#then I do see more frequently substance use in the near future

[chatdomestique]

Even though I enjoy being high more than I enjoy getting drunk, I’ve decided that getting drunk is better being I’m not left feeling fucked up the day after drinking.

[meowkavian]

vtm original character information - uriel

uriel / nonbinary (they/them) / malkavian 

full details below under the cut

(i thought I should post their information on my main blog as well!)

introduction

Uriel, or Uri for short, was born May 27, 1988 in a town outside Portland, Oregon. It’s not known if they were born with the name Uriel or if they chose it for themself, or if the name was chosen pre- or post-Embrace.

As a precocious child that grew up into a precocious teen, they eventually found their niche doing shows at the local community theatre throughout their youth and young adulthood, then began focusing less on acting than the analysis of texts and plays as they grew older. Uriel pursued English for their BA, with a focus in Literature and Shakespeare, and was in the middle of their Masters Degree in Theatre (Dramaturgy) at a university in New York when they were turned.

Scoping out job opportunities and visiting some actor friends in Los Angeles during Spring Break 2012 led them to being out at night a bit too late, and it all went downhill from there. They were 24 years old when Embraced, with a true age of 30 at the start of the LABN campaign (circa 2018).

Though everyone says they'd have been a great Toreador, as luck would have it, they were turned by a Malkavian. (Uriel can't exactly remember how it happened-- all they know is that they woke up  in a cheap motel room near Santa Monica with a blood bag and a messy, chaotic apology note.)

Their appearance is eccentric— pale skin, short and messy hair bleached bone-white, large round glasses, an expressive heart-shaped face, owlish brown eyes with long eyelashes. They have a petite frame, only standing at 5”0. Uriel’s style can be best summed up as “2010s twee/hipster”, a product of its time—lots of layered clothing in earthy, autumnal colors, mismatching socks, accompanied by various charms/trinkets. They have 3 piercings in each ear-- one cartilage, two in the lobe.

unlife

The thing about being a Malkavian is that it comes part and parcel with mental illness as well as a host of other problems. Aside from the pre-existing anxiety and depression that followed them into the afterlife, Uriel’s Bane is unique—their longing and hope to work as a dramaturgy scholar and actor as a human was transformed into a form of echolalia, where they cannot verbally express words that were not used in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 

While they work around this most of the time by augmenting their speech using sign language or writing, it can cause them significant trouble.  (As they gain a better handle on their Bane, over the course of years they are able to essentially combine, cut and paste words and phrases together to create more understandable expressions. With significant concentration and effort, they can eventually isolate syllables from the text and use them to create words that don’t exist within the Complete Works, but this is an extremely rare occurrence.)

Due to this Bane, they have earned the often derogatory nickname, “The Mad Bard”.

Their version of Malkavian delusion comes in the form of “flashes of inspiration”(truly prophecies and future sight)—frequently inspiring them to draw, paint or create music. They can become obsessed and fixated on these flashes of inspiration, and on creating works based on them for varying periods of time. Sometimes, the flashes will leave them nonverbal or nonresponsive for a span of minutes to hours while they process what they’ve seen. It can depend on the substance of the vision as well-- though more often than not their visions are frightening and disturbing.

plot

Not long after Uriel is turned in 2012, they're discovered half in a hunger frenzy and searching for more blood at a Santa Monica drug test clinic—a Malkavian who sees something of himself in them comes across them, subsequently vouching for them to Baron Therese, who they do odd jobs for over the space of a few years. Uriel and the Malkavian who vouched for them become friends, but to his chagrin, Uriel ends up spending a lot of time around Toreadors in the hopes they can hang on to what they enjoyed in life—the arts, theatre, music.

Through years of attempting to ingratiate themself and gain an artistic mentor, they are continuously looked down upon for being of a lower clan and moreover, a Malkavian. Needless to say, their pursuits don’t end well.

One of the only Toreadors who grows to care about them is Gabriel, the wayward Childe of a major Camarilla player in the area. Uriel ends up finding no reason to cavort with anyone related to the Ivory Tower after eventually being publicly humiliated/ excommunicated for their attempts to assimilate.

By around 2018, Uriel has given up any hope that they will be accepted by most Toreadors, and they think back on that several year period mostly with bitter cynicism. One of the only bright spots was meeting Gabriel, and at this point, he has not yet left his sire for greater pursuits. While Uriel wears the moniker “The Mad Bard” with pride now, their time attempting to ingratiate themself into Toreador society left them with a distrust of said clan and other higher clans, (Ventrue, etc) for fear that they will be treated poorly.

At this point, they have returned to Malkavian-populated Santa Monica in the hopes they can carve out their own way of life, and have spent the better part of a few years there. They gain a haven of their own—an abandoned theatre on the area outskirts where it leads towards Los Angeles proper--where they lead a mostly quiet life; one dedicated to honing their artistic talents, reading, learning new skills, etc. They belong officially to no coterie--preferring generally to keep to themself-- but find kinship with other Malkavians and Anarch-aligned coteries in the area.

[priscilla9993]

Killian Jones and Alcoholism

This is mainly a summary of things relating Killian/Hook to alcohol/rum. It was done for a college paper and is very long, therefore it’s under the break. To warn you, it is going to be mainly Wish Hook based since I needed to narrow it down and it was easier to show how he handled alcohol as a recovering alcoholic. Enjoy!

The character in question for this case study is Killian Jones, well known by his more colorful moniker of Captain Hook, as portrayed from the ABC TV show Once Upon A Time. He lives in a region of a fantasy realm known as the Enchanted Forest. He used to be a Royal Navy Lieutenant with his older brother Liam, straight-laced on being good and not getting into trouble in any way, especially after getting somewhere in life and no longer subjected to being an indentured deckhand like when their father abandoned them as kids. During a daring quest to Neverland to find some medicine for the king, Peter Pan said they had been tricked to bring back a poisonous plant called Dreamshade, meant to be used as a weapon against unsuspecting enemies. Killian was wary, ready to denounce his service to the king, but his brother was willing to have faith in a noble king and country. With one swift motion of the plant’s prick hoping to prove otherwise, Liam began dying and realized his mistake. Recruiting the help of Pan and some magical water, Liam was cured but soon died in Killian’s arms on the voyage back to the king, the price of the magic being death if Liam ever left Neverland with the water running through his veins. His brother’s death made Killian vengeful at his king and country as his brother had been noble until the very end and everyone else was corrupt, playing noble, proving to him that the world was at fault. From that day on, he took over the ship and decided to be a pirate named Captain Jones, pursuing freedom, and throwing away all he’s ever known because being noble didn’t serve justice. This starts his life of thievery, promiscuity, and never-ending drinking. His coping solutions to deal with his emotional pain only gets worse when he loses his hand, first love of his life, Milah, and his honor after losing a duel against Rumplestiltskin, a coward turned into a powerful Dark One; which leads him on a path of revenge to kill the Rumplestiltskin, “the crocodile”, to avenge Milah and his pride. This leads him to makeshift a hook for a hand and him going by the nickname of Captain Hook, leaving the last piece of his past behind and never letting himself be vulnerable again.

Throughout the series, whenever he or someone in his vicinity is having a rough time, his solution is to pour out some alcohol and drink his feelings away, acting like an egotistical flirt rather than expressing himself and wallowing in misery. His choice of alcohol happens to be rum, a hard liquor. The acute symptoms he has in the show are the loss of judgment, a reddened face, confusion, potentially heightened sexual desire, and sometimes blackouts/unconsciousness. There are multiple times where he’s in a tavern, pouring doubloons into drinks for his crew, rum for himself, and flirting with women/barmaids to have a nightcap with. From here on, I will refer to him as Hook unless stated otherwise. On one occasion of his usual proclivities displaying or implying such symptoms, Hook tries to seduce a woman named Emma. She manages to use his habit of drinking to her advantage, making him jolly and willing to take her back to his ship for the said nightcap; her actual objective was being a distraction while his future self did recon for info on how to get back to their timeline in a Back to the Future sort of way. He continues heavily drinking on the way back with Emma without a care for his health. As soon as the plan goes awry with Hook seeing double, Emma not realizing Future Hook was still doing recon, he gets knocked out for good measure and partial jealousy. Future Hook justifies this, saying his past self was “asking to be knocked out, will wake up upset, and blame the rum.” The lines construe how frequent the drinking was for his future self to determine Hook’s ill-mannered disposition while drunk. 

Eventually, in a parallel way that stems from drunk Hook, is a feeble and spent pirate coined as “Wish Hook”. I have and will be focusing on this iteration for the whole of the paper, but what was written before was his younger self’s background. Wish Hook is the same guy as Hook, but years older down the line, differing paths from Future Hook as he never found love again with someone like Emma and had let his grief and alcohol from more recent negative events consume him. Wish Hook had lived out most of his lifespan, having been a sober father, but cursed to be poisoned any time he drew near his daughter after a witch encounter. Haunted by his regrets and somber circumstances, he turned back to an alcoholic, spending his days eased by rum. His body and actions in this form show the physical and mental effects of chronic alcohol consumption. About ten years or less had passed between his younger self and he had become an experienced middle-aged man with a complicated history, yet he looked far older than his years and decrepit. Without a doubt, by looking at him, people could assume he was an old drunk, his liver and heart having gotten fatty and overworked from the alcohol catching up to him. His belly was rotund, his hair disheveled and gray with streaks of white, his stance crumbling to nearly falling over with each step, and clothes dirtied with filth and old rum stains. Wish Hook still had a flirty and dramatic personality to cheer himself up and mask his turmoil, rum making him courageous and numb, while his actions told another story. He didn’t have sexual desires or try to provoke anyone by that point, just wanted to drown himself in alcohol. His words typically came out slurred, his movements sluggish and unrefined, and he had low problem-solving skills when it came to formulating a plan based on anything other than motive.

In the Enchanted Forest, alcohol like rum is not hard to come by as long as money is involved. Killian Jones/Captain Hook as a pirate drinking rum all the time did not affect him negatively socially or career-wise. If anything, it boosted his status and reputation. For him to be mingling in bars asking for expensive hard liquor and fine women to spend time with was a pleasantry. Bar owners got money, the crew got free alcohol, the women got paid, and he got to immerse himself in pleasure rather than thinking about trivial or serious things. Hook was the life of the party as a pirate captain, seen as a person with good tastes and great to have a fun time with when it came to alcohol. However, when it came to settling down and being a father later on in his life, Wish Hook reserved himself back to his more vulnerable side, caring about how his alcoholism could affect his parenting or child’s perspective. There are moments like that where he’s introspective and wants to do better by others that look up to him or who he cares about. In the show, when he is parenting, there is never a time where he has a bottle or flask of rum stashed nearby or is drinking. Wish Hook deems alcohol as the problem when it affects his judgment or his perceptions on how he could hurt the way people he loves view him. Love in any form brings him back to his core of being the best person he can be.

Killian Jones’s problem originates in nurture rather than nature because his alcohol problems started after he needed a reliable coping mechanism to lean on to deal with grief and anger. Although both nature and nurture influence him, for argument’s sake, nurture has the upper hand. Growing up, his father was a person he looked up to and wanted to be like, but that changed when he found out his father was a criminal who sold him and Liam to pay a route for a selfish escape. What little of his parents shown on-screen left betrayal or sadness in him, not the desire to drink. His parents weren’t clear on alcoholics or drug users as far as it goes. The only things he inherited from nature were probably his mischievous personality, temper, looks, and a high tolerance for alcohol. Living on a ship and being a poor deckhand, Killian didn’t seem to be the kind of guy to squander his savings on alcohol or other frivolous means. However, he would be on a ship constantly surrounded by adults who drank with a captain who cared more about money rather than morals, feeling squandered by his oppressed freedom and building resentment for authority. Without his brother steering him on track, Killian was no more than a young man with impulsive rebellious nature. When Liam went to get them navy papers to earn them their freedom from Captain Silver, it took Killian an offer of temptations from Silver, as much alcohol as he could drink and a bet on his money, for him to fall hook, line, and sinker; no pun intended. Alcohol and gambling meant a reprieve from thoughts, a chance at earning more than what he had before, and the same social standing as the other men aboard the ship. Perhaps, as much as he wanted to be strong as his brother, one good force cannot shield against all of the negative parts of society and adulthood. From Captain Silver, Killian got his first taste of alcohol and his desires did the rest, leaving him blackout drunk and penniless for Liam to find. As he grew older and slowly became Captain Hook, there was nothing about pirate life, being an adult, or people to keep him from drinking. He needed people to talk to, who supported him and he could feel vulnerable in front of, but the few people he trusted in his life were dead. As anyone knows, pirates steal treasure, so they’re not exactly the forgiving or down-to-earth types. Instead, rum became the solution to drown or fuel his emotions, being the substance of celebration and de-stressor.  

Hook’s rum/alcohol addiction would fall more on the dependence spectrum rather than abuse. What had started as a small reprieve to the woes of life became a daily saving grace when he was wracked with loneliness or anger. He depended on the rum to mask his disposition of physical pain from his missing limb as well as emotional pain having experienced love and loss. Abusing alcohol meant that it would put him into dangerous scenarios, have little to no commitment to change his habits to improve his health, and he’d put off important social aspects. If it was alcohol abuse, Hook wouldn’t try changing his habits when he sees it affects others or his relationship with those he loves. Sure, he spends most of his life binge drinking and making merry with the tides of life, but when given the chance and support to abstain from alcohol, he takes it in a heartbeat. For Wish Hook, the thought of being a father who abandons his child or messes up under hazy judgment didn’t add up to him. With the birth of his daughter, Alice, he made a vow to stay with her as long as he could and to be the person he thought she could be proud of. Nevertheless, when he had lost purpose in life by something he had no control over (via death, distance, or curse), his first reaction was to either turn back to alcohol or solve his problems. Sadly, after he had spent a couple of years looking for a cure for his poison heart curse, he gave up hope and chose to go from sobriety back to alcoholism, into a form of regrettable self-destruction. Hook knew that it was not the way to go about life but he felt he had no other choice and had nothing left to lose, leading him to further prioritize and depend on rum to continue living. He built a tolerance to it, needing a copious amount to get drunk, and potentially suffering withdrawals from it after getting in too deep. From the state he was in by the time he gets old and portly, being a nearly homeless drunkard, it can be assumed that he spent most of his days looking for money to acquire more alcohol so he could feel okay.  

Finally, by the end of the series, Killian Jones had managed to go through all the stages in the Stages of Change Model. He was in the Precontemplation stage as a pirate and Captain Hook as he didn’t see a problem in his daily rum and alcohol festivities, making no commitment to change his ways. By the time he gets to be Wish Hook and becomes a father, hesitant about settling down, he could be in the Contemplation stage. He’d want to do something about his alcohol problem and not be stuck relying on it but doesn’t know how to go about it or why he should, therefore staying stagnant to change. When he has his daughter, Alice, in his arms for the first time, we see him in the Preparation stage, planning to give up his ship, sea life, status, and most importantly, rum. Hook gives himself time to think of why he would do so and how he’d commit to it, eventually telling his crew the news. By the time he is taking care of her, he has already taken the actions needed to wean himself off alcohol and apply himself towards abstinence, taking him through the Action and Maintenance stages. There is a relapse back to the Contemplation stage in the paragraph before when he becomes poisoned and loses hope. Even so, the silver lining is that he had made the hard journey back into the Maintenance stage with the help of Ariel detoxing him and others giving him a magical second chance of bodily time renewal, sparking the hope to reunite with Alice and find a cure for his poisoned heart.  

Plans go awry on this end as we get to his final iteration as he is teleported and cursed into our modern day and age as Detective Rogers. Although his memories of what happened in the past as this persona are fuzzy, he is shown to stick to his renewed alcohol abstinence and maintains that in many ways, just like when he was Wish Hook. His habits become integrated as a function rather than a hindrance as part of the Maintenance stage. As Rogers, we can see him frequent bars such as Roni’s or Flynn’s Barcade when he is invited out with others. He is shown to let others know what to get him, as a regular or not, something non-alcoholic. This usually shows up as sparkling water or regular water with a lemon slice in it. His friends and work partner continue to support his sobriety through friendly acceptance and never forcing him to drink alcohol along with them. Rogers is tempted by alcohol again when he believes a missing girl from a cold case, one he was responsible for since he was drinking on the night she went missing, is dead. He sits on a park bench alone grieving, a full bottle of rum next to him, ready to drink. As Rogers gives it a whiff, he is disgusted at himself for getting back to this state again and slams the bottle down on the bench in frustration, not even having taken a sip. He came too far that doing so again would be meaningless and would get him nowhere. Even though he is in situations full of temptation, he makes huge strides to not relapse and maintain his sobriety, with the hopes that it will eventually lead him back on the right path of happiness and belonging. Fortunately, his actions have positive consequences that ring true when the curse breaks and he gets reunited with his daughter and has the strong support of friends and family. In conclusion, Hook is a flawed human being that is more complex and his struggle with alcohol/rum is just a part of him, one he will never lose but continues living with.

[salemorbit]

Between Bookshelves

[Izuku Midoriya x genderneutral!Reader]

warnings: none! just cute shit hehe

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in which you meet midoriya by chance in the library before midterms, and thus blossoms some romance ;)

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note: aw omg 50 followers?? in only two weeks??? thank u so much i'm glad y'all like my content enough to follow!! :D

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It was the middle of the semester, a busy time for any student who was looking to do well before finals and then break. It was integral that one studied for the midterms at UA, mainly because they were that much more grueling than those at a regular high school

Which was why you had been holed up in the library for nearly three days straight, only leaving for bathroom breaks or the occasional snack. You had two classes that you needed to do well in for midterms, and you weren't about to take any chances with them.

Being in the support course was barely any different than being in the hero course. The only notable difference was the lack of real-world fighting that anyone in the hero course did compared to the support course, but the classes were just as tough.

You were near the top of your class, but being near the top wasn't enough. You often strived for perfection only to fall short just by a small margin and get beat out by the best of your peers. This frustrated you, so you aimed to get the top marks during midterms and really skyrocket to the front of your class.

Izuku Midoriya was similar to you in mindset, but he knew he wouldn't get to the very top of his class. There were plenty of smart kids in his homeroom, but he still wanted to get at least top five in his specific class.

Which was why he was also holed up in the library, though not as much as you had been. He kept it as casual as he could, studying here and there but not necessarily learning anything new about the topics. The boy took scrupulous notes.

One particular day, blame it on the burnout if you will, you just couldn't keep your focus on the notes and books in front of you. It was nearly the end of day three of living in the library at UA, and you were starting to feel it. The weight under your eyes, the burning feeling from barely blinking, your stomach rumbling at the thought of a late dinner. You couldn't do the best on your tests if you didn't take care of yourself first, so you had to get up to stretch and grab something from the vending machine.

Being the only other person in the room, Midoriya couldn't help it when his eyes caught onto your movements as you left the immediate library space. His gaze traveled to your table just across the room from him.

Midoriya had seen you around before. You were in the support course, number three overall. And that was impressive to him. Many kids were in the support course, so being in the top three was quite the accomplishment.

He had never spoken to you directly, but he wasn't a stranger to who you were: [Y/N] [Y/L/N]. Third best in support, amazing strategic skills, outstanding marks in the entrance exam, charismatic personality. What's not to admire?

You came back into the room and plopped down in your chair, opening up a bag of a snack Midoriya couldn't see from this distance and popping a piece in your mouth. You settled yourself in again to read entries from the textbook in front of you, but you felt eyes on you.

Looking up, you locked gazes with the boy across the room. He hadn't seemed to notice he was staring, so you sheepishly smiled and gave a small wave. Almost immediately he snapped out of it, going red and burying his nose back into the book on his own table. You smiled gently to yourself, still looking at him.

You knew him; everyone in UA did. If you didn't, you weren't paying attention to literally anything going on. Izuku Midoriya wasn't someone to scoff at when it came to hero work. You understood the difference between you and him, maintaining your distance pretty well over the last year. He wasn't someone you for sure wanted to know, but he had his fair share of secrets you were interested in.

You looked around the room and confirmed no one else was there but the two of you. What was the need to be quiet, then?

"Midoriya, right?" You spoke up. He looked up, surprised at your sudden voice. After a second, he cleared his throat and nodded, face going slightly pink.

"Y-Yeah. [Y/L/N], isn't it?" He replied. You would be lying if you said you weren't shocked he even knew your name. You nodded, closing the textbook in front of you having lost all interest in midterms for the time being.

"It is," you smiled. "What brings you here for the second time in a row?"

"Midterms," Midoriya chuckled, shifting his attention to you as well. "You?"

"Same boat," you shrugged. There was a beat of silence. "How do you know me?"

"Well-Well I don't, really," Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck, looking off to the side, "but I've heard of you. In the support course. Top three."

"Amazing observation," you said, actually impressed. "I'd be stupid not to know who you are. Everyone knows who you are."

"Apparently so," Midoriya said. Another beat of silence.

"What are you studying?" He asked. You glanced at your textbook and piles of paper.

"Costume mechanics. Boring shit."

"Sounds fun, actually."

"What are you studying?"

"Emergency strategies."

"God, talk about a snooze-fest," you laughed out. Midoriya cracked a smile. Another beat.

"What's, uh, what's your quirk?" Midoriya cleared his throat a second time.

"Breaking up machines and melding them into whatever I can visualize," you explained. "Cool enough to get into UA, but not cool enough to get into the hero course. I've come to terms with it, though."

"That's pretty useful," Midoriya replied thoughtfully. "It makes sense why you excel so much in support. That's a really cool quirk."

"Thanks," you felt your ears warm. "Yours is super cool, too. Really unique."

"Thank you," he smiled. Your heart skipped a beat at his lopsided grin, but you chalked it up to the exhaustion playing with your mind.

The two of you fell into a bout of silence for another hour until Midoriya packed up his things and bid you goodnight. You kept studying after he left, but your mind wouldn't stop wandering to thoughts of a certain green-haired boy...

•••

Meeting in that small study room in the back corner of the library became ritual for you and Midoriya, even after midterms. When he had a break or wasn't busy, Midoriya would pop his head into your usual room to see if you were there.

And you typically were, though you weren't there to study most of the time. You rarely actually studied for tests, using your time in class lectures to absorb information, so at this point spending time in the study room and doing nothing of substance was more to stall for time that anything else. You would wait for Midoriya to catch a break, enticed by your first interaction.

And the two of you bonded over the weeks, hanging out in the study room to both study and talk about whatever. You had conversations about all the different heroes you idolized, villains he had faced, and hopes for the future of both of your heroic careers. The two of you became fast friends, and it wasn't a secret that perhaps you wished for something more.

You noticed that you began to see Midoriya a little more frequently in the hallways or on breaks. He would pass by and always smile and say hi, cheeks almost always flushing whenever he did so. You also noticed the small things like when he started to sit next to you at your table in the study room, or when he started to bring you books he thought you'd like to read. The way his knees knocked into yours mid conversation, or how he always asked how your day went. All of this just made you fall harder for the boy.

One day, you were in the study room and looking at the shelves of books lining the walls, looking for a particular research study about the effectiveness of aesthetic in costume design. You were assigned a paper on it earlier in the day and wanted to get a head start on it.

Midoriya popped his head into your usual spot, initially frowning at your absence but then brightening up when he saw your bag and books set at your table. He set his own down next to it and scanned the room for you.

Seeing movement behind some shelves, Midoriya trotted over to the tall shelves and pulled out a book in front of you, revealing his smiling face. You jumped slightly, but sighed in relief when you saw who it was.

"Thank you for scaring the crap out of me, Midoriya," you shook your head, continuing to look for the book. "Gimme a second, I'll be over soon."

"What are you looking for?" Midoriya asked, gliding around the corner and joining you on the other side of the bookshelf. His eyes scanned over your profile, noticing the way your fingers tapped your chin as you searched.

"A book for my research paper," you mumbled. "I had one in mind and it should be- Damn," you sighed, "it's on the top shelf."

"Oh, here," Midoriya craned his neck to look at the top. "Which one?"

"The one with the blue binding," you pointed. Midoriya wasn't too much taller than you, but he had some reach. He steadied himself on the shelf and stretched to the top, grabbing the book and handing it down to you.

When he grounded himself, he was closer than before. Close enough that you caught a whiff of his cologne and could see the flecks of color in his eyes. Close enough that you could reach out and run your fingers along his freckles--

"Here," he breathed out, holding the book to you. "Got it."

"Thanks," you said softly, taking it from him and glancing down shyly. Your eyes made their way back to his, him looking at you intently.

"We should, um--" Midoriya started, but broke off and cleared his throat. "You should get started...on your paper."

"I should," you said, with no intention of moving. You felt your heart pounding in your chest and realized that you were now close enough to hear his own heartbeat over the sound of yours. Midoriya swallowed thickly, face gradually turning red.

"Your eyes are really nice," he said. You smiled at his shy compliment, setting the book in your hands on an empty spot in the shelf next to you.

"You're one to talk," you grinned. This just made Midoriya's face go brighter as he looked away nervously.

"I-I don't want to sound too forward or anything, so stop me if I am, but..."

There were a few seconds of silence between the two of you, Midoriya looking like he was turning an idea over and over in his mind. Intense silence that only grew as your heartbeat got faster. You started to lean in, looking at his eyes then his lips, then his eyes again and--

"[Y/N]?"

You jumped back, peering through the books to see one of your friends looking around the study room. Frowning, you looked at Midoriya apologetically before popping your head around the corner and smiling at your friend.

"Yeah? What's up?"

"You forgot one of your textbooks in class," she said, producing it from behind her back. "Thought I'd drop it off."

"Oh, thank you," you smiled. "Just leave it by my stuff."

When you turned back around, Midoriya was gone. Your heart dropped at the sight, worried that you had frightened him off. Had you read the room wrong? Were you just that desperate that you had overstepped a boundary? Did he hate you now? Think you were overbearing?

You sighed and picked your book back off the shelf next to you, walking forward to round the bookshelf and get back to your studying. Just as you stepped into the aisle, a hand grabbed your forearm and twirled you around so your back was up against the wall.

Blinking up, you saw those familiar flecked eyes and freckles of Midoriya staring down at you, a new confidence in them that wasn't there before. Your racing heart started up again, hands coming to your side free of the book you were holding before.

"Before we get interrupted again, can I..." he trailed off, searching your eyes and flicking down to your lips. "Can I kiss you?"

Your breath hitched in your throat as you smiled, nodding.

"I thought you'd never ask," you said, leaning up and meeting him halfway.

It was soft and sweet as Midoriya slid his hands around your waist and secured you against him. His lips were soft and knew what they were doing. Your back arched off the flat of the wall as you wrapped your hands around his neck, moving with him.

He didn't overstep anything without asking, being tentative with each hand placement and going slow if you had a point in which you wanted to stop. His fingertips grazed the edges of your shirt as his hands moved to your hips, dancing over slivers of skin. Your hands found their way into the mess of green hair atop his head, curling your fingers into the soft locks as he chuckled against your lips.

It was bliss; soft and reassuring and comfortable. Your chest warmed at his thoughtfulness and care, causing you to push into him a little harder. He reciprocated easily, keeping you close to the wall while also having a tight hold on you himself.

With one last twist of your fingers in his hair, you pulled away. Midoriya, eyes half-open as you ended it, chased after your lips, smiling.

"You have no idea how long I wanted to do that for," he muttered, eyes widened now and looking into yours with a softness that just made your heart melt.

"I'm glad you finally did," you smirked, nuzzling your nose against his, "or else I would've had to have a serious intervention."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He pulled away further, a playful look in his eye. You just laughed and pulled yourself toward him, pecking him on the lips again.

"You worry too much."

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AHDLFISHWBELDPSHWHDKF

requests are welcome!

[stygiantarot]

Unusual Divination Methods

A long ass list of methods of divination, just in case you’re curious ~~~~~~

Divination is the method of discerning answers beyond a direct interaction. It can be used for foreseeing future outcomes or problems, but that isn’t inherent. It can also be used to commune with entities like deities or spirits, or even for delving deeper into the self (like shadow work).

There are many forms of divination. So many. There are even many forms of what would be considered “unusual” beyond the more commonly practices like cartomancy, runes, or stichomancy. Today I shall be focusing on ones I’m familiar with so I can better elaborate and answer questions.

The methods I will be exploring today:


Aleuromancy: divination using flour (or a flour substitute!)


Catoptromancy: a form of scrying using a mirror (my method uses a cast iron pan actually!)


Osteomancy: divination using bones

~~~~~~

Aleuromancy

A form of divination using flour that’s mentioned in some Mesopotamian cunefiorms, as well as being practiced in Greece and Rome. There are a couple ways this can be done. Firstly is when you pour out the dry flour and look at the way it falls into a bowl or on a plate or surface. Much like tea leaf reading (tasseography), you seek out shapes in the flour and interpret based on that. Another variation is doing the same but after you’ve mixed the flour with the liquids you’re baking with and kneaded it/mixed it and then taken it away to be baked. You examine the remaining streaks of wet dough on your surfaces for shapes and patterns.

The third method is to actually put slips of paper into the items you’re baking to be taken at random and broken open to answers questions after they’re cooked (akin to fortune cookies). This can be a tricky process depending on what sort of paper or ink you’ve used (speaking from experience :-X). The historical Greek version of this used excerpts of famous philosophy and mixed the balls of doughs nine times (a significant number in Ancient Greece)

It can take a lot of patience to try and find shapes and patterns in flour and admittedly it’s much easier with tea leaves. No wonder that became the standard. Don’t get disheartened if it isn’t something you have success with. You might have more fun and results experimenting with the baking slips of paper into dough methods. Great for ritual cookies!

The kind of divining using this method is very simple, more “omen-like” than detailed q&as like in Tarot or runes. Expect to see simple images that may give insight to something coming your way (a boat or bird showing a trip) or warn of a specific type of trouble that may be on the horizon (a money sign showing finances) rather than getting a formulated question clearly answered. However, you can dabble in that methodology when using the slips of paper instead. That way is more akin to stichomancy where you get a general idea or snapshot of the emotion or proverb-like metaphor to your question.

The type of flour can be tailored to help “fine tune” the reading as well- much like a certain flavor or tea or a certain deck of cards. Keep in mind that all types of grains/flours have a baseline association with prosperity and material gain/finances so this method of divination is especially good for those type of questions!



Flour Correspondences:


Acorn: An uncommon one in stores of course, but has deep wildcrafting results if you have the time and patience to grind some yourself. Associated with protection, health, money, healing, potency, fertility, luck, wealth, wisdom, and personal power.


Almond: creativity, luck, wisdom, spiritual understanding, nostalgia

Buckwheat: Money, protection, dreams and sleep


Flaxseed: health, finances, prosperity, beauty, psychic powers

Oat: family, home, hearth, money

Potato: protection, banishing, soothing/healing


Rice: prosperity, career/job, travel, romantic relationships/sex

Wheat: general prosperity, rebirth/renewal, solar energy

~~~~~~

Catoptromancy

From the Greek word katoptron, meaning mirror, this is a form of scrying that specifically uses a mirror rather than flame, water, or crystal ball. However, my version is a bit of a kitchen witch twist on it. We’ll get to that in a moment!

 The Wikipedia article on it refers to a Greek temple that used this method but it was also practiced in many other countries in history. There’s references to the “true seeing” of Hathor/Het-Hert/ḥwt-ḥr mirrors as well, despite them being mainly for practical purposes. The divination is practiced most commonly by placing a mirror near water, outside in moonlight, or near a candle flame. Then the reader looks into the mirror and interprets the images seen. They can be direct appearance-based (how you look) or seeing other images. The mirror can be a standard one, a painted one, or one made of a more opaque substance like obsidian or metal.

I will say personally, I practice catoptromancy in an “inner eye” scrying way rather than a pattern/tasseography way. That means that I am the conduit and the mirror/surface is to help me get into a trance state and what I “see” will be from my mind’s eye or may likely be added to what little I see on the surface through intuition and that sixth sense. But either method is absolutely fine.

I also don’t use a mirror. I use a well loved, well seasoned cast iron skillet for my catoptromancy, with a lighted candle usually. The glossy surface is mostly black iron but is just mirrored enough from being soaked in fat over the past decades of seasoning that it performs quite well for scrying. And the sentimental value helps it’s power. You may want to select an object in a similar fashion. You can choose an important mirror (the size doesn’t matter) or pick something that is mirror-like. The reflective ability is all that matters.

Get settled down in a comfortable spot without too much light. Get your one light source ready; a candle, the moon, a small table lamp or booklight even. You’ll want to be grounded, centered, and calm and then let yourself “zone out” in order to get into the mindset for scrying. Then examine your own reflection for certain aspects that stand out or look past yourself (or angle the mirror to not be looking right at you) to see other shapes or patterns that you expand upon with your trance state. Keeping a journal for this method is especially important. There’s an emotional and internal reflection aspect that can be helpful to refer back to and examine how things went in your life after certain sessions. It can also pair well with dream magic. What you were seeking might manifest after the trance mirror session in your dreams. This method of divination is especially good for shadow work as well.

~~~~~~

Osteomancy

Bones, bones bones! Throwing the bones! Examining the bones! Reading the bones! This is a divination method that obviously uses bones in order to determine associations and messages. It was prevalent in so many cultures throughout ancient and more recent history that it’s hard to pin down a single source. However, there are definitely methods that have particular cultural ties and those should be respected when it comes to closed ones. 

Much like runes or staves, the most common method counts upon both the appearance of the bones themselves as well as their placement in a “casting” (when you gently toss them onto a flat surface). Casting sets also frequently include items that aren’t just bones like small stones, coins, shells, pieces of jewelry, etc.

You can carve, mark, paint or stain the bones in ways that have personal associations to you to help in reading them. You can obtain these bones in any ethical way you are comfortable with. I don’t believe they have to be remains you have processed yourself; though that can add a different spiritual component. You should be considerate in collecting your set though. There is no set number of objects to have (even a single piece can answer yes/no questions) but I don’t recommend starting out of the gate with a pile. You should get comfortable with each piece and determine its associations before moving on to a new one.

Unlike Tarot, they don’t come with set meanings. Though there are sometimes obvious ones: a coin for finances, a seedpod or nut for fertility/prosperity, a sharp tooth for protection, etc. Think about what creature the bone is from, what part of the body, what shape it has when helping determine your personal associations. Treat it like a correspondence for herbs or crystals and that way you can have a more organic “sliding scale” type meaning for when you cast rather than a rigidly detailed one like with Tarot. For example: a meaning like “luck” or “prosperity” is better than “success in work”. It’s also common to have objects touch and then their meanings are joined. In the previous example you could get promotion/raise at work from having a work piece crossing with a prosperity or luck piece.

It is also up to you on what level of ritualized dedication and/or care you would like to give your set. Many people like to do a special dedication ritual to almost “welcome” the item to its new job as a divination tool (my own is what I call “Massaging the Bones���). You can also regularly cleanse and “feed” the casting set (energy that is- not literal food, though you could give it energy from something you’ve cooked in a non-literal way!). I do recommend a special bag or box to keep everything in as well as a soft thicker cloth to cast on. Just so the items don’t get damaged. Be careful in your casting. Practice a lot to know your strength level to throw while still keeping the objects safe. There may be a couple pieces (like baculums or thinner bird bones) that you need to wrap in a square of cloth before storing with the rest of your set for extra protection. This is especially true if you plan to take your set anywhere where it’ll be traveling in a bag or purse.

You can have a ritual circle of string or another material (embroidery hoop!) you lay out to help organize your cast if you like too. This is usually treated one of two ways. Like the face of a clock and items “closer” to certain times are more immediate and further away items around the imaginary numerals are more in the future. Or it’s concentric and the closer to the center of the circle are more important/relevant and then less relevant or immediate as you get closer to the edge. Those that fall outside the circle aren’t relevant to the reading.

This is a divination method you need an large amount of patience for as it is basically creating a tool yourself from scratch, even if you buy the supplies from elsewhere. The framework is laid by you. And just like someone designing a Tarot deck from scratch; be gentle with yourself and allow yourself the room to practice, change, grow, have fallow periods, return, get bored, become fanatic, etc. It’s a process sort of divination that grows like a living thing. This makes it a bittersweet one- rewarding and frustrating but mostly immensely satisfying.

~~~~~~

Divination is something that can be tailored to your desires, needs, and supplies. It can be made personal. You can create a whole new type if you like! Use what inspires you, what works for you. Use the marks on toast, the recommendations of Netflix, steam in a bathroom mirror after a shower. The world is your oyster!

[bcdrawsandwrites]

Fandom: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Rating: T

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Characters: urTih, urZah, urIm, urNol

Warnings: Torture, eye gore

Description: As the ritual began in the Castle of the Crystal, the Scientist at least knew what was coming. But miles away, in the calm of the Valley, the Alchemist had little warning.

Beta Readers: @jaywings, @kiwi-strawberry-banana​

Notes: Basically what happened with urTih during skekTek’s punishment. Was originally going to do it as an illustration, but then I realized that would require drawing four creatures with six limbs each and I nope’d the heck out of that idea. Soooo... here it is as a fic!

---~~~---

His tools lay out before him in a meticulous array. Whenever one had completed its purpose, he would set it in the exact spot it had been before, and thus not one tool could be lost.

Yet urTih found himself staring over them as though unfamiliar with his own layout. He was familiar with it, of course—he'd only been using the same tools for the past three hundred trine or so—and yet something felt off. He had gathered together a handful of feathers from the nest of a rare bird (it would not miss them, surely), fully intent on studying them to determine their properties, and yet his mind had gone blank upon entering his cave. He should be able to do this easily, and yet... he could not concentrate.

The realization stirred up uneasiness within him, but he shut it down with a soft hum. If something would happen today, he would go through it as usual. There was also a chance that nothing at all would happen—he'd had false alarms before.

Sure enough, the feeling passed, and he calmly began to arrange the feathers across his work table, trying to determine which would be the best subject to study. Some he'd had to clean of dirt and droppings, but... leaning in and tipping his head to the left to view them more closely, he found the process left them somewhat frayed. So perhaps these were not the best subjects. But if he could take the others, he could... he could take the others, and... and...

Oh, he was losing his train of thought again.

UrTih sighed, and sent the feathers scattering across the table as he did so. One smaller feather drifted off to the floor and blew toward the mouth of his cave. His eyes followed its path, then blinked, for something was blocking the entrance.

The Ritual Guardian, urZah, stood before him. He opened his mouth, and spoke, his voice solemn:

"I have seen my shadow fall over you."

It hadn't been a false alarm, then.

Feeling his stomach clench, urTih slipped away from his table. The Ritual Guardian nodded to him slowly and stepped away from the cave, heading out into the Valley and up the wooden path that wound through it. After pausing for a moment to pin the feathers he'd collected beneath a few instruments, urTih followed his fellow Mystic, following the familiar path up to urIm's cave, his mind on nothing but his own footsteps.

It would be best to leave the more important thoughts for when his mind needed distracting.

The Healer was the only urRu that kept two beds in his cavern, and he was currently resting upon one of them. But hearing urTih and urZah approach, he lifted his head and the rest of his body followed immediately. "Ritual Guardian," he greeted with a slow nod. "Who is it today?"

UrZah only stepped aside, allowing urTih to come closer. Wordlessly, urIm waved him over to the second bed, which urTih numbly sat upon, curling in on himself. He kept one hand resting on his tail; last time, he recalled, it had been tugged at terribly for some time, as though the weight of an entire urRu were pulling against it. The memory of it still made his tail ache... but he had borne the pain, as he had all the times prior. The burns on his feet left scars, and he'd wound up with many bruises and cuts to his face and body. But all of these he'd endured.

Yet...

His gaze went from urZah to urIm, before lowering back to his tail. The Healer received wounds intermittently, which he could treat on his own, but rarely the kind inflicted by a shadow. The Ritual Guardian, meanwhile, seemed to never receive them at all. UrAc, urAmaj, urNol—all of the other Mystics had gone through their own painful trials, all enacted upon their counterparts for reasons they still did not understand.

Yet urTih felt like it happened to his... more frequently.

The Scientist is a cruel being, he would tell himself. Surely if something happens to him... it is deserved. Surely if something happens... to me...

And yet his gaze turned to urZah again, staring at the deep spirals that wound throughout his face, his hands, his body, and not a trace of scars upon them.

"I cannot see what lies ahead," the Ritual Guardian said, drawing him out of his thoughts. "Shadows are often indistinct. But we will prepare for whatever the future holds."

"We will," came urIm's soft voice. Already he was gathering clean cloths together, and pouring water from a pitcher into a bowl.

"I can only hope... it is not my tail... again," urTih muttered, pulling his tail closer to himself with two of his arms.

"The pain will pass," urIm said gently.

UrTih shut his eyes, the familiar chant running through his mind. "The pain will pass, it will pass..." he hummed to himself, meditating on those words until they became a rhythm that wound through his mind and soul. After a moment, urZah joined him, and urIm followed shortly after, taking a spot next to him and wrapping his tail around his body. It was a chant that every urRu spoke from time to time, whenever they bore the pain endured by their other halves. Whenever distracting thoughts failed them, the chant was always something that pulled their mind from—

Something was pinching at his eyelids—

The next thing he knew his head was laying on its side and gently pressed into the bed beneath him, and he could not see. The right side of his face was sticky and wet, and someone—urIm probably—was skillfully mopping it while holding his hands away from his face.

And urTih was screaming.

The pain lanced all throughout his head, greater even than the burns had been on his feet, the wounds on his body, the pain in his tail. It seemed to stab straight into his mind, relentlessly, endlessly, but most of the pain was concentrated in his right eye. He suddenly greatly, greatly missed when his tail was pulled. He missed when his head was struck at, when he wound up with cuts and burns on his hands. Why could it have not been his tail?

Why could he not see?

"It will all be over soon," came urZah's voice nearby, and before urTih could stop himself, three of his arms lashed out in the voice's direction, the fourth pinned by his own body.

Something caught each hand, one by one, but it was not the gnarled hands of the Ritual Guardian. Three other skilled hands held his three free ones, and gripped them tightly in a comforting squeeze. "Keep still as you're able," urNol the Herbalist said, a firmness and urgency to his tone not normally heard in Mystic voices.

UrTih tried to do as he suggested, squeezing the Herbalist's hands in his own, but he could not stop his tail from lashing. Another tail wrapped around his own, but whose he could not tell.

Meanwhile, the pain in his eye went from stabbing to gnawing. Subsequently his own voice went from screaming to straining, and he snapped his muzzle shut, teeth grinding together. "I... c-cannot... see..." he whimpered into the blankets beneath him. Frantic thoughts suddenly filled his head: Was he going blind? Were they blinding him? Would he be able to navigate the Valley after this? Would he be able to walk at all? What of his experiments? Had he been wrong to do them from the start?

This is because of the work of the Scientist, he told himself. The work of one who inflicts harm upon others... who tries to change the nature of Thra, who... steals from other creatures to perform worthless experiments—

His mouth was forcibly pried open, and something bitter shoved inside. His initial reaction was to push out the offending substance with his tongue, but another gnawing pain sent his jaw snapping shut, teeth grinding against the thick plant matter.

"These herbs numb pain," urNol said. His hands still gripped urTih's own. "Please chew them."

UrTih did this already, the overwhelmingly bitter taste drawing his mind away from the pain. He wasn't sure whether the herbs were working, or whether the torture was nearing its end, for the active pain was slowing down. "No more..." he moaned around the plants in his mouth. "No more, no more."

Yet he felt the Herbalist's hands squeezing his again. "Brace yourself."

Now what were they going to do? He didn't want to, he didn't... "No, no... no—"

There was a sharp, painful pulling at his eye socket, and his voice broke off into a scream. And just like that, the pain lessened in intensity, leaving an agonizing, gnawing emptiness in his right eye.

"It is over," urNol announced, and urTih moaned into the blankets beneath him. The words should have relieved him, but everything felt wrong.

"Be still." UrIm continued to wipe at his face for a moment longer, then applied something sticky over his right eye... or where, he suspected, it had once been. He then removed the much-chewed herbs from urTih's mouth, and held something cold to it. "You must drink."

"I-I cannot... see..." he stammered. Had he gone blind? Had his other half truly...?

But urIm gently lifted his head, and a blurry, flat vision of the Healer's cave appeared to his left eye. The Healer tipped his head back, and urged him to drink water. He did so eagerly, until urIm took the bowl away and gently set his head back down.

For a moment urTih thought he may be able to relax, only for something damp to gently cover the left side of his face, blocking his vision. Immediately he shrieked, tossing his head back.

"Enough, Healer," urNol snapped, and the cloth was removed.

His vision restored, albeit partially, urTih rested his head upon the bed once again. However, he did not feel calm—only exhausted.

"The shadow has passed,'' urZah stated, and urTih flicked his tail. "I am sorry for his doing. May the Crystal call us soon."

That was the Ritual Guardian's signal to leave, and he stepped out of the cave. UrIm remained, of course, saying softly that urTih could stay as long as needed. Yet... urNol stayed as well, no longer holding urTih's hands (he had rested them gently upon the bed), but settling himself next to him.

"Have... you... more herbs... t-to apply...?" urTih managed to stammer, shutting his eyes.

"No."

Then why had the Herbalist remained?

Curiosity overtaking him, urTih raised his head, turning it toward urNol... and blinked, noting the eye patch over the Herbalist's right eye.

"It will hurt... for some time," urNol said. "Distances will be unknown to you, and travel will be hard. But these you will learn."

This would have brought him some relief, but another worry plagued him, though he nearly feared to ask about it. "M-my... experiments?"

A small smile crossed the Herbalist's face. "Herbs have become no more harder for me to use. The same should be for pebbles, feathers, and string."

Relief filled him, and his body rose and fell in a great sigh.

"Our halves can be maimed..." urIm said, and the others raised their heads. "But we may yet live to see them joined with us again... and become whole."

The Healer's words should have brought comfort, but one of urTih's hands raised themselves to touch the bandage over his eye socket.

Perhaps he would be able to walk, and travel, and experiment once again... but to become whole...

No, he thought, lowering his hand.

I shall never be truly whole again.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] S2 Gavin and MC’s Main Storyline Meeting (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for the Season 2 main storyline, which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

If you don’t know anything about Season 2, do check out this post first!

Chronology: Throbbing Date ->  Chapter 1 -> Chapter 2 

[Note: I won’t be doing other main storyline translations 😅 I translated this for a future analysis]

[Brief context you need to know prior to Ch 1-9]

Kiro is working as an artiste in MC’s company

MC is a successful producer and a member of Black Swan

Lucien is a neuroscientist, professor in Loveland University, and an advisor in STF for confidential R&D

Anna informs MC that a clip of Kiro announcing he’s an Evolver has appeared in the news and there are rumours of Kiro hurting someone. At present, he’s uncontactable

The STF is going to investigate the matter (they maintain the peace between normal humans and Evolvers), but MC doesn’t want it to blow up

She sneaks into Lucien’s office in STF and tries to persuade him to stop STF from investigating, but he says there’s nothing he can do

After she leaves, she gets spotted by a detective, and she alters his memories with her new Evol

It’s revealed that her Evol only worked on normal humans at first, but she’s been able to use it on weak Evolvers after training it

She overhears two STF officers talking about a new captain on the Special Operations Team, and prepares to plant a tracker on them:

[End of Chapter 1-8]

Before I take a step forward, there’s a sudden tightening on my wrist.

My hands are firmly clasped behind me. Before I can get a proper look at the person’s face, my whole body is pressed against the glass behind me.

-

[Chapter 1-9]

??: What are you doing here? 

A familiar voice enters my ears, reminiscent of wind from the past awakening my memories. 

I turn my head, looking at the person behind me in disbelief. 

As compared to in high school, his eyebrows have become sharper. Yet, there seems to be more substance in that sharpness. 

The brief encounter in front of the school gate, the inadvertent meeting of eyes after class...

Scenes from six years ago flash before my eyes, along with an even more distant time, leaving me slightly lost. 

He came back after all.

This reunion after six years catches me off guard.

In the days before this reunion, I frequently thought about it.

As though waiting for the first bloom after the snow melts - slightly restless, and slightly anticipating. 

Even though he said it was all right to arrive a little late, from what I see now... neither of us were late.

[Note: She’s making reference to her farewell with Gavin in Ch 37]

The hard, small tracker is in the palm of my hand. My thoughts whirl around in countless circles. In the end, I say the most normal words. 

MC: ...Gavin, it’s been a while. 

Gavin: What are you doing here? 

Without waiting for my response, a soft and faint voice enters my ears. 

Gavin: Someone’s coming. You don’t plan to say anything?

MC: ...

Gavin turns his head slightly. He doesn’t loosen his grip. The light remains on me. 

To prevent myself from being discovered, I lean backwards against him, using his body to cover my existence. 

Vaguely, I seem to hear a soft chuckle. I turn my head to its source. 

Gavin maintains a straight face, but his slightly arched eyebrows betray a certain emotion.

Gavin: You still have one last chance. 

MC: I’m really just surveying the place. 

Warmth from his body travels to my back, like a wordless greeting.

He exerts more pressure, and I turn my head involuntarily. 

At this moment, I seem to feel something leaning against my back gently. 

A bird flies past the window, and Gavin releases my wrist. 

The feeling of being shackled earlier disappears.

MC: No one was even around just now!

His expression is light, and his eyes crinkle upwards for a moment. He immediately turns his head to the side. 

Gavin: Come with me. 

My earlier shock settles, and I follow behind him as he walks along a corridor. 

Away from the hall with passers-by, Gavin and I stand face-to-face near the corridor window. Neither of us speak.

Seeing the face illuminated by the sunlight from the window, I take a light breath and focus my attention on the matters at hand. 

Gavin... has been transferred back to Loveland City? Could he be the new Captain of the Special Operations Team?

My line of sight sweeps over his white uniform and the badges on his chest. My speculation becomes more certain. 

Considering how much attention this case has gotten, it should be handed over to him.

Gavin: You didn’t finish speaking just now. What exactly are you surveying here? 

I regain my senses, trying my best to smile.

MC: I’ve been collecting solved Evol cases for a program recently, so I thought to come to STF and have a first-hand look.

Gavin purses his lip slightly, his gaze on my face. I calmly place my hands behind my back. 

MC: I was looking for those two special officers to understand the process of how STF handles cases. I didn’t think I’d meet you here. Since you should be very busy, I shall not be a nuisance...

Gavin: You can be a nuisance. What program is making you go through so much effort? Tell me about it. 

Facing Gavin’s straightforward gaze, I can only thicken my skin and continue speaking. 

MC: The... name is tentatively “The Ins-and-Outs of STF’s Unknowns”.

Gavin: The name of the program isn’t bad, it sounds ambitious. Let’s talk about it in detail. 

MC: ...wait! You’re newly promoted, so go and celebrate. It’s important to meet your subordinates. I can wait for you to be free before taking up your precious time. 

I lower my head to avoid his eyes. I decide to rush off, but Gavin blocks my way. 

Unable to withdraw my foot in time, I crash into his chest, and hit against the badges painfully. 

I rub my cheek, slightly aggrieved, and look up to Gavin. 

Seeing this, Gavin simply knits his brows slightly. His eyes are clear, as though waiting for another answer from me. 

He doesn’t speak, but quietly gives me one last chance. Faced with such a Gavin, my heart sighs silently. 

MC: I’m here because of a matter involving an Evolver artiste working under me.

...perhaps it’s my misperception, but his expression is no longer as cold as it was before. 

With that, I meet his eyes, and no longer beat around the bush.

MC: STF’s intervention will only delay the matter. If he’s being used by some Evol organisation... it will just worsen the divide between normal people and Evolvers.

Gavin: After saying so much, what are you trying to say? Persuading me not to investigate? 

I shake my head. 

MC: No. If it were someone else, I might think of another way to handle the investigation. Seeing that you’re the one in charge of the investigation, I have nothing to worry about now.

Gavin: Why are you so confident? 

I’m stunned for a moment. Only when I see his eyebrows furrowed questioningly, do I realise that my entire answer left my lips. 

MC: It’s mostly because... I know what kind of a person you are. I don’t need to explain further, and I didn’t think of making an excuse, because lies can never become truths. I believe you’d use your method to find a true ending to this issue. You’ll give me, Kiro, and all the innocent people in this issue a true answer. 

I believe every bullet from you resounds in the name of justice.

His amber eyes freeze for a while. 

Gavin’s eyes flicker faintly, and looks like he’s about to speak. 

The sound of footsteps draw near, and someone calls Gavin’s name from afar. 

Gavin watches me, and there’s a change in the look in his eyes. After a while, he lowers his voice.

Gavin: This isn’t a place you should be in.

MC: Got it.

I understand that, at least right now, he wouldn’t probe further on the reason for my appearance in STF.  

...after all, given Gavin’s identity and his investigative abilities, he definitely already knows that I’m in Black Swan. 

No matter what my attitude was, we have been standing on opposite positions from the start.

MC: Gavin, I...

Gavin: Whether it’s your company, or the other people behind you, don’t interfere in this matter. The STF will handle everything.

Young Special Officer: Captain Gavin, Captain Eli is looking for you...

Gavin: Got it. 

Gavin walks towards the special officer who called him. After giving him some instructions, he turns his head to look at me again. 

The young special officer nods, then walks to my side. 

Young Special Officer: Miss Reporter, the exit is over here. 

I stare at Gavin’s retreating form and take a deep breath. I affectionately pat the young special officer’s shoulder. 

MC: All right, I’ll leave now. 

The miniature tracker hidden in my sleeves sticks to his body. Flushing red, the special officer takes a few steps, completely unaware. 

Saying a “sorry” in my heart, I retract my hand and quietly follow behind the special officer. 

The bracelet on my wrist dangles along with my action. The thin ginkgo leaf falls quietly against my wrist. 

I grip my wrist lightly, my palm overlapping with the place Gavin had clamped earlier.

He didn’t use any force. It isn’t painful at all.

-

[Chapter 1-10]

The STF training grounds.

Special police: A! Warm! Welcome! To! Our! New! Captain!

Gavin: ...

Seeing Gavin’s expression cracking slightly, Eli desperately suppresses the urge to gloat. 

Eli: The famous Special Police Officer B-7. Every new kid here has memorised your deeds back then by heart. 

Gavin: When did you have so much nonsense?

Gavin arches his brows. Eli could have sworn that on Gavin’s face is a look of ridicule which he hasn’t seen in a long time. 

The inauguration ceremony, which was originally meant to continue for the entire afternoon, ends quickly in ten minutes on Gavin’s request. 

The special police officers on the training grounds disperse after looking at each other. The two of them leave the training ground, heading to the Administration Building. 

Eli: How is it, are you able to adapt well?

Gavin: Not bad.

Eli: Need me to celebrate with you? 

Gavin: No need.

Eli: ...you’re still the same as always. 

Eli releases a soft sigh and catches up with Gavin. 

Eli: You suddenly transferred to Loveland City - even I was a little surprised. From how you looked just now, it seems you were already prepared for it. 

Eli looks at the comrade who once escaped death with him, and only one thought is in his heart-

Whoever is in the Special Operations Team next time is going to suffer. 

Eli: Oh right, I have a question. 

Gavin hears the hesitance in Eli’s voice. He pauses.

Eli: Why aren’t you willing to announce your identity as the Commander-in-chief of STF? 

Gavin: You should know why I returned to Loveland City. 

Initially startled, Eli quickly understands the meaning behind Gavin’s words. 

Eli: Don’t worry. Since you’re the Captain of the Special Operations Team now, we’ll cooperate with you fully. The mission you’re referring to is still considered “top secret” in STF. There have already been some initial developments, so you can rest assured. 

Watching Gavin nod inattentively, Eli suddenly thinks of something very important. 

Eli: Also, was the person you met just now...

Gavin: What are the results of the investigation? 

Eli freezes for a moment after Gavin cuts him off. He smiles and nods. 

Eli: We’ve got them. The report should already be on your desk.

Gavin: Let’s go quickly then.

Seeing Gavin walk towards his office without a turn of his head, Eli sighs in his heart, speeding up his pace to catch up. 

There are no traces of the office being used. On the table rests a stack of newly sent documents.

Gavin flips through the documents briefly, pursing his lips.

Gavin: This isn’t everything.

Eli: Should I contact the general advisor of the confidential R&D department? 

Gavin: No need. How much we have here represents how much he’s willing to disclose. We’ll find the rest ourselves.

Gavin locks the documents in a drawer. Casting a glance at the window, his lips move slightly. 

Gavin: We’ll take action tonight. 

Eli: Such a hurry?

Gavin: We can’t?

Eli: We can, but are you hurrying to settle work, or hurrying to settle work to meet someone?

Gavin: I already have.

Eli: I didn’t mention who it was.

Gavin: ...

Eli: What are your thoughts? Do you find the change very large?

Gavin: ...

Seeing that Gavin isn’t speaking, Eli knowingly remains silent. 

In the room, there is only the faint sound of the computer running.

The thread of memory is pulled, one end holding that figure disappearing in the opposite direction, and the other gently tugging on his emotions. 

Gavin: She has never changed. 

~

Although the morning trip to STF was alarming and dangerous, I managed to confirm one thing.

Since this matter has fallen into Gavin’s hands, there's nothing to worry about on the media level. 

But whether he will use this as a chance to keep an eye on Black Swan is a different issue. 

I remember Gavin’s resolute attitude, letting out a sigh.

Since I’m a member of Black Swan, he might not be willing to be associated with me...

The sun shines through the gaps of the leaves, bringing with it a melting warmth on every corner of the street.

I narrow my eyes slightly, thinking about that eternal night of the earth - it’s so distant, just like an illusion. 

The comet cluster X1917 and the doomsday which really occurred, had brought everything back to seventeen years ago. 

In the seventeen years I’ve experienced again, there have been many dramatic changes. 

But under the surface of this seemingly balanced society resides the friction and disputes between two groups of people, like a dormant volcano. 

Perhaps this peace can be maintained, or perhaps it would explode in the next second...

There’s suddenly an earth-shattering cry behind me. 

I turn and see a five or six year old girl crying as her balloon floats in the sky. 

In the next second, the balloon which almost disappeared floats back. 

The passing teenager grabs the string, bends over, and ties it onto the girl’s wrist. The girl quickly breaks into a smile.

Looking at the two of them waving at each other and going off in opposite directions, I applaud in my hand and sigh softly at the same time.

To maintain such a balance, and also find “that thing” - it’s an immense challenge to me.

...forget it, I’ll take it one step at a time.

I rub my deflated tummy, deciding to resolve the problem of hunger in front of me.

-

For the sake of completion: MC goes into the convenience store and meets Kiro. He didn’t hurt anyone - the guy slipped and fell on his own LOL

Wondering why MC has a ginkgo bracelet? Fan speculation here. [Update: This question is answered in Chapter 2]

Phone call: here

-

🌸 MOMENTS 🌸

Gavin’s Post: It’s windy.

MC: The wind today seems colder.

Gavin: Because the next season is coming.

Minor: Bro Gavin, where are you? I’m treating you to a congratulatory meal right now!

-

Gavin’s Post: It’s windy.

MC: Probably because you’ve returned.

Gavin: Do you think so?

Minor: Bro Gavin, where are you? I’m treating you to a congratulatory meal right now!

-

Gavin’s Post: It’s windy.

MC: It’s very common for it to be windy in Loveland City during this season. Have you forgotten? 

Gavin: I haven’t forgotten anything related to this place. 

Minor: Bro Gavin, where are you? I’m treating you to a congratulatory meal right now!

[theatticoneighth]

Watching The Queen’s Gambit; on the Remarkable Unexceptionality of Beth Harmon

‘With some people, chess is a pastime. With others, it is a compulsion, even an addiction. And every now and then, a person comes along for whom it is a birthright. Now and then, a small boy appears and dazzles us with his precocity, at what may be the world’s most difficult game. But what if that boy were a girl? A young, unsmiling girl, with brown eyes, red hair, and a dark blue dress? Into the male-dominated world of the nation’s top chess tournaments, strolls a teenage girl with bright, intense eyes, from Fairfield High School in Lexington, Kentucky. She is quiet, well-mannered, and out for blood.’

The preceding epigraph opens a fictional profile of Beth Harmon featured in the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit (2020), and is written and published after the protagonist — a teenage, rookie chess player, no less — beats a series of ranked pros to win her first of many tournaments. In the same deft manner as it depicts the character’s ascent to her global chess stardom, the piece also sets up the series’s narrative: this is evidence of a great talent, it tells us, a grandmaster in the making. As with most other stories about prodigies, this new entry into a timeworn genre is framed unexceptionally by its subject’s exceptionality.

Yet as far as tales regaled about young chess wunderkinds go, Beth Harmon’s stands out in more ways than one. That she is a girl in a male-dominated world has clearly not gone unremarked by both her diegetic and nondiegetic audiences. That her life has thus far — and despite her circumstances — been relatively uneventful, however, is what makes this show so remarkable. After all, much of our culture has undeniably primed us to expect the consequential from those whom we raise upon the pedestal of genius. As Harmon’s interviewer suggests in her conversation with Harmon for the latter’s profile, “Creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand. Or, for that matter, genius and madness.” So quickly do we attribute extraordinary accomplishments to similarly irregular origins that we presume an inexplicability of our geniuses: their idiosyncrasies are warranted, their bad behaviours are excused, and deep into their biographies we dig to excavate the enigmatic anomalies behind their gifts. Through our myths of exceptionality, we make the slightest aberrations into metonyms for brilliance.

Nonetheless, for all her sullenness, non-conformity, and her plethora of addictions, Beth Harmon seems an uncommonly normal girl. No doubt this may be a contentious view, as evinced perhaps by the chorus of viewers and reviewers alike who have already begun to brand the character a Mary Sue. Writing on the series for the LA Review of Books, for instance, Aaron Bady construes The Queen’s Gambit as “the tragedy of Bobby Fischer [made] into a feminist fantasy, a superhero story.” In the same vein, Jane Hu also laments in her astute critique of the Cold War-era drama its flagrant and saccharine wish-fulfillment tendencies. “The show gets to have it both ways,” she observes, “a beautiful heroine who leans into the edge of near self-destruction, but never entirely, because of all the male friends she makes along the way.” Sexual difference is here reconstituted as the unbridgeable chasm that divides the US from the Soviet Union, whereas the mutual friendliness shared between Harmon and her male chess opponents becomes a utopic revision of history. Should one follow Hu’s evaluation of the series as a period drama, then the retroactive ascription of a recognisably socialist collaborative ethos to Harmon and her compatriots is a contrived one indeed. 

Accordingly, both Hu and Bady conclude that the series grants us depthless emotional satisfaction at the costly expense of realism: its all-too-easy resolutions swiftly sidestep any nascent hint of overwhelming tension; its resulting calm betrays our desire for reprieve. Underlying these arguments is the fundamental assumption that the unembellished truth should also be an inconvenient one, but why must we always demand difficulty from those we deem noteworthy? Summing up the show’s conspicuous penchant for conflict-avoidance, Bady writes that: 

over and over again, the show strongly suggests — through a variety of genre and narrative cues — that something bad is about to happen. And then … it just doesn’t. An orphan is sent to a gothic orphanage and the staff … are benign. She meets a creepy, taciturn old man in the basement … and he teaches her chess and loans her money. She is adopted by a dysfunctional family and the mother … takes care of her. She goes to a chess tournament and midway through a crucial game she gets her first period and … another girl helps her, who she rebuffs, and she is fine anyway. She wins games, defeating older male players, and … they respect and welcome her, selflessly helping her. The foster father comes back and …she has the money to buy him off. She gets entangled in cold war politics and … decides not to be.

In short, everything that could go wrong … simply does not go wrong.

Time and again predicaments arise in Harmon’s narrative, but at each point, she is helped fortuitously by the people around her. In turn, the character is allowed to move through the series with the restrained unflappability of a sleepwalker, as if unaffected by the drama of her life.  Of course, this is not to say that she fails to encounter any obstacle on her way to celebrity and success — for neither her childhood trauma nor her substance-laden adolescence are exactly rosy portraits of idyll — but only that such challenges seem so easily ironed out by that they hardly register as true adversity. In other words, the show takes us repeatedly to the brink of what could become a life-altering crisis but refuses to indulge our taste for the spectacle that follows. Skipping over the Aristotelian climax, it shields us from the height of suspense, and without much struggle or effort on the viewers’ part, hands us our payoff. Consequently lacking the epochal weight of plot, little feels deserved in Harmon’s story.

In his study of eschatological fictions, The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode would associate such a predilection for catastrophes with our abiding fear of disorder. Seeing as time, as he argues, is “purely successive [and] disorganised,” we can only reach to the fictive concords of plot to make sense of our experiences. Endings in particular serve as the teleological objective towards which humanity projects our existence, so we hold paradigms of apocalypse closely to ourselves to restore significance to our lives. It probably comes as no surprise then that in a year of chaos and relentless disaster — not to mention the present era of extreme precariousness, doomscrolling, and the 24/7 news cycle, all of which have irrevocably attuned us to the dreadful expectation of “the worst thing to come” — we find ourselves eyeing Harmon’s good fortune with such scepticism. Surely, we imagine, something has to have happened to the character for her in order to justify her immense consequence. But just as children are adopted each day into loving families and chess tournaments play out regularly without much strife, so too can Harmon maintain low-grade dysfunctional relationships with her typically flawed family and friends. 

In any case, although “it seems to be a condition attaching to the exercise of thinking about the future that one should assume one's own time to stand in extraordinary relation to it,” not all orphans have to face Dickensian fates and not all geniuses have to be so tortured (Kermode). The fact remains that the vagaries of our existence are beyond perfect reason, and any attempt at thinking otherwise, while vital, may be naive. Contrary to most critics’ contentions, it is hence not The Queen’s Gambit’s subversions of form but its continued reach towards the same that holds up for viewers such a comforting promise of coherence. The show comes closest to disappointing us as a result when it eschews melodrama for the straightforward. Surprised by the ease and randomness of Harmon’s life, it is not difficult for one to wonder, four or five episodes into the show, what it is all for; one could even begin to empathise with Hu’s description of the series as mere “fodder for beauty.” 

Watching over the series now with Bady’s recap of it in mind, however, I am reminded oddly not of the prestige and historical dramas to which the series is frequently compared, but the low-stakes, slice-of-life cartoons that had peppered my childhood. Defined by the prosaicness of its settings, the genre punctuates the life’s mundanity with brief moments of marvel to accentuate the curious in the ordinary. In these shows, kindergarteners fix the troubles of adults with their hilarious playground antics, while time-traveling robot cats and toddler scientists alike are confronted with the woes of chores. Likewise, we find in The Queen’s Gambit a comparable glimpse of the quotidian framed by its protagonist’s quirks. Certainly, little about the Netflix series’ visual and narrative features would identify it as a slice-of-life serial, but there remains some merit, I believe, in watching it as such. For, if there is anything to be gained from plots wherein nothing is introduced that cannot be resolved in an episode or ten, it is not just what Bady calls the “drowsy comfort” of satisfaction — of knowing that things will be alright, or at the very least, that they will not be terrible. Rather, it is the sense that we are not yet so estranged from ourselves, and that both life and familiarity persists even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Perhaps some might find such a tendency towards the normal questionable, yet when all the world is on fire and everyone clambers for acclaim, it is ultimately the ongoingness of everyday life for which one yearns. As Harmon’s childhood friend, Jolene, tells her when she is once again about to fall off the wagon, “You’ve been the best at what you do for so long, you don’t even know what it’s like for the rest of us.” For so long, and especially over the past year, we have catastrophized the myriad crises in which we’re living that we often overlook the minor details and habits that nonetheless sustain us. To inhabit the congruence of both the remarkable and its opposite in the singular figure of Beth Harmon is therefore to be reminded of the possibility of being outstanding without being exceptional — that is, to not make an exception of oneself despite one’s situation — and to let oneself be drawn back, however placid or insignificant it may be, into the unassuming hum of dailiness. It is in this way of living that one lives on, minute by minute, day by day, against the looming fear and anxiety that seek to suspend our plodding regular existence. It is also in this way that I will soon be turning the page on the last few months in anticipation of what is to come. 

Born and raised in the perpetually summery tropics — that is, Singapore — Rachel Tay wishes she could say her life was just like a still from Call Me By Your Name: tanned boys, peaches, and all. Unfortunately, the only resemblance that her life bears to the film comes in the form of books, albeit ones read in the comfort of air-conditioned cafés, and not the pool, for the heat is sweltering and the humidity unbearable. A fervent turtleneck-wearer and an unrepentant hot coffee-addict, she is thus the ideal self-parodying Literature student, and the complete anti-thesis to tropical life.

[manjuhitorie]

Hitorie’s album ‘4′ - Interview via Natalie.com - English Translation

It all began from wowaka’s wish for people to perform his songs with.

　- Interviewer(森朋之): I gave 4, your first ever greatest hits album, a good listen. It truly ossifies the footprints Hitorie left, the marks Hitorie etched in the world, and the beauty of wowaka’s homemade music. May I ask the reason which spurred this endeavor?

ygarshy (Bassist): Now, at this juncture, do we find it fitting for people to look back at the music we 4 made.

Yumao (Drummer): Not to mention the urge to show everyone how we feel; to show those who’ve listened to Hitorie all this time and those who’ve just found us both. We’ve been performing as a trio for a while now, even before the release of this album, so in order to reach a broader range of ears a greatest hits album was a no-brainer.

Shinoda (Guitarist/Chorus): The title ‘4’ was my idea. We were discussing what to dub the title over a meal when this popped up in my head. It was like “This is it, nothing else”. The song selection was a group effort, in essence its designed around songs which felt indispensable. As Yumao said, we considered future new listeners as well.

　-     I’m sure it served as a trip down memory lane for you too, so in fact how did it unfold behind the curtains?


ygarshy: Hitorie originally started with wowaka as the core: wowaka served - we hit. Humans as his bolsters: including the complex songs practically unplayable by humans (laughs). We learned to tackle those songs more and more pragmatically, as in “How much expression can we uphold with just our mortal bodies“. The album’s track list is parallel with our timeline too, so you can feel our growth for yourself with a very listen.

   
-     The more music you make the more physical substance you assume, then in name and in form both do you truly become a band.
 
ygarshy: Yes. Through the trial and error of our early years did we puzzle out our own unique way of expression, as such, near the end of disc 2 you can see that a new world happens to open up. There’s more straightforward and honest expressions, wowaka begins to add more direct words to his lyrics. He’s always had originality to him, but through living life did he acquire more and more.
 Yumao: Speaking of... People told me this and I realized it’s true: Disc 1 and Disc 2 are in two different phases. Disc 1 gives the impression of wowaka expressing the imaginary world within himself only, while Disc 2 to seems to be conscious of other people as well. I think this was influenced by the time of writing plus the way we conversed as a band during production. At first we needed words to converse, but slowly did we transcend and become able to form a song without them. So in correspondence did the lyrics become more outwards reaching as well. As ygarshy said, near the end of Disc 2 the songs feel like they’re heading towards a “forward”. Hitorie’s music and messages, and everything included, there’s new ideas and experiments happening. Chronological order was the perfect way to roll Hitorie up in a single package, and it shows that Hitorie aren’t yet done with their journey.




wowaka was someone who believed “This feels good, so I’ve gotta do it.”

   
-     Shinoda do you also find this greatest hits album to be a model of Hitorie’s growth? 
Shinoda: Like, I’ve gotta. It’s our blood sweat and tears we’re talking about. How do I put this, over time our workplace gradually became a more comfortable space. Not in terms of our relationships as people, but our relationships musically. I hope this greatest album serves as a looking glass into that intimacy of ours.
 　  -  
When exactly did your musical relationship grow closer?
 Shinoda: Probably around when we were making ai/SOlate (Mini album released in December of 2017). Playing with all our might is always a must but, in our early years we would often put too much time and energy into fretting over the minor aspects. Like “Are you sure this is okay?” or “Is my guitar really recorded as cool as can be?”. Around ai/SOlate did those doubts begin to slip away, and then with HOWLS (Album released in February of 2019) were we able to let ourselves out, as frank as possible. Less weight on our shoulders = less unease and chips on our shoulders.
 　- I see. Listening really hammers in the originality and uniqueness of your band. Where do you think Hitorie’s musical personality fits in with wowaka’s realm of imagination?

 ygarshy: Excuse me if this is the improper choice of words, but, wowaka’s the type to thrust himself in to whatever he finds physically pleasing. You may find that even the highest tempo songs will have intricate phases, this is because wowaka, in pure innocence, believes that “It’s cooler this way!”. Lyrics are the same ordeal. He himself divulged this frequently in interviews and such as well.. that more than the dictionary definition of a word, he places importance in the way a word sounds when it hits the ear, there’s more definition and meaning to a word that way. His stance on this links to who he is as a person, how he lives and thinks. I always got the impression that he didn’t use his conscious mind when he wrote, rather he believed that “This feels good, so I’ve gotta do it.”.
 　  - When he found musical enjoyment, he didn’t falter and flung himself right in, I see.
 ygarshy: That and, because he’s so attuned to those nerves is he so unwavering. He has exact things which he will “refuse to give this up” or say “I need this” about. In being close to him I noticed this about him. Of course this applies outside of music as well. For example, at one point wowaka got really into cooking and really good at it. He possesses the ability to figure out the core essence of something, and visualize “If I add this here, this will happen”. It’s not as if he’s savvy, it’s more like he has keen sensors when it comes to pinpointing sweet spots. Yumao: One characteristic of wowaka’s music is the sheer volume of information. When I checked out the printed version of Senseless Wonder’s lyrics I was shitting myself, all over again. It boasts such capacity, and it feels like it's aaaall coming straight for you. I felt this when we made music together as well, in a way it’s a weapon of his. Not to mention that from ai/SOlate and onwards did our sound become legions better. Mixing and mastering play a role in this, along with wowaka’s efforts to spend time working with our engineer man-to-man. In regards to the music I felt a desire from him to go with the flow of his current trends. I think he probably felt “I’m wielding a whole new way of music”, it’s then in those moments when he will unleash a beastly level of focus. In line with what ygarshy said, he definitely isn’t savvy, it’s not as if he wrote these songs in a jiffy either. However he is capable of spending a long time span completely absorbed in a single objective until it takes full shape. It’s akin to building a plastic model: to gather small bits and pieces and piece them together. 　- So wowaka has a clear vision of what he wants to do in his head, he gathers all the necessary parts, then begins construction. ygarshy: That’s it. Say when you’re putting together a puzzle, say even if you couldn’t fit the pieces in, you could still make out the shape of the grid, right? I’m not him so I can’t say for certain but, I think maybe music writing was like that for him. 　- The guitar phrases seem to be constructed with perfect precision as well, what’s that like on your side Shinoda? Shinoda: The guitar parts were always a tug of war between wowaka and I. We‘re the only two who share the same role of instrument, wherein he has his guitar aesthetics while I have my own. We clashed so to speak. When I was to reenact a phrase he wrote I would propose my own saying “I have a better idea!”. Only to be shot down by wowaka. Or other times be recognized. When he would say “Your phase is better.”, I felt like I won the battle (laughing). We had a pretty fierce relationship, we clashed and we understood each other, we were always aiming higher, and the fruit of my victories can be heard in a few tens of the guitar on the album.

“How the hell did this guy manage to sing these wack-ass songs"

　- In June of 2019, Shinoda-san took on the role of main vocalist, and together to put on a hour-long show as a three piece. Furthermore in September to November did you tour the country. What are your thoughts on performing this way? ygarshy: Shinoda is the one to ask, he has the most to say on this subject.  Shinoda: Well I’m the only one taking on a completely different role. It makes me go “How the hell did this guy manage to sing these wack-ass songs. He’s fucking unbelievable.” I too have spent time writing and singing my own music, but in a million years I still would’ve never come up with the crazy concepts he did. Like, “If you consider the fact that you gotta sing these songs, no way would anyone in their right mind stuff this many words into the lyrics.”, right?! But, I’m singing ‘em now. ygarshy: Hahaha (laughs). 　- Is it possible that he didn’t consider concerts when he wrote?

 Shinoda: Probably. Of course he knows full well that he’s going to be singing them out there but, I think he was more fervent to bring his ideas to life.     - How about you, ygarshy? How do you fare? How do you feel about Hitorie’s current setup? ygarshy: Hitorie’s musical structure tends to treat the bass like an on/off switch. Conventional music structure has bass and drums as constants with guitar playing over them. With Hitorie however, our standard is to have 2 guitars going constantly, while the bass pops in and out at intervals. 

Such as the bass playing during the intro, but being silent during the first verse. That’s one of the unique aspects of wowaka’s songs. So when we try to play as only 3 people, there’s times when songs will seize to take shape. So I may have to cover the second guitar parts on bass, or we may have to even remold the structure itself. We’re still busy doing that even now. 　- I would like to ask Yumao as well, when you get up on stage as a trio, how has the view from the drummer’s seat changed? 
 Yumao: Quite much. I was beside myself at first. With wowaka gone the space in front of me is so barren and open that I lose my bearings. Albeit there may be no need for me to change anything I do but... Rather, the atmosphere of the livehall is changing bit by bit I suppose. When the 4 of us performed there always something.. tense about the atmosphere. The core essence of a concert may be all about hyping and having fun but, on the flip side, people may also get absorbed in the performance only to stand around utterly paralyzed. Hitorie were makers of the latter mood, I’ve felt it and seen it with my own eyes. Now, when we perform as a trio... Instead of worrying whether we can do it or not, we just say “We gotta try” and go... After getting through a tour and a festival, our approach as a whole has shifted. How do I say this.. Deep down I think that if we don’t put on more sociable open concerts we don’t stand a chance. I can tell by the audience’s faces that change is slowly but surely taking it’s course. Well I guess that’s only natural but y’know, it’s not as if we sat down together and decided “Let’s do more open concerts” or anything.   　 - I’m sure that the audience’s hearts are in different place as well. 
 Yumao: I think so. There may be people who come jumping with joy or people who come bearing heavy hearts. I myself see people crying so. We‘ve found balance amidst that storm and have forged our very own trio way, so our next concerts will be stronger than before. 




Going forward, I want to fling myself into whatever coolness and artistry we’re capable of expressing

    - Your national tour for 4 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so you’re to put on your first ever streamed concert on the 5th of October. In regards to this and to your musical innovations, what kind of future is in store for you?

 ygarshy: We haven’t been able to think far ahead in terms of music. Our minds were still in chaos just during our tour in 2019. For the time being we’re working off the feeling of “We want to create a gathering space for us and our audience”. Our performance is an afterthought, for now we’re focusing on emotions.

 Yumao: Yeah.

　 
ygarshy: On that same note, I have some insight… In the album we included the live version of Rollin’ Girl (2016.2.18 at Shimokitazawa GARDEN), and when I listened to that track I thought “Did we always sound this awesome!?”. I have zero recollection as to what I could’ve been doing while I played back then, because performing together as 4 was my everyday life at that point. I knew but I didn’t quite realize just how awesome Hitorie sounded. Now that we’re 3, I can’t reach that same level of emotion but, I do believe that I want to continue on creating heart-wrenchers. Going forward, I want to fling myself into whatever coolness and artistry we’re capable of expressing. Yumao: Up until 2019 we performed with such vigor that it’s hard to preserve that level of effectiveness with only the 3 of us, we need more, we can’t simply go in headstrong, we need time to recollect our thoughts. To that end I want to communicate among us and do it right.

 Shinoda: Well, y’know… Now that we’ve decided to continue, we’ve no choose but to move forward. Exactly what that entails though, I have not a good clue. We can’t slip and do something uncool, one of wowaka and our slogans was “Let’s constantly be doing cool things”, so I don’t want to drift astray from that. Such may seem obvious but... it’s all I have to say for now.

[fipindustries]

me trying to make sense of the latest chapter of almost nowhere

so the reason time goes forwards is because the maryon particle, that is to say the MM, can determine multiple future timelines and assert a specific one in a moment to moment basis with information from the past. if you want to see multiple timelines for the past you need info from that very past you are trying to calculate??? and this make past and present asymetric on a fundamental sense, which basically makes it non deterministic.

and this somehow affects the amount of matter and antimatter in the universe?

now how cold or hot this quantum field is determines how much the multple timelines will differ from each other. when its “hot” the differences will be negligible, usually just the position and velocity of subatomic particles, nothing that we can really observe on a human scale.

but when its “cold” the deviations between the timelines get bigger to the point that when the MM asserts itself on a given moment of reality, the entire timeline can be rewritten into a completly different one

so aparently biological cells can interact with the MM field to a certain extent and use it to solve complex problems. once this process its iterated enough times in complex enough patterns bam, you get conciousness. this is why we can think and use reason and have selfwareness.

now when the MM field is “cold” enough the assertion of random paralel universes over the timeline happens less and less frequently (with the caveat that when it DOES occur the changes introduced to the timeline become bigger and bigger), to the point that if it gets “cold” enough it doesnt happen at all and the universe becomes deterministic and perfectly simmetrical forwards and backwards in time. essentially you start to percieve time like dr manhattan does or the octopods in arrival. (again with the caveat that once every other aeon the alternate timelines do reassert themselves vastly rewriting history but this occurs very very rarely)

now the fact that time becomes absolute in the dominan aeon but also constantly being rewritten by paralel universes that are themselves also being rewritten, this means the structure of reality is no longer determined by casualty but rather by some obscure property of the MM interacting with all the multiple branching timelines.

it is in this far future universe where the MM cooled off enough that the anomalings arise from the very structure of physics, some how. now since to them past and future is indistinct and they can percieve the whole of time simultanously, they can turn their gaze towards our period of history back when the MM hadnt colled off enough yet.

problem with this is that to them the past is “too hot” and the way our conciousness is coupled with this hot MM bothers them. our very thought process is basically made of fire to them. now they can “cool us down”. they slow our brain processes way dow by slowing down the fundamental quantum effects that power them and this submerges us into an illusory reality so we are contained in a simulation, a crash.

there can be as many multiple nested simulations as there can be different levels of temperature for the MM.

i imagine to the anomalings they are bothered by our universe because the warmer the MM becomes the less symmetrical time becomes and thus their capability to percieve the whole of time is more and more diminished and they, i assume, percieve this as a wound in reality. this abomination occurs “near the center of the world” because it occurse near the beggining of time. (which they would call center instead of beggining because to them time doesnt have a beggining and an end but is a predetermined whole)

they say we “kill their grandparents” because they exist in the future and our actions, our interference with the MM field by our thought processes that are fuled the by the very MM field, can affect the seeds in the timeline that will end up becoming them in the far future when the MM field cools off.

now we can use our conciousness to “heat up” the cold MM field of a crash and break away from it but the anomalings, as they live in the “future” will see this happening and will slam us down once again. this is bad because we are made to exists in a world where the future is being constantly rewritten and to live in a predeterministic, time symmetrical, “cold” existence within the crash is inherently restrictive to the very substance of our conciousness.

we can create our own crashes if we want to, to try and stay hidden from the anomalings and plan and try to defeat them, this is not very effective considering the anomalings are way more powerful than us and can detect us whenever they want and intrude into our crashes whenever they want and there isnt much we can do to stop them.

now there is this one anomaling who is trying to raise a human child to exist in a cold MM field from birth, whose conciousness can function without interfiering with the MM field in a way that is harmful to the anomalings. this girl is called anne. it seems the anomaling succeeded and is bringinge her to his realm in what i assume is the dominant age, that is to say, the future. a tiny resistance of humans hiddent in a crash that they took control of tried to capture this girl because they supposed they could use her to defeat the anomalings somehow but that didnt seem to work and now the anomalings have used the MM field to rewrite history and considering it was a pretty cold field the changes they introduced could be as drastic as they wanted so that humanity is neutralized.

now the thing is chances are they cant actually pull that trick all that often considering that the whole point of the dominant age is that the reassertion of alternate futures happens almost never which is why the changes can be so drastic, hopefully humanity will be able to take advantage of that.

what i dont understand is why they call us bilaterals when the whole point is that our existence in time is not symetrical, our past doesnt perfectly mirror our future precisely because our MM field is too hot, history is being rewritten every instant at the subatomic scale.

anyway, that is all i got for now

[birdlord]

Every Book I Read in 2019

This was a heavier reading year for me (heavier culture-consumption year in general) partly because my partner started logging his books read, and then, of course, it’s a competition.

01 Morvern Callar; Alan Warner - One of the starkest books I’ve ever read. What is it about Scotland that breeds writers with such brutal, distant perspectives on life? Must be all the rocks. 

02 21 Things You Might Not Know About the Indian Act; Bob Joseph - I haven’t had much education in Canada’s relationship to the Indigenous nations that came before it, so this opened things up for me quite a bit. The first and most fundamental awakening is to the fact that this is not a story of progress from worse to better (which is what a simplistic, grade school understanding of smallpox blankets>residential schools>reserves would tell you), in fact, the nation to nation relationship of early contact was often superior to what we have today. I wish there was more of a call to action, but apparently a sequel is on its way. 

03 The Plot Against America; Philip Roth - An alternative history that in some ways mirrors our present. I did feel like I was always waiting for something to happen, but I suppose the point is that, even at the end of the world, disasters proceed incrementally. 

04 Sabrina; Nick Drnaso - The blank art style and lack of contrast in the colouring of each page really reinforces the feeling of impersonal vacancy between most of the characters. I wonder how this will read in the future, as it’s very much based in today’s relationship to friends and technology. 

05 Perfumes: The Guide; Luca Turn & Tania Sanchez - One of the things I like to do when I need to turn my brain off online is reading perfume reviews. That’s where I found out about this book, which runs through different scent families and reviews specific well-known perfumes. Every topic has its boffins, and these two are particularly witty and readable. 

06 Adventures in the Screen Trade; William Goldman - Reading this made me realize how little of the cinema of the 1970s I’ve actually seen, beyond the usual heavy hitters. Ultimately I found this pretty thin, a few peices of advice stitched together with anecdotes about a Hollywood that is barely recognizable today. 

07 The Age of Innocence; Edith Wharton - A love triangle in which the fulcrum is a terribly irritating person, someone who thinks himself far more outré than he is. Nonetheless, I was taken in by this story of “rebellion”, such as it was, to be compelling.

08 Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis; Sam Anderson - Like a novel that follows various separate characters, this book switches between tales of the founding of Oklahoma City with basketball facts and encounters with various oddball city residents. It’s certainly a fun ride, but you may find, as I did, that some parts of the narrative interest you more than others. Longest subtitle ever?

09 World of Yesterday; Stefan Zweig - A memoir of pre-war Austria and its artistic communities, told by one of its best-known exports. Particularly wrenching with regards to the buildup to WWII, from the perspective of those who had been through this experience before, so recently. 

10 Teach us to Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing; Tim Parks - A writer finds himself plagued by pain that conventional doctors aren’t able to cure, so he heads further afield to see if he can use stillness-of-mind to ease the pain, all the while complaining as you would expect a sceptic to do. His digressions into literature were a bit hard to take (I’m sure you’re not Coleridge, my man).

11 The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences have Extraordinary Impact; Chip & Dan Heath - I read this for work-related reasons, with the intention of improving my ability to make exhibitions and interpretation. It has a certain sort of self-helpish structure, with anecdotes starting each chapter and a simple lesson drawn from each one. Not a bad read if you work in a public-facing capacity. 

12 Against Everything: Essays; Mark Greif - The founder of N+1 collects a disparate selection of essays, written over a period of several years. You won’t love them all, but hey, you can always skip those ones!

13 See What I Have Done; Sarah Schmidt - A retelling of the Lizzie Borden story, which I’d seen a lot of good reviews for. Sadly this didn’t measure up, for me. There’s a lot of stage setting (rotting food plays an important part) but there’s not a lot of substance there. 

14 Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy; Angela Garber - This is another one that came to me very highly recommended. Garber seems to think these topics are not as well-covered as they are, but she does a good job researching and retelling tales of pregnancy, birth, postpartum difficulties and breastfeeding. 

15 Rebecca; Daphne du Maurier - This was my favourite book club book of the year. I’d always had an impression of...trashiness I guess? around du Maurier, but this is a classic thriller. Maybe the first time I’ve ever read, rather than watched, a thriller! That’s on me. 

16 O’Keefe: The Life of an American Legend; Jeffrey Hogrefe - I went to New Mexico for the first time this spring, and a colleague lent me this Georgia O’Keefe biography after I returned. I hadn’t known much about her personal life before this, aside from what I learned at her museum in Santa Fe. The author has made the decision that much of O’Keefe’s life was determined by childhood incest, but doesn’t have what you might call….evidence?

17 A Lost Lady; Willa Cather - A turn-of-the-20th century story about an upper-class woman and her young admirer Neil. I’ve never read any other Cather, but this felt very similar to the Wharton I also read this year, which I gather isn’t typical of her. 

18 The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months of Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country; Helen Russell - A British journalist moves to small-town Denmark with her husband, and although the distances are not long, there’s a considerable culture shock. Made me want to eat pastries in a BIG WAY. 

19 How Not to be a Boy; Robert Webb - The title gives a clue to the framing device of this book, which is fundamentally a celebrity memoir, albeit one that largely ignores the celebrity part of his life in favour of an examination of the effects of patriarchy on boys’ development as human beings. 

20 The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will be Glad that You Did); Philippa Perry; A psychotherapist’s take on how parents’ own upbringing affects the way they interact with their own kids. 

21 The Library Book; Susan Orlean - This book has stuck with me more than I imagined that it would. It covers both the history of libraries in the USA, and the story of the arson of the LA Public Library’s central branch in 1986. 

22 We Are Never Meeting in Real Life; Samantha Irby - I’ve been reading Irby’s blog for years, and follow her on social media. So I knew the level of raunch and near body-horror to expect in this essay collection. This did fill in a lot of gaps in terms of her life, which added a lot more blackness (hey) to the humour. 

23 State of Wonder; Ann Patchett - A semi-riff on Heart of Darkness involving an OB/GYN who now works for a pharmaceutical company, heading to the jungle to retrieve another researcher who has gone all Colonel Kurtz on them. I found it a bit unsatisfying, but the descriptions were, admittedly, great. 

24 Disappearing Earth; Julia Phillips - A story of an abduction of two girls in very remote Russia, each chapter told by another townsperson. The connections between the narrators of each chapter are sometimes obvious, but not always. Ending a little tidy, but plays against expectations for a book like this. 

25 Ethan Frome; Edith Wharton - I gather this is a typical high school read, but I’d never got to it. In case you’re in the same boat as me, it’s a short, mildly melodramatic romantic tragedy set in the new england winter. It lacks the focus on class that other Whartons have, but certainly keeps the same strong sense that once you’ve made a choice, you’re stuck with it. FOREVER. 

26 Educated; Tara Westover - This memoir of a Mormon fundamentalist-turned-Academic-superstar was huge on everyone’s reading lists a couple of years back, and I finally got to it. It felt similar to me in some ways to the Glass Castle, in terms of the nearly-unbelievable amounts of hell she and her family go through at the hands of her father and his Big Ideas. I found that it lacked real contemplation of the culture shock of moving from the rural mountain west to, say, Cambridge. 

27 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of Lusitania; Erik Larson - I’m a sucker for a story of a passenger liner, any non-Titanic passenger liner, really. Plus Lusitania’s story has interesting resonances for the US entry into WWI, and we see the perspective of the U-boat captain as well as people on land, and Lusitania’s own passengers and crew. 

28 The Birds and Other Stories; Daphne du Maurier - The title story is the one that stuck in my head most strongly, which isn’t any surprise. I found it much more harrowing than the film, it had a really effective sense of gradually increasing dread and inevitability. 

29 Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Faded Glory; Raphael Bob-Waksberg - Hit or miss in the usual way of short story collections, this book has a real debt to George Saunders. 

30 Sex & Rage; Eve Babitz - a sort of pseudo-autobiography of an indolent life in the LA scene of the 1970s. It was sometimes very difficult to see how the protagonist actually felt about anything, which is a frequent, acute symptom of youth. 

31 Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party; Graham Greene - Gotta love a book with an alternate title built in. This is a broad (the characters? are, without exception, insane?!) satire about a world I know little about. I don’t have a lot of patience or interest in Greene’s religious allegories, but it’s a fine enough story. 

32 Lathe of Heaven; Ursula K LeGuin - Near-future sci-fi that is incredibly prescient about the effects of climate change for a book written over forty years ago. The book has amazing world-building, and the first half has the whirlwind feel of Homer going back in time, killing butterflies and returning to the present to see what changes he has wrought. 

33 The Grammarians; Cathleen Schine - Rarely have I read a book whose jacket description of the plot seems so very distant from what actually happens therein. 

34 The Boy Kings: A Journey Into the Heart of the Social Network; Katharine Losse - Losse was one of Facebook’s very earliest employees, and she charts her experience with the company in this memoir from 2012. Do you even recall what Facebook was like in 2012? They hadn’t even altered the results of elections yet! Zuck was a mere MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, probably. Were we ever so young?

35 Invisible Women; Caroline Ciado Perez - If you want to read a book that will make you angry, so angry that you repeatedly assail whoever is around with facts taken from it, then this, my friend, is the book for you. 

36 The Hidden World of the Fox; Adele Brand - A really charming look at the fox from an ecologist who has studied them around the world. Much of it takes place in the UK, where urban foxes take on a similar ecological niche that raccoons famously do where I live, in Toronto. 

37 S; Doug Dorst & JJ Abrams - This is a real mindfuck of a book, consisting of a faux-old novel, with marginalia added by two students which follows its own narrative. A difficult read not because of the density of prose, but the sheer logistics involved: read the page, then the marginalia? Read the marginalia interspersed with the novel text? Go back chapter by chapter? I’m not sure that either story was worth the trouble, in the end. 

38 American War; Omar El Akkad - This is not exclusively, but partially a climate-based speculative novel, or, grossly, cli-fi for short. Ugh, what a term! But this book is a really tight, and realistic look at the results of a fossil-fuels-based second US Civil War. 

39 Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation; Andrew Marantz - This is the guy you’ll hear on every NPR story talking about his semi-embedding within the Extremely Online alt-right. Most of the figures he profiles come off basically how you’d expect, I found his conclusions about the ways these groups have chosen to use online media tools to achieve their ends the most illuminating part. 

40 Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm; Isabella Tree - This is the story of a long process of transitioning a rural acreage (more of an estate than a farm, this is aristocratic shit) from intensive agriculture to something closer to wild land. There are long passages where Tree (ahem) simply lists species which have come back, which I’m sure is fascinating if you are from the area, but I tended to glaze over a bit. Experts from around the UK and other European nations weigh in on how best to rewild the space, which places the project in a wider context. 

FICTON: 17     NONFICTION: 23

[yourrealitybeyondtime]

My OC Descriptions!

Thank you so much for your positive responses, @dasjansel @corvid-moon @teeny-weeny-ducklings @technoxslayer360 @incoherentmoose and @cake-and-roses ! Since you guys asked, I made overall descriptions of my OCs and a bit of a synopsis. Sorry it's so long! I hope you enjoy it and please provide feedback!

This is a story that takes the "chosen ones" and fantasy tropes and turns them on their heads. The main character never accepts his role. The guy doesn't get the girl. There's no prophecy or guide. The populace thinks they're monsters, not heros. Their powers are explained scientifically. They have to help themselves emotionally so they can help others physically. It's just a bunch of young adults with problems getting into shenanigans, figuring out life's lessons, and maybe saving the world.

Name: Adrian

Age: 18

Height: 5'8"

Gender Identity: Male

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Bisexual (Feminine leaning)

Race: Human

Ethnicity: German/Portugese

Neurodivergent: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Active Power: Super strength

Passive Power: Truth (Ability to see through illusions, understands foreign languages, can tell when someone is lying, etc)

Activating Emotion: Courage

Associated Color: Yellow/Gold

Associated Element: Air/Wind

Description: This rich, all-American, high school boy has had a near perfect life growing up until a burglar breaks in his home. Thankfully, he stops the villain… by tackling him through an oak door! First hailed as a hero, his social life then gets thrown into disarray as this new found strength that seems to randomly come and go ends up earning him the reputation of a destructive menace. On top of that, he starts passing out and having "visions." Doctors say he's having seizures, but these visions feel more real than his life ever has, and it's always of the same place, a magic lab where he's the experiment! His visions keep getting worse until one day he fully wakes up in the lab and escapes, but now he can't go back home!

Adrian finds out he's stuck in the world of Mythos, the parallel Earth where all of our fantastical dreams come from, and he's not happy about it! And the locals don't seem happy about him either. Just wanting to get this over with and go home, Adrian faces more ugly reality in this fantasy world than he ever did in his privileged life in our world. With no guides or prophecies and regarded as a monster, Adrian has to figure out how to find others like himself to help him save the world and go back home.

Adrian is the self-proclaimed leader of the group. He's obnoxious, self-centered, and stubborn, and completely uninterested in helping unless it benefits him somehow. You are supposed to dislike him at first. He matures and becomes much more open-minded and accepting through the journey.

Initial Motivation: To get back home

Journey: Breaking out of your bubble is more important than staying in it, others suffer in a way different from you, you cannot speak for others, use privilege to help those that don't have privilege, attraction to anyone who shows femininity or doing female-assigned tasks/behaviors (being kind, showing emotions, being vulnerable) does not make you less of a man, the greatest strength is facing the truth

Name: Iola

Age: 20

Height: 6'2"

Gender Identity: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Lesbian

Race: Human

Ethnicity: Afro-Columbian

Neurodivergent: Anxiety

Active Power: Shield

Passive Power: Acceleration/Regeneration (Subconsciously heals others, requires focus if needs boost in power, ie, if someone is bleeding out. Can cause things to grow, but also age. Cannot remove poisons/curses, cannot bring people back to life, conditional)

Activating Emotion: Care

Associated Color: Pink/Orange

Associated Element: Earth/Wood

Description: Iola's life had been pretty quiet since she and her dad started a farm out in the wilderness, until a strange boy pops up who brings a whole lot of unwanted attention. She stumbles upon her own powers as she defends her home, and then sets out to find others with Adrian.

Iola is the mom of the group, both the good parts and the bad. She is kind and caring and helpful and also stressed af and sometimes pokes her nose where she's not welcome. It's suggested at first that she may be the Adrian's love interest, but, surprise! She only likes girls. She seems to have lost someone precious to her, and it's not her mom.

Initial Motivation: Believes in following destiny

Journey: Self-sacrifice is not always necessary, mediation is more important than appeasement, give without expectation of return, worthy of just existing, important to take care of self in order to take care of others, rest is a type of work and just as important as being active

Name: Emlyn

Age: 21

Height: 6'0"

Gender Identity: Androgynous

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Pansexual

Race: Human

Ethnicity: Northern Irish

Neurodivergent: Complex PTSD, Depression

Active Power: Chemical Reaction (Interaction of two or more substances that results in different substances. Can only initiate reaction, cannot control the outcome. Usually uses fire as a weapon, but can use others. Can also stop reaction in process, but cannot reverse.)

Passive Power: Psychic (Ability to sense when others are nearby, can receive symbolic messages through dreams, not prophetic)

Activating Emotion: Passion

Associated Color: Deep blood red

Associated Element: Fire

Description: Emlyn finally seems to have found a home at the inn he works at when two strangers pop up with trouble following them. He unleashes his powers to defend them, but his loved ones reject him when his secret is exposed. With nowhere else to go, he tags along with Adrian and Iola, the only people who seem to accept him how he is. However, he harbors a terrible secret that he's hellbent on taking to the grave, and it creates a division between himself and the others.

Emlyn is very quiet and reclusive. He doesn't talk much, and seems to be insistent on covering as much skin as possible at all times. He's not the angry or brooding type, but surprisingly polite and soft spoken. And surprisingly strong. However, he seems like he'll do anything to avoid using his powers, and almost seems scared of them. Adrian bullies him frequently, threatened by the fact that he's attracted to Emlyn. Emlyn doesn't seem to care, but eventually lashes out, showing a very different, vicious side.

Initial Motivation: Redemption

Journey: The past is the past, use mistakes to learn and teach, secrets create unnecessary burden, it's okay to have darkness, do not let negative emotions rule over logical decisions, take both capabilities and lack of into account, sometimes you just can't do what you want even if others can, you are not damned

Name: Liesel

Age: 82

Height: 5'0"

Gender Identity: Genderfluid

Pronouns: She/Her, He/Him, They/Them

Sexuality: Abrosexual

Race: Fairy/Changeling

Ethnicity: Jewish

Neurodivergent: Autistic

Active Power: Freedom (Ability to unlock anything, create doors/portals with conditions)

Passive Power: Choice (Can tell what someone has decided before they act on it, very useful in combat; can see what future "paths" can be taken but cannot tell outcomes)

Activating Emotion: Hope

Associated Color: Sky blue

Associated Element: Water

Description: Liesel has had to protect her people for decades, so she's more than a bit reluctant to leave with some humans to go on some adventure. When she realizes that she needs to, she goes with them, but completely mistrusts them.

Where Iola and Emlyn are more passive, Liesel is even more aggressive than Adrian. She challenges everything Adrian knows and really gets him to start looking at things differently. They develop a weird rivalry dynamic and eventually soften up with each other.

Initial Motivation: Protect her people

Journey: Evil does not originate from the same place, no group of people are all the same, there's a difference between honesty and being cruel

Name: Uri

Age: ??? (They tell a different number every time they're asked)

Height: 5'4"

Gender Identity: Agender

Pronouns: They/Them

Sexuality: Asexual

Race: Dragon

Ethnicity: Nigerian

Neurodivergent: N/A

Active Power: Light Manipulation (Can be used to make self or others invisible, create illusions, blind someone, etc. Does not actually makes things disappear/materialize, just makes it look like it.)

Passive Power: Compulsion (Redirects electrical impulses between neurons. Makes people think certain things, somewhat like intrusive thoughts. The more impulsive someone is, the easier they are to manipulate. Often accidentally shares own thoughts with others. Usually uses for persuasion among foes and to pull pranks among friends. Cannot read minds.)

Activating Emotion: Elation

Associated Color: Emerald green

Associated Element: Metal

Other: Disabled/Born without wings

Description: Uri's just minding their own business, napping on top of their treasure trove when some adventurers break in. Those same adventurers open that weird lock contraption they've been trying to open for the last two centuries. Interesting. Rather than confronting the adventurers, Uri decides to join them in hopes of making sure their treasure doesn't get destroyed, to find some more, and to enjoy some chaos along the way.

Uri is confident, charasmatic, and devilishly handsome. They only care about their treasure, but slowly finds themself caring about the others.

Initial Motivation: To protect their treasure

Journey: Self-preservation includes helping others, happiness is worth going the long way for, people have different paths to the same goal and that's okay

Name: Oriana

Age: 19

Height: 5'6"

Gender Identity: Demigirl

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Pansexual

Race: Human?

Ethnicity: Cherokee

Neurodivergent: ADHD

Active Power: Sonic/Song

Passive Power: Empath (Ability to sense motives, can literally share emotions when making physical contact, can transfer powers between people)

Activating Emotion: Love (Both romantic and platonic)

Associated Color: White/Purple

Associated Element: Spirit/Aether

Other: Intersex

Description: Oriana has been waiting at the edge of the Ancient Forest for a long time. She doesn't remember why, but she knows she needs to guide five adventurers through the massive forest that covers half the world. For some reason, she's the only one who can survive traversing it.

Oriana is sweet and kind and too naive for her own good, having never been exposed to civilization or other people before. She seems to have a mind of a child, but has the wisdom and understanding of someone who has been alive for a very long time. Emlyn develops a crush on her due to her friendly and accepting nature and eventually confides in her. Their past is far more intertwined than either of them remember, and is the answer to why this is all happening.

Initial Motivation: Because she was asked to

Journey: Evil lives in everyone, purity is non-existent, be kind to those who "don't deserve it" without allowing self to be walked on, different facets of love

[it-stheaulifeforme]

more consimilli information, hand it over

wefkhrkgjheruih, hELL YEAH I WILL

i named consimili through translating ‘walking corpse’ into Latin because that’s how you effectively are by the end and i thought, my original name is Latin and i felt i would like how it would sound translated to that language. i also did it because ‘walking corpse syndrome’ was a bit of a mouthful and also happened to be the name of an existing disease that revolved around the person thinking they were actually dead, so it still made sense to use that term but in Latin as an interesting parallel where in a way a person with consimili is actually a corpse by the end of it, akhfejkdhggrjkgh i gUESS

okay so since developing it a few days ago i’ve adjusted it, so there’s still four stages that can go sort of smoothly from one to the one whilst having symptoms to be able to distinctly tell the stages apart like

stage 1: literally invisible. you are not aware of this stage. anything that does appear can be attributed to anything else, especially since your immune system is getting broken down and making you more susceptible to other kinds of infection. known as the incubation stage, before any symptoms appear. lasts usually for a couple of weeks.

stage 2: symptoms begin to appear, but usually non specifically. this is what i call the prodromal stage, because that is the time between when symptoms first appear and more of the full blown specific characteristics of the disease. the early part of this stage is the equivalent of the flu, with aches, coughing, fatigue, nausea, blurred vision and loss of appetite. this is possibly due to the fact that the immune system is weakened and there’s generally little damage internally, although this will make it easier for the infection to creep up before attacking.

- late stage 2 the infection has really attacked the organs and begun to break them down and starting to turn you into something else, effectively chipping away at your personhood. here, the symptoms are more specific, such as death of skin tissue, vomiting blood (ruptured organs), migraines and lower sensitivity to light (y’know that glazed over look of zombies’ eyes?? y e a h, this is when it really starts). lasts at least a few days, at most a week.

stage 3: the majority of the decomposition of the organs takes place here, but what borders late stage 2/early stage 3 is the involvement of infrequent jerky movements and uncontrollable moments of aggression. this is when the infection has approached and started attacking the brain. this stage does continue on the decomposition from the previous stage but it is separated by the fact that when the previous one ends and this begins, the infection has reached the brain.

- this stage is when things start getting aggressive and more specific. however, it is not the most dangerous stage. that’s stage 4. nonetheless, it is to prepare you for it, especially as the aggression becomes more frequent and stuff like migraines become more intense. the infection is already changing you on a cellular level, but your brain is pretty much at the centre of all this, this is who you are. you were already being stripped of your personhood late stage 2/early stage 3, but as you make your way towards stage 4, things become a lot more intense as your brain is invaded and the whole chemistry of it gets altered for the full frontal assault that is the next stage. it’s even quicker, generally all taking place within 24 hours, especially when your brain is even more vulnerable.

(you’ll also know when stage 4 is approaching, because there are multiple prodromes that warn you beforehand, such as when you stop vomiting blood near the end of the decomposition in the late stage, pain across the whole body, moments of sudden energy that easily tire you out and the general drying up of previous symptoms except intense jerky movements, intense aggression, decaying skin and pretty much completely glazed over vision)

stage 4: woah booyyyyy. i call this the brain death stage for a reason. your brain is having a full on assault to finish the process of changing you entirely into a zombie where you don’t retain any human functioning. it’s also sending your whole body pain signals because of how overloaded it is and you are in the process of intense seizures as a result. this stage is recognised when you start having them alongside a whole bunch of agony happening in your system. your body isn’t helping because it’s trying to win a losing battle by effectively fighting itself. since this is a complete assault to finish the process, you will officially be completely turned in about an hour once this stage starts. of course, when you’re in pain, an hour feels like an eternity.

by the end of it, you’re a stumbling, decayed figure with glazed over eyes with violent tendencies and considerably enhanced strength (nearer the end of the infection, you are not able to comprehend your own strength as your body takes on a new form - this can never be predicted when it comes to restraining a person since there is the potential to break free of them the closer to the final form they get). as far as is aware, there is no proper cure and you retain all awareness up until the point you turn - your brain is attacked last for a reason - whilst you can’t do anything about what is happening to you, leaving you terrified up until you ‘die’ (F U N !!!),

(the important thing to remember about this infection is that it’s not killing you, it’s slowly transforming your body internally and externally into something else. the whole infection is basically preparing you for the resulting form you will take, which is why you don’t drop dead. it’s ensuring your survival in your zombie like state by the end by adjusting your whole physiology, which will explain a lot of future symptoms as well)

i feel like i’ve been inspired by multiple sources due to the presentation of the infection and the fact that the main transference is water and water based substances like saliva. and although the infection from beginning to end takes about 3-4 weeks, it is dependent on physiology and age. someone who has a stronger immune system would take longer, whilst those who have weaker ones or are considerably young are more prone to a faster and perhaps more vicious strain of the infection. however, it also doesn’t help when people are in their teens which can be a confusing and emotional time, so here the infection would play absolute havoc in them.

like, for example, i use it in my Thing AUs to see how it manifests and how the characters would act in these situations. this is exactly what i fling at Dad Mac and either the tiny or teen bros, since there’s a clear difference when the bros reach their teens to a degree. Mac would be able to handle it better, though i feel like he doesn’t have the greatest immune system and it would still be just as agonising in the later stages. the poor tiny kids would have a hell of a bad time because they are so vulnerable to infection at that age and with the teens, their bodies are going through an emotional rollercoaster especially as they reach puberty.

it’s also important to remember since the infection gets more aggressive later on that there is the potential to infect and hurt others, especially when stage 3 hits. in my AUs this has resulted in the bros and Mac having to be quarantined and even restrained. this really sucks because all of them need that comfort in some way but for other people’s safety this has to happen. they can’t see and end up in a lot of pain and they just want to know if the others are alright or that they’re nearby for the comfort. it especially hurts because up until the point of turning, there is always a sense of awareness of what is happening but no way to stop it as any semblance of them as a person becomes lost amidst all the pain and loss of vision. it’s a very isolating infection for the person involved.

i’ve almost finished a document outlining all of this but i’m always happy to rant and ramble about this hyperfixation in particular. especially since i want to outline a particular AU involving dad mac and the bros, whether tiny or teen, as well as involving them in the groundhog day AU i love to talk about with others like you and @gaysonlyocean!! in fact i ended up understanding more about how i want the infection to go because i applied it to this AU and it making a lot of sense as a result.

it’s also interesting adding that much more emotional angst as usual as well as inflicting physical pain, like i’ve always been morbidly fascinated by stuff like this but i’ve never really unleashed my knowledge with infodumps like these. so it weirdly makes me excited to hyperfixate on this. INFECTIOUS DISEASES, YEAH!!! especially coming up with your own ones and designing them how you see fit.

[giornocentric]

Bucci gang‘s Enneagrams

According to Truity.com, “The Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people conceptualize the world and manage their emotions. The Enneagram mocel describes nine different personality types and maps each of these types on a nine-pointed diagram which helps to illustrate how the types relate to one another.”

I used https://www.eclecticenergies.com for reference, taking all the quotes from the description of each type. Feel free to take the quiz if you’d like to know your own Enneagram at https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test

Anyway, let’s jump right into it! This is an INSANELY LONG POST/SERIES so be prepared!

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•······················•✦•

(5/6)

Narancia Ghirga:

Type 7 - The Enthusiast

“People of this personality type are essentially concerned that their lives be an exciting adventure. Sevens are future oriented, restless people who are generally convinced that something better is just around the corner. They are quick thinkers who have a great deal of energy and who make lots of plans.”

Narancia is fun outgoing guy who tends to be quite adventurous and think in the future often, he makes plans in advance or uses quick thinking to get himself out of tough situations. Such as when he was battling Formaggio and remembered he shot at the gas tank and used the Carbon Dioxide to help Aerosmith to shoot again so the whole car blew up, like??? Say Narancia’s dumb one more time I dare you.

“They tend to be extroverted, multi-talented, creative and open minded. They are enthusiasts who enjoy the pleasures of the senses and who don't believe in any form of self-denial.”

He presents himself as very extroverted, creative and open minded at times. He enjoys life a lot and is probably the only one in Bruno’s gang that acts like an actual teenager should/would. He doesn’t deny himself anything in life other than expressing emotions of being sad, Narancia listens to music frequently, dances, and just has fun even though his circumstances are not necessarily the greatest.

“Focusing does not always come easily for Sevens, however. Their tendency to believe that something better awaits them, makes them reluctant to narrow down their options or to pursue their aims with true devotion.���

Narancia comes off as someone with very little direction or big goals and I think it’s because of his constant need to do everything and try everything and pursue everything that he just can’t choose, which is perfectly fine in my opinion. Sevens in general, tend to be multifaceted which describes Narancia pretty perfectly, he’s good at lots of things that people don’t give him near enough credit for.

“The central problem for Sevens is that their pursuit of pleasure is compulsive. Sevens are fear types who are specifically afraid of the power of negative states of mind. These they avoid by seeking distractions in the external environment: by multi-tasking, by keeping their options open, by engaging in stimulation seeking of all kinds. For this reason, Sevens are more prone than most to addictions of all sorts, whether it be to shopping, gambling, drugs or whatever.”

I believe Narancia has buried fear that comes out as anger (like Fugo’s) and that he frequently distracts himself from the real world to escape this fear. I think if he was just a little older, that he might have possibly became addicted to gambling or drugs or some other harmful substance, especially now that Fugo is gone and there is no one to deter him from any form of distraction Narancia can get his hands on, from harmful behaviors he might involve himself in.

“They are often a bit self-centered which manifests in an unfounded feeling of entitlement. As Sevens don't want to confront their own darker emotions, they also have difficulty acknowledging the pain that others experience, so that they sometimes have a hard time seeing the reality of other people.”

This is so true of Narancia to me because I see that he can tend to act a little selfish at times, stealing and eating all the chocolates from Mista for example. I also see that it’s extremely difficult for Narancia to confront his darker feelings, the ones about his mom dying, his deadbeat father, the friends he used to have that threw him in jail. Seeing the reality of other people might be hard as well because of his disconnect from emotion, such as a part In the anime that’s very sad and Narancia doesn’t cry but instead gets really mad and frustrated.

[dracox-serdriel]

Orion - Chapter Thirteen: Bird Snare (The Flash)

Title: Orion [AO3] [LJ] [FF] Chapter: Bird Snare Universe: The Flash Pairings: SnowJay (Caitlin Snow/Jay Garrick), SnowHunter (Caitlin Snow/Hunter Zolomon) Word count: ~5,000 Spoilers: All episodes through 02x18 Versus Zoom and all comic books that feature Zoom/Hunter Zolomon. Rating: NC-17/MA Chapter summary: Caitlin and Hunter both make their next moves.

Canon-divergent as of 02x18 Versus Zoom. Caitlin Snow and Jay Garrick meet under strange circumstances, but the attraction between them is immediate and the connection, real. Stranded on Earth-2, Caitlin fights for her survival against Zoom, the seemingly unstoppable meta-human who has fallen in love with her.

Set immediately after the events in 02x18 Versus Zoom, Orion includes flashbacks to missing scenes during canon episodes of the season when SnowJay was developing.

Read Orion from the beginning.

Orion Chapter Thirteen: Bird Snare

Caitlin was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for herself and RJ. Somewhere between cracking eggs and reaching for the toast, a sudden wind rushed through the room, rattling plates and dragging with it a lingering chill.

She should get a sweater.

She turned, and a man was there. He hadn't been there a few moments ago. Had he? Yet, here he was, this man with a painfully familiar face. Who was he?

"Caitlin?" he spoke. "Can you hear me?"

"Of course I can hear you," she replied. "You're right in front of me."

"Hold up, you can - you can see me?" the man asked. Before she could say anything, he blurted, "Oh, man! It finally worked! I'm dream-Vibing you, girl!"

Confusion followed this pronouncement. Why was he surprised that she could see him? Who was this guy, anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be cooking?

"Look, I dunno how long this will last," he kept speaking. "Caitlin, we're working on something, okay? We're gonna bring you home."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, confused. "I am home."

RJ started to cry.

-----

Caitlin jolted awake, disoriented by the sheets wrapped around her and the wailing from the crib beside her bed.

The image of that man's face - his horrified expression - remained fixed in her mind.

Cisco.

Caitlin couldn't remember any substance from her dream. Had she been eating with Cisco? Walking with him on the beach? Working together back at STAR Labs?

She couldn't focus, not with RJ's sobs. She pulled herself out of bed and lifted the toddler into her arms. His cries dropped to sullen whimpers. Her first thought was that he simply wanted attention, but he remained clearly distressed when snuggled against her chest.

She checked his forehead with the back of her hand. No, he didn't seem to have a fever. She glanced at the clock. Twelve past three in the morning, not a time he was normally awake. At least, not since she started caring for him. Was it normal for him - or toddlers in general - to wake crying like this?

Probably not.

As she walked down the stairs with a fussing RJ, she reminded herself that she could do this and that this was good practice. In a few more months, she'd be dealing with an infant. Frequent nighttime disruptions were definitely part of her future, so she might as well get a handle on it now.

On the chance that he was hungry, she ducked into the kitchen. When she took a sippy cup out of the cupboard, RJ reached for it, which she decided was a good sign. He must be thirsty.

She filled it about halfway with milk, and soon, RJ was busy sipping from his cup.

Please let this be enough to make the crying stop.

They both needed to go back to bed, so once he was finished, she carried the now-much-happier RJ back up the stairs, exhausted out of her mind, and all thoughts of her dream forgotten.

RJ settled back down almost immediately, but Caitlin was not so lucky. She curled up in bed but couldn't get comfortable.

At some point after Hunter had brought her back to the Comet, she returned to her room with a gnawing, rolling numbness that had taken hold of her. She had stared out the floor-to-ceiling window that made up one of the walls to her room for... how long, exactly? Minutes? Hours? Days?

However long she stared, her eyes never really adjusted to the dark. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, and clouds blotted out the stars. Still, the ocean mesmerized her. Outside, not far from where she stood, sprawling waves collided with a pristine beach, falling back only to resurge again, swallowing a little more shore each time.

And here she was, hours later, lying in bed, and all she could do was think about those waves.

Was that what was happening to her? It felt like it. It felt as if she was slowly losing herself to an inevitable tide, sure and certain to consume her. It was only a matter of time before she, too, disappeared beneath the salt and sea.

Maybe she'd be better off that way.

With that thought, she fell asleep.

-----

About two hours ago on Earth-2, Hunter sped across the world, checking each of the former breech sites for any signs of activity, save for the one deep in the jungle near Gorilla City. It was never wise to trespass on the Great Ape's territory, but it would be particularly problematic now, when it might alienate them from allying with the Cause. They'd soon learn of the horrors Gorilla Grodd suffered, and they'd be out for blood. Preferably, the MTU's blood.

That was a matter for another day.

He could use the breech Vibe opened to draw Zoom back to Earth-1, but Team Flash actively monitored it. The last thing he needed was to become the target of yet another one of their blundering, desperate plans. Any interaction between him and them could result in their injury, and Caitlin already had enough reasons to hate him.

That's what happens to monsters.

No matter what, this monster needed to get to Earth-1 and back without any interference. So he identified the most fragile of the patched-breeches.

Vibe would sense his arrival immediately, and there was nothing Hunter could do to avoid that. But he could enter and exit from two different breeches, depriving Team Flash of any opportunity to intervene.

As he raced into his entry breech, he wondered what Caitlin would think of his tactics to evade Team Flash. Would she see them for what they were - her influence on a broken and angry yet reborn man? Or would she read it as weakness, as fear?

She wouldn't believe it at all.

A patched breech was similar to an opened breach; it just took a bit more effort to punch through to the between to cross to the next universe. Within a few seconds, Hunter burst into Earth-1 Central City.

Part of him envied this universe. Here, metahumans had a future unencumbered by elements like the MTU. In one of the futures he'd lived, he'd even witnessed this universe banning together to protect their metas from the encroaching MTU army of Earth-2. He had given serious consideration to abandoning his own universe in favor of Earth-1.

But then, Caitlin had died in that future. Hunter realized then that Team Flash couldn't keep her alive. He would have to do it, and he couldn't protect her, not in this universe, anyway.

He arrived outside her apartment complex, deciding to enter without his speed. Caitlin had given him - or, rather, Jay - a key, and it'd be nice to walk in, just like old times.

Hunter wasn't sure what he'd expected. A flood of memories? An overwhelming sense of longing? Whatever it was, he braced himself for it, and it never came.

Instead, he was in a very familiar apartment with the ghost of some other man's past joys haunting his footsteps.

As he collected photos from the living room, the phantom was the countless times they'd curled up with one another on the couch.

When he gathered items from the bathroom, the specter staring him down was the bathtub, where they'd spent more than one romantic evening unwinding after a particularly rough day.

As he made his way back to the bedroom, he felt the weight of the next spirit awaiting him long before he opened the door. He hadn't fallen asleep with - let alone, woken up next to - many people in his life. He never let anyone get that close to him. Not until Caitlin.

He packed her photo albums and her clothing in a room full of another man's memories with Caitlin. He felt the whisper of every touch, the sensation of every noise, the ripple of everything spoken here. But it was like all of that had happened with another man, a man he longed to be. A man who had let her in.

And she, in turn, had let him in. Into her life, her arms, her home, and even into her body. She hadn't just let him in, she'd welcomed him, wanted him. This was the first place he'd ever really known that feeling.

And he wanted it back.

But Hunter couldn't catch a ghost. The memories churned up, but he was no closer to getting Caitlin back. He refused to delude himself into thinking she would soften because he'd brought her some of the comforts of home. No, one act of kindness wouldn't be enough. He'd need a hundred - a thousand - acts of kindness before she'd even budge.

It was a good thing he was the fastest man alive. A thousand acts of kindness - even in the middle of a brewing war, soon to erupt - were well within his grasp. And this would be the first.

When Hunter walked out of her apartment and locked the door behind him, he sensed something inside himself shift. The joys of this place did not belong to an apparition; no, they were his now, like they always had been. It was up to him to make sure that they stayed that way.

Despite three heavily packed bags, he paced himself as he exited the building until he found enough cover to conceal the blur of his blue lightning.

He needed to clear his head, so he ran freely, zipping over the Rocky Mountains and down the west coast before returning to the outskirts of Central City. He had one more point of business before he returned to Earth-2.

Reverb had been a problematic minion, but he had had his uses before he overstepped his authority for the last time. He'd designed all kinds of meta-tech, including assistive devices that could, in theory, work across the multiverse, though he constantly lied about the scope and objective of his work to conceal his plans.

Of course, Reverb had been unaware of Hunter's background in physics and chemistry. Had he even an inkling of Hunter's genius, he would've known how feeble his subterfuge had been.

That was why Hunter knew that Reverb had invented a multidimensional communications device under the guise of a "Breecher Detection Alert System." It hadn't been fully tested, but it was based on fairly sound theory.

And unlike Earth-2, this universe still had a metahuman with multidimensional abilities. What Reverb started, Vibe would surely finish. He had the motivation; all he needed was the opportunity.

Earth-2 Linda Park, aka Doctor Light, had arrived at the meeting spot early. She looked pale and generally unwell when he blazed into the dark alleyway.

"You said you'd leave me alone," was the first thing she said.

It was strange how brave she sounded, but the quiver of her lips gave her away.

"Did I?" he asked in his modulated Zoom voice. "I told you, so long as you continue to work with STAR Labs on this world, you and your family will be safe from me. And that deal remains."

She visibly relaxed as she realized he had not come here to kill her.

"I have something for you," he continued. "Something I want you to finish, and a message to deliver."

"A message?" she repeated incredulously. "Am I just supposed to tell my new 'team' that I had a chat with their old buddy Zoom?"

"Tell them whatever you like," he replied. "Tell them everything about our arrangement. Tell them nothing. It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?" she repeated, clearly confused. "Is that because you're going to... are you going to kill them?"

He considered her question. Doctor Light hadn't been a killer before she came to Earth-1, and her crimes had never been violent. She used her metahuman abilities to pull off bigger and bigger heists without any kind of physical harm. He once assumed that she did all this it because she knew that violent crimes attracted more heat, more cops, more retaliation.

Yet here she was, asking if he planned on killing her newfound team as if she genuinely cared about them.

Light had defied him. He couldn't let that stand, yet he also admired her for it. He decided against killing her when he realized he could use her to monitor Earth-1's STAR Labs, but that didn't mean he couldn't punish her just a little bit more. He'd let her stew with whatever unsettling thoughts she had.

For now.

"It doesn't matter what you tell them," he said. "Because soon they will know the truth for themselves."

With that, he left her with the package and raced back to Earth-2.

-----

Caitlin woke far too early in the morning for no reason at all. RJ was fast asleep, so she wandered into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

As she stood under the searing hot spray from the showerhead, she became alert and aware in increments, as if she hadn't quite finished waking up yet. Even so, accusation after accusation inundated her, refusing to abate.

She'd been so certain that Hunter had known about the baby, but his reaction had been all wrong. He'd been concerned and curious, but most of all, surprised. There was only one plausible explanation: she'd been wrong. He hadn't known about her pregnancy, and in her anger, she'd essentially locked her - no, their - prison forever. Whatever excuses Hunter made about holding her captive to protect her would be pale in comparison to the rationalizations he'd invent under the pretext of safeguarding his child.

No, not his child. Yours. Never his.

She tortured herself, reiterating those same thoughts until the water turned cold. But, as she toweled dry, she faced a particularly bitter truth: nothing had actually changed. If Hunter really was keeping her prisoner out of some twisted emotional connection - and she was starting to believe that was the case - then he was never going to let her go, pregnant or otherwise.

And how long could she have kept her pregnancy a secret from Hunter, anyway? Even if she could've concealed her test results, he would've cottoned on soon enough, either from all the adjustments she'd be making over the next few weeks or when she started showing.

At worst, her misstep had clued him in a few months early.

Assuming he hadn't already known.

Caitlin hadn't brought a change of clothing, so she returned to her room clad in the largest towel she could find. She fought the urge to collapse on her bed and sleep the day away. Now wasn't the time to give in or to give up, so she turned to her closet for something to wear.

She gasped - literally gasped - when she saw her favorite sweater. She pulled it out, and her fingers found the slightly loose right cuff and the wear spot at the right elbow. This was no replica; this was hers, from Earth-1.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she felt overwhelmed at the gesture.

Damn hormones.

Nothing had changed, whether or not Hunter had known about the pregnancy before. But she had successfully manipulated Hunter into crossing a breech to acquire some of her Earth-1 possessions.

She thought it'd feel like a victory, but instead she felt horrible. This wasn't her. This wasn't her.

Before she finished dressing, RJ woke up, unhappy and not afraid to express his dismay, so she carried him downstairs with her hair still damp, hoping breakfast would settle him.

And she spent the entire meal dreading Hunter's arrival.

Like always, food had been set out before her arrival: blueberry waffles - one of which was diced into very small pieces - and yogurt.

RJ fussed the whole time, unwilling to eat anything in front of him, but crying vehemently when Caitlin tried to take any of it away. It was enough to make her wonder if she was ready or motherhood. She had no idea what was wrong with RJ, and her patience for all the incoherent screaming was quickly evaporating.

She resigned herself to the sound of sobbing after fifteen futile minutes, leaving the inconsolable two-year-old to his own devices while she sat down to her now-cold meal.

Maybe she should run a few tests on RJ. He showed no signs of fever or congestion, but he could still be ill.

Or he might just be a two-year-old.

She decided she'd speak with Killer Frost just as RJ threw the remainder of his meal on the floor. Surely his mother would have some insight.

Thus, she rode down to the Comet, bypassing her "office" in favor of the second floor. She slipped into Unit C, but Frost wasn't there. Undeterred, she went to the floor's nurse's station, which was staffed by a familiar face: Roy Harper.

Not your Roy Harper. Earth-2 Roy.

"Where is Killer Frost?" she asked.

He seemed amused by her question. He sat back in his seat and asked, "What, are you, like, her sister or something?"

"You could say that," she replied. "Where is she?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Bellatrix," she answered.

Her response elicited an immediate reaction. His slouch vanished, and the smug half-smirk fell from his face.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said. " I didn't recognize you without your suit. Let me look up that patient for you."

Did Roy Harper just call you "ma'am"?

Roy typed something into the computer before he continued, "She's been moved to an intensive care floor for critical patients."

"Critical patients?" she repeated.

"Yes, ma'am. Level seventy-one, unit A. And, uh, children aren't allowed on critical floors - that's seventy to seventy-nine - not unless they're patients. But levels sixty-five and eighty-five have short-term day care for visitors."

"Thank you, uh - I'm sorry, I haven't asked your name."

"Berserker, ma'am."

"Thank you, Berserker."

Caitlin returned to the elevator and punched the number for level sixty-five. She didn't like the idea of leaving RJ in someone else's care, but she'd have to if she wanted to speak to Frost. So she dropped him off with a young woman who recognized him as soon as they stepped off the elevator. At least he wasn't with a total stranger.

"It's just a few minutes, Frostbite," she explained to him. "Just a few minutes."

She felt supremely guilty as she got back inside the elevator without him.

There were only two open units on level seventy-one. Most of the floor was a dedicated to Unit C, a biocontainment unit with an attached decontamination unit.

Caitlin spotted Doctor Midnight - one of them, anyway - working on a chart at the nurse's station. Unwilling to be held up by more questions, she ducked into Unit A.

Frost had been weak but definitely stable and improving yesterday, yet today her vitals had gotten weaker. Her first instinct was to consult her chart, but the patient was awake and starting straight at her.

"What are you doing here?" Frost snapped. "Didn't I tell you to get out already?"

"You did."

"You didn't bring him, did you?" she asked.

It was clear she meant her son.

"No," Caitlin replied. "What happened? Why did they move you here?"

"You mean the reject floor," she replied. "According to Doctor Midnight, I stopped breathing last night. Not sick enough to be on life support. Not well enough to get better."

"Don't say that," Caitlin said. "You just need time to heal."

"What for?"

"What for?" she repeated, indignant. "For your son."

"He's better off without me."

"How can you say that? He needs his mother."

"A mother who can't even touch him?" she shot back.

"You don't freeze everything you touch," Caitlin pointed out. "You're not freezing the bed you're lying in or any of the equipment touching you."

"No, just everything living," Frost said. "The only one who could survive my touch was Deathstorm. Our son didn't inherit that ability. My mother was a cold-hearted bitch, but she could hug him and wipe away his tears without freezing his skin."

"So that's it?" she asked, getting angrier by the second. "Ronnie dies, Mom dies, and you - you just give up?"

"You think I want to die?" she snapped. "I don't do make believe. I'm not getting better."

"But - "

"Remember your promise to me," she interrupted. "And whatever you do, don't bring him here. I don't want him to see me like this."

"You're not dying," Caitlin said stubbornly. "Not so long as I can help it."

"Tell me, why would you waste your time trying to save me?" Frost asked. "I'm a murderer, you know that, right? I've killed dozens of people. Possibly hundreds. A few of them were bad people that needed to die, but most of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time... near me when I needed a nice, warm snack."

Caitlin asked, "If you're such a horrible person, then why did you save me? You could've used me as a battery like anyone else, but you didn't. You stopped that man from killing me."

Frost had no response for that.

"Maybe you think you're not worth saving, but I'm going to save you anyway," Caitlin said before she stormed out.

She made it to just outside the elevator before she realized that she'd said nearly the same thing to Jay - no, Hunter - only a few months ago back on Earth-1. Why was it that she was so dedicated to saving other people? Was it because she couldn't save herself?

No, saving Frost was strategic. She didn't have a clue - let alone a plan - for escaping, but she knew she'd need allies. A murderous ice queen with common decency and possibly a heart buried under years of detachment and resentment wouldn't be her first choice, but something told her she could trust her doppelganger.

Besides, she had worked with plenty of less-than-desirable people back on Earth-1, like Captain Cold and Heat Wave, and even Harrison Wells - or, rather, Eobard Thawne - after discovering his true identity. Even Team Arrow had worked with Malcolm Merlyn when times became desperate enough for such an alliance.

Screaming abruptly drew her attention. No, not screaming, an alarm. It was coming from Unit C.

She ran to help, but a flash of silver hurtled into her path, forcing her to come to an inelegant halt halfway to her destination. It was Hubris the fox.

Had he been following her this whole time?

Caitlin tried to go around him, but he kept adjusting his position to block her. When he started to growl and looked ready to pounce, she relented and backed away.

All she could do was watch from a distance as the alarm continued to howl. Doctor Midnight was in the decontamination area, donning some kind of helmet before his voice boomed over the intercom.

"All patients must be gagged before I enter."

What the hell kind of protocol is that?

The alarm went off because one of the patients was enduring a prolonged seizure. One of the healthy patients unceremoniously shoved a rag into the seizing patient's mouth - which was not safe or remotely acceptable for anyone having a seizure. Doctor Midnight didn't open the door until the other two patients were both gagged in their beds.

By the time the doctor entered to administer diazepam, the patient had been seizing for over five minutes, increasing the risk of status epilepticus and other dangerous complications.

But, why? Why did the patients have to be quarantined? Why did Doctor Midnight insist on gagging them before delivering even the most basic treatment? It didn't make any sense.

It makes sense if they're MTU employees. Maybe this is Doctor Midnight getting some revenge.

That wasn't right. She couldn't just let this stand.

"Bellatrix," Totem said as she entered from the elevator. "You are needed elsewhere."

"You expect me to leave after what I just saw?" she asked. "What kind of medical protocol requires patients to be gagged?"

"I understand your concern," she said calmly. "But the precautions here are all necessary. If you come with me, I shall explain on the way."

Caitlin wavered a few moments between standing her ground and leaving, but ultimately, staying here wasn't going to help anyone. Before she could remedy the situation, she needed to know what was happening.

So she went to the elevator, led by Hubris and followed by Totem, with an especially nasty bit of suspicion embedded in the pit of her stomach.

Before the doors even closed, she asked, "What was all that? With the gagging?"

"Those patients are all biologically related to a metahuman with speech-related powers," Totem explained. "The Metahuman Tactical Unit experimented on those three for over a year. We do not yet know the full effects of those experiments, so precautions are being taken."

It hadn't escaped Caitlin's notice that Totem had not only omitted the metahuman's name but was also vague about the meta-ability in question. But she'd recently let her anger drive her to some unfortunate choices lately, and she didn't want a repeat of that.

After all, the Comet had just been inundated with patients. Was it fair to expect Totem to know the name of every patient off the top of her head? Probably not.

Caitlin would consult the digital patient charts once she got back to her "office."

So, on to the other business at hand. She asked, "Where are you taking me?"

"To a patient only you can treat," Totem replied cryptically. "But before you meet her, you must put on your suit, Bellatrix."

-----

Hunter had unpacked Caitlin's Earth-1 possession as soon as he returned, sneaking into her room as she slept. His watched her for a little while, hoping that their next conversation would go better than their last. His plans to speak with her over breakfast, however, were foiled by reports of increased MTU activity along the west coast.

He couldn't ignore it, not with the proximity to the Comet. So he left to deal with it himself.

It was much worse than he'd thought.

In response to the Siege, the MTU had initiated global mobilization. And it wasn't just the MTU. All kinds of government agencies and private corporations were suddenly moving weapons and personnel. Even local law enforcement was out in full force, collecting any associates of known metahumans.

Zoom ordered the Cause to retreat completely underground. He couldn't risk his metas being caught, which meant desperate rescue missions needed to be taken off the table entirely. As a result, the Cause's network abandoned its intelligence gathering work, even the most remote monitoring posts.

Only a handful of metas could collect the kind of intelligence they needed to prepare for their next move. Totem's familiars could assist and blend in, unnoticed by counter-intelligence agents, but they wouldn't be enough.

Zoom spent the majority of the morning reassigning resources and crippling enemy supply lines. Slowing the MTU down would buy the Cause enough time to prepare.

Though, part of him knew he was also stalling. He was dreading the conversation he needed to have with Caitlin. It was far easier to burn cables and smash caravans than to face her again.

Which was why he was standing in her room in the middle of the day, knowing that she would be down in the Comet. Why is it that everything had to be coming to a head all at the same time?

"Hunter?"

Her voice made his heart jump into his throat. He turned to see her heading for her closet.

Somehow, she was even more beautiful then she had been just this morning.

"What are you doing in my room?" she asked.

"I came to drop something off," he replied.

"If you mean my clothing, I've already see it," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. "But, Caitlin, we need to talk about what comes next."

She crossed her arms, but otherwise didn't respond.

"If you are plan to keep it - the baby, I mean - there are things you should know," he said. "I thought it'd be easier to... I put all the data on this."

He held out a slim laptop, and she reluctantly walked over and took it.

"So, what?" she asked. "This is about genetic disorders in your family?"

It was a shrew question, and, admittedly, one he hadn't even considered.

"No, it's more general than that," he hedged. "And that laptop has been set up with an inter-dimensional intercom. It's not fully functional yet, but when it does - "

"I'll be able to talk to Earth-1?" she asked. "Why? Why would you suddenly be okay with me talking to my friends?"

He knew she was going to be suspicious of his motives. He couldn't blame her for that, but he also wasn't expecting the accusation in her voice to hurt him so deeply.

"Because, after you read what's on that computer, I think you're going to need them," he replied. "Caitlin, please, I - "

A blaring alarm interrupted him. Moments later, Blink appeared, running up the stairs to Caitlin's room.

"Sorry to interrupt," Blink said. "But Gigawatt and Geomancer have gone insane."

"I'll meet you at the usual location," he said to Blink.

She nodded before she ran back down the stairs.

"I have to deal with this," he said. "Whatever other work you have today, Bellatrix, it can wait. You need to read that first."

With that, he followed behind Blink, down the stairs and probably into the Comet, leaving an incredibly confused Caitlin in his wake.

Chapter notes: The title of this chapter, Bird Snare, is from the Maori name for the constellation Orion, Pewa-o-Tautoru, which means "Tautoru's Bird Snare."

Author notes (somewhat spoiler-y): This fic has previously mentioned dissociative disorders, specifically from Caitlin's perspective as a possible diagnosis for Hunter Zolomon/Zoom. While Caitlin, as a character, considers this a real possibility, I want to state here that that is simply not the case. Caitlin Snow considers the possibility that Hunter has a dissociative disorder because those were the insights inspired by her limited background in psychiatry/psychology.

I'm writing this note because I know that dissociative disorders are poorly represented and very often mishandled in pretty much all forms of media, and it's important to me that anyone reading Orion understands that this story is not meant to represent or describe someone living with a dissociative disorder.

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 5.5.2

Welcome to another Hugonian tangent on my part. I am the Victor Hugo of Brick Club. I’m going to hop into the chapter halfway because the cut is just an offensively long look into literally a single line à la my research in the eight pound cannon last volume. So if you have any interest in medical(?) care(??) in pre-germ theory Europe, specifically the use of the mentioned “chloruretted lotions,” by all means read my essay.

First of all, it took me ages to figure out what this illustration reminded me of but I got it:

Gillenormand continues to rankle me in a powerful way, the shriveled bastard. “M. Gillenormand did not permit anybody to explain to him—” yeah, because heaven forbid anyone with actual expertise explain anything to a rich royalist old man. I’m so glad he gets to be happy and unburdened considering he’s the fount from which literally all of Marius’s woes sprang from to begin with. Poor bourgeosie has been sad and grumpy in his manor home while Marius was nearly driven to suicide but all’s well now, I suppose! You heard it here first, folks, everything is Gillenormand’s fault. No, I will not be taking constructive criticism.

Gillenormand’s unearned joy is sharply contrasted with Marius’s grave reservation. He’s very much in a state of shell shock—“the whole affair of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows, almost indistinct, were floating in his mind…he understood nothing in regard to his own life”—and instead of dwelling on his inability to process what just happened, Marius is clinging to the idea of Cosette, of life, of the future. “Let us emphasise one point here: he was not won over, and was little softened by all the solicitude and all the tenderness of his grandfather.” Good! Fucking excellent, because Gillenormand has proven himself to solely operate in his own interest and he will discard anyone who isn’t immediately useful to him with little thought. It’s immeasurably satisfying to see Marius turn and leverage himself against Gillenormand in service of his own interests for once.

I have done my due diligence, now onto what I really want to talk about: when we thought bleach was medicine and used it on Marius.

Marius’s wound gets horribly infected (natch) and “it was not without difficulty that the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver brought the gangrene to an end.” Silver nitrate I recognize, its caustic properties mean it can be used as a topical antiseptic, although it’s no one’s first choice today. Despite being a clear liquid solution, it will also permanently stain the top layer of your skin brown if you come into contact. This fades fairly quickly as your skin naturally exfoliates away, in about a week or so from personal experience.

I was much more intrigued by, first of all the word ‘chloruretted,’ and second of all what kind of chlorine compounds would be used as treatments for infection in 1832. I went googling and found an illuminating article from 1827 titled, “The Chlorurets of Oxide of Sodium and of Lime, As Disinfectants” by Thomas Alcock (as well as a subsequent review of this article from The Lancet the same year which is amusingly awful). I’m going to start with some definitions and then I very much wanted to talk about this article that is only barely tangentially related to the situation. Sorry.

Chloruret is an archaic translation of clorure which is just the French word for chloride. Chloruret seems to have been used to refer to not only chlorides but chlorates and hypochlorites as well, which is, uh, not a great system because sodium hypochlorite, sodium chloride, and sodium chlorate are bleach, table salt, and herbicide respectively and, it goes without saying, very different! So I’m doing some guessing in context as to what compound these authors are referring to. Chloruret of lime is the compound calcium hypochlorite (CaClO)—which you might find today in swimming pools—and I believe chloruret of soda is just sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) which is slightly confusing because this is the exact same compound as chloruret of oxide of sodium. I have a 0.5% solution of NaClO in my bathroom right now to clean my shower with, this is what we colloquially call bleach.

All of these chloruret compounds were known to prevent decay, but it’s unclear if anybody really knew why, which leads to a couple of highly questionable recommendations from Alcock and his contemporaries. Alcock begins his article relating how chloruret of lime or soda was used to slow the decay of corpses for identification and investigation as well as to disinfect hospital equipment, sick-rooms, sewer systems, anything. Alcock and his reviewers didn’t have a concept of bleaching agents, but Alcock observes “both the chloruret of lime and of the oxide of sodium have the disadvantage of discolouring the muscles when applied to them.” Additionally, this article was written before germ theory supplanted the miasma theory of disease and Alcock continually recommends the use of chlorurets “in destroying putrescent and infectious effluvia” with the belief that clearing out a bad smell would also purify the ‘bad’ air spreading disease and infection. He actually has an entire section relating cases from French doctors where chloruret of lime cured “asphyxia” caused by breathing the Parisian sewer fumes.

The reason chlorine bleach works as a disinfectant is because it pretty indiscriminately kills organic material by destroying proteins on a molecular level. This is great when you’re just wiping down operating tables and hospital rooms, but very bad when you start applying bleach to living, organic patients. Alcock quotes a French medical report recommending “Applications of the chlorureted water to be made to the buboes, the carbuncles, and the gangrenes of persons labouring under the plague” which isn’t the worst idea considering antibiotics are over a century away but also “Water containing half a dram or one dram of the concentrated chloruret of oxide of sodium to each pint, to be given to the patients afflicted with plague as their common drink.” It probably goes without saying, but this will not cure infection or plague or anything except the condition of having intact stomach lining. There is no good reason to ingest hypochlorite in any form, despite the section titled “On the Internal Use of the Chloruret of Soda.” Do not drink bleach.

The next section is a series of gruesome anecdotes of hospitalized patients who were cured of gangrene in every imaginable body part using chloruret of soda. Alcock, despite constantly mentioning how disgusting this all is, takes a certain amount of satisfaction in vividly describing just how horrific each infection presented before bleach swooped in to save the day. To skim, gangrene is when body tissue dies, in this case due to some sort of bacterial infection. Avoiding anything too graphic, dead tissue rots and this is bad and will send you into septic shock.

This brings us, unfortunately, back to poor Marius. Who has been dragged through an effluvious sewer with open wounds and now has gangrene. Alcock relates an account that might be comparable, that of a boy with an infected wound on his cheek, closest to Marius’s grazing head wound. The treatment was “a solution of the chloruret, in the proportion of one part to six of water” applied directly to the wound and dressings. This apparently worked very well, the infection cleared out “and the surfaces granulating kindly.” So Marius, despite needing sections of dead skin cut away, might not even have too much of a scar from his head wound, although it would be kind of badass, wouldn’t it? Can I see Marius with a gnarly face scar from a) being shot and b) being slathered in bleach?

Second, he was shot in the shoulder through and through. This might present more of a problem because the wound goes pretty deep near some pretty vital areas and sepsis is a major concern because we don’t have antibiotics and, lord, how did Marius actually survive this? Alcock provides an example of “a case of punctured wound received in dissection…the patient experienced immediate relief from the diluted chloruret of oxide of sodium [NaClO], used as a lotion, combined with free use of leeches.” A winning combination and “the patient recovered without any untoward circumstance.” This has got to at least leave a significant patch of discolored skin from the repeated application of bleach, if not an impressive scar to boot. Hugo specifically says nothing of this, but sodium hypochlorite solutions were apparently also frequently injected at infection sites for deeper wounds or more internal infections, specifically in the bladder, the uterus, and, oddly enough, the nose for atrophic rhinitis). I get that everyone was working with what they had but…bleach injections is a challenging concept.

A final, indulgence; the subsequent review of Alcock’s article in The Lancet is absolutely laughable as a modern reader. It’s three and a half pages long and its criticism basically amounts to: yeah, chlorurets are great and all, but salt does the exact same thing so this is useless. It’s so smugly dismissive of Alcock’s terminology, his case presentation, and the usefulness of even exploring the applications of chlorurets that it borders on anti-intellectual. And, in the process, is so blatantly wrong about chemistry and medicine that it reads like parody today. “Chloruret of soda, to use for once Mr. Alcock’s nomenclature, is a ‘disinfecting agent,’ and preserves animal substances;—common salt preserves animal substances, but has it been proved that it is not a disinfecting agent?” The Lancet says, with an air of ‘gotcha!’ then continues, “Let the test of experience decide.” Earlier, they said, “It is certain that culinary salt will answer many of the intentions to be effected by the chloride of soda, and it is a disinfecting agent in a very great degree. We do not pretend to ascribe to it all the properties of the chloride of soda, but we are certain that it possesses a great many of them.” That’s a lot of unfounded speculation for a noted medical journal. Also, since The Lancet is petty, I can be petty; chloride of soda is a bad name for sodium hypochlorite because chloride is Cl and a soda (Na) of that is NaCl which is sodium chloride which is just salt, Lancet. Not saying chloruret is a better term, but I haven’t based my entire snarky critique on that basis! Beyond the petty, the test of experience is in and salt and bleach are, shockingly, not interchangeable as disinfectants, something that is easily tested, even in 1827. Salt is a desiccant, it kills some bacteria by sucking the water out of it. Bleach is an oxidizer, it kills bacteria by literally breaking apart the proteins in organic material. This is why, despite The Lancet’s flippant dismissal of the substances’ differences, we use salt to preserve foodstuffs and not bleach. There are so many legitimate critiques of Alcock’s article, he overly relies on anecdotal evidence, his measurement recommendations are unclear and unstandardized, he injects bleach in patients, but this review is just lazy.