#there is one person maintaining control and two people keeping everyone from crashing and dying!

[llycaons]

the airplane episode of house is really good btw. as was the airplane episode of leverage. and the airplane episode of iasip. airplane episodes tend to be winners I love em

[nanomooselet]

Stampede Plant Talk

#if you want to add the rest of your points please do!

Do you realise what you've unleashed.

Not to ruin the magic, but when I write my analyses it's often inspired by visuals. So I figured the best place to start would be with this visual. Like... that's simple, isn't it?

I thought, obviously blue is Knives's colour while Vash's is red. Healthy Plants glow blue, dying ones dim to red. It would seem blue is for Plants and red is for humans. And so clearly Knives is aligned with the Plants, and embracing his Plantness, while Vash is more human and thus aligned with humanity… right?

Yeah, no.

Truthfully if there's a definitive visual motif for the twins, it's not expressed in terms of something that dualistic. But that's a little outside the scope of this post.

A dependent, Vash says, needs a human to take care of it, or the Plant just uses its energy up all at once and dies. I'm guessing that means: what a Plant will produce, when and in what quantity is in the hands of the technician programming it. Being Independent means a Plant has all that under personal control. They all produce different kinds of energy and matter (which are, in a complicated scientific way, the same thing in different states). They are essentially living generators - machines.

They're still made out of meat, though. For some reason. (They do look like sea creatures, and the higher plane is very oceanic in appearance.)

Having the Plant produce more than its Gate can withstand producing means it's left only with the energy reserves of its body to sustain it. The Last Run harvests that energy. Resembles very very rapidly developing dehydration - eyes bulging, skin blackening, skin tightening. It's a very ugly way to die. Their bulbs go red, and then go dark, because the fluid they're in is clouded with blood. The same is true of when they're cut off from the higher plane because they're been overworked.

Dr. Conrad said to Knives that these Plants couldn't be healed in the way Knives demanded of him, and I think he's being truthful. Because Vash also didn't heal the Plant at Jeneora Rock.

In the pictures above, they're at the "terminal stage"; using them any more would push it into a Last Run. Note the colour. Red as blood.

These are the ones Vash does heal. More pink than red, lighter - brighter.

Vash isn't donating energy to a Plant when he heals it; the ones aboard Ship 3 weren't dying because they were overworked or injured. The SEEDS fleet didn't make use of the Last Run, nor did they have to rely on a dwindling number of Plants to survive. They were in deep space on a journey taking hundreds of years, with all those people whose cryosleep had to be maintained. They weren't in crisis. They were planning for a long journey to build a better world at their destination, not a crash. Plants that glow blue/white are healthy. It was paradise; no one had to struggle to survive.

Luida says the problem with these Plants is that they aren't compatible with the environment they're in, and she is a geo-Plant specialist. I believe her.

Vash's super special healing power? The job only he can do? Vash is not being made to act like a battery, giving up his lifeforce to keep everyone else alive. He's not sacrificing himself. That's what Knives assumed, because that's all he sees humans do. (A whole one time before he started killing people.)

Plants do communicate with sound, but not in a frequency humans seem capable of hearing and I suspect it's because they use their Gates. Dependent Plants - and Knives - can only produce a sound. Their Gates are one-way.

Vash's Gate is two-way. He can both produce and receive. He can exchange.

He can have a dialogue.

He's hearing the Plants when they cry out for help then just... going to talk with them. Understanding them. Helping them feel more comfortable. Keeping them company. When Luida asked him so kindly to be a counsellor for the Plants, she said what she meant and she meant what she said.

Vash is a Plant therapist. And he's a good one! He travelled everywhere accompanied by his stepdad just… being kind to humans and Plants, looking after them, teaching them how to take care of each other. And he loves doing it. It's the happiest he looks after the Fall. Brad even tells him, in a very Brad kind of way, that he's done a great job; travelling with this brat beats what it was like just after the crash. And then he gives Vash water and Vash tells him he's a nice guy (and Brad gets offended lmao).

The one who assumes the humans were hurting or using him was as per fucking usual Millions Knives! Because that gives him an excuse to take bloody revenge! And everybody fell for his bullshit! Man, I'm beginning to think when Studio Orange directed Austin Tindle to make Knives sound villainous, they made the right decision.

Now, if you want to be sad?

Vash is doing so much good. He loves doing it. He's the only one who can.

But Rem wanted to see Plants and humans understand each other and she's gone. Vash is fulfilling her dream, but he's doing it alone.

Now compare the colour of his coat to the colour of the Plants. Which matches more closely? The ones who are forced to work beyond their capacity, their bodies gruesomely and horribly used without their consent for the benefit of humans?

Or the ones in emotional distress?

[black-streak]

Little Pistol - Millstone

Chapter 4

First Previous Next

This feels almost like I'm starting a new story and in a way I am. Tim's story. His side of this world in creating. That being said, for those who only got into DC and Batman and the Robins through the Maribat fandom, this actually gives a lot of background on Tim that isn't normally covered from what I've seen. Or at least, not in depth. Sure, I'm giving my own perspective on how canon events could of turned out, but all the way up to Damian taking up Robin is technically canon compliant.

That being said, here we go. (Song is Millstone by Brand New. All songs are featured on my Timinette Angst Playlist)

LP Taglist

@zalladane @moonlightstar64 @amayakans @elmokingkong @queen-in-a-flower-crown @karategirl119 @dreamykitty25 @danielslilangel @melicmusicmagic @xahriia @sassakitty @yin-390 @zotinha456 @indecisive-mess-named-me @heldtogetherbysafetypins @theatreandcomicfreak @alexandriamw @messymessyml

Permanent list

@naoryllis @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @my-name-is-michell @maribat-is-lifeblood @dast218 @novicevoice @shizukiryuu @princess-of-fangirls @bigpicklebananatree @pirats-pizzacanninibles @abrx2002 @breemeister @darkthunder1589 @thestressmademedoit @severelyenchantedwonderland @isabellemasen @multi-fandom-freak0221 @fantasyloversblog @bzz75 @cloudiedraws @jardimazul @orbitsvt @gingerdaile @sotheresthatthought @kadmeread @novaloptr @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @crazylittlemunchkin @18-fandoms-unite-08 @tiny-goddess-of-chaos @ladybug-182 @toodaloo-kangaroo @the-alice-of-hearts @vixen-uchiha

~---~

Traveling downhill seemed so much easier than trekking up. In truth, it all depended on how you went. Slowly making your way on foot could end in braced, straining joints and burning calves from the effort of keeping balanced on steeper angles and rougher terrain. You could bike down faster, but you might miss everything that happens along the way or hit an edge and end up crashing to never see it through one way or another. Taken out of the race too soon. Running proved dangerous and much the same as a bike. One could always roll down the slope, but that leads to veering off course and coming up dizzy and disoriented. Falling was easy, but there was no control on how you went or how fast and many end up injured or lost by the time they hit the bottom.

Tim decided to mark his own path. He hadn't necessarily meant to find the bottom, it sort of found him to be honest, but nevertheless, he chose to make his way slowly down from the start. Twisting and winding carefully, every step deliberate and calculated until he stood where he is now, living in the brownstone with Jason Todd of all people. His would be murderer.

Funny how that worked.

It started early on, far sooner than most would guess, with his blackmailing his way into the mantle of Robin. Sure, it was ultimately Bruce's decision, but what else does one do with a kid with photographic evidence of your identity who saved your skin and insists on helping any way he can? Train him, send him around the world, and hone his skills under the nose of his parents, apparently.

Then his mother died and his father went into a coma. Bruce feared he'd fall to anger and vengeance, bringing up Jason as a reminder of what not to do.

It was interesting, the amount of times Jason was brought up as a form of warning. As a guidance for what not to be. It came to a point where he resented hearing the name, equated it to disappointment and idiocy. To brashness and brute strength. To death. His opinion of Jason was similar to that of a dumpster fire. Contained and expected, but needing to be put out before it could do any real damage to something actually important. 

That was in part due to being a child who'd grown up watching Dick fly in the Robin colors and seeing how his successor performed afterwards. In some ways, the magic of the Robin suit transferred with its new owner, still amazing Tim with its ability to make Gotham a little brighter, a little safer. But the disconnect between Robin and Jason was too strong for him to see them as the same person. He still thought of Dick as Robin, despite knowing he wasn't in that suit. Then Jason died and soon after he began his training, not really out of desire to BE Robin, but more for knowing someone had to do it. 

Then Bruce and in parts, Dick himself, kept reinforcing the story of Jason as something bad. As something to be avoided and better than. Jason was no longer a person at all in his mind. More of an urban legend told in bedtime stories to scare children into being good.  It only furthered the disconnect he felt between looking at the case with the old Robin suit and hearing the name Jason Todd.

It was a while afterwards that his next step down occured, with his return to no man's land, his rescue and finally, his father barring him from Robin and Stephanie taking up the title. He didn't mean to feel resentful, but it happened nonetheless. He fought so hard to be good enough, to hold the Robin title and be worthy of it only to have it ripped away by Jack Drake's form of blackmail. Oh, the irony of it being the same as his own from long before.

It took manipulation and carefully working from the other side, but soon he convinced his father of his need to be Robin. Of how Gotham needed him. And Jack let him. Too bad it led to him being killed.

He faked an uncle to avoid being completely under Bruce's thumb. Wanted a say in his own life and felt adoption wouldn't be the way to go about it. Didn't want to replace his dead dad so soon after losing him.

Things went faster after that. Stephanie died. Then Kon. He switched his colors in remembrance of his fallen friend. Became a little darker. Colder. Distant. Bart died. He fell further. Stephanie was alive. She let him think she was dead. Batman knew and felt no need to tell him. She lied to him. Bruce lied to him. Everyone he loved left him one way or another. Jason tried to kill him. More than once.

Surprisingly, almost dying at his hands was what began to help Tim see Jason as he truly was. A human being. He opened up the files on Jason and began his own research, no longer taking his mentors for their word. If Jason was alive, he needed to know who exactly he was up against. And he did, now. He knew who Jason was. A guy who'd been just a kid, taken off the streets and thrown into the nightlife of Gotham. A kid who loved his mother and did what he could to keep her alive. Who did what he needed to keep himself alive. Who loved school and maintained perfect grades and read classic literature. Jason Todd wasn't some punk who died because he was a brash idiot who got in over his head. No, he was just a boy who found out his birth mom was alive and went looking for her. Who died trying to protect the woman who birthed him, despite being the one who betrayed him. The Robin costume wasn't magical. Wasn't it's own living thing. The mantel was only as strong as the one who wore it and Jason had worn it well.

Funny how the resurrected version saw who filled the suit now and decided to try and kill him. Guess he couldn't really fault him for it, though. Talia threw Jason in the pits and practically siked him on Tim. If only she had kept Damian to herself. 

Tim took the child's attempt on his life to heart, despite the pardon to Jason for much the same. See the difference there was that Bruce didn't treat the two attempts the same. Both tried to kill Tim. But while Jason was condemned and seen as the enemy for it, Damian was barely punished. Sure, Bruce expressed anger and disappointment, but all and all, that was it. Quite frankly, Tim thought Jason was more justified and yet, he received the harsher treatment. 

The injustice and unfair treatment of the Robins was never more clear than in that moment.

The true fall of Tim, however, was after Bruce died, leaving the others as orphans to battle over the cowl.

He never wanted to hold the title of Batman, but Dick was so reluctant and then Jason started posing as Batman, so Tim took him up. Just to put an end to it. To make the madness stop for just a second.

And finally, finally, Dick took his rightful place. After the loss of his father and adopted father and so many friends and teammates, Tim was ready for a semblance of normal. He'd worked under Dick before and it'd gone so well, he knew this is what they needed. What the city needed. Something was finally going to be okay.

But then it really wasn't. Dick gave his position to Damian. To the kid who killed, who tried to kill him. To an ungrateful, insubordinate, murderous child who held no morals or standard for anything that wasn't an animal. Dick took the only thing Tim had left and gave it away to the person who hated him most.

Well. 

It should have come as no surprise that when Jason showed up, offering him refuge, a place to belong, a place at his side. He took it. 

He took it on his own terms.

Taking up the mask, not behind Jason, but at his side, as his partner, Tim took over the Brownstone building and created his perch. His and Red Hood's basis of operation. Dick thought Gotham needed a cruel, brutal, ruthless Robin? Fine. He'd give it one.

Sipping on his mug of hot chocolate and looking out into the night, he couldn't help the twinge of a frown that creeped onto his face. The downhill descent was a difficult one, yeah, but one way or another, he found his way to the bottom.

[crossdressingdeath]

(1/3) It always amuses me how stans try to justify JC actions by his abusive upbringing while there were 3 children in that family and both others turned very kind and/or very moral and not at all like JC (and frankly, he didn't even have the hardest position in the dysfunctional dynamic). Or LXC and LWJ whose upbringing was even more screwed up with a LQ who was certainly playing favorites and wanting perfection, and yet this never draw a wedge between them or created any jealousy.

(2/3)LXC loves for LWJ to excel! Same with "but JC had it so hard rebuilding Lotus Pier, WWX was goofing off with the Wens"...JC was paying people to do that for him, yes, while WWX was trying to start from scratch a settlement over a mountain of corpses with a bunch of weak or old people and not to die of hunger comes winter. While separated from all his friends and hated as a monster by the cultivation world. "But JC was so lonely during the 13/16y, so that justifies him lashing out" And WWX

(3/3) was dead, killed by his brother and thinking that there was not a person left on his side in the end, and yet, that didn't make him act like a dick? Or athg else really, because everything that JC went through in the past, WWX did also, but in a worse way because he lost his parents young, lived in the streets, didn't have JC societal privilege or money and has to harness an unstable necromancy practice on top of that. And yet no one uses it as arguments to explain his actions, only for JC 

Honestly? While none of the Jiang kids were in a good position, out of the three of them... JC did have it the easiest. It was still awful for him, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting his childhood didn’t suck, but given it was made very clear to JYL that her only purpose was to be married off to JZX so her mother could tie her bloodline to her best friend’s and WWX was treated like a servant at best... Yeah. If I had to pick, I’d choose having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive over having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive and being treated like a bargaining chip/treated like a servant and/or bastard and being whipped for actions that would get the rest of the clan a lecture at worst. Again, I’m not saying JC didn’t have it bad, but his siblings having it worse is... interesting, given neither of them decided to be dicks to Literally Everyone over it.

I do have to say, even though this is about JC, there’s nothing suggesting LQR was playing favourites with LXC and LWJ. He was strict, yes, probably stricter than he should’ve been, and LXC probably did get more one-on-one interaction with him, but given LXC was going to be sect leader/became sect leader at a young age that makes sense. This is not super important to the point of this post, but I do find it odd how often people make LQR out to be this horrible person who’s always awful to his nephews because he’s Strict when we... don’t actually know anything about how he raised them. I don’t like him all that much, and he probably didn’t do a fantastic job of raising them, but the man did try, and he clearly wants his nephews to be safe and happy (even though he has inaccurate views of what that entails...), and given how the parents/parental figures of the cast generally act he deserves some credit for that. Also the Twin Jades ended up considerably better-adjusted than most of their age group, which... isn’t saying much all things considered but it does say something. If nothing else neither of them seem to feel actively unsafe around him, so he’s definitely not the worst parental figure in this novel.

...I had a surprising number of thoughts on LQR there. Whoops, sorry about the tangent. Maybe I’ll make a post about him at some point. Anyway, yeah, LXC and LWJ clearly adore each other! LXC would be delighted if LWJ surpassed him at something! Same with Nie bros; they argue a lot, but there’s no denying that they love each other. That’s what insults and threats out of love look like; NMJ threatens NHS all the time, but NHS clearly isn’t all that bothered by it until JGY starts fucking with NMJ’s mind and the threats become more serious, which really isn’t NMJ’s fault. It’s because in the other sibling relationships both parties are invested in staying close. They love each other and want to be close for the rest of their lives! Meanwhile JC is obsessed with WWX outperforming him at Literally Everything, and WWX genuinely believes that JC is allowed to treat him the way he does and it’s fine and healthy.

And yeah, JC wasn’t exactly rebuilding Lotus Pier all by his lonesome with his own two hands. In fact, going by what we see all the rebuilding was done well before WWX left! And I don’t doubt for a second that WWX was involved in that process; I have very mixed feelings about the scene in CQL where he blows off his duties to go and get drunk, because on the one hand it does do a good job of showing just how bad his mental state is getting (and how JC refuses to acknowledge it despite WWX obviously being Not Okay), but on the other hand... I just can’t see WWX not throwing himself into helping JC with everything he’s got even while his mental state is coming crashing down around him. I mean, this is the guy who created an incredibly powerful weapon that even he couldn’t fully control, not knowing what using it would do to him, to help his brother win a war. I’m pretty much certain that WWX ran himself into the ground helping JC rebuild and run the sect... then when he found himself in charge of a small group of desperate people, scrambling to keep them fed and clothed and healthy, JC just abandoned him to deal with it on his own.

And the whole “Oh, but JC was so lonely, don’t you feel bad for him?” shtick. I hate it so much. If he didn’t want to be lonely, he should’ve considered that before alienating everyone in his age group and leading an army to murder his brother, the only person left who was willing to put up with him! It’s... really hard to feel bad for someone who’s brought most of their suffering on themselves through a series of generally shitty and frequently downright cruel actions with easily foreseeable consequences. If he got sick of being alone, he should’ve apologized to his peers for being a dick to... literally all of them and tried to make amends and strike up some sort of relationship. Or, if that didn’t work, go out! Meet new people! Try not to be as awful to them! Also, he’s a sect leader. If he couldn’t even maintain a positive relationship with other sect leaders, people who, let me remind you, he has to work with on a regular basis and several of whom are actually nice and friendly people, that is on him. If you are awful to people you will end up alone. And then JC decided to respond to learning that the people he was a dick to every time he saw them (and, in LWJ and NHS’s cases, caused the death of someone they cared about) wanted nothing to do with him... by whining about how lonely he was as if that wasn’t largely his fault. Like, he lost his family and that’s awful, but he could have had friends to help him through his grief, and it’s his own damn fault that he doesn’t.

WWX’s life was miserable. He had plenty of friends, yeah, but he spent years on the streets after his parents died brutal deaths; was raised in a family where he was treated like a servant and a scapegoat; lost everything in an event he was blamed for despite having nothing to do with the attack; had to sacrifice his incredibly powerful golden core (thereby losing his primary means of defending himself while on the run and drastically shortening his lifespan) to keep his brother from letting himself die; was thrown into a corpse pit for three months where he had to create an entirely new and experimental (and as such incredibly dangerous) form of cultivation and probably resort to cannibalism just to survive; had to fight a war almost immediately after escaping; spent a... good portion of time (not sure how long exactly because the MDZS timeline is more a suggestion than an actual coherent timeline) being treated alternately as a tame pet or a rabid animal and having to pretend everything was just fine while everyone tried to either control him or remove him and his brother very obviously got increasingly resentful of his skill and power; had to abandon his home, his family, and everything he had left of his old life to save a bunch of innocent people while everyone, including his brother, acted like he’d gone mad for not wanting to let them die horribly; had to go back to the corpse pit he spent three months in because it was the only place where they might be safe; accidentally killed his brother-in-law due to losing control after being ambushed on the way to a celebration for his nephew that he was invited to by people he trusted, almost certainly making him wonder on at least some level if that was why he was invited; lost two members of his new family who he clearly loved because of said accidental murdering; learned their deaths were for nothing and, when he retaliated against the planned attack that shouldn’t have happened because that’s what WQ and WN gave their lives to prevent, saw his beloved sister die to save him; and, after all that, lost the rest of his new family to a siege on a civilian population led by his brother. And after all that, his response was... to destroy the incredibly dangerous weapon he’d made because he didn’t trust the sects to not destroy each other and themselves with it and kill himself rather than risk losing control again and hurting anyone else. In the novel too; I don’t doubt for a second that WWX planned on dying in that siege, even if he didn’t expect destroying the seal to do it.

Take a look at that paragraph. All those things that happened to WWX. And in the end, he was kind. He was so, so kind, and remains kind even after thirteen years of being dead. He would have been well within his rights to go all “Then let me be evil” on the sects, but every time he attacked them they struck first, and most of the serious damage he did happened as a direct result of losing control of his experimental and mostly unknown new cultivation, which is a real risk even with spiritual cultivation; NMJ probably would have happily killed everyone in Qinghe if the qi deviation hadn’t gotten to him first, given how easy it was for him to attack even his beloved little brother. Everything bad that happened to JC is on that list, pretty much. Everything that JC suffered WWX did too, with some variations in the details (and of course dead versus alone for the same period of time). JC had the advantage of a sect at his back and a high rank by virtue of his birth, while WWX’s position was entirely reliant on JFM and, later, JC. And yet some people insist that WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions but JC’s somehow does. Now, some people argue it’s different because WWX was a mass murderer. Yeah, well, JC’s a fucking serial killer, and he doesn’t have the excuse of losing control due to using resentful energy to cultivate and being attacked by everyone he’d ever known and trusted.

...I’ve kind of lost track of where I’m going with this. Short version: I very strongly disagree with anyone who insists WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions while bending over backwards to argue that JC’s trauma excuses his.

[mousehole5000]

the rest... of... book 4..... through chapter 225

i sad.

“He was lying to himself and lying to others! All nothing but deceit! No matter what, it was impossible to pretend nothing had ever happened, and it was impossible to return to before!!!” - i know :(

“Before Feng Xin went, he was afraid. Now that Feng Xin had gone, he wasn’t scared any longer. But, even though he wasn’t afraid anymore, he was in deeper agony.” - ah yes. being afraid of your friends leaving so you do things to drive them away so you can have something to point to and say that you were the one who made the choice and you dont have to fear it anymore. except that has never once worked out ever and turns out losing people just means you lost them and it still hurts. not that i would know or anything.....

“He saw upon the table there were a few plates of horrid-looking dishes that were now cold. They were what he made the queen take away without eating a single bite the night before. Now, he pulled them over absent-mindedly, and ate everything, not daring to leave behind a single leaf, afraid to miss a single grain of rice. After he ate he started puking.” - this broke me and the bad cooking isnt funny anymore :(

all this happens after they have money again. no further commentary on this chapter

i know for a lot of book 3 i just wanted hua cheng to go away but now i would give anything for wuming to come and interrupt these interactions with white no-face

“Lang Ying, a brute commoner, led an army and destroyed Xianle. With the aura of the king enveloping his body, ordinary evil wouldn’t be able to come close to his person. However, at this moment, what Xie Lian brought with him were millions of souls of those who died on the battlefield!” - interesting to think about this story from lang ying’s point of view. the bit about his wife and child... oh my god... the things we carry with us...

“Will it really be alright to leave him like this? How about, I give him a cup of water?” - cup of water motif is back... ouch

“One person. Just one. Really. Just one person was enough!” - for like 20 minutes after reading this i really was just sitting here thinking about every time a stranger did me a small a kindness and the times i did the same it just made me cry harder i love people and they really can be awful and choose to be cold and cruel but it means that when they choose to be kind..... it doesnt negate the cruelty but its still indescribable.. and being able to see that and remember that even after all the pain..... 

ugh still just thinking about the times ive gone through something that changed me and having the cold numb fear that i would never be the same as i was before that i would lose some precious part of me forever and wondering if this would be the thing that finally did it... i dont know if ive ever actually experienced a piece of media that really make me think about that tbh

“Stop thinking so highly of yourself! I don’t need you to teach me anything, I can learn on my own. If you represent heaven’s will, then something like heaven’s will should be destroyed!” - why is defying the heavens so sexy.... keep it up (edit after white no-face identity reveal: HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!)

the fact that xie lian went through what he did and got nothing out of it and in fact lost everything he had left due to the trauma,,,,, but just one person is enough for him to willingly offer to do it again, even if all he could save is one person,,,,,, crying again.... and who it is who takes it all on instead... ok...

“After all, everyone knew that Mu Qing ascended because he cleaned up all the remaining stubborn resentful spirits in the old capital of Xianle, so to understand it as “generous and kind” wasn’t unreasonable. In any case, everyone in the old capital of Xianle were all very grateful for him.” - its not unreasonable at all!!! this boy picks cherries for his mom and the neighborhood kids leave him alone

“Shaking his head, Xie Lian contemplated, then he ladled two large bowls of rice, one offered inside the Temple of Ju Yang, the other inside the Temple of Xuan Zhen. Finally, feeling that everything served its purpose, he clapped his hands close, completely satisfied.” - please i just want them to be friends again

ruoye........ xie lian bidding farewell to the tiny red flower.... ok i feel a totally normal amount about all these things

book 5 time!!!

xie lian king of taking a third option.. no one dies in the kiln at all we’re just leaving bitch

“Xie Lian didn’t know why he had to use his hands to cup Hua Cheng’s cheeks, but he did so subconsciously, probably so he could comfort him, but also because Xie Lian was afraid Hua Cheng’s face would be frostbitten by the snowstorm.” - gay people.....

“This giant stone divine statue must’ve been sculpted when Hua Cheng was trapped inside the Kiln, when he was severely beaten down and in intense suffering.” - ohhhh my god. okay. okay. look. i get it....

“The divine statue obeyed his command and took off with a gigantic, wide step, going along with the rolling current of snow. One slide was several miles, and the snow waves it created crashed around its body. Because both its arms were open, even though it was a body of a million tons, it still maintained good balance.” - HELL YEAH!! HELL YEAH LETS FUCKING GO LETS GOOOOO

the statue that requires transfers of spiritual energy... statue of make you kiss me i see how it is.....

“Hearing this, Hua Cheng raised his brows, his expression seeming to say, please have them beat each other to death, that’d be great.” - when you dont like your SO’s friends and they dont like you

“With a sharp sword in hand, Xie Lian was like a tiger with wings added, his might increasing exponentially, and he struck out!” - YES!!! GET EM!!!!

“No one could blame him for not knowing what was going on. Perhaps, he was confused the entire way: Why was he beaten? Why was he buried inside a wall? Why was he turned into a daruma doll? And why did he have to turn into a sword, too? There was not a single point where he’d figured out what was happening.” its okay qyz its okay i know honey me too

HELLO?? SQX IS BACK???? omg what a development omg omg okay okay interesting... okay so shi wudu would have rather died than lose everything but shi qingxuan is still trucking

“Hua Cheng responded lazily, “Oh? So you mean to say, beggars can’t save the world? Is it because they don’t have the ability to, or because they’re not worthy?” - KING okay i know this is a motivational tactic but also... who was it who took on all the souls for the human face disease and did in fact save the world back then hmmm?

absolutely enthralled by the fact that in chapter 207 we find out that the guoshi is in fact just. still here. and the name of the chapter is "Seeking Affection; Ghost King Fakes Displeasure” which i mean that happens too but fjasdlkfajsld

bruh okay. okay. okay. everything is happening okay. okay. chaos in the heavens okay. ling wen is still invited to kiss me on the mouth tho idc

“Indeed Yin Yu didn’t have enough confidence, and said weakly, “Chengzhu has shown me grace, he saved me…” “I know,” Jun Wu said. “He even helped you pacify and send off the resentful spirit of Jian Yu, who died during banishment, am I right?” - awww im glad they resolved that bit that whole situation was awful also give me the forbidden hua cheng ghost king lore...

“Yin Yu finally couldn’t take it anymore. He clenched his fists tight, his knuckles cracking, and he whipped around. “I DO RESENT HIM! I DO HATE HIM!!! BUT, SO WHAT??” - yin yu kiss me on the mouth right now

“Xie Lian hugged him. “It’s alright, it’s alright. These are all small matters, really. Your Highness Yin Yu, just live in this world for another few hundred years and you’ll know that none of that really matters. Either driven to madness or really wishing someone would die, whichever. Who in the world has never had such thoughts? I’ve even thought of massacring all in the world who had wronged me, it’s true, and no lie, I’d almost done it. But look at me, haven’t I shamelessly lived until now? You haven’t actually done anything in the end, and that’s the most important thing.” - he’s right im crying again

“But…in the end, I…still think…it’s so unfair,” Yin Yu sobbed. “If I was already destined to be no one remarkable, then at the very least, I…wanted to be a kind and perfect person. But…I couldn’t even do that. It’s really…so unfair. And truth to be told, even in this moment, just thinking that I’m dying for Yizhen, this little dummy, I still can’t get over it. I can’t even let go and die with a heart with no resentment and no regrets, what is that.” - YIN YU YOU CANT DIE NOOOOOOO youre the only man in this whole book i would kiss why does this always happen im actually really sad ;_;

“If the Rain Master was killed directly, and a better heavenly official couldn’t be found to replace her, the people put food above all else; if agriculture isn’t running smoothly, the world will be thrown into chaos. You don’t let people eat, people won’t give you a job. Besides being displeased with the Rain Master, the people of the world might also begin to be dissatisfied with the great god above Rain Master’s head. Which means, if he isn’t careful, the fire can burn all the way onto him. If things aren’t controlled adequately, it might incur riots to topple gods.” - rain master my friend rain master... also yes!!!!! food production!!!! critical!!!!!!! theres a lot you can get by without but food is not one of them!!!!!

“Feng Xin was Xie Lian’s servant, his good friend, but not his slave. He could’ve built his own home, had his own family. And he had actually already met those people, but the encounter just had to be during Xie Lian’s first banishment, the toughest days they suffered back then.” i am very sad about all of this

hua cheng in the palace of ling wen looking for the brocade immortal while the heavens are in complete chaos as the world turns on its head and STILL taking the time to beg for kisses is making me lose it fjalkdfjlsd

oh my god the guoshi and the cards thing..... hmmmm

delighted that mount tong’lu has such great significance beyond just being the kiln or whatever

hmmm crown prince of wuyong... its truly sad... but dude.....

the way that the heavenly capital is literally built out of previous gods... wow

the outright attempt to continue to cycle of trauma that failed simply bc 1. xie lian is his own person and 2. xie lian recieved kindness and gave it back to the world even to the people who refused to help him im ;_;

the absolute mess of xuan ji/rong guang/pei su/banyue/ke mo going down in the palace of ming guang... entertainment

okay i think im to a point where i dont have any possible spoiler knowledge in my brain about what happens next (only thing i have is theres a joke about he xuan eating that i dont understand yet and i think we might get like an emily corpse bride moment but if we do i dont know why) but oh my god things have escalated

[artnerd1123]

DTRH!AU Masterpost

Moving into a new post since I’ve got stuff actually organized!!! It’ll likely get an update from time to time. Apologies to those whom the read more breaks for ‘^^

Everything to do with this au will be tagged #dtrh!au or #down the rabbit hole au Individual characters are tagged with #dtrh![name] 

Here’s an AU PMV for starters! 

Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

Putting this up here so it doesn’t get super buried- Here’s the fic(s) set in this AU! All Moving Pictures End 

The AU crash course: The premise behind the au is that everything takes place in a pocket dimension controlled by a black magic script. Joey Drew is the one who’s writing/editing this script, and his rewrites affect the world and the characters within it. His constant reshaping eventually twists the world from a sitcom genre to a horror film- hence the horror esque setting, creatures, and plot. The characters didn’t escape the rewrites’ effects either. They’re warped into corrupted versions of themselves. However, these characters end up becoming sentient after awhile. The first one of these to become entirely sentient is Henry. He’s currently the only one who’s all the way out of alignment. A toon gone rogue, if you will. He still goes along with Joey’s “plot,” but it’s more so he can try to reach the other characters than to keep Joey happy or unaware of his actions. His goal is to basically “wake up” the other characters, so they can all stop living in a hellish nightmare studio and actually try and make something nice out of their home. He’s extremely dedicated to his goal. 

Character time!!! toon trio refs / corrupted refs  butcher gang refs / corrupted refs  toon henry ref  toon sammy ref / corrupted sammy ref  toon susie ref / corrupted susie ref  toon allison and tom refs / corrupted allison and tom refs  joey ref / toon joey ref  toon norman ref / corrupted ref  toon bertrum ref / corrupted ref  toon and corrupted grant refs  toon jack ref / corrupted jack ref  toon wally ref / corrupted wally ref  toon and corrupted lacie refs  toon and corrupted shawn refs 

Character relationships/orientations 

Concept art, anyone? toon trio concept work (w/ bonus corrupted bendy n alice) corrupted boris/alice concept work (ft bonus hen) butcher gang concept work (w/ corrupted forms) henry concept work sammy concept work (and more henry) susie concept work joey concept work corrupted norman concept work toon norman concept work  throwing around lost ones ideas 

Misc stuff Henry, but Goop™  Susie and Studio Tea™  Hey Henry, how do u feel about Joey?  Yo hold up, hen and polk are a thing???  Henry’s glasses saga  Regular studio shenanigans 

FAQ: 

How many of the employees are gonna show up? Hopefully all the named ones in the game! Once they’ve got a design, they’re guaranteed to show up somewhere.

Are they really carbon copies of the employees? Is there nothing different about them and their irl counterparts? They started as carbon copies! Latching onto their old traits and their old selves does help them come to their senses. However, different character development happens in script than IRL, so they end up different. Henry, for example, takes up the last name “Ross” when he wakes up (instead of his IRL counterpart’s “Stien”) to differentiate himself :0

So is everyone corrupted on purpose? Yes and no. Yes, because Joey chose to rewrite the script so much that it mangled characters, but no, because he didn’t intend to mangle them in the first place. It just kinda happened.

What makes them corrupted? Corruption is what happens when you can’t hold onto the core of what your character is, and get dragged into what the new script is telling you. It’s when you lose sight of who you are among all the chaos. People who are drawn farther away from their actual selves end up more monstrous. Susie (aka “alice” angel) is a great example of this. Bendy is too! Far be it from his real nature to be a murderous monster.

So can the toons be uncorrupted? Yup! Henry’s our model citizen this time. He looks more like a toon than a normal person, sure, but there’s nothing monstrous about him. That’s because he’s latched onto what makes him Henry. He’s not letting the instability of the world around him shake him up. Otherwise he’d be a goopy mess of ink.

Why’d Joey write everyone so differently that they corrupted? He’s actually very out of touch with people once he starts rewriting the script. Since his memories are getting foggy, he fixates on details that he can remember, and exaggerates them as needed. In fact, he’s hidden tape recorders around the script studio as built in reminders of these character traits.

How’d Henry wake up? And how does he plan on waking everyone else up? Ok… this is a longer answer. It all comes together, i promise. Jus hang with me. Whenever henry dies, he gets sent back to a sort of “first draft” stage. In order to get back to the world he’s supposed to exist in, he has to get through all the layers of ink Joey put down to get to his current script. As one can imagine… there’s a lot. So much so that Henry has to essentially swim to the surface. As he passes through all this ink, he can hear whispers of previous scripts. The deeper he is, the closer these whispers are to what the world used to be like. Seeing as Henry is the protagonist, he ended up dying… a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Joey had a lot of snags in the script to work out. All these times sent into the draft-y ink soup made made Henry slowly realize what was going on. He wasn’t mindless anymore. He knew what was up. After realizing that the world wasn’t right, it didn’t take him long to push for the rest of his consciousness. He plans on using what whispers and memories he can gather to bring everyone else back. He’s not dying on purpose, mind you, but he gathers as much information as he can to help everyone else realize that they’re not who they’re supposed to be.

Wait, memories? Does Henry remember the past scripts now? Not quite? He’s got a good enough memory stockpile to keep himself centered, but he doesn’t always know what’s up ahead as he heads through another studio loop. If Joey happens to rewrite or change around the script, those patches of Henry’s memory blip out of existence. Or at least get hazy. Hen can often tell if Joey’s changed something by how many holes he has in his memories.

Can anyone in the pocket dimension get out? Henry’s the only one who can get out! Joey literally wrote him a back door to the script. It used to be so he could talk to Henry whenever the “story” was over, but nowadays it’s just to judge how fast plot goes via how quickly Hen gets back. All Henry can manage to do is walk around and stare silently. And he can’t even stay out very long. Ink’s unstable in the real world. Gotta go back in n start the horror show over if u wanna live :/

Can Joey go in? Nope! Since he’s not made of ink, he can’t go in. He can watch tho!!! He does so via writing POV shifts into the script, and watches through whatever character it shifted to. Who needs cameras when u got the eyes of black magic toons n inky monsters ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Does Joey know Henry is sentient now? Nnnnot quite? He thinks the magic is being screwy with him. He can’t switch POV to Henry anymore, since the toon’s taken control of himself, and that’s real confusing since the writer doesn’t know what’s up. Plus, like mentioned above, Hen can’t exactly give Joey a sign once he gets out of the studio. Bummer :/

Is Joey gonna majorly rewrite the script any time soon? Nope. He’s to attached to his current plot to change the genre or anythin, so it’s gonna stay as is. With some changes here and there. One musn’t underestimate how many times u can change the order of scenes, or improve dialogue... 

AU Background:

((this is long as shiz, so get some popcorn slfkjs))

Y’all probably wanna know how this whole horror show started. I’ve got two words for ya: Joey Drew. Unsurprising! But he’s our starting point nonetheless. Joey Drew is the retired owner of Joey Drew Studios, a cartoon studio that ran itself into the ground after a decade or two of fantastical cartoons. Money problems aren’t kind to the entertainment industries. However, the studio was still his pride and joy! As are the friends who stuck by him or met him during the time it was open. He kept up with all of them through the years. They were like a little family. Unfortunately, time has a way of changing things. With his friends drifting away, living their own lives, getting up in years, or a combination of the three, Joey wasn’t doing too well. He was lonely. Feeling washed up. Missing the glory days, where he helped work on cartoon scripts instead of submitting horror and mystery shorts to local magazines. Not all that surprising that he turned to something else to cope. This thing being none other than occult magic. Because… of course it is. It’s a habit he’s had for years. Nothing like some demonic rituals to spice up the life of the creative mind behind kids’ cartoons! Especially fun when you’re a man with poor impulse control and a wild imagination. In any case, Joey summons the three main characters of his beloved cartoon series. Bendy, Alice, and Boris! (I refer to these three as the “toon trio.”) He was just as happy that he’d managed to bring them to life as he was to have them around the house. It was like having slightly unruly grandkids with toony superpowers. In other words, they were absolutely delightful!!! He took care of them and admired their antics. It was a great time. … until. Well. It wasn’t. Turns out things that don’t belong in this world get rejected eventually. After a few months, things started go go wayward. The toon trio had difficulties maintaining their forms, moving, engaging in tropes, and a ton of other things. They were miserable. Joey was understandably heartbroken to see this happen to his poor toons. So, like any good person, he tried to do the right thing: put them back on the paper they came from. It didn’t end up working exactly how he’d expected. Everything comes with a price when you mess with demonic ink. The magic not only created a stack of paper instead of a series of drawings, but latched onto an old fountain pen and Joey’s closet. If the closet thing seems odd, it is. But it’s a convenient place to hide ritual pentagrams! So, closet it is. Upon frantic examination of the papers, Joey discovered it was a script. A black magic infused script. Three names up top told him the toon trio were the only characters. A bit of experimentation led him to discover that the magic-infused pen was the only thing that could interact with the script properly. Further experimentation showed him that the script had made his closet into a pocket dimension. The contents? Whatever was in his new script. This is where the real fun begins. The new magic script practically floored Joey with awe. He had a world he could shape however he wished! He could run all those scripts he’d never gotten to put in production! He could watch his toons frolick! He could even use it to play with ideas he’d never gotten to explore. The possibilities were endless! 

((Of course, you might be wondering if Joey… y’know. Knew the toons were still alive. Because they were, they were just living in a pocket dimension now. In short? No. He didn’t. He carefully tested a few things with the script, just to make sure. All the toons did was what he wrote down. They moved like they were alive, but didn’t act that way. Plus, the dimension made them blank slates. They didn’t have any characterization in there to make them truly alive. So! For all intents and purposes? He saw them as you would any other character you write. A visual extension of his imagination. Ok mini rant over, back to the story--))

Playing with the toons was amazing. Joey hadn’t had fun like that in years! It was his little secret world, populated by his cherished toons. He could make believe whatever he wished. Eventually, though, loneliness started to catch back up to the old man. His friends… his family… life… it all went on. He just felt left behind. And what does Joey do when he doesn’t feel good? Not cope healthily, that’s for sure. Onwards to more occult magic! Only this time, he tries something… different. The toons were lonely. They deserved company. They deserved someone to take care of them. A familiar face. Maybe someone who helped Joey create them in the first place. Someone who’d just sent Mr. Drew an old letter and a card, since he hadn’t seen him in awhile… … someone like Henry. Using the magic pen, Joey traced over Henry’s note. Far from ruining the precious letter, it transferred “Henry” into the script. It’s not the real one! Basically a carbon copy, fresh from the time period that Hen first wrote the note in. Seeing as Henry’s letter came from around the time the cartoon studio was going strong, it’s an old version of him. But it was still Joey’s old friend. Just… toony. Toon Henry reacted just as his living friend would. If he wrote dialogue? He spoke it like Henry would. If he wrote some action? The toon put a classic Henry twist on it. Delighted, Joey returned to his script with renewed vigor. Toon Henry got to spend plenty of quality with the toon trio as the days went on. Thus began a trend of toonification. Missing one of his old friends? All Joey had to do was grab something with their old handwriting on it, and trace them into the script! There’s a carbon copy that acts just like the real deal! A fine compromise, right? … Right? Not exactly. It was fine at first. Joey made what could probably qualify as a sitcom-style story for the toony world to run on. His friends, at this point, all populated the studio. The premise was that the toons (now including the butcher gang!) had been summoned while he was still running the studio, and got up to hijinks with the rest of the employees. A hefty dose of actual studio drama- turned comedic, of course- kept the whole thing almost real. Joey even featured himself once or twice, but only in allusions, or a disembodied voice. He wasn’t about to let a carbon copy of himself have all the fun. It made him feel less lonely. More included. A fantasy world of never ending fun and heartwarming moments. How unfortunate it is that life doesn’t follow this pattern. Morality is a hard thing to come to terms with. So is sickness. Especially that of a friend. … it was just one rewrite at first. One alteration on a bad day. After all, using writing to cope is perfectly acceptable. One bad episode in the midst of sunshine doesn’t discount it all. One uncanny occurrence, though, doesn’t usually stay singular. It didn’t take long for the solitary rewrite to become two rewrites. Then three. Four. Six. Ten. Twenty. Fifty. More and more and more. Until the happy honey colored studio slipped into sinister sepia. This wasn’t the old script anymore. Not by a long shot.

The setting? A studio of shattered dreams.   Your protagonist? Henry. His goal? Survive long enough to escape.

~It’s quite th͝e̵͞͏ ͠M̕a͘sţe̛̕r͘p̕i̵͝e̡ḉe̡̨͜~̡̛

[mwolf0epsilon]

Hello, I'm the anon that asked for the three werewolf prompts. I thought I'd drop by and ask for three vampire ones as well if you're still taking D:bh writing requests? “So…how old are you?”, “There’s no such thing as ‘the good old days’. Every time sucks.” and “I shouldn’t have waited this long…”

Hello again Anon. Those three werewolf prompts were pretty fun to do and I'm happy to write with these three vampire ones. Feel free to pop back in if you want some more AU/Canon goodness!

On with the show. One vampire Simon coming right up (with an appropriate gif to boot), enjoy!

---

[[MORE]]

On the ride back to the Manfred household from North's family cabin, Josh can't help but fidget and glance curiously at the only person in the car that's covered from head to toe to shield himself from the sunlight. He had been pondering for a while now, why a vampire would risk sun exposure by coming out to camp out in the woods with friends.

Then, as the minutes crawled by, Josh began to ponder on something else. The way Simon had worded his friends's apparent adoption of the werewolf into their inner circle, and how the vampire apparently had been living in Markus's attic before he too was taken in, in a similar manner.

"If you keep staring at me like that, I fear you might burn a hole through my layers." The blond spoke up, startling Josh out of his thoughts, a humorous tone indicating that he wasn't so much as unnerved as he was amused.

"Sorry..." He couldn't help apologize as he caught the other's gaze under his sunglasses. "It's just... I've never actually seen a vampire before."

It was odd how werewolves were so common these days, but vampires were merely spoken about in hushed whispers. It was less terrifying to some that men could become huge wolfish beasts, but their undead kin could remain hidden behind a facade of normalcy. Simon certainly looked human enough. Enough so that Josh hadn't even realized what he truly was before he'd made his move to defend his friends. Defend them from a percieved common threat, even if he'd been rather passive at the time rather than aggressive like the rest of his pack.

Still, the werewolf saw no reason to fear the blond. If anything he was just curious about him.

"We're rare these days. It's hard to find one of us if we don't want to be found." Simon explained, seeming to have rehearsed this response. Maybe he'd had to say the same to many others before him.

Which brought another question...

"...Ok this is going to sound super rude..." Josh flustered slightly as he tried not to be too blunt "But uh... how old are you?"

At the front North snorted loudly and Josh could see the corner of Markus's eye crinkle with amusement on the rearview mirror. Simon simply stared at him before rolling his eyes and smiling.

"Old enough." He responded nonchalantly.

"What?" Josh stared, before North burst out laughing and spoke up.

"He can't remember, but he's old as fuck!" She told him, before whining when the vampire lightly punched her arm. "Sensitive about your age as ever, old timer?"

"I'll have you know no matter how old I technically am, I'll remain 28 for eternity!" Simon almost sounded like a bird with it's feathers ruffled, which was quite funny really. Almost like a cockatoo, minus the extravagant yellow display feathers.

Josh made a note not to ask about his age again tho, he doubted it was nice to be eternally youthful and then lose track of time like that... If anything it sounded like a lonely existence.

---

Mr. Manfred (who insisted Josh call him Carl because being refered to as 'mister' made him feel ancient) was a rather interesting man. An eccentric artist with an extravagantly decorated house and three bright young sons that he was proud of (even if Leo seemed to doubt his father liked him at all). Josh found in him a good conversation partner, a brilliant chess opponent, and someone who could teach him a lot about the world.

No one in his family had liked history and philosophy, so staying with the Manfreds was like paradise. Especially when he sat down and discussed things with Carl.

Another person who seemed so fond of joining their debates was undoubtedly the resident vampire.

Simon was a man of few words and many hobbies, but whenever he had something to say it often got both Josh and Carl thinking.

“There’s no such thing as ‘the good old days’. Every time sucks.” the blond grumbled once, when Carl had been reminiscing about the past. Saying how easier it was now to assume your sexuality or gender identity without being prosecuted by the public.

Simon had wholly disagreed with his opinion on the matter.

"Hundreds of years ago people would slaughter each other for minor differences. Be they gender, race, or religion." The vampire stated. "Today is the same, but the media is changing to hide it more. What's the death of a young unarmed black man, or of an innocent trans person worth to the public, when they could focus on the pressing things of life, like what celebrities are doing, or what is fashionable these days?"

Josh had been unsure what to say to those bitter words, because he knew for a fact that injustices still happened regularly. Carl had merely tried to shrug it off, not seeming all that willing to discuss it further. The artist later admitted he'd been wrong, when Leo came back with a black eye after being assaulted in a public bathroom. Apparently a guy had noticed his binder when he'd gone to wash his hands and, had Leo not been accompanied by two of his friends (one of which was a 6'7" Russian built like a goddamn bear), things could have taken a turn for the worst.

Agreeing to disagree was not something people should do with a vampire that had seen the world change and people remain the same...

---

It takes three months of living among friends for Josh to see Simon feeding off a person. The vampire is very reserved in his dietary habits, only ever drinking from a cup he keeps separate from everyone else's dishes, and he never really drinks human blood. He purchased a variety of animal blood from the butcher's, often commenting on how unsanitary human blood really is.

"I'd rather not risk catching any blood related diseases, thank you very much." The blond scoffed as he took a sip out if his cup of fish blood. "The high levels of cholesterol would also probably kill me faster than sunlight ever could... I'm an old man, my poor heart can't take it."

Josh has seen him drink pig's blood, cow blood, even snake blood if he had been feeling "fancy", as Simon would put it. But never had he seen him drink any of the types of human blood. Then, three months into his stay, Simon became incredibly sick after drinking a contaminated batch...

He vomits and shivers for days, while Josh helps Markus tend to the miserable vampire's intense fever. North goes to the butcher's to complain and comes back furious when the man doesn't provide so much as an apology or a refund. They help Simon through the sickness and are relieved when he begins recovering.

But then, when Josh walks into his room one day, Simon has this pained distant look as he curls in on himself and clutched his stomach as if he were dying.

He looks deathly pale with darkened (almost black) veins snaking under his waxy skin, and sunken in eyes and cheeks that make him almost look cadaveric. His fangs (which Josh learned are kept within special sheaths like those of venemous snakes) are visible and gleaming in the low lighting of the attic that had been converted into his friend's comfy room. As soon as he locks eyes with Josh, he begins to salivate heavily before whimpering softly.

"I shouldn’t have waited this long…” Simon is shaking from the pain in his empty gut, but also from the amount of control he's trying to maintain over himself. Josh can see that unmistakable predatory need to pounce rolling off his twitching frame. Simon's instincts want him to hunt. Hunt his friend for sustenance. But Simon doesn't want to hurt anyone. He's too kind for that.

Josh can't bare seeing him suffer like that, especially when they don't have any fresh blood to give him.

All three of them (Josh, Markus and North) decide he's suffered enough from food poisoning and donate a portion of their blood, so that Simon may feed and replenish his health properly.

The blond dislikes drinking from people, but the eagerness to drink from their willing veins is more than enough for him to loose at least an ounce of self control.

He practically crashes it Markus when the tan freckled man exposed his neck to him, and sinks his teeth and grips his shoulders hard enough that his sharpened nails break skin. The noises that escape him are almost obscene and Markus becomes flustered as Simon suckles and laps up the warm life giving liquid. He lets go when Markus starts getting woozy and his legs begin to give out, moving on to feed from Josh next.

The sensation is an odd one, intimate even. The werewolf can smell Simon's desperation, and feel his neediness against his skin, before the blond has had his fill and moves on to finish quenching his thirst with a smaller sum from North. They gave more than her, because they were larger and because Josh would heal faster.

Markus is a little weak for a few days after, while Josh bounces back quickly due to his own beastly nature. North promises to give more the next time something like this happens.

Simon is embarrassed about the whole ordeal, but grateful nontheless.

He hopes there won't be a next time, and seeing him so weak and inhuman makes Josh hope the same. Still there's no closer bond than that of letting a loved one feed off your life source.

As odd as that might sound.

[continuouscalamity]

CHAPTER 7 TRIAL SUMMARY

"Without further ado..."

"FIND THE KILLER."

"Let the SSSky High Trial of Nori Hisssakawa..."

"SSSTART."

Done by Mod War

The unknown girl’s body was first discussed. Her corpse was described as “very bloody”, which also showed the blood as a day or more old. As said by Michio Abe. This brought up the possibility of her not dying that day.

Ayato asked where the corpse would have been stashed, which brought up the question of a hidden place. Tsuru did find one.

[Tsuru] looks at Michio, nodding again. "There was one...! I pushed a small bit on one of the walls and it opened up!"

"It went to.... This secluded hallway in the dorm area."

"If it's in the dorm area, it could imply the murderer is... one, one of us, and two, knows how this ship works to use a secret passage way." - Michio Abe

However, Tsuru, being the traitor, was suspected, along with her skill with weapons. 

Shizuki saw a knife placed in the cabinet.

"Saw a... recently cleaned knife... in a display cabinet. Was put in there... sloppily." - Shizuki Maeda

After that, is was briefly discussed that nobody has the keys to access the armory cases.

The snakes brought the trial back on track.

"...Did anyone else see the yearbook." Maemi is less focused on the murder right now, more confused about Nori's mere presence. "Someone was...cut out. Not Nori." - Maemi Miura

Then, her bloodied ID card was discussed, which made it unreadable.

Maemi brought something up as well.

"It says on her ID profile...that she's the Ultimate Student Council President." Maemi says, closing her one eye as if that will help her think any better. "And in the yearbook...it says...we're graduating." Okay, where's she going with this? 

"...If we were a class...why don't we know each other. From before, I mean." Sorry, this isn't murder related, but she's a bit preoccupied.

Then everyone went ham over their collective amnesia.

Michio brought things back in the trial.

"The crime scene... uh, the office, was very neat and tidy. Barely a hair out of place, aside from... well, Nori. I only noticed that the plants in the office were withered and dead." - Michio Abe

"...Because she doesn't like nature. I don't like that." - Shizuki Maemi

Then, Ayato brought something else up.

"The cabinet.... It had students records listed, but one was blank" He's throwing something out there.

Then, Shizuki brought up her profile.

"...It was just her talent and her hate for nature. Rest was... scribbled.  ...Said she... did her job well. Perfect fit for her... talent. Cool in situations. " - Shizuki Maeda

Most likely a leader, which could’ve tied in with the motive.

Maemi brings up the ID.

"...There was another ID." Maemi says. "A broken one. It was in...the halls of the dorm. Near Damien, Jun, Michio, and Reina's rooms...I can't get it to work."

Then, Ihun and Ayato shared the photo clues.

The snakes claimed that the photos have not been changed.

After that, some mastermind clues were shown. A specific one, is a taped box labelled with 8, which held the files of Michio.

He explained his intentions, along with Nori’s true intentions.

Worldwide devastation.

The votes come in.

And Michio was revealed as the mastermind, harboring time-travelling technology which jumped from his doomed timeline to the current one.

Michio tells of his experience of being a lab rat to scientists, which caused him to kill his younger self and kill Hisakawa.

After the votes came in, he explained that the class was to blame, because they were the class that ended the world.

Nobody took this well.

However, there was this one person who didn’t take it well.

Nori Hisakawa, who miraculously revived from the dead with a gun in hand, and shot Michio in the leg.

How so? She used the same time-travelling 

She explains her true intentions, exactly as Michio said.

The students retaliated, having a brief moment of hope where the gun is taken away, but somehow, she got it back through means of violence. A long period of violence, mind you. Some people tried to keep Michio alive, but that wouldn’t part of her plan.

Taking Michio into her clutches, she proposes a decision.

“Now then, as I was so rudely interrupted, you have two options to decide your fate, classmates. Here they are,” Clearing her throat, a preparation of what’s to come.

“Option A: You all choose to execute me and crash this ship for good, a zero percent chance that any of you kids could survive. You will be free of my influence, and of Abe-san’s timeline meddling for good.”

"Option B: You all choose to spare me, and we land the ship safely. Sound good…? The only catch is that you will be under my control from then on, and you join me in my Doomsday cult… again.”

“Now vote carefully, your lives depend on each of them, after all. All votes must be unanimous. Not a single choice out of line, or we all die.”

The masses chose A.

Disappointed with the class’ choice, she complies.

“Surely, I doubt you’d appreciate my sentiment. But know that I love all of you poor little saps, even if you’ve made the wrong decision.”

Nori Hisakawa is seen one last time before she slams her hand on the button, large chains emerging from the darkness to wrap around her and Michio and dragged into their final judgement.

Both Michio and Nori are executed.

WARNING: SHIP SYSTEMS FAILED TO MAINTAIN STRUCTURE. EMERGENCY LANDING WILL COMMENCE IN 5 MINUTES.

Ayato’s quick thought brings everyone to the Control Room, where they saw the falling skies through the window.

They still tried something.

Pressing random buttons gives you no outcome. Nothing noticeable anyways. You all stand together, watching the window outside the control room as everything begins to plummet quickly beneath the clouds, revealing a widespread forest, lush greenery being the last thing you ever see, letting the feeling of your final moments of freedom wash over you. 

 It was too late to do anything now, but it will soon be over.

Final moments were exchanged with each other, even Tess going for one final selfie with the trial.

The ship crashes.

...

......

..........

The smell of smoke and burning wood invade your senses. They invade your senses, but you can see. Past the rubble and wreckage of the ship, a peek of light shines past two large metal beams that shielded you in the collision.

You're alive.

A sea of waving smoke surrounds you all, but you are breathing. It seems like the ship has crashed at the bottom of a hill.

With everyone gathering together to the top of the hill,

the killing game has ended.

TRANSCRIPT

[kyluxtrashpit]

Okay so this started as an addition to @sinningsquire‘s recent post and the subsequent discussion but then it kinda took on a life of its own and then it got REALLY STUPIDLY LONG so I’m going to avoid cluttering the notes and just put my ramble here on my own blog lmao. Anyone is free to disagree, this is just me being inspired by the discussion and adding some thoughts, but this is also how the characters come across to me and I’m unlikely to change my mind at this point. Also I’m putting it behind a cut, but if you’re on mobile, I am so fucking sorry omg. Go filter ‘long post’, refresh, and then you’ll be okay

So the thing about Kylo and Hux that I keep coming back to years into this ship is that they’re complimentary opposites, which I think this is another example of. While I am on team ‘Kylo is going to be bad at Supreme Leadering’, I don’t think that necessarily means he’s bad at all leadership and military-related things ever. Because he’s not, it’s just that what he’s good at vs what Hux is good at are different things and there’s more to Supreme Leadering than a military operation

(Opinions lie beyond here! Read at your own discretion!)

First, I will say I’m basing more of this on TFA’s considerations than TLJ’s because TLJ suffers from Good Guys Need To Win syndrome really badly and that was honestly my biggest complaint about it, even immediately after coming out of the theatre. This is far from a rare occurrence and many sw villains have been essentially neutered by this (e.g. Thrawn in Rebels; one of the greatest Imperial strategists sort of succeeding like once ever and otherwise being repeatedly outsmarted by a child for most of the series). Hux was the most obvious victim of it (tbh I don’t think Kylo was ooc at all in TLJ), but I also think Snoke got hit a little too. Basically RJ painted the Resistance into such a tight corner that the only way he could get them out was to make the FO, which had apparently just recently claimed a big victory, look like complete morons

Personally, I’ve headcanoned Hux being useless in TLJ as a result of his repressed post-Starkiller breakdown. He just lost his life’s work and his boss physically abused him in public over it at least once, so it adds up, for me. Thus most of this comes from TFA and the pre-TLJ novelizations. But anyways. I’ll say now if you’re hard on the useless Hux train, you’ll probably disagree with every point below here lmao

So the thing about Kylo is that he seems good at small-scale operations. Give him a single squadron or a small group (e.g. his Knights) and I think he can get the thing done effectively, provided his emotional state remains stable (which, with him, is a pretty big concern). As some pointed out in the notes on the post that inspired this, he does do alright on Takodana. The mistake he makes is in taking the unknown quantity that is Rey as opposed to the known quantity that is BB-8, though in his defence, there’s no way he could’ve known just how badly that would go. And perhaps he did so partially because the Resistance had arrived and he didn’t have time to find BB-8 before it got messy when she was right there, so I’ll give him that one. He does make some other strategic mistakes, such as in the snow fight when he makes the mistake of underestimating and toying with Finn, but perhaps we can chock that up to his emotional state, him actively bleeding out at the time, and the fact that everyone seems to underestimate Finn. Still, I think he’s largely successful at small-scale stuff, as long as he’s relatively calm (note: he is not calm nor successful for the entirety of TLJ, aside from killing Snoke, which he had help with in the form of a distraction , so I won’t really go into it. It is the most cunning we see from him in any piece of SW media, but it appears to me to be an outlying example. It’s also the only time he’s ever managed to succeed at something he set out to do, aside from killing Han, which was only emotionally difficult, not mechanically so. But anyways)

As an aside, I also don’t think the main argument of Kylo’s family is enough of a claim to show he’s a good leader. Some go so far as to suggest leadership is genetic by discussing Padme, Anakin (who was Not Great, but did succeed sometimes), etc. but that’s not a thing so I’m not going to. He could have studied them, and maybe he did, but it’s not ‘in his blood’. Leia may have exposed him to some politics, but it’s hard to say. Last Shot suggests he spent most of his time with Han when he was little and we don’t know how young he was when he went to Luke, where he would’ve seen nothing. He could’ve been sent away at 5-6 and never even seen the Senate, or Leia could’ve brought him to Senate meetings regularly so he could learn until he was sent away at 15 or something, but as of now, there’s no proof either way. I mention this because of its popularity, but I don’t personally find the argument convincing either way and I don’t believe we know enough to say for sure

Now Hux, Hux is good at large-scale operations. He’s in charge of the Stormtrooper program, which he adapted from previous methods and has had exactly one aberration slip through the cracks ever. He commands the Finalizer and was chosen to work at the same level as Snoke’s personal apprentice, the two of them sharing second-in-command to Snoke (who appears to do fuck all). He’s also in charge of Starkiller and though there is some debate as to how involved he was with it, he certainly oversaw its construction and usage. Lastly, he also oversees the FO’s entire suite of technological advancement projects, according to TLJ. So Hux already has a lot on his plate that he’s managing and appears to be doing at least reasonably well at these things. Hux can command and organize and I don’t think anyone can dispute that

In terms of flaws, he fails to stop Finn and Poe from escaping partially because Poe is That Good and partially because he overcomplicates it, which tends to be the flaw of all big-picture thinkers (also, some luck on their side, considering they both survived the crash. iirc Poe didn’t in the original script, but Oscar asked JJ to please not make him die this time. So perhaps a bit of Good Guys Need To Win too). Small-scale fucks him up because he makes mountains out of molehills and that’s where he’s weakest, as seen also when Poe comes in with a single ship in TLJ, with the chase of the Raddus, etc. He’s capable of running large-scale operations, as I mentioned above, and while there’s debate on whether or not he’s a good strategist, I tend to lean towards ‘a bit above average’ for no other reason than it feels right to me, but there isn’t really any definitive evidence either way. He is also arguably the least responsible for Starkiller’s destruction; yes, there was a weak point, but it was shielded well and unavoidable to have. Phasma lowering the shields and Kylo not finding the explosives due to family problems are both more responsible than he is, imo

(Hux’s other fatal flaw is his underestimation and low opinion of the Force, which will most likely be what kills him regardless of how things play out, but that’s not terribly relevant to this discussion so)

So, with all that in mind: Supreme Leadering. What does that actually entail? Well, it is large-scale, which gives Hux the advantage based on my arguments, and even if we accept he is completely useless at strategy, there’s just so much more to it than that. The Order is now in control of the galaxy at large and needs to manage it, something Snoke most likely would have delegated based on what little we know of him. There’s making and maintaining trade routes, there’s managing supply lines, there’s bureaucracy, there’s the prioritizing of projects, there’s lawmaking, there’s the managing of staff, citizens, etc. This is essentially nation building we’re talking about here, except on a galactic scale. It’s complex, it’s tedious, and it is a massive undertaking, the kind of thing that Hux seems like the type to masturbate thinking about, given how he appears to thrive when taking care of large projects and also his power fantasies

And when it comes to Kylo? The thing is is that even if he could do it well, even if he could look at the big picture and effectively manage people and all of it, I don’t think he cares to

So not only do I think Kylo is ill-suited to something that large, as I originally discussed, I more importantly think he would hate it. Kylo hating paperwork may be fanon, to my knowledge, but it’s one of those things that no one ever really contests because it fits his character. Kylo is not patient. Kylo does not care about the bigger picture. Kylo is self-centered, as in he is focused only on his own interests, not those of anyone around him, even within an organization he claims to support. “Personal interests”, anyone?

In the TFA novel, it’s noted that Hux refrains from yelling at his staff even when he wants to because he knows it will only stress them out and make them sloppy. Kylo is known to violently attack those under him when he’s upset. So even if Kylo has the troops’ fear, Hux has their loyalty (the TLJ novel disagrees with some of this, most notably concerning the older Imperials, but tbh I doubt JJ is taking that anywhere so I’m ignoring it for now. They’re relics of a dying age, anyways. If I end up being wrong, though, I will adjust haha). Pablo Hidalgo explained on his now-defunct twitter, when asked why Kylo didn’t just rip the location of the Resistance base from Poe’s mind, that the reasoning is that he only wanted the map; the Resistance was Hux’s problem. This is in spite of the fact that the Resistance is the FO’s problem in general and Kylo is not only part of the FO, but a high-ranking member. There is also the failure on Crait, which was legitimately embarrassing, and while, yes, that was largely due to his emotional state, Kylo is in a state of emotional crisis for most of his screentime. So, not exactly a great defending argument. I also strongly suspect that will be a continuing trend with him until his inevitable death and/or redemption

These are not signs of a good leader. I also can’t see Kylo suddenly being interested in building a government, even if he could do it. Because he’s going to be focused on getting revenge on Rey for rejecting him, eliminating any fledgling Jedi Order she may or may not be attempting to make, and possibly a plot with his mother. Kylo’s motives have not and do not align with building a nation and at no point does he even seem to care about that in any capacity that involves actually doing something about it

So. This got really long but the main points here are that Supreme Leadering and military strategy are different skills, Hux and Kylo are good at different things (large-scale vs small-scale), and that even if Kylo could Supreme Leader effectively, he most likely doesn’t care to meanwhile Hux seems like he’d actually be pretty good at it (and, even if you think he wouldn’t be, at least he gives a fuck). So uh, yeah. There’s my significantly more than 2 cents and if you actually read this whole thing, then applause for you because it’s longer than the last fic I posted XD

[piermanwalter]

Star Wars Army Swap AU Part V: Condensed History of the Droid Wars

Due to my ipad dying, Part 5 is coming out before Part 4, and there are no arts. Sorry about that.

In a galaxy where the Confederacy of Independent Systems went super into biotech instead of mass industrialisation, and the Jedi’s secret deal with the Kaminoans fell through so they had to create a different army, the Republic soldiers are droids and the Separatist soldiers are clones. 

SUPER SUMMARY: Darth Plagueis makes some contingency plans in case he dies. Nobody could have predicted how far the ultimate plan of galactic domination of the Sith spiralled out of control because of that. Palpatine is in denial about how uncooperative and dangerous the Separatists are and eventually gives up on controlling anything further than the Mid Rim.

Before the War

After millennia, the Sith, once though to be extinct, begin plotting to take over the galaxy by splitting it in two, forcing the sides to fight, then seizing control of the galaxy after they wasted their lives fighting each other.

Darth Plagueis uses his industry contacts of his public identity as Magister of Damask Holdings to slowly shift the huge corporations from mass manufacture to biotech in order to further his goal of immortality by skimming lab data off their work. He sets up the foundation for a fully fledged clone army.

His apprentice, Darth Sidious, uses his political clout as Senator Palpatine to increase resentment of the Outer Rim planets towards the better funded and protected Core, and eventually gets elected as Chancellor of the Republic. Right after the day of his election, Sidious kills his master. Unbeknownst to him, Plagueis planned so if he ever died, nobody could control the galaxy in his place.

After the death of Plagueis, there is no one to keep an eye on the experiments he secretly planned, and the biotech of the galaxy is able to advance unchecked. Made-to-order organs become nearly as cheap as cybernetic replacements. Cloned celebrities and war heroes are mass produced and sold illegally to crime syndicates as slaves and enforcers. 

Count Dooku abandons the Jedi Order as Darth Sidious’s new apprentice. His first mission is to procure an army for the demilitarised Republic to fight the biotech clone armies of the newly formed Confederacy of Independent Systems. Erasing Kamino from the Jedi Temple archives, he sends fellow Jedi Sifo Dyas to order the Kaminoans to produce another clone army. A squad of Dwarf Spider clones from the vehemently anti-Jedi Commerce Guild managed to kill Sifo Dyas before he could get to Kamino, so Dooku is forced to commission the army himself. 

The Techno Union is able to isolate a strain of Force-sensitive single-celled algae from the Dathomiran Water of Life, and are trying to find medical applications for it as a lucrative bacta replacement. SoroSuub Luxury Consumer Products releases a line of extravagantly expensive anti-aging creams filled with deactivated midichlorians. Count Dooku is incredibly concerned about these new developments, but Darth Sidious dismisses them as false advertising and mad science that is scary to the weak-minded, but will ultimately go nowhere.

Five years later, Dooku visits Kamino to discover legions of well-trained clone cadets, but an enormous mistake was made. All of them were being indoctrinated to serve the Confederacy. The Trade Federation hacked into his comm lines to discover Dooku, the head of the Separatist Council, ordering a massive secret clone army. Assuming the new clones were for them and not the Republic, as any sane person would, Viceroy Nute Gunray sent vast shipments of food and supplies to Kamino in thanks, leading to the Kaminoans believing that they were the true clients. Dooku is unable to correct himself without everyone knowing he is playing both sides.

The galactic civil war is put on hold for six months so Dooku can sort out this unmitigated disaster. Instead of two equal armies to fight an endless stalemate, the CIS gets a colossal super army, and the Republic gets no army. Eventually he is able to commission Kuat Drive Yards and Cybot Galatica to put together the best droid army they possibly could at short notice. Five years had already been wasted. The Battle of Geonosis, the first conflict of the Droid Wars, begins two years behind schedule.

Now, finally, rebellion stirs in the Outer Rim.

Early Droid Wars

Following this truly embarrassing series of insubordination, Sidious orders the entire Separatist leadership together and electrocutes hundreds of them, including Dooku, in a single devastating wave of Force lighting. Threatening them all with the terrifying legends of the Sith of the Old Republic, he tells them all that the Sith will rule the galaxy again and there is no way to stop them.

The Confederacy ruins the mystery of the Sith by announcing everything they learn about them on public broadcast. Once arcane Sith legends like Bane, Nihilus, and Plagueis become household names. 

The Trade Federation disobeys because their cloned ysalamiri renders them immune to most types of Sith attack. The InterGalactic Banking Clan disobeys because they hold too much sway over the galactic economy and the clone army itself. The Techno Union disobeys because Foreman Wat Tambor has threatened to release the entire Sith data archive left by Darth Plagueis in Tambor’s estate on Hypori.

The Confederacy of Independent Systems officially announces its rejection of Sith control. The Jedi have no idea how to react, but are pressured by the rest of the Republic to keep fighting. Many Jedi, such as Bariss Offee and Pong Krell, abandon the Republic to fight for the CIS.

Without a firm leadership, the Separatists dissolve into in-fighting, clone rebellions, and near-constant treasonous conspiracy. Republic propaganda mocks them as being dysfunctional and unfit for government, whereas the CIS itself views the successful revolutions and constantly shifting balance of power as a true example of Separatist spirit. If anything, since the CIS never had a centralised leadership to begin with, all it does is make them even less predictable. 

Count Dooku still keeps in contact with the Separatist council, even leading clone armies by himself, partially to maintain some semblance of Sith control, partially to keep tabs on these dangerously subversive alien freaks at all time, and partially because he is legitimately proud of what the Separatist cause has become, but Sidious doesn’t need to know that. One morning, he wakes up to check the holonet and receives a message about Wat Tambor cloning himself 600 times, listens to three minutes of a two-hour paranoid rant from Admiral Trench about how everyone wants to kill him, a report from a spy droid about Asaji Ventress’s death cult, a report about the Republic droid troopers turning sentient, and a message from Sidious threatening to dismantle him chromatid by chromatid if he is unable to get the Separatists to spend much more money on the war, then he goes back to sleep because that’s just the way things are now.

Late Droid Wars

Leading machines to fight against living beings is beginning to take a psychological toll on the Jedi commanders. The Grand Droid Army of the Republic splits in half by leadership, with conflicts of Jedi-led armies being more for show and protection while the Jedi try to negotiate peacefully with enemy leaders, while conflicts of non-Jedi-led armies are the most brutal in history, as many human Republic military leaders do not see their cloned enemies as sentient beings. Republic news castigates the Separatists for using child slaves as soldiers, while the Separatists argue that Jedi Padawans are also child slaves.

Piecing together old lab data left behind by Darth Plagueis, the CIS tries to make their next generation of new soldier strains Force sensitive, with partial success. Strange supernatural occurrences begin to appear among the battle clones. Commando Tup is able to sneak across an active battlefield and shoot two Jedi one after the other. An Aqua Clone survives a hull puncture of a Mon Cal space station by somehow swimming faster than water being pulled into the vacuum of space. An injured pilot-class B2 regrows an entire lung in one week without medical attention. General Kraken sends Dooku a heartfelt video thanking him for such useful electromagnet arms, levitating a metal blaster between his new mechanical hands. The cybernetics do not contain electromagnets.

Asaji Ventress, Savage Opress, and other Sith acolytes are terrified of this new development. The Force powers that once made them so indispensable are now being thrown around by lab-grown barely sentient meat. They leave to the Unknown regions to start a death cult together before their masters realise how obsolete they are. 

General Grievous attacks Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, and managed to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine. Sidious intended to let himself get captured on purpose while remaining completely safe at all times, but at this point, he can’t be sure anymore. Although Palpatine was later rescued by Kenobi and Skywalker, the residential district near the intended target, the Jedi Temple, was destroyed when half of Grievous’s flagship crash-landed into it, killing over a million people. Count Dooku dies in the process.

Anakin Skywalker is rejected from becoming a Jedi Master and joining the Jedi Council because of the many needless deaths in the Battle of Coruscant. He is extremely angry at this verdict. It was Obi-Wan’s fault as much as his, but he still gets to be a Master. If it weren’t for the Super Tactical Clone Tey-Zuka punching them both while they were trying to steer half a ship and seizing the controls, nobody would have died.

Darth Sidious orders the Separatist Council to meet on Mustafar. Naturally, none of them listen to him and they all disperse to random corners of the galaxy.

Darth Sidious enacts Order 99, not as the capstone of a perfectly executed plan, but out of desperation. There are no other choices for him. Turning against their leaders, the clones gunned them down, then each other.

Chancellor Palpatine, in the middle of the greatest wave of Republic victories in the Droid Wars, suddenly shuts down the Grand Droid Army. The Jedi, fighting easy battles against confused and leaderless opponents, find themselves without soldiers and are slaughtered. Mace Windu survives and leads a Jedi team to assassinate the Chancellor. Skywalker fights them off, but not before Palpatine is disfigured.

Anakin Skywalker follows the intel trail and goes to Mustafar, but nobody was there. Sick with rage, he massacres the native Mustafarian miners until Obi-Wan and Padmé Amidala try to stop him. After Anakin killed Padmé, Obi-Wan kills Anakin and disappears. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Order 99 had limited effectiveness, since the low standards of manufacture meant that not every clone was implanted with a brain chip, and the higher level clones with more willpower were able to intercept the signal anyway. Many Separatist leaders are still at large. Sidious sends his mysterious new apprentice Darth Vader on a mission to kill them all. This takes two and a half years.

In the meantime, the Jedi Temple, heavily damaged by the debris from the Battle of Coruscant, loses funding and support from both the Republic’s government and its citizens. The newly discovered Sith faction is much more effective than the Jedi in fighting Separatists and the Jedi are blamed for the civil war stretching on for so long. Some Jedi with good foresight were able to evacuate, but when Darth Vader assaulted the Jedi Temple, he left no survivors.

Beginning of the Galactic Empire

Palpatine announces that both the Republic and the Confederacy were weak and corrupt because they both rejected the teachings of the Sith. The remains of the Republic are reforged into a Dark Side theocracy, the Galactic Empire.

The Death Star is finally completed, bringing much stability and pacification to the newly formed Galactic Empire. In a shocking move, instead of destroying any of the dangerous Confederacy-aligned planets such as Skako or Kamino, the first planet to be destroyed is Alderaan, a peaceful low-populated planet with no military, simply for their leaders possible ties to the Rebel Alliance.

Under control of Order 99, the human Commando Clones are incorporated into the Imperial Army. Supertac Tey-Zuka is finally captured in the Coruscant underlevels on the opposite side of the planet he crashed on. All Banking Clan assets are taken by the Empire, including their private army of IG-Strain Assassin Clones. After brainwashing and threats, many previously Separatist clones now work for Palpatine.

The Empire cuts off all transmissions in a radius of 40,000 light years from Coruscant. There is nothing beyond it. All of the Separatists are dead. All of the Jedi are dead. Good obedient Imperial citizens have nothing to fear. The old maps with so many planets in Wild Space are wrong. They are Separatist propaganda to make their territory look bigger than it truly was. Anyone who claims to come from a planet that does not exist, such as “Tattooine”,  “Felucia”, or “Utapau” is lying. Report them. We should not worry about Separatists when there are space accidents to worry about. The asteroid storms are getting worse and we are losing more ships than ever. Do not waste time and energy reporting Jedi or battle clone sightings to us. All of them are dead, except for the fortunate few we rescued and reformed. You have nothing to fear.

A PIRATE SIGNAL BREAKS THROUGH THE FIREWALL!

Once again, rebellion stirs in the Outer Rim.

Many anti-Imperial organisations were able to form outside the jurisdiction of the Empire, but it was a real challenge for any of them to communicate with rebels within Imperial territory. Travelling freely from the Outer Rim to the Core is borderline impossible. Instead of directly aiding the Core Rebels, the Outer Rebels indirectly fought against the Empire by disabling signal blockade satellites, smuggling datachips, and other ways of spreading subversive information. 

Despite Imperial propaganda, entire communi    of battle clones and droid troopers can be found all over the galaxy. With the clones seeing the Empire giving up entirely on controlling the Outer Rim as a Confederate victory, and the droids seeing the Empire’s absolu   control of the Core as a Republic victory, the two armies were       to reach a compromise. Although some small skirmishes between droids and clones still occur, they are nowhere nea  the scale of the conflicts of the Droid Wars.   wever, many clones and droids still do not believe the war has ended and   ntinue fighting the each other, the Empire, and the rest of the galaxy.

   eral Kalani, a Separatist Super Tacti   Clone, is confirmed to still be in operation.  e Empire turned a blind eye to his actions, since most of his attacks seem      e  gainst  he cell of Rebel terrorists led by Saw Gerrerra.

Many clones  nd droids found ne  jobs as bounty hunters. IG-88 is obv ously an unauthorized indepen     IG-Strain          ssin Clone. Boba Fett, regarded as the greatest bo              in the galaxy, is rumored by some to      a Separatist Commando Cl      , and by othe    to be an ARC-Class Republic droid troope

Jedi sightIngs abouND in the Outer Ri      ee from the tyranny of the Empire,         have jo ned th   ebellion, whi   some    re content to live            in peace     bscurity. A few new Temples                        

Ahsoka Ta  , Jedi     n               Rebe              Core Rebels, the Ghost              influen                   oid trooper Captain Rex                        he wAs a Padawan when                      possi      l       smuggli                     connections wi    w Gererra                       ered Kalani                  small but dangero    nough to the Empire that                          arkiN, the Inquisi        Vader, and Palpatine himself.            

h         Sk              r                                 Bai                                        Lars     l             are, in fact, the childre        nakin Skywalker   s                                      ei                   ed          t            g                h          wa                          c    

[wjrnow]

Health Benefits of Walking, Jogging, and Running

In a bid to stay fit and in shape, people resort to various means. From fad workouts to crash diets to weight loss services, the fitness industry revolves around helping people lose weight. Throughout the US, obesity and weight-related disorders have become almost like an epidemic, with every third person unhealthy and out of shape. Being overweight has both physical and psychological effects. It affects appetite, confidence, productivity, and overall wellbeing. Unfortunately, a large number of people are affected by such unhealthy lifestyles and excess weight-related issues.

While blindly following fitness trends, we often tend to forget that there are simple everyday solutions for staying healthy and in shape. For instance, everyday exercises like running, walking, and jogging can be highly beneficial to both physical and mental well being if done on a regular basis. Whether a beginner or an exercise pro, walking, jogging, and running are meant for all, and the benefits they offer can improve health and vitality at all stages. All three of these are forms of aerobic exercises, aiding in weight loss and flexibility over time.

Walking Vs. Jogging Vs. Running

The common factor shared by walking, running, and jogging is that they are all forms of aerobics. Aerobic exercise is popularly known as “cardio” because it trains the heart to pump blood more efficiently. Aerobic means exercises performed at a steady pace over a continuous period. Walking, swimming, running, using the treadmill, dancing, and cycling are all forms of aerobic exercise, which pump more oxygen into your body by increasing the heart and breathing rates. The level of intensity of aerobic exercises isn’t too high, because the aim is to not make you breathless, but provide more oxygen.

The basic difference between walking, jogging, and running is intensity. Jogging is more intense than walking, and running is more intense than jogging. All three are a natural progression of the other. Walking progresses to jogging, which progresses to running. The correct way to measure the difference between the three is the amount of energy they burn. To put it simply, walking, jogging, and running are ways to transport ourselves from one place to another, using our own energy and muscle power. Walking is the easiest to differentiate from jogging and running; walking is a lower intensity and so common that most people don’t even consider it exercises. But even though walking is lower intensity, it can be effective in maintaining good health and vitality.

For every liter of oxygen that we breathe, we burn about five calories. The harder the muscles work, the greater is the oxygen demand they make, and the more oxygen we need. This is how the difference between walking jogging and running is measured. The better the fitness level of a person, the less oxygen he needs to perform higher intensity exercises. This is why an athlete will find that he jogs at the speed which everyone else runs at. This is because professional athletes have better aerobic conditioning and a higher level of endurance. The speed at which he jogs will depend on the load on his muscles and the oxygen demand on his lungs. The easiest way to distinguish between jogging and running is the ability to hold a conversation. While jogging, it is possible to talk and breathe normally, because the oxygen load on the lungs is not too great. This is why it qualifies as jogging and not running.

Walking costs the least energy, but the faster we walk, the greater the energy expenditure. We start to breathe heavier, until the point when the energy cost exceeds a threshold and walking becomes more like jogging. For instance, someone walking at a speed of 10 kilometers per hour has a higher oxygen requirement than someone running at the same speed. Therefore, the moment the energy expenditure exceeds the threshold, the body switches gears from walking to jogging to running. When the speed drops, the amount of energy required also drops dramatically.

This change from walking to jogging to running is made by the body automatically to be able to optimize how it moves and how it uses the available energy. This is why maintaining a particular speed is required if someone tried to lose weight using walking, jogging, or running. The faster the speed, the greater the calorie burn. Using ankle and wrist weights are also useful in pumping up the calorie burn. A slow run or jog is helpful to maintain everyday agility and fitness, but not enough for weight loss. A fast power walk using weights is more effective than jogging at a slow speed. Jogging at the top of the range is also more effective than running at a moderate pace. The greater the speed, regardless of the type of exercise, the more calories are burned.

Health Benefits of Walking, Jogging and Running

Regardless of whether or not you are trying to lose weight, walking, jogging, and running have several health benefits spanning mind and body. All three of them involve rhythmic forward action of the legs targeting the large muscles of the lower body, including the hip flexors, gluteus maximus, quadriceps, and hamstrings, besides the gastrocnemius and the anterior tibialis. The hip abductors and hip adductors are also important because they stabilize the hips and legs. Along with the legs, the core muscles are also involved in walking, jogging, and running. The core muscles help keep the torso erect as the arms swing with the movement of the legs. For walking, jogging, as well as running, proper alignment of the torso is highly essential. This keeps away the stress from the joints and lower back. Whether you walk, jog or run, the abdominal muscles must be kept engaged, and the right upper postural position must be maintained by keeping the shoulders relaxed but straight and making sure the arms are never too high by keeping a lot of distance between the shoulders and the ears.

Let’s take a look at the various health benefits of walking, jogging, and running.

Improved Cardiovascular And Pulmonary Fitness

The two organs most significantly involved in all three – walking, jogging, and running – is the heart and the lungs. The heart pumps blood, and the lungs supply oxygen. Experts recommend that cardiovascular or aerobic exercises are the best way to improve heart and lung health. Cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness is enhanced by increasing the capacity of your body to use oxygen. This is achieved by increasing the heart’s capacity to pump blood to the muscles, which happens through the increase in the size of the heart’s ventricles. When the capillaries increase in size, the heart doesn’t have to work hard to pump blood. This gets proved by a slower heart rate at rest and also a slower heart rate during exercise. When you keep walking, jogging, running regularly, you will notice that these activities become easier. You will also notice that you are able to do the activity for a longer time (called endurance), and also at a higher intensity (running at a faster speed). Even when you are not exercising, you will find an increase in your day to day stamina.

Better Sleep

Adding walking, jogging, or running to everyday routine has also been found to improve sleep and prevent sleep-related disorders. In a study involving 50 people, half of them were asked to walk, jog, or run as part of their daily routines, while the other half was not. The first group walked, jogged, or ran for about 30 minutes every day, five days a week, for a period of three weeks. It was found that the people in the first group slept much better and had improved psychological functioning compared to the other group. Walking, jogging, or running regularly improves the circadian rhythm, promotes daytime alertness, and helps stimulate sleep at night. Aerobics have also been shown to improve sleep for those who suffer from sleep disorders like insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea.

Calorie Burn

The simplest of all exercises is walking. You don’t even have to jog or run. Simply walking at a fast pace for 30 minutes a day can burn more than 100 calories. If you want to take it a notch higher, you can jog at the top of the range or run at 5 miles per hour for 60 minutes. At this rate, a person weighing 160 pounds will burn more than 500 calories in an hour. This goes on to show that you don’t need to spend money on that expensive gym membership. Simply jogging or running for an hour every day is an easier way to burn calories and get in shape.

Prevent Cognitive Illnesses

If you dread age-related cognitive illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia, the best you can do today is include running, jogging, or simply walking to your daily routine. Even if you aren’t old, aerobic exercises like walking, jogging, running or even swimming can dramatically improve memory and cognitive function. In research on the brain-boosting effects of aerobic exercised like running, jogging, or brisk walking found that it improved working memory and concentration in children and young adults. In older adults and seniors, aerobics have a long list of cognitive improvements, including memory, concentration, and task switching.

Increased Lifespan

It goes without saying that if your bodily functions remain normal, your hormones and blood pressure remain under control, and your heart and lung health also remains top-notch because of exercise, you are likely to live a long healthy life. Getting at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise like walking or jogging on a regular basis, reduces your chances of dying from any cause. Getting an hour or more of exercise every day also makes you resistant to various forms of cancer, according to research.

Goal Setting

Walking is a fairly common activity that almost everyone engages in on a daily basis. But since jogging and running are more intense than walking, they require proper goal setting. If you treat jogging or running like a proper exercise regime, you also need to know why you want to do it. Without a proper goal, you may lose motivation quickly and may also fail to track your progress. As with any form of exercise, when you have a goal in sight, it makes you enjoy the process even more and also motivated you to get better. Think about what you want to achieve from walking, jogging, or running. Reasons may include:

Getting Healthy And Fit

If you are a beginner with no prior experience exercising, you should start slow, possibly with walking or jogging at a slow pace. Walking and jogging are also the perfect warm-ups to any intense form of exercise. If you are too lazy to try other intense forms of exercise or simply don’t have the time, jogging or power walking is a good way to get fit and flexible. Progressing from one stage to the next takes a few weeks, depending on your flexibility. If you have no prior exercise experience, make sure to take it slow and not get frustrated with your lack of progress.

Overall Fitness And Flexibility

You can mix walking, jogging, and running with other exercises such as sports, swimming, or strength training.  This not only makes you more flexible but also helps maximize your overall fitness.

Weight Loss

Losing weight and getting into shape are two of the biggest reasons why people start to exercise. If you want to lose weight with running walking or jogging, you also need to have a healthy diet that includes fresh fruits and vegetables, wholegrain cereals, lean meats, and low-fat dairy products. You also need to reduce or stop the consumption of processed and takeaway foods, dietary fats, aerated drinks, and sugar.

Companionship

Your fitness goals can help you make new friends. This usually happens when you go for your walks or jogs every day and strike a friendship with others like you. In fact, simple exercises like walking and jogging bond people more than intense exercises in the gym. You could either accompany a friend or join a local club. Having someone to exercise with also serves as motivation and guidance. If you don’t normally get to meet too many people every day, a running or jogging club can be a great option.

Competition

You never know how good you are until you compete against others. This is why taking part in running or power walking competitions is a good way to put your skills to test. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, various running or fitness clubs have various types of competitions for all stages of people. In many cases, you don’t even have to be a member of that club in order to take part in competitive events. You can compete to test your skills, have fun, or to stretch your boundaries. In these competitions, you can put your skills against that of the others. Various community events have facilities for people of all ages and different abilities.

Beginner Walking, Jogging And Running Tips

Just about anyone, regardless of age or physical fitness, can start walking, jogging, or running. But for complete beginners who have never exercised before at all, even walking and jogging come with a few warnings. Following these guidelines reduces your chances of injuries and muscle strain, and also helps you get the most out of your exercise routine. Make sure to check with your doctor before you start power walking jogging or running. This is more important if you are above the age of 40, overweight, suffer from a chronic illness, or have never exercised before. Even if you don’t have a serious illness, you should consult with your healthcare practitioner before starting to exercise for the first time. Go for a pre-exercise screening to uncover medical conditions that may put you at a higher risk of facing a health issue during physical activity. You may not even be aware you have a certain condition until you go for the pre-screening. This acts like a ‘safety net’ and helps decide if the health risks associated with physical activity outweigh the benefits for you. Discuss the pre-screening result with your doctor.

Always start slow, preferably with brisk walking. Even 30 minutes of brisk walking per session is a good enough exercise for a beginner. This should be continued for at least six weeks, gradually building up to jogging and regular running. Your aim should be to increase your duration with each session, alternating between walking jogging, and running. Warming up and stretching before you begin any physical activity is your body’s way to prepare for exercise. If you start running or jogging the moment you get out of bed, you risk injuring and straining your muscles. Cooling down is also important, preferably with some light stretches. Never forget to take a water bottle with you whenever you’re out exercising. Having plenty of fluids to drink is essential during any physical activity because you’re going to lose fluids in the form of perspiration. Try to drink before, during, and after any physical activity, including walking, jogging, and running.

Don’t train every day of the week. There must be at least two full days of rest per week, in order to prevent overtraining and injury. If you do want to exercise on your rest days, consider a low impact activity like walking or swimming. When out walking, jogging, or running, make sure to avoid the ‘peak hour’ in the mornings because that’s when air pollution is also at its peak. Always choose a park with running or jogging tracks, and the time your exercise either early in the morning or late in the evening. Your clothes and shoes play a vital role in keeping you comfortable. Always wear loose cotton clothing and also wear a proper pair of walking or running shoes. Do not wear your old, worn-out pair of sneakers. The ideal shoe should be flexible, bend with your feet, and also be shock absorbent. Always get the correct size that isn’t too loose or too snug. The wrong shoe can often be the cause of injuries.

Your Way Forward

A lot of people don’t have the time to go to the gym or the ability for intense exercise, even if they do want to get fit. For those people – and anyone who wants to enjoy a better quality of health – walking, jogging, and running have incredible benefits. You don’t have to subscribe to a gym membership or buy fancy equipment. Simply get a pair of running shoes and head to the nearest park or jogging track. You can also join a club for power walking, jogging, or running, and enjoy the benefit of making friends and getting motivated on your way to fitness.

[tenkohime]

Zero Escape Headcanons & Crack Theories

One of the things I like about this series is that since the Multi World Theory is true in it, it’s really fun to come with theories for it. I have a buttload of them, so I’m going to organize them by character.

Gentarou Hongou

Headcanon

He’s a member of Free the Soul of Y. Actually, everyone responsible for the Nonary Project was a member.

Light Field

Headcanon

While modern technology could restore his sight, he never feels the need to do so.

He’s really upset and disappointed that Clover made fun of Sigma for only having one eye.

He will kick Sigma’s perverted ass for being a scumbag to Clover.

He dies of Radical-6.

Crack Theory

One of his groupies is the religious fanatic that killed eight billion people.

Aoi Kurashiki

Headcanon

He dies of Radical-6.

Clover Field

Headcanon

Part of the reason she acts so strangely during the AB Game is that she can’t access her brother’s morphogenetic field. The other part is obfuscating stupidity. Her act would have worked if the situation was as she believed it to be. Since it’s not, she comes off as an idiot instead of cunning.

She is fine with older men. Her hangup with Sigma is that he is a perverted piece of trash. OTOH Junpei is her type.

Junpei Tenmyouji

Headcanon

Sudoku is his hobby. After he finishes his coursework, he lays down in bed and solves puzzles until he falls asleep.

During the AB Game, he is still able to SHIFT, but he does it instinctively instead of aiming for a certain time and place like in the Decision Game. During the AB Game, when Sigma trips out when Tenmyouji voted differently in one history than in another, and Tenmyouji begins to ask Sigma questions, if Sigma had answered Tenmyouji’s questions instead of dodging them, then Tenmyouji would’ve told Sigma. He doesn’t remember it being called SHIFT, though. He just knows he can do it.

The Free the Soul HQ he and Seven busted was the real deal. Not a decoy. Brother was salty AF about it, so that’s why the AB Game puzzle makes his team mates microwave his hand, like it’s a fucking Hot Pocket or some shit.

Akane Kurashiki

Headcanon

Akane is a cat that like rabbits. She’s the cat in all of the Nonary Games and in the Decision Game, her avatar is a knock-off Nendoroid cat girl.

Cats normally eat rabbits. Sigma is the rabbit. So, it’s natural she kidnaps him, but she likes rabbits, so she is doing what she thinks is best for them.

Following the second Nonary Game, most of the members of Cradle Pharmeceutical’s board of directors died or went to prison. After that, Crash Keys, under a pseudonym, became the majority shareholder, but they do not control the corporation. They do make money off of it, though, and they access to all kinds of “toys”. Wonderful, wonderful “toys”!

She makes an unusually large amount of money off of licensing Lagomorph’s design to companies. Post-apocalyptic businesses just think it’s the cutest thing. Sigma gets a cut, of course.

Part of the reason she’s so inhuman in the future is that so many of the people who grounded her are dead. She could have prevented their deaths, but if she had, then she would not know how to prevent even more people from dying, since the only future she knows where two billion people are alive is the one where the AB Game takes place.

Her password is on her ID, because she keeps forgetting it. She’s a klutz like that.

Crack Theory

She and Carlos are Quark’s grandparents. After the Decision Game ended and Radical-6 was unleashed upon the world, she found out everything about the future. Since she then had to recreate that future in order to close that time loop, Quark has to be alive in the future to be in the AB Game and Junpei has to find him with his dead birth parents. Carlos and their children all died of Radical-6. Carlos knew this was going to happen, but was on board with it, because the alternative sounded even worse. 

Seven

His real name is embarrassing. Like Nana. His name is Nana.

Hazuki Kashiwabara

She was on the verge of finding out everything. Every fucking thing. Her kidnapping was very much a thou knoweth too much sort of thing.

Sigma Klim

Headcanon

Sigma is a rabbit that likes cats. He’s the man on the moon, like the rabbit of the moon. According to Chinese folklore, the rabbit of the moon is making medicine and he’s a doctor and he really does have medicine. He has the most children, one of them is a rabbit, and another is known for jumping and kicking like a rabbit. He is tied for having the longest legs with his sons. His 67 year old body and his daughter both have white hair, like a stereotypical white rabbit. One of his sons has pink hair, like a pink bunny rabbit, though it’s really from his gray and red hair making it look pink. Heck, even Sigma being a pervert when he was 22 is rabbit-like. Screwing like rabbits, anyone?

Cats eat rabbits. If Akane is a cat and Sigma is a rabbit, then is it surprising he ends up kidnapped by her?

The cats that granted him the ability to talk to cats, cursed him to speak only in cat puns, and cursed him to speak in cat puns whenever he talks about cats were the cat version of espers. They gave him access to the cat morphogenetic field. Since there aren’t many human minds with access the cat field, this is how all cats can understand him and he can understand all cats. The curse was transmitted to the field and specified Sigma. This is why it only affects him and not Kyle. It would affect transporter clones, though, since it copies the mind too.

He was originally studying to become a veterinarian. This is how he was able to give Diana an answer about how much the food in the bar would last them. One of the puzzles in Rhizome-9 was about human nutrition, so it stands to reason that he knows that from experience. But dog nutrition? One of his skills is the ability to memorize all kinds of shit. That’s an invaluable skill for a student trying to get a DVM to have. He probably memorized that. Also, he loves animals. Not just cute and fluffy ones either. During the AB Game, he actually felt bad about the dead frog.

As fucked up as it is, he was happy about not having to pay back his student loans after the economic collapse brought forth in the wake of Radical-6.

67 year old!Sigma finished all of his coursework early before going to DCOM, because in the worst case scenario, he had to maintain the timeline of turning everything in on time. In the best case scenario, no more coursework! Yay!

He has contracted every cat zoonotic disease, even the fatal ones.

His 21 year old body has Toxoplasma gondii. His 67 year old body does not, because he sought treatment for that a long time ago.

He wants to have a cat, but the universe keeps conspiring against him to not let him have a cat. His parents won’t let him have one and cats don’t take well to the low gravity of the moon.

He relates to that Can’t Hug Every Cat video too damn much. He watches it and cries.

He LHAO when he watches videos with trained cats that having people overdubbing them, because it sounds like bad lip syncing to him.

He cries when he watches those ads with the sad cats, because he can understand him. If he couldn’t, then he’d still be really sad. Because, come on, they’re just so sad.

He has no reason to believe dogs can’t be understood as much as cats can. When he talked to Gab, it was less a man talking to an unthinking thing than it was as a person talking to a being speaking a language he couldn’t understand.

All of the books in his library that aren’t used to do AB Game puzzles are about cats. All of them. Every single fucking one.

He could’ve picked any damn book about quantum mechanics to use for the AB Game. He picked the one with cats on the cover, because kitty.

Akane had to work really hard to convince Sigma not to make a cat AI.

Akane: Like, I saw the future and it was a rabbit.

Sigma: But kitty. 

He can’t die of old age. His children can’t either.

He told his parents everything. They believed him. They weren’t even surprised. They were just, like, oh, of course, things like this always happen to you. Then, his mom was, like, yay, grandkids!

His parents are untrained espers around Light’s and Clover’s levels. They knew something bad was going to happen to Sigma around Christmas, but they weren’t sure what. That’s why they were trying to convince him to come over for the holiday.

67 year old!Sigma is rich, but he has Lagomorph keep track of his finances, so he doesn’t know off of the top of his head how much money he has.

He doesn’t know Akane made Lagomorph licensing deals. He know he’s making money off of something, but he never cared to ask what.

His prosthetic eye can take photos. The feed can also be changed to any camera in Rhizome-9.

You could have sex with the GAULEMs. As perverted as 22 year old!Sigma is, I’d be more concerned if you couldn’t. He’d explain it as that if he wants to replicate the reality of the human condition and sexuality is a part of that, then he would have to include it to get accurate results. He had sex with only the chassis from Hephaestus Systems used as the base for all of them to make sure it worked.

During the AB Game, he didn’t notice he was a young man in an old man’s body, even though there were reflective surfaces around, because he’s a pervert and whenever he’s around water or something, he’s also around women. Why would he want to look at himself when he look at ass and titties instead?!

Sailor Moon is his favorite show. It has everything. Women, talking cats, magic, swim suits...

Phi

Headcanon

1904!Phi and Delta weren’t raised together. One of the researchers already had a baby and didn’t feel they could take care of them both, so they took in Delta and the other researchers raised Phi.

The researchers had no idea how the transporter worked. They put Phi in there and pushed random buttons. That’s why she was sent to 2028 instead of some time more practical for the researchers to research how the transporter to work, such as seconds into the future.

2028!Phi still keeps contact with the researchers who raised her. Heck, she’s even friends with the ones who use social media. She has a feeling that old pink haired lady with impeccable fashion sense would like to know what she found out during the Decision Game.

There’s no reason the Phi and Sigma on the moon can’t SHIFT to different 2028 histories. Otherwise, the anagram The Man on the Moon Rules Infinite Time wouldn’t make sense. It would have to be The Man on the Moon Rules Some Time, which is not as impressive. The problem is they have to figure out what those histories are and neither are extremely good at receiving from the morphogenetic field. So, they’d have to train to get good enough to receive the information that a different past history existed.

Crack Theory

1904!Phi is Aoi and Akane’s ancestor. That’s why Aoi looks like Phi and why all of them are espers.

Kyle Klim

Headcanon

If he were allowed to dress himself, he would dress like weeaboo trash.

Quark

Headcanon

He’s an esper in the same way all humans are espers. He’s not strong enough to be considered one like Clover. Because the morphogenetic field is real and because danger and epiphany make it easier to access it, when he was about to commit suicide while infected by Radical-6 during the AB Game, he started talking about Free the Soul, because he was receiving that information from the morphogenetic field.

Crack Theory

Akane and Carlos are his biological grandparents. A Myrimidon is his biological great grandfather. That means no matter what, he’ll end up teamed up with a relative during the AB Game. Since relatives are shown to form receiver-transmitter relationships more easily, him talking about Free the Soul could be because he’s getting information from them.

Dio/Left

Headcanon

Dio’s only bald faced lie is that he was kidnapped at a gas station. All of his other lies have a grain of truth to them. Free the Soul of Y really does own a circus and the leader of the Myrmidons is its ringleader. When the leader gets killed on a mission, his successor becomes the next ringleader. The circus’s employees just think it’s a family business and that the ringleaders just have a strong family resemblance. A Myrmidon is Carlos and Maria’s father, so he really did have a baby daughter. He really is interested in space. He likes cats and dogs equally, because he had a pet cat and Brother had a pet dog. He told the truth about killing Akane for the bracelet and not killing anyone else. The penalties technically killed his other victims, but they could’ve avoided the penalty if they were okay with going through severe physical pain. Everything he said about Free the Soul was true. He doesn’t lie in any of his in character puzzle hints either.

He has three jobs, assassin, ringleader, and geneticist. The geneticists who were kidnapped and tortured to death taught him everything they knew.

His gentlepoints really are high. Gentleman assassins exist.

The password to Sean’s helmet is Left’s birthday backwards. It’s also the date Sigma sent his twins to. This is why the researcher couldn’t take both of the twins in. Only one. That one was Delta. Since they didn’t take Phi, this is why she was used to test the transporter.

Left is not a code name. That’s his real name. His parents had tons of names in mind, but after his mom saw him, she was, like, “Left. He just looks like a Left.” But in German. And the rest was history.

His knife has his title on it, so he doesn’t forget it. Otherwise, he’d be, like, which knife is my knife? This one? That one?

He doesn’t know Delta isn’t his biological brother. He also doesn’t care.

He doesn’t know Delta is a mindhacker, because he never told him. He just thinks he has some sort of divine power.

A Myrmidon is Diana’s ex-husband. He was ordered to abuse her to make sure she signed up for DCOM.

He thinks Luna is beautiful, because she unconsciously reminds him of Diana.

A different Myrmidon is Carlos and Maria’s father. Yet another Myrmidon is the arsonist who killed their parents and caused Maria to get Reverie Syndrome. The arsonist being a Myrmidon is also why he was never caught. Free the Soul would’ve swept that under the rug. Brother needed Carlos to join DCOM, but for that to happen, he had to be born, his esper powers had to be awakened, and he had to have incentive to join. This was the surefire way for this to happen.

Brother had sent Left on a mission to conceive his children, but didn’t tell him that using any words that could possibly be interpreted that way. Since Brother can read minds, he just set things up, so it would extremely likely that Left would succeed at that mission. So, Left went out of his way to hide the fact that he had kids from him, since he knew he’d be super-duper mad at him, since he was supposed to stay a virgin forever. Little did he know that the whole reason he told him that was because he didn’t know which random jizz was the one he needed for his plans, so it was easier to tell him to abstain from sex.

He’s a literal hive mind. Going by the game’s computer analogy, he’s many monitors controlled by one computer. You can destroy one monitor, but there are more where those came from. This also means when Left got cloned the first time, 1904!Left’s mind was in that body.

When Free the Soul began its cloning projects, the clones were produced the old fashioned way using its members who volunteered as surrogates. Because of this, there’s an age range between the clones and the older ones have to raise the younger ones.

He got his ass whooped while on a mission and was taken to a Cradle Pharmaceuticals backed hospital. While he was there, he saw a beautiful nurse and fell in love with her on first sight. When he recovered, he returned and struck up a conversation about the universe with her. She was not only genuinely interested, but she followed the conversion. He thought, “Wow, she’s this beautiful and has brains too. She must be the one.” And married her. It was not to last, though. Brother ordered him to convince her to join DCOM by any means necessary, but he couldn’t tell her to join, because that would just be suspicious. This is also why Q used robots instead of Myrmidons, since it would be stupid to order a Myrmidon to convince someone to go somewhere with more Myrmidons and because she would’ve recognized them.

Left’s parents gave him and Delta crossbows to play with. He was an adult before he found out crossbows aren’t normal playthings for children.

Crack Theory

A Myrmidon is Quark’s biological great grandfather.

Alice

Headcanon

She is either a SHIFTer or a regular human who is as much of an esper as any other human who took a ride along with Sigma and Phi when they SHIFTed. If Sigma had told her he was an esper or that he was time traveling, then she would’ve told him the truth.

How quickly one succumbs to Radical-6 depends on how their perception of time relates to that of reality. Perception will always lag behind reality, but if it’s close enough, it’s no problem. Some people will lag less than others, which normally isn’t a problem. After you become infected with Radical-6, though, the difference of milliseconds starts to become noticeable in real time and it will drive you batshit insane. Quark and Alice commit suicide first, because their normal perceptions are closest to reality. Quark, because he’s young, and Alice, because she unconsciously did the math and realized something wasn’t adding up.

Crash Keys ends up on her shit list after the AB Game.

Carlos

Headcanon

Carlos and Maria’s parents were both members of Free the Soul of Y. Their father was a Myrmidon and their mother was a devout follower who had no problem doing whatever Brother said and was fine with Dio’s occupation.

Carlos and Maria were given name to match their parents. Carlos’s mother has a name that matches him, while Maria has a name to match their father, Dio.

There are two Carlos. He is the only character who could pull this off without going nuts. His future and present self had a good, long conversation and now, he’s chilling on his couch and eating Hot Pockets.

His father’s clothes fit him.

Crack Theory

He’s Quark’s grandfather. After he broke Akane and Junpei out of bomb shelter, Akane chewed him out, drugged Junpei, and told Carlos everything, even the fucked up shit. Carlos was heartbroken, because he knew Akane and Junpei loved eachother, but that they wouldn’t be able to be together; he’d die before he could see his children and grandchild;  Akane would have to shoulder this burden; and he felt partially responsible.

When he used the transporter to go back ten months into the past, he ended up at a Free the Soul HQ, but everyone thought he was Left, so they let him do whatever he wanted. He just thought they were really amiable researchers.

Q/Brother/Delta

Headcanons

He’s gay.

He’s sex repulsed.

His eyes are purple, because of partial albinism. They’d be blue, like his mother’s, if he had more melanin.

I thought this was canon, but I don’t see anything confirming it, so I’ll post it here. Mindhacking works via the morphogenetic field. Telepathy is receiving from the field and controlling a person’s action is sending to the field. He can still send and receive, like a vanilla esper can too.

He set the CQD teams up on purpose to have members be interested in eachother sexually, because he wanted to know if nature or nurture was more important when it came to breeding espers, SHIFTers, and mindhackers.

He’s a shipper on deck with an agenda. Since he can read minds, he plays matchmaker with people who are interested in eachother, so that they can benefit him. This was the case with Carlos and Maria’s parents.

He has a shipping chart. A motherfucking shipping chart.

He has a hate-on for Left, because he had sex with Diana. That wasn’t part of the plan! He will never tell him that, though.

Gab is his pet. He lives with him. He is a good boy who goes bork.

He sent Dio to the moon instead of going there himself, because he has the same heart condition as Diana.

The mission from God is real. His future self gave him the mission, but he didn’t know that until he became him.

God gave him that mission to prevent him from ending the world. He also told him to raise Left to be the Myrmidons to prevent Left from dying the same way he did before, because Left is naturally inclined to be a nice gentleman, which is how he died in the first place.

The god of Free the Soul of Y he was going to tell Akane about are the people playing the game/?. This is why Akane knew who ? was when they met. Akane was, like, LOL, when he told her and then, she was, like, are you SRS?!

There are as many clones of Delta as there are of Left and they were produced the same way. Since he can’t SHIFT and because he’s not a hivemind like Left, the clones mindhack to get information on how to be like Delta and are groomed to replace him if something should ever happen. This is how Brother is still able to give orders in the future, even though he died in an explosion before Radical-6 broke out of the bomb shelter.

If Junpei and Crash Keys didn’t fuck with Free the Soul, he would not have known who they were.

The reason he participates in DCOM, even though he can mindhack remotely, is because the third reason for the Decision Game was to entertain him. When he said he found mindhacking SHIFTers enjoyable, he meant it with all his heart. This is the most fun he has had in decades and he’s not going to spend it holed up in a box seat when he can be there on the field instead. He's going out of his way to produce scenarios that would be most entertaining to whatever Delta finds this out in another history. The Delta in the golden ending was probably LHAO when the SHIFTers shifted to where he was. Like, really, you thought I was blind, deaf, paraplegic man?! LOL! Junpei’s hand got microwaved like a Hot Pocket! This is some good shit right here! Mira is just running around stabbing people instead of helping them by telling them all the shit she found out? Glorious! And so on and so forth.

The reason he gives Carlos the gun is because he’s the only team leader who can make a choice. He is Team Q’s leader, which rules him out. Diana is his mother, so she won’t choose to kill him. So, that leaves Carlos.

The nautical theme naming of the teams, C, Q, and D, is meant to be a callback to The Titanic, because Lord Gordain came up with the original Nonary Game and Delta intends to end these games with the Decision Game.

Delta knew Lord Gordain personally. He uses his robes for Free the Soul of Y’s members, because he thinks they look cool.

All of Team Q’s members are sources of Axelavir. In the history that leads to Virtue’s Last reward, he purposefully sets Team Q up to die to destroy the hope spot anyone could’ve gotten from extracting Axelavir from them. Since Delta has clones, Axelavir could be extracted from them after the virus already got out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Axelavir was a Cradle Pharmaceuticals product.

Whoever is the acting leader of Free the Soul has the blue bird music box on his person.

The early 20th century was such a crapsack world that he awakened as an esper early and didn’t realize mindhacking wasn’t normal until he told Left about it nonchalantly and Left was, like, no, not everyone can do that.

After their parents died, he had to raise Left, which was hard, because they’re the same age. Then, Left died and Delta was, like, fuck the world like Tupac until God gave him a mission.

He didn’t know he had a twin sister until he was much older. By that time, they had grown far apart, so he didn’t attempt to contact her. Because she would’ve kicked his ass after she found out what he did.

He has a crew cut, because he’s embarrassed by his pink hair.

The toys used for the Decision Game’s players’ avatars exist. Children are playing with them at HQ.

Crack Theory

Delta was the religious fanatic, but SHIFTers changed history so much he isn’t anymore, but he doesn’t have any way to know that.

If timey-wimey shenanigans and the snail didn’t interfere, 2028!Delta would’ve ended up with Sean.

Diana

Headcanon

Diana grew up amongst hunting culture. Her family had hunting dogs and she has gone bow and gun hunting, herself, but she has never used a handgun. After the Decision Game, she never wants to use a gun again.

She met her first husband at work. He was not her patient, but he was apparently a patient there in the past and he fell in love with her at first sight. He wanted to talk to her about the universe, which is something that legitimately interested her. They hit it off. He was a perfect gentleman, but as time went on, he got creepier and creepier and more and more abusive to the point where she feared for her life. Even though they divorced, which he handled unusually well -- she didn’t think he’d sign the paperwork -- he kept harassing her at work.

The hospital she works at is owned by Cradle Pharmaceuticals.

Rebecca was not set up to tell Diana about DCOM. She remembered she was interested in space, so she told her about it, herself.

She’s a source of Axelavir. She always dies of something else before she can contract Radical-6, though.

Mira

Headcanon

Mira is a virgin. This is canon, but bears repeating, because I keep seeing people saying it’s symbolic, even though all the other X-Passes are literal and hers isn’t even the only one about sex. Delta is just creepily interested in other people’s sex lives.

She saves the world when she goes back in time and chooses not to become a serial killer. The events the snail put into action stopped when she chose not to kill Eric’s mom.

I thought this was canon, but I guess it’s really fanon. Anyway, Mira is able to smile a real smile at the end of the game, because SHIFTing re-installed whatever was missing in her morphogenetic field.

She thinks Zero keeps forgetting to drug her and she doesn’t want to say anything, because she thinks she’ll end up reminding him to drug her. She just keeps pretending to be drugged and when no one’s looking, she runs around and stabs people for funsies.

She doesn’t have a consistent MO during the Decision Game, which means she may have killed more people, but no one knew, because they didn’t match the Heart Ripper’s MO.

All the BS Mira says is true, because the danger and epiphany of the Decision Game is turning up her connection to the morphogenetic field to the max.

Eric

Headcanon

He grew up in hunting and gun culture. He normally isn’t such a bad shot, but his team leader keeps fucking with him.

Sean

Headcanon

Since the reality in the quantum computer is meant to be indistinguishable from reality, Sean is able to age in real time. Delta only has the one body for him, because he didn’t think he’d need any others.

This is another fanon I love: Sigma made him a head.

If he ever needs a sex bot body, he knows where to turn. Sigma’s got this.

[ladystylestores]

‘I Can’t Turn My Brain Off’: PTSD and Burnout Threaten Medical Workers

The coronavirus patient, a 75-year-old man, was dying. No family member was allowed in the room with him, only a young nurse.

In full protective gear, she dimmed the lights and put on quiet music. She freshened his pillows, dabbed his lips with moistened swabs, held his hand, spoke softly to him. He wasn’t even her patient, but everyone else was slammed.

Finally, she held an iPad close to him, so he could see the face and hear the voice of a grief-stricken relative Skyping from the hospital corridor.

After the man died, the nurse found a secluded hallway, and wept.

A few days later, she shared her anguish in a private Facebook message to Dr. Heather Farley, who directs a comprehensive staff-support program at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del. “I’m not the kind of nurse that can act like I’m fine and that something sad didn’t just happen,” she wrote.

Medical workers like the young nurse have been celebrated as heroes for their commitment to treating desperately ill coronavirus patients. But the heroes are hurting, badly. Even as applause to honor them swells nightly from city windows, and cookies and thank-you notes arrive at hospitals, the doctors, nurses and emergency responders on the front lines of a pandemic they cannot control are battling a crushing sense of inadequacy and anxiety.

Every day they become more susceptible to post-traumatic stress, mental health experts say. And their psychological struggles could impede their ability to keep working with the intensity and focus their jobs require.

Although the causes for the suicides last month of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, and John Mondello, a rookie New York emergency medical technician, are unknown, the tragedies served as a devastating wake-up call about the mental health of medical workers. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, their professions were pockmarked with burnout and even suicide.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization issued a report about the pandemic’s impact on mental health, highlighting health care workers as vulnerable. Recent studies of medical workers in China, Canada and Italy who treated Covid-19 patients found soaring rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia.

To address the ballooning problem, therapists who specialize in treating trauma are offering free sessions to medical workers and emergency responders nationwide. New York City has joined with the Defense Department to train 1,000 counselors to address the combat-like stress. Rutgers Health/RWJ Barnabas Health, a New Jersey system, just adopted a “Check You, Check Two” initiative, urging staff to attend to their own needs and touch base with two colleagues daily.

“Physicians are often very self-reliant and may not easily ask for help. In this time of crisis, with high workload and many uncertainties, this trait can add to the load that they carry internally,” said Dr. Chantal Brazeau, a psychiatrist at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Even when new Covid-19 cases and deaths begin to ebb, as they have in some places, mental health experts say the psychological pain of medical workers is likely to continue and even worsen.

“As the pandemic intensity seems to fade, so does the adrenaline. What’s left are the emotions of dealing with the trauma and stress of the many patients we cared for,” said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, the chairman of the emergency department at St. Joseph’s Health in Paterson, N.J. “There is a wave of depression, letdown, true PTSD and a feeling of not caring anymore that is coming.”

____

Screw all of you now I see exactly why the only thing left to do is suicide. — a Facebook post by a St. Louis paramedic in April

After Kurt Becker, a paramedic firefighter in St. Louis County saw that post, which included a profanity-laced screed of frustration and despair over the job, he sent a copy to the man’s therapist with a note saying, “You need to check this out.”

“I’m reading this, and I’m ticking off each comment with, ‘stress marker,’ ‘stress marker,’ ‘stress marker,’ ” said Mr. Becker, who manages a 300-person union district. (The writer is in treatment and gave permission for the post to be quoted.)

The paramedics are part of a “warrior culture,” Mr. Becker said, which sees itself as a tough, invulnerable caste. Asking for help, admitting fear, is not part of their self-image.

Mr. Becker, 48, is himself the grandson of a bomber pilot and son of a Vietnam veteran. But his local has been hit by a dozen suicides since 2004, and he has become an advocate for the mental health of its members. To maintain his equilibrium, he works out and sees a therapist.

“The virus scares the hell out of our guys,” he said. “And now, when they go home to decompress, instead, they and their spouses are home schooling. The spouse has lost a job, and is at wit’s end. The kids are screaming. Let me tell you: The tension level in the crews is through the roof.”

Many besieged health care workers are exhibiting what Alynn Schmitt McManus, a St. Louis-based clinical social worker, calls “betrayal trauma.”

“They feel overwhelmed and abandoned” by fire chiefs who, she said, rarely acknowledge the newly relentless demands of the job.

Many paramedics, she added, are “aggressive and depressed. They are so committed to the work, they are such good human beings, but they feel so compromised now.”

Brendan, who asked for his last name to be withheld to protect his privacy, is a 24-year-old paramedic firefighter who works 48-hour shifts on the tough north side of St. Louis. His unit has been so busy running calls that he goes for long stretches without showering, eating or sleeping. He is terrified he might infect his fiancée and their daughter.

“We got a letter from our chief saying that there’s a national shortage of gloves, gowns, masks and goggles because the public is taking them,” he said. “Then we walk into Walmart and see that 90 percent of the people have better masks than we do.”

With no end in sight to the crisis, Brendan sought out a therapist.

“We are a lot quicker to be angry with each other,” he said. “Any little thing sends us over the edge. But among the older guys in their late 30s and 40s, it’s not OK to talk about things. So all anyone talks about is alcohol.”

____

“They were coming in very sick and deteriorating so fast. I was carrying a lot inside me, and I was very sad when I came home. I was feeling like I wasn’t doing a good job. My mother-in-law is a nurse, and she saw I needed help so she connected me with a therapist.” — Kristina, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens

Therapists around the country, many affiliated with the Trauma Recovery Network, which includes a large New York team, have been lining up to offer free treatment to medical workers. But the number of requests for help has been modest.

“People are nervous that if they pause to get treatment, they’ll crash, ”said Karen Alter-Reid, a psychologist and the founder of the Fairfield County Trauma Response Team in Connecticut, who has treated disaster-relief workers at school shootings and hurricanes.

The reasons to offer front-line workers specialized trauma therapy now are both to forestall destructive symptoms from settling in long-term, and to patch up depleted people so they can keep doing their jobs with the intensity demanded of them.

Since mid-March, Dr. Alter-Reid’s group has been treating dozens of emergency medical technicians, doctors and nurses. What distinguishes this pandemic as a traumatic experience, she said, is that no one knows when it will end, which protracts anxiety.

Medical teams, she noted, keenly miss the familial, visceral contact. They are used to hugs, backslaps, and sharing beers after a rough shift. Now, safety strictures have shut all that down.

Through Zoom group therapy, the crews have been regaining some semblance of solidarity as they unburden with each other, unmasked, through a computer screen, hearing everyone talk about similar struggles: Living away from families, to keep them safe. The smell of disinfectant in their clothes and hair. The clumsy haz-mat gear.

As they tap, which can sound like group drumming, she asks them to recall a challenging case when they each prevailed, and to share it.

Through these sessions, she tries to help them subdue memories of fear, failure and death so they can summon their innate resilience: Remember what you can do.

____

I have nightmares that I won’t have my P.P.E. I worry about my patients, my co-workers, my family, myself. I can’t turn my brain off. — Christina Burke, an I.C.U. nurse at Christiana Hospital, Newark, Del.

A nagging detail sticks in Christina Burke’s mind like a burr. Not only is hers the last face that patients see before they die, but because of her mandatory mask, all they glimpse are her eyes.

Her identity as a compassionate nurse feels diminished. She longs to lift up her mask and reveal her full self to patients.

At 24, Ms. Burke has already worked in an intensive care unit for three years. She has loved the connections she made with patients and their families, but those experiences are now largely gone.

“I can’t imagine one of my relatives on their last breath with a stranger,” said Ms. Burke, who is close to her own family but hasn’t been able to visit them for two months.

One recent day, overcome with sleeplessness and despondency, she contacted Bridget Ryan, a member of the hospital’s peer support program. In Ms. Ryan’s office, she tearfully unloaded.

A March study in JAMA Psychiatry looked at the psychological impact of the epidemic on health care workers in 34 Chinese hospitals, reporting that nurses, especially women, carried the heaviest burdens. They had elevated rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia.

The prevalence of burnout and suicide among medical professionals has been widely studied. As the pandemic invaded the West Coast earlier this year, Stanford psychologists gathered focus groups in their medical system to explore how to shore up mental health.

Researchers flagged workers’ limited capacity to manage Covid-19; their fears of contaminating family members; the moral code-bending decisions about when to use limited, life-saving resources. But much distress could be headed off if hospital leadership created a proactive, supportive culture that included ways for workers to express concerns and feel heard, the researchers wrote in JAMA.

ChristianaCare, a four-state health system, began assembling such a protocol five years ago. The program provides group support and daily inspirational texts. Twice a week, doctors and staff meet senior leaders. It set up designated “oasis” rooms, outfitted with low lights, massage chairs and meditation materials, where stressed workers take a breather.

“We’re trying to provide them with psychological first aid,” said Dr. Farley, an emergency medicine physician who directs ChristianaCare’s Center for WorkLife Wellbeing.

Peer counselors are quickly available. “No one else understands what we’re going through,” Ms. Burke, the I.C.U. nurse, said. “It doesn’t sound like much, but that program has changed the world for us.”

At the end of her meeting with Ms. Ryan, the two women, both in surgical masks, shared a social-distance-defying hug. Ms. Burke said she emerged refreshed. For the first time in two months, she slept through the night.

To address safety fears, ChristianaCare offers disposable scrubs, which workers tear off at the end of a shift. It also has a gratitude program, in which former patients return to thank their healers. At a time when so many Covid-19 patients are dying, such exchanges, said Dr. Farley, reconnect demoralized staff to “why we do what we do.”

Dr. Farley and her team check on hospital crews, pushing carts loaded with hand lotion, anti-fog lens cleaner, protein bars, chocolate and solace.

Every time, Dr. Farley said, “There is someone crying with me, and it’s 3 a.m. They’re exhausted. They need this.”

____

I see all these people coming in to the hospital now who are really sick, and I’m wondering, could this be me one day? There are a lot of unknowns. And the anxiety is amplified, knowing what happened in my household. — Dr. Andrew Cohen, an emergency medicine physician at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, Paterson, N.J.

When Dr. Andrew Cohen, 45, is working his shift at the hospital’s emergency department, he is fine. He has the thick emotional skin characteristic of his high-octane profession. He dons his gear, turns his adrenaline up to a quiet, steady hum and focuses on saving lives.

But hours before the shift starts, he becomes foggy, anxious, hesitant. And as soon as it ends, he performs a cleansing ritual that even he labels “over the top.” That is because he has discovered, in a brutal manner, that he cannot leave the job behind.

For nearly a decade, Dr. Cohen and his wife shared their home with her parents, a practicing pulmonologist and a retired nurse, who often babysat for the Cohens’ children, now 8 and 11. But in March, both in-laws became ill with Covid-19 and were admitted to the hospital within a day of each other.

Dr. Cohen’s mother-in-law, Sharon Sakowitz, 74, died first.

On the day of her funeral, the hospital called the Cohens: now the father-in-law’s organs were shutting down. The Cohens rushed to the hospital. Dr. Barry Sakowitz, 75, died that morning. A few hours later, they buried Mrs. Sakowitz.

Still mourning, Dr. Cohen wonders, “Did I bring this virus into my house?” As he prepares to go to work, “My son says, ‘Daddy, be very, very careful,’ and I know what he’s thinking.”

The guilt threatens to swamp him. What if he is the third person in this household to die?

After the shift, Dr. Cohen photocopies his notes, so there’s no risk he leaves with paper that might have coronavirus on it. He cleans his stethoscope, pens, goggles, face shield and the bottom of his sneakers with antimicrobial wipes. He does a surgical hand wash, up to his elbows.

He changes into a clean set of scrubs, putting the dirty ones in a plastic bag, and walks through the hospital parking lot. Sitting in his car, he sprays the bottom of his shoes with Lysol.

At home, he removes his sneakers and scrubs, leaving them in a box in the garage, and heads to the shower. Only after will he allow himself to embrace his family.

How long will Dr. Cohen march through this meticulous ritual? When will fear loosen its grip?

“We’ve always been told to suck it up and move on,” he said. He wonders: When his own emotional crash comes, when colleagues start unraveling, “Will there be people there to help us?”

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[scrumptiouslyjoyfulanchor-blog]

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL BEING

HEALTH IS WEALTH as they say. BEING HEALTHY IS VALUABLE, not only physically but in all aspects of our WELL BEING. And it should be something that we should PROMOTE to encourage everyone to take care of their body and live a HEALTH LIFESTYLE. 

We chose this topic because as what we have observed, people are ABUSING their HEALTH especially teenagers for diseases haven’t affected them yet. However, when they get old, the ILLNESSES will start to MANIFEST in their body. That will be the time that they would start to have concern for their health. What we can contribute about this issue is to use the SOCIAL MEDIA as a PLATFORM for RAISING AWARENESS about HEALTH ISSUES and tips to achieve a holistic health and well being. HEALTHY VS. UNHEALTHY PERSON

A HEALTHY PERSON 

A healthy individual is a person who is self aware, an effective communicator, possess coping skills, flexible, adaptable,respectful, and competent.

Being healthy can:

Controls weight

Eating right and exercising regularly can help you avoid excess weight gain and maintain a healthy weight. According to the Mayo Clinic, being physically active is essential to reaching your weight-loss goals. Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, regular exercise can improve cardiovascular health, boost your immune system, and increase your energy level.

Improves mood 

Doing right by your body pays off for your mind as well. The Mayo Clinic notes that physical activity stimulates the production of endorphins. Endorphins are brain chemicals that leave you feeling happier and more relaxed. Eating a healthy diet as well as exercising can lead to a better physique. You’ll feel better about your appearance, which can boost your confidence and self-esteem. Short-term benefits of exercise include decreased stress and improved cognitive function. Combats diseases

Healthy habits help prevent certain health conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. If you take care of yourself, you can keep your cholesterol and blood pressure within a safe range. This keeps your blood flowing smoothly, decreasing your risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Regular physical activity and proper diet can also prevent or help you manage a wide range of health problems, including:

metabolic syndrome

diabetes

depression

certain types of cancer

arthritis

Boosts energy

We’ve all experienced a lethargic feeling after eating too much unhealthy food. When you eat a balanced diet your body receives the fuel it needs to manage your energy level. A healthy diet includes:

whole grains

lean meats

low-fat dairy products

fruit

vegetables

Improves longevity

When you practice healthy habits, you boost your chances of a longer life. The American Council on Exercise reported on an eight-year study of 13,000 people. The study showed that those who walked just 30 minutes each day significantly reduced their chances of dying prematurely, compared with those who exercised infrequently. Looking forward to more time with loved ones is reason enough to keep walking. Start with short five-minute walks and gradually increase the time until you’re up to 30 minutes. 

UNHEALTHY PERSON

An unhealthy person is not in a state of good or normal health, unsound, weak, or morbid condition. symptomatic of or resulting from bad health

The risks of being unhealthy are: 

Tiredness and Fatigue

Diets that incorporate a massive calorie deficit (burning more calories than you’re consuming) can lead to tiredness, fatigue and irritability. This will put a strain on your job, relationships and your enjoyment of life.

Diabetes

The risk of developing type two diabetes is increased by being overweight/obese. This is because individuals who are overweight/obese have added extra pressure on their body’s ability to use insulin to effectively control blood sugar levels and partition nutrients.

High Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a waxy substance which is manufactured within the body by our livers but can also be found in certain foods. It plays a crucial l role in how all our cells work and is also required to produce Vitamin D, certain hormones and bile (necessary for digestion). However, too high a cholesterol level in your blood can significantly increase your risk of getting certain diseases.

High Blood Pressure

When you consume too much sodium your kidneys will hold onto water in an attempt to maintain the correct sodium balance in your body. This causes an increase in the volume of your blood, which can turn into hypertension (high blood pressure).

Decreased Concentration and Memory

After consuming junk food, which is usually very high in fats, sugars and total calories your body will digest the meal/snack quicker than a healthier option. As junk food contains very few nutrients your body is going to use the sugar in it as energy (as sugar is a source of carbohydrates), this energy is then used extra quickly. Therefore, you may well experience a ‘sugar high’, which is normally followed by a ‘sugar crash’ once your metabolism has burned all of the energy consumed in the junk food. During the ‘sugar high’ and ‘crash’ your concentration and performance may be negatively affected.

Here are 10 tips to have good health and well being 

1.  Develop a good opinion of yourself.

According to mental health experts, high self-esteem is the best tool we can use against difficulties in life. Studies show that people with high self-esteem have more confidence in themselves and their capabilities.

2. Eat well. 

Diet plays a crucial role in mental health; it’s important to have a healthy diet. If you need help with this, consult the Canadian Food Guide. You can also consult a nutritionist for a personalized guide adapted to your needs.

3. Exercise regularly.

Physical exercise plays a positive role in your mental health. It causes chemical reactions that are proven to reduce anxiety and stress and put you in a good mood.

4. Learn how to manage stress.

Stress is part of life, so you must learn how to deal with it in order to keep your sanity. Discover the source of your stress to find ways to better handle it.

5. Enjoy the present.

Learn how to focus on the present rather than being preoccupied with past or future events. This will help you savor life’s little pleasures that you would otherwise miss.

6. Find your work-life balance.

If you feel like you’re spending too much time and energy on one part of your life, your work-life balance may be off. Learn to do both! The best way to do this varies from a person to another. Find the strategy that works best for you.

7. Get enough sleep.

Lack of sleep affects your mental health as it can cause emotional and psychological problems. Go to bed at a reasonable hour and try to get 8 hours of sleep. It will help you achieve maximum recovery and face the next day with more vigor.

8. Develop relationships.

Developing and maintaining solid personal relationships is very beneficial to your mental health. So work on establishing good relationships with people around you, at home, at work or in your community. These contacts will enrich your life and provide you with great support.

9. Have fun!

Taking time to laugh and have fun will go a long way in staying mentally healthy. Laughter lifts moral, keeps you in a good mood and releases stress. Find ways to laugh: comic strips, funny videos or joking with friends.

10. Get help if you need it.

At some point in your life, you may need to ask for help. If so, don’t hesitate! It takes courage to seek help but it can really change your life. Know that there are many resources out there. Talk to your pharmacist. He will guide you in finding the best options.

[fifteen-half-blog]

#three

day three

Already in his last year of med school, Jimin was almost always tired. Not only was he stressed about patient’s safety, he also needed to maintain his grades for his scholarship. Not to mention how he also often got war flashbacks of the time when he was forced to be the popular kid’s gofer back in high school. 

At that time, just when he was about to give up, Taehyung arrived like a hero in his favorite manga. And even now, years and years later, Taehyung continued to save him. If it weren’t for the slightly younger man, Jimin would have had to sleep on the streets since his family couldn’t quite afford the expensive rents in Seoul. He probably would have died of malnutrition too, because although Jimin was great at taking care of others, he was completely shit at taking care of himself. Taeyhyung once told him that he had no sense of self-preservation. And for some reason Jimin still couldn’t fathom, Taehyung had taken it upon himself to remind Jimin that he needed to live too.

Tossing his apartment’s keys in the general direction of their dining table, Jimin stumbled towards his bedroom, drunk from exhaustion.

Taehyung wasn’t home today either.

Jimin could never make Taehyung tell him where he was employed, or where his job was, the other shifting the conversation whenever the topic came up. But whatever it was, Taehyung had really erratic work hours. Sometimes he’d be gone before Jimin woke up. At other times, he’d just be leaving just as Jimin would come home. Having lived with his best friend for years now, Jimin didn’t even think about it anymore. He was sure Taehyung would be back tomorrow as always.

Although the pull of his bed was strong, the smell of disinfectant on him was stronger. After showering as quickly as possible, Jimin pulled on an old t-shirt and shorts, then finally, finally crashed on his bed.

He was asleep within seconds.

But Jimin was a light sleeper. Or became a light sleeper. When they were younger, and still living in the school dormitory, Taehyung used to have these terrible nightmares. Jimin wouldn’t even have known about them until he accidentally set his alarm wrong and woke up in the middle of the night to Taehyung whimpering and struggling against his sheets, sobbing as if he was in pain.

Jimin could never forget the sight of it.

It took a while before Jimin convinced Taehyung to let him help, and it took even longer before Taehyung told him what his nightmares were about. But ever since then, Jimin had formed the habit of waking at the slightest noise.

Taehyung hadn’t had nightmares after they graduated though, but the habit still stuck.

So when Taehyung himself barged into his room with eyes blown wide, terrified, Jimin was already up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The moment he spotted blood on Taehyung’s chest, Jimin was out of his bed, intent on checking the extent of his best friend’s injuries.

But then Taehyung took his hand and said, “It’s not mine, Jiminie. But please, I need you to help my friend.”

Without question, Jimin followed Taehyung into their small living room, now completely crowded with three people in it, one of which was lying on their couch, spilling blood all over it.

Jimin couldn’t help but stare for a while. There was already so much blood, how is he even still alive?

One of the men, the one putting pressure on what was probably a serious wound on the others’ chest, must have seen the defeat in Jimin’s face. His eyes were cold when he barked, “What the fuck are you standing there for? Move!”

Startled, Jimin sprinted towards the couch, dreading what he would see. Unfortunately, he couldn’t help but notice the judgmental faces of the other two. It was a behavior Jimin was still working on, but on most occasions, Jimin would choose to run away instead of putting up a fight to prove them wrong. Having been the butt of jokes before Taehyung arrived, Jimin had serious issues on self-confidence.

But this was an emergency.

Ignoring everything else, Jimin got to work. He wanted to become a doctor so he could save lives after all. And though the situation wasn’t ideal, hell, their entire place was a breeding ground for infection, he had zero tools except for his first aid kit, and he wasn’t even a doctor yet, but Taehyung’s friend needed help now.

Jimin left all his hesitations behind. He had a life to save.

After three grueling hours of cleaning, disinfecting, stitching and repeat, Jimin was ready to fall asleep. But he can’t, it wasn’t over yet.

Jimin had tried to convince Taehyung and his friends to take the wounded man to a hospital, but they were beyond reason. It was obvious they were hiding something and, for the first time since meeting his best friend, Jimin wondered if he really knew Kim Taehyung.

He and Taehyung were currently in a car Jimin knew wasn’t his friend’s, on their way to purchase more medical supplies. Usually, the silence between them was never awkward, but now... 

“I’m so sorry, Jimin.”

Caught off guard by the sudden apology, and the use of his real name instead of the many nicknames Taehyung gave him, Jimin turned to his best friend and asked, “If you’re apologizing for my lack of sleep, fine, I forgive you. But if you’re apologizing for everything else, I need an explanation first, Taetae.”

But of course Taehyung was silent.

Observing his best friend, really looking at him this time, it was obvious that all of this was putting so much strain on him. It was as if he was looking at the younger Taehyung, the one still plagued by nightmares.

Taehyung was terrified of something. Whether it was because of his friend who was still fighting for his life, or something else entirely, Jimin didn’t know. Whatever it was though, Jimin didn’t want to see that expression on Taehyung’s face.

Sighing deeply, Jimin decided that no matter what Taehyung was hiding from him, the friendship they shared all these years was greater and much more important to him.

So without looking at his best friend, Jimin said, “I just realized Tae... have I ever told you that you’re my savior?”

Jimin didn’t turn his head, but he knew Taehyung looked sharply at him, probably with an incredulous expression on his face.

“I was ready to give up, and then you came, like a hero in my favorite manga. You were so bright, Tae. Everyone was so enchanted by you. So when you stuck around me, when you chose to hang around with me out of everyone else, I felt like I was the luckiest person on earth. I still do.

You’re the reason why I turned into who I am now. You’re the reason why I could be happy. You’re my savior, Tae. I would do anything for you. So if you have to keep this secret, I’ll understand,” Taehyung’s shoulders visibly relaxed at this, but then Jimin followed it up with, “But if you’re keeping this a secret from me because you don’t think I’ll understand, well, you’re wrong.”

“Jimin--,”

“Nope! Whatever it is you’re hiding, you’re still my friend, Tae. We’re soulmates, right? No matter what it is, you’ll always find a friend in me. I swear it. I don’t care if it takes you forever, but I just... I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“...fuck, Jiminie,” always the sap, Taehyung was in tears now, “I just don’t want to lose you.”

Before Jimin could reassure Taehyung more, his best friend continued, “But... it’s more than that... I just... I’m not just afraid what you’ll think of me. I’m also afraid for you.”

That made Jimin turn his head. He stared at Taehyung, confused.

But it was as if a dam had broken, because Taehyung kept on talking, “I didn’t want this to happen, Jiminie, I swear! I didn’t want them to come. But Hobi hyung was dying, and you were the closest doctor that could be trusted, so we had no choice. I had no choice, Jiminie! I’m so, so sorry!”

Taehyung was nearly hyperventilating now, his grip on the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were turning white, so Jimin did the only thing he could do.

He slapped the back of Taehyung’s head as hard as he could (without injuring the other, of course).

Taehyung lost control of the car for a second, then he was glaring daggers at Jimin, pulling over so he could yell at him or punch him, Jimin didn’t know.

But before he could, Jimin had crossed his arms over his chest and asked with his brows raised, “Are you finished now, Tae?”

“What the fuck, Jimin! We could have died! Why the fuck did you--,”

“Because you needed it! I already told you I don’t care whatever it is you’re hiding from me, and then you start blabbering and working yourself up!”

“This is serious, Jiminie!”

“Well I was serious, too!”

“No, you’re not! You have no idea--,”

“I know! And that’s fine--,”

“It’s not fine! Your life is at stake here! You could be targeted because of us, because of me! You think Seoul is safe?! There are things lurking in the dark that is worst than nightmares! I’m trying to protect you, Jiminie. Why can’t you understand that?”

There were a lot of things in Taehyung’s tirade that made no sense to Jimin. But that desperation in his best friend’s eyes told him everything he needed to know.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Jimin repeated, “I’ll follow your lead.”

“...that’s it?”

Jimin shrugged, “I trust you. That’s all I need.”

Taehyung banged his head on the steering wheel. Twice.

“Fuck you, Park Jimin. What did I do to deserve you as a friend?”

Laughing like he didn’t just hear that his life could be in danger, Jimin grinned, “I guess that makes the two of us.”

[sheisherestories-blog]

Talk

Nancy-Jane Bulfin. Irish. 20/08/1992

“I needed to go home and cry but instead I smiled and ignored the weakest saddest and most soft part of myself. I went home that night and opened my mouth to let the screams out, but the sound just would not come”. 

People tend to think I’m carefree and I hate it, even though it’s basically all I let people see, so why wouldn’t they? Then again, at what point in a conversation or a day do you begin to tell people that you were mentally abused, manipulated and controlled by your father until the age of 16? That you struggle to deal with relationships? That you wanted to die?

How do you begin to explain all the sad little facts that your childhood left stamped into your personality? Why would you even tell people this, when you yourself don’t want it to be part of who you are? Why would you need to say it, to explain things, when you believe your present and future behaviour is under your control and yours alone?

It has become important to me in recent years to talk and share, having gone through several hectic periods of crashing depressive episodes, dependency on everything from approval of others to sugar and alcohol highs, emotional instability and suicidal thoughts. So I want to share this story today, with anyone that might need to hear it and because I think a culture where we accept and talk about our faults and problems is a healthier one.

I told myself when I was younger that I would not need someone’s love ever again, or let anyone hurt me like my father did. What resulted was a systematic distancing of myself from all the people that were willing to love me. I built walls on purpose, thinking I was protecting myself, when actually I was digging myself deeper into a hole with nobody but myself as support, a person that I increasingly hated. I wanted to travel and leave and be independent and make myself happy without the help of others.

In college, once I had a few more funds to do with as I wanted, I ended up drinking most days of the week, always reaching out to friends to maintain a constant façade of happiness. I would go home and stare in the mirror and hate every inch of myself. I didn’t want to be alone or sad or myself, so I danced and laughed and danced some more instead. My mental health got progressively worse as I ran myself into the ground as I attended countless social events, tried writing my final year project, pursued people that weren’t meant for me, and tried to stay on top of assignments – all with a smile.

I ended up broke. I didn’t know where I was going to live the next semester. I didn’t want to tell anyone that I had failed once again at simply being an adult. I didn’t want to face my mother and my family and let them know that I had no control over my own life. I just wanted to stand alone, but I couldn’t.

I honestly didn’t know what I was doing to myself. The sad part of me I associated with weakness and my father. I didn’t want to be a version of him. I thought that the smiling perfect facade was the healthiest best part of me that I should try to be all the time, because that was the good part that I should share with the world. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I ended up hurting myself.

I was losing control of my own sanity – spending insomniac nights trying to hold myself still in my bed, lying in fear of what I would do if I went to the kitchen where I was horribly aware of the knives in the drawer. I would hide my razors so I wouldn’t see them when I went to the bathroom. I would find myself mid-conversation with friends imagining myself dying, and wanting the relief of it. When I couldn’t sleep for all these thoughts rushing around my brain, I would go for runs at 2am, sprinting across the campus and trying to drive the anger and fear out of me.

Running was the first thing that saved me – my own body pushing me to fight my brain.

One night I was out dancing surrounded by friends and things went completely upside down. A guy I knew vaguely through other friends tried dancing with me. I tried push him away because he was mauling my body with his hands and it was all sorts of creepy. He wouldn’t let me. I shouted in his face to let me go, he kept feeling me up and down and wouldn’t let me go. I slapped him in the face, as he wouldn’t stop. He slapped me back. He hit me hard across the face.

It wasn’t the fact he got mad at me afterwards and it wasn’t the fact he didn’t understand that he’d refused to respect my decision about what I wanted to happen to my own body that hurt me most that night. What hurt me most was my reaction. I knew everyone in that club. I organised the event I was attending. I was surrounded by friends. I could have got him kicked out in a second by security. But I didn’t want to be a problem for anyone. So, I told him it didn’t matter and we were still friends and I went and found my friends and laughed and danced for the rest of the night with my own voice screaming and crying inside my head the entire time. I needed to go home and cry but instead I smiled and ignored the weakest saddest and most soft part of myself. I went home at the end of that night and opened my mouth to let the screams out, but the sound just would not come.

The second thing that saved me was talking.

That night pushed me over the edge and I was afraid of myself and how I simply could not listen to myself. The lack of control that I was experiencing sent me straight back to my childhood. At this time, I was also organising to see my father again for the first time in six years. I needed to talk to someone.

I went to the free counselling service provided by my university and cried and cried and cried. It’s not that just saying it suddenly solved everything. I couldn’t explain why this one night had been so horrific for me. I didn’t learn how to balance my emotions or need people’s approval less. But I did learn that the weakest parts of me were the parts that needed most to be listened to, that people don’t automatically hate you when you’re sad or not financially stable, that I was the only person whose love I needed and that sharing this part of yourself with people is what life is about. I learnt that sometimes you cannot do it alone, you will need support and that is why you need people around you. They will help you and you can help them and that is how we get through everything this mad world throws at us.

I talked to my mother and in the years since have been able to share a much more genuine and happy relationship with her. Even after all the distance I had put between us, at the end of the day, she loved me and was there to give me a hug and chocolate, support and advice when I needed it. I didn’t know that I had that before and I am beyond grateful.

The counsellor told me I needed to tell a few people and take slow steps to trusting people, to letting people help me. I told two friends about what happened that night and their fierce reaction and support was incredible. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but they made sure to check on me whenever the guy from that night was in the same house party or event as us. I even managed to tell those friends a little about my father and how much I was desperately trying to move past all the sadness I was left with. They didn’t run away, they listened.

I still haven’t found a solution to my mental health, my impulse to smile things out and my aversion to sharing negative emotions, but I have learned to ask for help when I need it and to take care of myself. I actually truly love myself now, even the messy confusing brain that I have been given. My anxiety is still with me, but I am honest with myself about it and I have people that I can talk to about it. That is the best thing of all. I know I am incredibly lucky to have reached out in those moments to people and to have had them reach back. I have come a long way in the last few years and it is one hundred per cent because of the people that held my hand or listened in those times when I thought I was worth less than nothing. There is no way to thank those people properly for the chance at change that I have been given.

I am writing this in acknowledgement of the fact that no one is perfect and because we should stop trying to be just that. No one is strong enough to go it alone, and why would you want to when the best part about life is sharing?

To anyone out there struggling with mental health, depression or the general madness that is life, I hope that my story shows you you’re not alone, never ever alone in this world full of people that go about caring for each other all day long. I hope you know that somebody cares, and you should care about yourself too, and that part of that is talking and letting yourself be heard. The ugliest saddest weakest part of yourself needs to be given time too. If you keep it all in, that’s where it will stay.