking I saw her shadow move in the hallways. I’d say something out loud to her and expect her to respond. I’d look in the passenger’s seat and realize that she wasn’t sitting next to me and I’d slam my fists on the dash. I’d scream and pull over. Then, the dreams started.

SAWED MAN enters with a TV remote. His throat is raw.

SAWED MAN:

I was watching Love It or List It. I never even saw him coming. To JONNY. You know he stole my soul, right?

JONNY:

I’m sorry.

SAWED MAN:

“No. Don’t. You don’t get to say you’re sorry. You could have tried. SXF: Bone cracking and breaking.

Slowly, like an owl, his head twists towards JONNY, but his neck unmoving. Black oil pours from his eyes.

JONNY:

This went on for a few months. The terrible nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat, continuing on with my cookie-cutter day like everything was fine. I got promoted, saved up enough money to move out again. I started looking for the dying. I needed to help. The Witch taught me some rituals. To find a death, the mind had to be clear, and the guide, the map, was a copper pendulum, kept in a pocket, as close to the core of the body heat as possible, smudged with oils, used to ask what poor soul would soon need help leaving the earth. JONNY lights incense, and places his forearm on a table, using the pendulum. In my mind came the location, a farm, and the time, 3 p.m., and the name. When the name came, the world crashed. Her name. The witch was going to die.

I tried her old cell phone. It was disconnected. I ran outside, to the car, and fled as fast as I could, to the farm, out in the country, about 40 minutes away.

The ritual was never wrong. The ritual was never wrong, but how could the Witch die? I had left her to protect her, to keep her from the slog of me, that followed me wherever I went. It was noon. She had three hours left on earth.

Fast, pushing 80. Made the 45 minute trip in 30; everything seemed like it was blurred down into moments, each second seemed like something vital was being chipped away. One of her first lessons she taught me after Jacoby was that you couldn't change death. It came. If the bell was rung, if the process began, it could not be stopped without a life slipping from earth.

I pulled into her driveway, skidded to a halt, kicking up dust from the gravel. I flung the car door open, kicked open her slanted gate and ran up the path, towards the white farmhouse.

She was waiting for me on the screened-in porch.

WITCH:

Hi.

JONNY:

Frantic. Oh my God are you--do you know--

WITCH:

Yes. I am going to die.

JONNY starts to shake, and the WITCH embraces him. They melt into eachother. She leads him to a blanket, where they lay together.

WITCH:

I felt his pain melt away. We lay together in the dimly lit living room, candles flickering. I traced my fingers across his face, memorizing it. I pushed back his hair, studying him. He did the same. Death isn't so bad. The hardest part is the forgetting, the forgetting of the voice, of the features of the face, the way the eyes dance and the way the skin reflects in the sun; the way the numbing of the days passed leaves the leftover, the one on earth with just an abstract thought of the tangible, living person. I knew that. I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of bright lights go dark.

I got up.

BOTH stand, and walk together.

I could tell that he was afraid to follow. But he did. I led him outside, through my yard cluttered with scraps of wood and a rusted out grill. He followed me onto the farm, and followed me to the back paddock, where my goats stood on the slight incline leading up to the barn, bleating loudly at us.

To JONNY.

Close your eyes.

He does.

SXF: a gunshot. The WITCH collapses. Shallow breathing, gurgling, breath forced like her lungs are full of pebbles; lying in a pool of blood.

The lights change to a spotlight on the WITCH, and a spotlight on JONNY.

WITCH:

Come. JONNY hesitates. I'm ready. But I don't think you're ready to walk with me.

JONNY:

How can I ever be ready? Falls to his knees. How can I say goodbye? There’s no way to do it. No way to say goodbye. I’ll always wanting one more; one more touch, one more glimpse into your face, one more conversation. There is no light enough to fill the void.

WITCH:

The terror isn't here. We don't have to worry about it. I prepared this for you. It's beautiful, isn't it?

Lighting resembles a orange twilight sunset, jutting out from behind purple clouds in brillant, paint brush strokes.

A cool breeze, refreshing, like a thunderstorm rolling in from the corner of the sky. Peace.

JONNY:

Thank you. It's wonderful.

WITCH:

"I've lived for about a thousand years, Jonny. I've had many lives with many different people. I've loved many. I love you. But we all have to take the long walk. You know that. And there are still many people left in the world that you can help, but you need to promise me something.

JONNY:

Of course.

WITCH:

Promise me that you will help. For as long as you live.

JONNY nods. He takes her hand, and they walk.

I nodded. I took her hand. We walked.

END

#jonny bolduc #play #playwriting

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bisexual-buckethead · 1 month

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I <3 my broken phone! i don’t care that it wigs out all the time and also vanishes 50% of incoming texts and randomly hangs up my phone conversations and sometimes plays random noises that I don’t think I’ve heard since my iPod touch when I was like 8 and also dies on 12% battery and also that stuff with the ghosts

just have to get this off my chest because my phone might break for realsies in like 5 mins

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saphyrenights · 2 years

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August 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew making it's historic impact on the Bahamas, southern Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other parts of the south and east in 1992. It was the first category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Camille in 1969. Since Andrew, only one other category five hurricane has made a US landfall: Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Adjusted for inflation, Hurricane Andrew caused almost $50 billion in damage, leading to the collapse of Florida's homeowner insurance system. In the years since, building codes were vastly improved in south Florida to withstand powerful hurricanes.

65 people died as a result of the storm, with most fatalities occurring during the recovery phase due to accidents and medical emergencies. Given the enormous amount of damage Hurricane Andrew caused, the shockingly low death toll (especially in Florida) has sometimes been partially credited to meteorologist Bryan Norcross and his 23-hour-long broadcast before, during, and after Andrew made its first US landfall. As the hurricane battered the television studio in downtown Miami, Norcross kept up a calm, steady flow of information and encouragement to everyone listening/watching, even as the storm forced him and his fellow anchors into a small concrete "bunker" for safety.

A humanitarian crisis grew in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. Neither President George H. W. Bush nor Florida Governor Lawton Chiles wanted to take responsibility for the government's delayed response to Kate Hale (Miami's deputy emergency management coordinator) and her requests for help in south Florida. With few structures remaining operable, people were becoming dehydrated from lack of water, starving from a lack of food, and desperation grew more prevalent among the survivors. Even with private citizens from all over the country attempting to help the people in south Florida, it wasn't enough. Society broke down into lawlessness and fear. Government reinforcements finally arrived almost a week after Andrew ravaged southern Florida and the northern Gulf coast. 1992 was an election year, and many people cited Bush's delayed disaster response as the reason they voted for his rival, Bill Clinton.

Hurricane Andrew had lasting ripple effects on everything from the insurance industry, to the local ecology (displaced pet pythons formed a breeding population in the Everglades, for example), to national politics. Though its legacy has been eclipsed by arguably more catastrophic hurricanes like Katrina, Maria, and Michael, Andrew marked the beginning of a new era of devastating hurricanes to ravage a more connected United States. In 1992, cell phones, live satellite feeds, cable TV, rudimentary internet, and improved computer modeling kept Americans all over the country informed about Hurricane Andrew in a way that didn't happen just a few years earlier with Hurricane Hugo. Hurricane Andrew marks a milestone in modern disaster messaging and communications.

As we progress through yet another hurricane season, let's not forget the lessons that Hurricane Andrew taught us 30 years ago. 1) Be prepared BEFORE disaster strikes. 2) Working together for the greater good can literally save lives. 3) If authorities tell you to evacuate, LEAVE. 4) A battery powered radio is a lifeline when the electricity goes out. 5) Studying history can prepare us for the future.

Thanks for reading, and stay safe.

***

edit: This was in my drafts. I forgot to post it back in August. I didn't want to delete it, so I'll just post it now, a day late and a dollar short. IDK if anyone following me will get anything out of it, but I like writing essays, so...here ya go.

#hurricane andrew #hurricane season #hurricane #i wrote this essay for fun #i hope y'all enjoy it #i can talk about this particular hurricane forever #and ngl i mostly wrote this #so i could have an excuse #to post that news anchor's outfit #that contrast stitching is putting in some WORK y'all

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wingodex · 4 years

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Sourcing Copley’s Sociogram

so this started out because i recognized some of the photographs and art on copley’s wall, and got curious about everything else. i know that the dates and locations of the original pictures don’t necessarily have anything to do with what they’re supposed to be in the movie but i thought it was interesting enough to share. plus i spent a not insignificant amount of time tracking down some of these images. the organization is a mixture between chronologically in the show and from a timeline perspective. the rest is under the cut

So we start out with this mosaic that you see when Andy looks at the sociogram for the first time while confronting Copley. This is a Roman mosaic found in Antioch, which is near modern-day Antakya, Turkey. It’s from the 4th century CE and shows an Amazon Warrior in mounted combat against a Greek soldier. Mosaics were found in both private and public buildings throughout the Roman empire. They’re made up of small cut pieces of marble, tile, glass, pottery, stone and shells called tesserae.

Here you have the title page of the 1668 edition of Andromaque, a play written by Jean Racine. It was first performed in November of 1667 for the court of Louis XIV by a company of actors called “les Grands Comédiens.” The play follows the story of Andromache after the Trojan War when her husband Hector has been killed and she has been taken prisoner.

The portrait of Andromache is from the book “Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum” by Guillaume Rouillé. The book was published in Lyon, France, in 1553. The book is made up of portraits designed as medals, along with brief biographies for notable figures. The art was done using woodcut and there are 950 woodcut portraits in the book.

This is a fresco of Mycenaean woman bearing gifts. It’s from Thebes and was reconstructed by H. Reusch in 1956. The original fresco is from 1400-1200 BCE. Frescos were popular decoration, not just in palaces and tombs but in storerooms, kitchens and workshops. Fresco painting is a technique where the drawing is made on wet plaster. When the plaster dries, the image becomes a permanent part of the wall.

You also have a map by Bernardus Sylvanus (Bernardo Silvano) of Northern India and Central Asia. It’s one of the earliest obtainable maps of the area and the first printed in two colors. This map first appeared in Silvanus’ “Claudii Ptholemaei Alexandrini liber Geographicae” published in Venice in 1511.

This is a photograph of an ornamented, golden Minoan double-axe, or a “labrys.” In ancient Crete, the double axe was an important sacred symbol of the supposed Minoan religion. In Crete the double axe only accompanies female goddesses, never male gods. In Roman Crete, the labrys was often associated with the mythological Amazons.

This is a picture of the Holyland Model of Jerusalem in the Israel Museum. It’s a 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period. It was originally commissioned in 1966 by the owner of the Holyland Hotel and was eventually relocated to the Israel Museum in 2006.

The first image is the cover of the book “Heroines of the Crusades” by C. A. Bloss. I don’t know if this is the original cover, but it is certainly an older edition. The book was originally published in 1853 and contains biographies of notable women who were involved with the crusades, as well as a general overview of the first through to the eighth crusade.

And then hey, it’s The Hague Map of Jerusalem! This is one of the artworks that I knew before. The original map is from 1190-1200 CE. The map takes some liberties with the layout of the city, prioritizing aesthetics decisions like making it have the layout of a cruciform. Circular maps are also like a thing from this time. It also uhhhhh mislabels some things, such as the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, but that’s maybe expected. At the bottom you can see some mounted crusaders chasing after Muslim fighters. It’s drawn on vellum.

I’m grouping these two images together for clarity, because they’re both by the same painter. From the moment I saw the paintings, I thought that this was kind of a weird pull for Copley, but not necessarily for us as viewers. These paintings were done by Italian painter Paolo Domenico Finoglia (known as Finoglio) and are from a series of large paintings based on the poem “Gerusalemme Liberata” (Jerusalem Delivered) published in 1581. These paintings are baroque in style and were commissioned in 1634. The first painting is “The Duel of Raymond of Toulouse and Argante” and the second painting is “The Duel of Tancred and Clorinda”. Now, when I say this choice of paintings makes sense to us, what I mean is that parts of the poem Jerusalem Delivered are about a Christian crusader falling in love with a Muslim defender who he then kills on the battlefield (that’s the second painting of Tancred and Clorinda). It’s a fun parallel, although Clorinda converts to Christianity before she dies. Sidenote, but Joe and Nicky probably hated Jerusalem Delivered if they ever read it

This motherfucking painting. Finding out where this painting came from was an absolute nightmare. Not the worst to find, but certainly frustrating. So this painting can be found in the Borodino Panorama museum, although it’s not part of the panorama. The artist is unknown. The year it was painted is unknown. For all we know fucking Joe painted it. This is such a deep dive, I don’t know how Copley found this image. This painting shows French soldiers in Moscow as it burned. It’s called “Французы в Москве” or “The French in Moscow”.

Did you think we were finished talking about Napoleon? Well, we’re not! Copley has a lot of paintings from Napoleon’s Russian campaign on his board. There might be more on his eastern Europe wall too, but unfortunately, I can’t see it well enough to identify any.

The counterfeits potentially made by Booker show the 40 franc gold coin, known informally as the double Napoleon. These coins were first issued by Napoleon in 1803 to replace the earlier Louis coins. They were originally minted in two denominations: 20 francs and 40 francs, although they were minted in denominations of 5, 10 and 50 at various other times. The coins were designed and engraved by Jean Pierre Droz, and Pierre-Joseph Tiolier respectively. In the particular image of the coin that I found, you can actually see Droz’s signature. Tiolier’s signature appears in full on the dies that he cut himself (these coins only have a monogram). From screenshots of the end credits, I can’t actually see the specific denomination, nor can I see the date clearly, however I do know that the coins were minted sometime between 1807 and 1808. There were many different issues of these coins during Napoleon’s reign, and the fact that Napoleon has a laurel crowned head and that the coin says République Française rather than Empire Français narrows the timeline a bit. I might revisit this topic at a later date so watch out for that.

The first painting is “The Battle of Borodino, 7 September 1812” by Louis-François Lejeune in 1822. It’s oil on canvas. This painting depicts the attack on the Shevardino Redoubt, seen from the French side. While it was a French victory, it was a costly battle for both sides. During the Russian Campaign, Lejeune was général de brigade, although he ended up abandoning his post because of frostbite during the retreat and got arrested. He actually kept his paintbrushes with him on the battlefield. This painting was his masterwork. Now, with regards to the actual content of the painting, Booker would have been in the Battle of Borodino, as he didn’t try to desert until after the Battle of Smolensk.

The second painting is “Die Schlacht bei Borodino” (The Battle of Borodino) by Peter von Hess. It was painted in 1843 and is oil on canvas. Von Hess was a German painter who specialized in historic paintings of the Napoleonic Wars and the Greek War of Independence. This painting depicts the same battle as the previous one, although the focus is on the Russian and Lithuanian soldiers, rather than the French. This also shows an event from later in the battle; the counterattack on the Rayevsky Battery.

The last image is “The Boasted Crossing of the Niemen at the Opening of the Campaign of 1812 by N. Bonaparte” by John Heaviside Clark and Matthew Dubourg. The painting was based on a sketch by an officer, then painted by Heaviside Clark and engraved by Dubourg. It’s a coloured aquatint and was published in 1816. The crossing of the Niemen marks the beginning of the Russian Campaign in June of 1812.

There are actually quite a few photos of ToG during the Crimean war (1853-1856). These are actually some of the first war photographs ever taken, which is kind of neat, I guess. These photos were taken by Roger Fenton, a British photographer. These photos would have all been taken in 1855, so the tags on the photos are anachronistic but we can let it slide. The first image with Joe and Nicky is of Croat labourers. The second image of Andy is of a vivandière, a French woman attached to military regiments as a sutler. The last image (also of Joe and Nicky) is of British soldiers and is on of the covers of the book Victorians at War by Ian Beckett.

The photograph from the American civil war was originally of Union Generals, including General Philip Sheridan. At the time of this picture, Sheridan lead the Cavalry Corps, and the flag that you see in the picture is cavalry, so ToG rode horses during the American Civil War, according to this picture. It was taken in 1864.

I find the pictures of Haiti to be very interesting. First off, (and unrelated to the photographs themselves) because there was literally a coup d’état about every two years during this period in Haiti and unlike some of the other photos, these ones don’t even try to pretend they were all taken at the same time, or that they’re related at all. They’re just some pictures of Haiti during the early 20th century and it’s funny. All of photographs were taken in Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The first picture (from the upper left corner) is of the Market Square between 1909-1920. The second image is a street scene, between 1890 and 1901. Now the third photograph is making me lose it because in the movie it’s all mysterious, with a figure circled and a question mark, but in the original image it’s just a little kid standing on a public fountain. He’s not a member of the old guard. He’s not even 10 years old. This picture was also taken between 1890 and 1901. The last photo is another street scene, taken in 1901. I have to say, I’m very glad that the people in charge of the sociogram didn’t edited any of the guards’ faces on to anyone in these photos considering every single person in them is Black.

Okay, so now we’re getting into the First World War photos. There are A Lot of WW1 photos. This photo of Andy is actually from Gallipoli and was taken in 1915 by Ernest Brooks, an official war photographer. The Gallipoli campaign was an attempt by the Entente to weaken the Ottoman Empire by taking control of the Turkish Straits. All invasion attempts were unsuccessful and eventually they evacuated the area at the end of 1915. Andy seems to be wearing an Anzac uniform.

As for the rest of the photos in this shot, they’re also all from the Gallipoli campaign. The first photo is from War Illustrated in June of 1915 and shows Australians soldiers dragging an artillery piece into position at Anzac during the Battle of Gallipoli. The second image is also from 1915 and shows soldiers bringing supplies to the Australian camp. The last image is of Anzac cove shortly after the landing there in 1915.

Originally I didn’t notice that this was an edited picture, but since I was already looking, I decided to track this one down too, and turns out it is edited. I honestly can’t tell whether it’s Booker or Joe, but that kind of looks like Matthias Schoenaerts’ nose, so I’m gonna say that’s Booker. This photograph was taken in May 1917 by Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke in Arras, France. These are British troops at the Battle of Arras, which at the time achieved the honor of longest advance in trench warfare. The battle was very costly on both sides, with around 290,000 casualties total. Warwick Brooke was an official British war photographer.

On the very right-hand side, you can see two pictures. The first one is of infantry of the 1st Canadian Division having a meal in the trenches at Ploegsteert, March 1916. It was taken by another official British war photographer, Lieutenant Ernest Brooks.

The next photo is from a series of photos of a raiding party of the 10th Battalion. It’s of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) waiting in nap for the signal to go. John Warwick Brooke, the photographer, followed them in the sap, where a shell fell short killing seven men. It was taken near Arras in March 1917. This photo takes place after the Battle of the Somme, during the German withdrawals to the Hindenburg line.

This fucking image. I’m so angry about this image. I spent hours going through World War 1 photo databases and then when I found the original source of the image it told me absolutely nothing!!! A waste of time!!! This is an image of a British soldier assisting two little French girls who had just escaped death but I knew that already, that’s how I found it in the first place. This photo was from the Haig “Official Photographs” series, which were from 1916 onwards. Edit: I found it again!!! This photo was taken in Bethune in May 1918. It was taken by war photographer Ernest Brooks. In April of 1918, the German Sixth Army tried to attack Bethune during the Battle of Lys (Fourth Battle of Ypres) but were repulsed. It was taken between offensives on the Western Front during the German spring offensive. The next major battle on this part of the Western Front began weeks after this picture was taken.

On the top of the screen there are two photographs. The first is a photo by Ernest Brooks from the Battle of Broodseinde (October 1917). The battle was part of a larger offensive - the third Battle of Ypres - engineered by Sir Douglas Haig to capture the Passchendaele ridge. This is an anti-aircraft gun in action during the battle.

The next photograph is also from the German spring offensive, between the Battle of Lys and the Battle of the Third Battle of the Aisne. It shows a 12-inch gun (named "Bunty") of the Royal Garrison Artillery firing at Louez in May 1918. This is another photograph by John Warwick Brooke.

This image of Andy was also originally a photograph taken by Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke. This photo is of the 4th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders (51st Division) feeding a French refugee child in their improvised trench near Locon, France in 1918.

There are so many WW1 photos. The rest of these don’t have any of the characters in them as far as we know, so I’ll go over these quickly. The first picture is from the Western Front in France and was likely taken by John Warwick Brooke. This photograph was taken at night and shows two teams of machine gunners, strategically positioned behind some vegetation. The ground behind them looks sandy, suggesting they might be near the coast. Directly in front of the gunners a mine has just exploded, showering the men with debris. This picture was taken in sometime between 1916-18.

The next photo was also taken by John Warwick Brooke in 1917. This picture is of the Battle of Cambrai and shows a 'C' Battalion tank bringing in a captured 15 cm naval gun. Cambrai is an interesting battle because it was a tank/artillery fight mostly, and the British used a lot of new tank/infantry maneuvers. It also ended very badly for the British.

The third photograph was taken by Ernest Brooks. It shows soldiers of the 8th East Yorkshire Regiment moving to the front near Frezenberg in October 1917 prior to the assault (Battle of Broodseinde) the following morning. It was a victory for the British, which eventually led to the Germans withdrawing from the Belgian coast.

The last photograph was taken by Lieutenant William Ivor Castle, the Canadian official photographer in September 1916. It shows a shell being loaded into a 15 inch howitzer. This photograph is from the Battle of the Somme. The Somme was a Franco-British victory but of the 3 million men who fought in it, around 1 million were either injured or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history.

So there’s actually photographic evidence of almost all of ToG being involved with the Spanish Civil War, but I’ll get to those in a second. The image that we see of Nicky in the credits places him at the Battle of Irún in 1936. He is with the Spanish Republican People’s Army. This was a major battle at the beginning of the war, as it allowed the Nationalist Army to capture the province of Gipuzkoa after Irún fell, which had been held by the Republic. It allowed the Nationalist Army to control supplies. The photographer is unknown.

Jumping forward a bit here, but I can’t believe I found this photo, like I wasn’t even looking for it and I found it, but still. Wow. So on the board, it’s shown that Nicky was in the Congo in 1964 during the Simba Rebellion. The original image is of mercenary Gerry Moggach, from Scotland, with self-made guns (Molotov cocktails lmaoo) in November 1964. The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict in the Republic of the Congo (which is now the DRC) and involved a bunch of civil wars that also served as a proxy conflict in the Cold War.

Now, back to Spain and the rest of the guard. From this BTS image of Copley’s sociogram we know that both Booker and Andy were involved in the Spanish Civil War as well. The first image, which Andy is apparently in, was taken in 1936 and shows her with a miliciana, which were battalions of woman who fought to defend the Republic. The photographer is unknown. The second image is of Republican soldiers and civilians. Booker is in this image. The original was taken in 1937 by an unknown photographer.

Now we get into the World War II photographs. This photo of Booker from WW2 was originally taken at Mount Tambu, New Guinea in July of 1943, by Gordon Short. The photo is of Leslie “Bull” Allen, an Australian soldier who was awarded the US Silver Star for rescuing 12 US soldiers while under fire. The battle was fought between Japanese and Allied forces. Australian forces eventually secured the area in August of that year.

This photo frustrates me. First, it doesn’t even look like they manipulated it, but also because “pacific” is written in the near the bottom right corner. Now, I’m not saying that Nicky wasn’t in the Pacific Theatre but now that I know where this image was actually taken it’s like. Ugh. This photo was not taken in the Pacific Theatre, it was taken of American soldiers at Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Omaha was the codename given to one of the five sections during the Allied invasion of Normandy. D-Day is the largest seaborne invasion in history, and it eventually led to the liberation of France and the Allied victory on the Western Front. Now personally, I think Nicky being there is very interesting and the timeline meets up better with his other WW2 picture. If you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan (1998), that movie opens with the invasion of Omaha Beach.

This photo of Nicky excites me for several reasons but also brings up some important questions about what the fuck Nicky was up to in 1944. The original photograph shows Private G.R. MacDonald giving first aid to a French boy in Brionne on August of 1944. The interesting part for me is the uniform though. MacDonald was part of the Toronto Scottish Regiment (75th Battalion). The Toronto Scottish Regiment were actually part of Operation Jubilee, although they weren’t able to land because of the tide and only had one fatal casualty, which good for them considering what happened to everyone else at Dieppe. Although Nicky probably wasn’t a part of that considering he was with American soldiers earlier in 1944.

Next to Nicky, on the right, you can see a picture of a plane and an explosion behind it. That picture is from Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The picture is taken at the Ford Island seaplane base and you can see the USS Shaw (DD-373) explode in the center background. USS Nevada (BB-36) is also visible in the middle background, with her bow headed toward the left. Several planes are in the foreground, a consolidated PBY, Vought OS2Us and Curtiss SOCs. The wrecked wing in the foreground is from a PBY.

This photograph is of French resistance fighters and was taken in September of 1944. The French resistance was a movement that fought against the occupation of Nazi Germany after 1940. The resistance engaged in guerilla warfare, published underground newspapers, acted as spies for the Allied forces and kept up escape networks for trapped soldiers and airmen. Although the woman in the original picture isn’t identified, there were many other women involved with the French resistance like Simone Segouin, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Lucie Aubrac, and Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux.

The first image is of a Boeing B-29A-45-BN Superfortress 44-61784 6 Bombardment Group G 24 BS. It was taken in June of 1945 while it was firebombing Osaka, Japan.

The next two images are of the smoke from the atomic bombs. The first picture is of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and was taken by George R. Caron on August 6th, 1945. The second image shows the cloud over Nagasaki and was taken by Charles Levy on August 9th, 1945.

Okay, so this is my absolute fav manipulation in the whole movie, because it looks so good. Here we have Nicky, Joe and Booker as guerrillas during the Cuban Revolution. If you saw this image and thought “wait is that Fidel Castro?” you’d be right! The man gesturing to the ground with a stick is in fact Fidel Castro. Now, what you might have missed is the man next to Castro who has been edited to look like Booker... yeah I’m like 95% sure they put Booker’s face on Che Guevara.

This image of Nicky during the American Civil Rights Movement is from the March on Washington which happened in August of 1963. 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to call for fair treatment and equal opportunity for Black Americans. This is where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream” speech.

This picture of Andy, Joe and Nicky is of Martin Luther King Jr’s speech at UC Berkeley in May of 1967. The speech was attended by about 7000 students and he spoke against the Vietnam war. Photograph by Michael Ochs (?)

This photo was taken of US soldiers in Huế during the Vietnam War. The photo was taken in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. Booker is the one behind the medic. There’s a post it note that you can see fully in a BTS image of the sociogram that confirms it’s Booker. The Tet Offensive, which was launched in January of 1968, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, and the largest up to that point. It was a campaign of surprise attacks by the VC and PAVN against military and civilian command and control centers in South Vietnam (ARVN and the USA). The Battle of Huế lasted over a month and resulted in the destruction of the city and the massacre of thousands of civilians.

This photo of Andy helping with Operation Babylift was originally taken in 1975. Operation Babylift was an evacuation of orphans from Saigon in the face of a North Vietnamese Offensive. 3000 orphans were evacuated and at the end of April, Northern Vietnamese forces launched rockets at Saigon.

This image of Andy shows her on the Berlin Wall. The original photo was taken near the Brandenburger Tor in November of 1989. The photo shows West Berliners helping East Berliners climb the Berlin Wall after the opening of the wall was announced by the East German Communist government. The photo was taken by Jockel Finck.

tw ethnic cleansing, tw islamophobia, tw genocide. The photos of Booker in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a combat medic indicate that Booker was in Sarajevo for the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, however the original photo was taken of the Cheshire Regiment (1st Battalion) in Ahmići, in April of 1993. The Ahmići Massacre was committed by the Croats during the conflict and was part of a larger series of attacks called the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing, and targeted Bosnian Muslim civilians. Around 120 people were murdered in Ahmići.

These last images are all from wars within the last 20 years. The first image was taken in Daychopan, Afghanistan by Sgt. Kyle Davis in September, 2003. The photo is of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. They were searching for Taliban fighters and weapon caches.

The next image is of two aerial photos of the ISIS command and control Centre in Syria, before and after it was bombed by a US F-22 fighter jet in September 2014.

The last image is of a US soldier assisting a wounded Iraqi civilian in Fallujah, Iraq in November, 2004. Photograph was taken by Cpl. Theresa M. Medina.

As for the rest of the photos, (Joe and Nicky saving the man in the cave, Joe in the DRC, some WW2 photos and some background photos in the BTS images and during the movie) I haven’t been able to find them because they’re not clear, I don’t want to look at historical archives anymore or I don’t even know where to start with searching for them. I might pick up searching again later if I decide to become even more like Copley than I already am. If you have any additional info about some of the missing photos let me know! Also if you want any of the original photos or resources just let me know and I can send them to you!

edit: I just want to make this very clear, but some of TOGs involvement here is suspicious as hell. Obviously we don’t know the exact circumstances, but things like Nicky being shown as a mercenary during the Simba rebellion, Booker as an American soldier during the Vietnam War and the images of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have some incredibly negative and incriminating implications. I worry that in my excitement about finding some of these images I glossed over pretty horrific details and context. It’s important to be conscious of some of the very real tragedies and atrocities being shown here.

#the old guard #Andromache the Scythian #Yusuf al Kaysani #Nicolo di Genova #the old guard meta #tog meta #tog posts #Sebastien Le Livre #long post #tog history #also i will say #if anyone does want to track down the original joe in the congo pic #please look after yourself #i stopped trying to find it because going through pictures from the DRC can be very disturbing #i think it's also worth noting that in terms of the context of each image i decided to go for picture specific #while leaving the broader cultural context more vague #like i'm not about to explain the crimean war or the congo crisis on this post #this is just a jumping off point about certain events!! do your own research too!!#also lmaooo do you know who was also in the congo in the 1960s? fucking che guevara #i am also like 80% sure the cave rescue picture was staged #i simply cannot find it #anyway now that this is done comparative timeline drops soon

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wh6res · 3 years

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127 SQUAD AND ROMANTIC BF TINGS

tw a lil bit of suggestive on jae's but nothing explicit

✰ — TAEIL would sing lullabies over the phone or video call. you and him would just be doing your own thing, not talking but enjoying being each other's presence. he'll probably pull out his guitar and start singing random songs until he eventually notices you fell asleep on him. will not end the call and when you wake up in the morning, his snores and his cute sleeping face is the first thing you see. "love? you still there? ... taeil?" then laugh out loud when you hear his snores instead. "okay yeah lets sleep more" the call will only end probably because his phone died. he kinda strikes me as a guy who's phone is always < 50% battery lmao

✰ — JOHNNY is your everything. literally. as long as he has the power of youtube, google, and instruction manuals on his side, he can fix anything and everything for you. we've all seen him do crafty things on jcc lmao so it'll probably apply to relationships as well. will 100% say you now owe him cuddles for fixing something for you. you kinda dont like the fact that he's doing all these things for you so you try doing them on your own without him knowing only to fail big time. "what did we learn today?" "never touch the pipes under the sink" "and?" "and always ask johnny for help" "nuh-uh thats not how i said it" you sigh exasperatedly "always let my smokin hot amazing handsome boyfriend johnny suh get the job done"

✰ — TAEYONG doesn't care whether you take the time shopping or not. in fact, he loves seeing you all excited and giddy for pampering yourself as you should. totally the type to hold the paper bags even if you complain and say you can manage on your own. is a complete angel and will wait patiently outside changing rooms and will give you genuine insight he has of the clothes you picked. "that looks nice. you should get that. the length is just right and the sleeves help accentuate your waist" "really yongie?" "yes love. i mean you look pretty in everything anyway" miss ma'am my heart just fucking melted ?¿?

✰ — YUTA doesn't look like it but will exert real effort into things. would be the type to have a note or a google doc about your favorite orders from restaurants because he just loves how your eyes light up appreciatively and you look so smitten by him. its like a cheat sheet. eventually he memorizes the list with how much time he spends with you and he wont even need it. the type to always bring you food before meeting you (if its just hanging out inside the house). "no way! i was just craving for these!" he smiles before kissing your forehead, volunteering to put the food out its container for you. "i figured. you'd been working since this afternoon. lets eat first then you can tell me about what you've been working on so i can help you, okay?"

✰ — DOYOUNG loves cooking for you. i highkey feel like its his love language? like cooking for you and seeing your eyes light up as it darts back to him after you take your first bite from whatever he cooked just gives him so much happiness. its disgustingly sappy and he doesn't like talking about it. now he understood fully what it meant to see your loved ones eating and being full yourself or some shit. idk how the actual quote goes okay dont come 4 me but u probably get it. anyway the type to always pack you lunch and will get hella mad if you skip meals. "what do you mean you havent eaten yet?" "yeah but i will after i--" "you mean you're going to eat Now?" "what? no maybe later--" "thats it im coming over"

✰ — JAEHYUN would be the type to make you playlists. its really random sometimes he'll send them to you in the early morning for the heck of it bc he cant sleep. most of the time its him being horny lmao the frat boy in him awakening and sending you a playlist called imma blow your back out or something extremely cringey and thirsty pls dont block his sorry ass maybe he'd spell out the words using song titles too! idk jae just rlly strikes me as a guy who's love language is music. "hey babe did you check the playlist i sent you?" "wtf its 4am???" "oh so you havent listened to it yet?" "fuck off" but at the end of the day he'll come over and will use the playlist to,,, you know,,, do the sexy thing ;)

✰ — JUNGWOO always makes sure you walk on the inside of the road. you know when you're walking in the street and he softly nudges your waist? yes. will probably even scold you playfully because with how long its been since you both are together, "babe you always walk on the inside of the road how many times do i have to tell you?" is also the type to remind you to wear your seatbelt immediately after hopping onto his car. would ask you Again while in the middle of the car ride because he forgot that he already asked you earlier. please don't mind him he's just looking out for you bb. "seatbelt?" "yes, babe. already done" "are you sure? i dont think i heard it click--" "babe eyes on the road please" "oh right sorry"

✰ — MARK sends you tiktoks, vines, or memes. this is his love language fite me im calling it. he just wants to see you laugh too okay? thats why he does it. i mean it made him laugh, so maybe it will you laugh too. also because he hopes to make inside jokes with u cuz he believes thats how people really get close and stuff. would definitely love it if you do the same thing with him. you'd be chilling in the sofa while khalid plays on the bluetooth speaker and he'll suddenly go "babe babe babe check this out!" then you both proceed to laugh at a vine for the next thirty minutes <3 #living.the.yn.life

✰ — HAECHAN will do your skincare for you when you're drunk or super tired that you just passed out cold on the bed. would probably come into the room to see you snoring and tutting bc now he has to do it for you again but meh deep down he loves it because he enjoys admiring your sleeping face. its sorta like a healing thing for him? yeah it just washes away all the stress he's feeling and bb is just excited about the idea that this becomes "your thing" with him if u get what im saying? altho the next day he'll probably use it as a leverage to get out of chores :) "no way im not folding our clothes" "and why is that?" "i took your make up off yesterday u know how hard that is? im still tired" "but its literally the next day--" "awww thank you for doing my chores, baby! u the best!" ._.

#nct #nct 127 #jaehyun #taeyong #taeil #johnny #yuta #jungwoo #haechan #mark #doyoung #nct 127 headcanons #nct 127 hcs #nct headcanons #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 x reader #nct 127 x y/n #nct 127 x you

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alarajrogers · 3 years

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Everything Makes Sense: The Human Body and Energy

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

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

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Everything Makes Sense: The Human Body and Energy

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

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

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

Metabolism

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

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

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

Life Energy

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

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

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

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

Charging the Battery

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

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

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

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

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

The Basic Things We Need For This To Work

There are a lot of components going into this system.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Uses All That Energy?

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

The Brain:

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

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

The Muscles:

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

The Immune System:

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

The Digestive System:

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

The Reproductive System:

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

Heart and Lungs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Energy Trade-offs:

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

1. Complex thought shuts down.

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

2. Muscles need to be at rest.

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

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

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

3. Consciousness itself shuts off.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Also high blood pressure

- Also memories are kind of shit

- Also the immune system doesn’t work too well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Happens When We Game The System?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brains That Have To Work Extra Hard At Basic Stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoonies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weight and Energy

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

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

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

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

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

I’m Gonna Talk About Diabetes Here

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

Bullshit.

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

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

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

Overclocking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Am Not A Doctor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#alara original post #alara original writing #stand back i'm gonna try science

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