#well vague mention!

[batsyheere]

Bruce tries to adopt Ellie, who is immediately against it. She keeps throwing him off her trail and he keeps tracking her down. She's honestly concerned, and normally she would handle her problems by herself- but this is Batman.

So when Bruce gets a little too close and Ellie is just so tired... she calls for Danny.

"Mom!"

Cue college student, perpetually tired and overworked Danny "High King Phantom" Fenton appearing from the very shadows Batman normally does himself, seeing the situation and going off at this "clearly older man" chasing his daughter in the middle of the night.

Cue the most elaborate "stop trying to adopt my kid before I adopt yours" series of battles

[samson-hart]

Seth talks but Samson doesn’t listen. It’s just background noise as his senses are assaulted by every ache and pain. Sam wants to see exactly what happened to him but he doesn’t want to move either. Fortunately (or unfortunately) a simple glance down stops him. There’s no recollection of this particular mark.

His stomach churns at the sight: a cross, carved into his chest. When he looks down he winces: the skin pulling at the back of his neck. Unbeknownst to him, it’s clumsily superglued together and pulls something awful. He has to tip his head back to release the pressure.

He’d been hurt before on a job. Nowhere near as bad, the effects had lingered more psychologically than physically. Now… it’s inescapable. The fact there’s nothing to help the pain, that he then looks over to see Seth looking like hell. Kneeling at his bedside, his eyebags dark and heavy. Like he’s been holding vigil on a deathbed. 

Richard can’t keep eye contact. He can’t look at anything. There’s no safe spot to land in this room. It’s for the best, then, that his vision begins to blur. Richard wills himself to not cry, wants desperately to suck the tears back in but they spill over. Burying his face in his hands is short-lived as the cut as his neck is pulled, his torso curving inwards only leads to a deeper ache. It’s all he can do: begin to sob. Whine as the shaking causes injuries to smart. The feeling overwhelms him and all he can do is turn inwards, on his side, an arm still guarding his stomach as he curls onto his side, facing away from Seth.

Seth's normally not one to follow orders, especially from friends or employees, but the urgency in Sam's growl has him lifting his hands in surrender and backing off. He's not offended in the slightest: he knows what it means to be vulnerable during a long healing process, having been there more than once himself, and has experienced firsthand the emotional discombobulation that comes with it. Honestly, he's still so relieved that he's even alive that Sam could spit right in Seth's face and he'd still be on cloud nine.

"Alright, asshole." Seth can't help but joke a little, but there's an apologetic wince to his tone as he sinks onto his knees at Sam's bedside, matching the one he wears as he watches Sam's attempts to move. He's given his friend plenty of shit for his miraculous regenerative body, but he'd never wish all this pain on him, not in a million years. "I can't give you any pain meds yet... you still got another hour or so. It's water or whiskey." An hour and three minutes, to be exact, thanks to the alarms on Seth's communicator that Sable helped him set.

Jesus Christ... he needs to call Sable.

[canisalbus]

Since the modern Machete and Vasco are reincarnations of their former selves, do you think they might occasionally experience remnants from their past lives in the form of things like vague memories/dreams or feelings that they can't quite explain?

Such as how maybe Machete wouldn't be able to watch stabbing scenes in shows/movies without getting a faint ache in his chest, or an imaginary metallic taste in his mouth. Maybe Vasco would tend to get especially clingy and oddly concerned about Machete's well-being during a particular time of year(around whenever the previous Machete was assassinated).

.

[project-sekai-facts]

what do you think the "Please forgive me and Purple" mean? considering the Miku (and Teto!) version it could be stand as a prayer like "Amen" yk? I always thought it said "please forgive me Empurple" as if "Empurple" was an entity

please forgive me and "purple", the wavering me dyed purple

So empurple means "to become purple", hence why in the official english lyrics "empurple" is replaced by "dyed purple". I think the 'and "purple" ' in the lyrics is representative of Mafuyu's emotional state, as in, her true and genuine self waiting to be found/freed. The real Mafuyu - her image color is purple after all. I think to understand what it means to Mafuyu at least, we need to look at the SEKAI ver instead of Harumaki Gohan's version. It was written for Mafuyu, so most likely Mafuyu is the origin of this lyric, which was then put into a different context with Harumaki Gohan's MV.

In the first verse where Mafuyu sings "the real me feeling stuck in my throat is empurpling", which gives us an image of Mafuyu struggling to open up about her feelings. The longer she feels stuck and keeps everything in the more purple it becomes. This is confirmation enough that the "purple" that she's asking for forgiveness for is just the things she kept hidden from her parents. It makes a lot more sense if you consider that this is the event where she starts to reconnect with her dad, and truly starts to trust him and open up to him. You don't have to read past this part, I have answered the question.

I think it's worth mentioning as well that we see these red and blue strings throughout the entire MV, obviously red and blue being the colors that make purple. We'll get more on what red and blue mean in the context of this song later, but just briefly I want to talk about this specific frame here. Strings have been a recurring motif for Mafuyu from as early as her first ever event, Captive Marionette. In that event, Mafuyu likens herself to a marionette doll, with the way she feels completely under the control of her mother and like she's being used for her mother's own performance (that will get its own analysis in due time). Her card for that event shows her dressed as a marionette doll bound by strings.

The strings come back for her aptly titled My True Feelings card in her fourth event, Saying Goodbye to my Masked Self. She's seen cutting the threads here, symbolising how she ran away from home and effectively cut off her mother. And now back to Empurple. In the opening shot of the MV, we see red and blue strings wrapped around Mafuyu's ankles, binding her to something offscreen. Behind her, towards the area she's being bound to, we see a bunny plushie and some apple slices cut into the shape of rabbits.

These are taken from her Memories of Warm Affection card, which shows kid Mafuyu being taken care of by her mother. The event Empurple was commissioned for, Reeling in the Lights, heavily calls back to Mirage of Lights, Mafuyu's second event and the event this card originates from. It's pretty clear here that Mafuyu is being bound to her mother, and her memories of her mother's care for her when she was younger. Continuing on with the actual song:

The next part of interest is the first pre-chorus. The first shot here is one of a child's hand holding an adult's, obviously meant to be Mafuyu and her father based on the card for this event (below). The next shot is of kid Mafuyu's eye, much brighter and with a far lighter blue color. These two shots are accompanied by the lyrics "Try to open my left hand and have a look? It's still embedded with blue eyes." (It is in fact her left hand that she uses to hold her dad's hand in her card). Now here's where we get to the meaning of blue in the song and MV.

The blue here is meant to represent Mafuyu's younger self. Her more genuine and innocent self before her parents started setting more pressure and expectations on her. The first line of the chorus is "If I saw that, would I be surprised", which I think perfectly encapsulates how Mafuyu feels when looking back at her childhood. In both of the "Lights" events focusing on her relationship with her parents, she looks back on these childhood memories that are so distant from her reality that she'd almost forgotten them, and yeah, it's surprising how different her life was and how she was when she was younger. The second line of the chorus "I just want to live once with genuine feelings only" plays into this too. And then we come back to the "purple".

If we hold hands, it would be great if you could understand, Please, Forgive me and "Purple", The wavering me is Empurpled

It's very clear here that this is all directed towards her father. In the event, we flash back to Mafuyu's dad comforting her during a thunderstorm, and although its one of her only memories of him because he was very absent from her childhood, she realises that she associates him with being a source of support, and decides to tell him more about how she really feels. She affirms her trust and comfort by holding his hand. In the context of the song, she's asking him to forgive her and all the things she's been hiding over the years.

The next point of interest is the second prechorus, which is very similar to the first, only this time, it's about the "red". Once again we get a shot of Mafuyu holding her dad's hand, only this time it shows the present day, and Mafuyu is using her right hand this time. Like how the first prechorus mentioned her left hand, this one mentions her right, with the precise lyric being "Try to open my right hand and have a look? You'll find a crimson sky.". An aside, her eyes aren't crimson here, I won't deny that, but they can't exactly just give Mafuyu red eyes, so for the sake of this analysis, pretend she has red eyes or something or that crimson and indigo are the same thing. We see the shot of teenage Mafuyu's dull indigo right eye over the lyric about the crimson sky, a direct contrast to her bright blue eyes from the first prechorus.

The "red" in this song references Mafuyu's current state of being. A girl struggling with expectations and appearances to the point she lost her sense of self, her emotions, and her will to live. All of this has been kept well hidden until the mask finally came off in her previous event, and now her father is seeing this completely new side to his daughter too. It's far more impactful though with the knowledge that he was an absent father, and never really got to spend any time with Mafuyu due to his work schedule. Like he never really knew Mafuyu to begin with in some ways. All he knew of her would've mainly come from how other people saw her, which is what caused this in the first place.

The first line of the second chorus is "If you see it, will you be shocked?", obviously referring to how she has her worries about telling her dad these things about herself. He is, in fact. shocked by the situation. He's completely stunned when he finds out Mafuyu can't even taste the food he's been buying her back in The Tone Played on that Day, because this is nothing like the Mafuyu he thought he knew. At that point he knew Mafuyu had been struggling, but he had no idea of the severity of it because Mafuyu had been holding these things in her throat.

The second line interests me quite a lot though. "The crimson sky is so beautiful, yet you'll never know." I've been trying to think about what quite we're looking at here for a few minutes, but here's what I've interpreted it as. Where we are right now in the story, the crimson is the closest we can get to the real Mafuyu. It's her true self as much as her current emotional state will allow, and obviously there's some beauty in that. It's far more authentic that the manufactured facade of blue that she'd been putting up for the previous few years. "yet you'll never know" could refer to three things in my opinion. Number one: Mafuyu's unwillingness to open up before the end of this event. No one gets to know her real self, because she won't let people see it. Number two: Mafuyu's father missed out on a huge amount of her childhood, and missed many of the signs that Mafuyu was going through mental anguish. Obviously, this ends up being remedied at the end of the event. And number three: This is aimed at Mafuyu's mother, who doesn't understand how this has happened and refuses to accept that this is who Mafuyu is.

And the last part of this chorus is "If we hold hands, it would be so warm... Please, Forgive me and 'Purple' ". Warmth is something that comes up a lot in Mafuyu's story. It's a sign of comfort for her. Her mother, or even just her presence, physical or not, is consistently described as cold and icy. It's unnerving and chilling. However, being around Niigo, holding their hands, brings her an unfamiliar warmth. Mafuyu associates this warmth with how she felt around her mother when she was younger. She can't quite place it, but it's a feeling of safety, comfort, and happiness. As I mentioned earlier, although Mafuyu has very few memories of her father from when she was a kid, what she does remember of him brings her that same feeling of warmth. And it's different to how her memories of her mother give her warmth, because he's still here, now, trying to help her.

I particularly like the bridge and final chorus too. There isn't much to say about the MV here aside from the fact it gets darker during the bridge, connecting with the "crimson sky that was hidden at all costs" lyric. Mafuyu is the last person to sing, and as expected it's darkest then, though it does get brighter as she finishes her line, probably because she's going to be more open from now on. I like the "still tinged with blue, these eyes" part too, because obviously, her happier and genuine "blue" side is still a part of her, she's just lost sight of the genuine manifestation of it over time. Blue and red make purple after all, and you can't get the true purple form of Mafuyu without combining her blue and red sides.

The final chorus refers to the event story again. "The important things, I'll keep them with me" obviously references the memories of her dad comforting her that she never let go of, "Inside my body, something is still broken" because Mafuyu isn't fully healed yet, and "If we hold hands, please fix me" because she is going to let her dad help her from now. Them holding hands was a sign of trust between the two of them, and a sign that Mafuyu is going to be genuine with her father because it is what's best for her, for real this time. He says in the event that he's been looking into getting her seen by a hospital (therapy), so he truly does want to help her.

The MV ends with the same shot as we started with, only this time, the camera has moved over to the left a bit, fitting with the fact that her "blue" childhood happiness was said to be on the left. The strings binding her also fade away, and allow her to step towards a new person whose feet have appeared in the frame, who is obviously meant to be her dad (Mr Asahina canonically wears sliders). We're finally seeing Mafuyu make some significant progress following her running away. Even after she ran away, she was still bound to her mother, and the warm memories she had of her, but now she's found someone who can give her that support and love for her genuine self in the present. She's freeing herself little by little.

[ophanstears]

🍀

I know that Clover's gender is up to interpretation (the devs DID say so themselves) but I still feel weird when people make them exclusively male or female LOL Like it's TECHNICALLY fine??? but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

more in tags as usual because I am a yapper. i am so sorry for having strong opinions about gender and representation. i am usually more fun than this 🥲🥲🥲🥲

[inarmes]

when people stop using the excuse of “olive [skin] is a spectrum!” when referring to any character that hails from the seam, i can die peacefully.

for reference: the seam — dark hair (straight, with the exception of haymitch and his curly hair,) olive skin, gray eyes. (e.g, katniss, gale and the hawthornes, haymitch.)

merchants — blonde hair (curly,) pale skin, blue eyes. (peeta, delly cartwright, mrs. everdeen and primrose.)

yes, in the case of the seamfolk, it is definitely possible that they are simply tan white people. however, in the racial context of appalachia, there is a population of native americans (who often have olive skin and straight dark hair,) along with the melungeon population (which includes people of color.)

suzanne collins would've made the distinction, as she did for the merchants if they were white. this theory is unlikely though, considering that systematic oppression plays a role within their race. (the seam are worse off; they're the poorest part of the district with people casually dying of starvation in the streets, they're also workers in the mines and more likely to have lung problems/die from mine collapses if not explosions. they also run a black market for sake of trades and food. the merchants run shops and are better off than the seam.)

i'm not saying at all that white people can't be olive skinned, i do very much agree with that and it's something i acknowledge. but again, appalachia, where twelve is located, has a population of people of color in which fit the description (which could likely be native americans.) there's a stark difference in both sides of twelve's population and their races, and if suzanne had made the seamers with the intention of them being white in mind, katniss simply could've said it was a white-predominant population with the notion of seamfolk being darker.

with all of this in mind, no matter how you flip it, the seam-originating characters in the movies are whitewashed. and that takes away from the history of these people and takes from their oppression and representation of history in a book that already deals with racial issues and such things.

[sea-buns]

All the buffs they've added to the cooking mods is hilarious to me. Like it's for sure super fun and exciting. But imagine the world cracking apart at the seams and from the moment you wake up you are immediately pounced on by "DAD! DAD! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!" *places brick oven*

I just imagine Chayanne has been surrounding his dads' beds with various plates of food. Cuz you KNOW he's a stress cooker.

And Talullah's like "bro that's a loose popsicle on the floor Missa's gonna slip and die"

[pines4thetwin]

Some of my Pinecest x Stancest thoughts

Under the cut cause I'm a yapper but i'm a considerate yapper (sometimes)

I think that when it comes to the older versions of their Grunkles that Dipper has a crush on Ford (obvi) because he's cool and smart and different and doesnt make dipper feel like a freak. And he's also hot and buff and dipper is a boy figuring out his sexuality and going throigh puberty at the same time (who the hell thought that was a good idea)

And mabel has the fattest crush on stan because he's all super sweet to her, calling her pumpkin and sweetheart and braiding her hair for her and spoils the shit outta her and basically puts it in her head any guy she dates should basically do the same (and that somehow translate into her ending up with a huge fucking crush on him)

As for say the kid versions of their grunkles.

Mabel takes one look at kid!ford and immediately starts crushing on that little nerd (partially because he reminds her of dipper and the only thing better then one cute nerd is two sooo). She starts yapping about how cute he is and trailing about helping him with all his little explorations and dipper would be perturbed if he wasnt to busy crushing on stan.

I think all it would take for dipper is having stan throw him that gap-toothed smile and to tell dipper how absolutely cool his birthmark is and

"Like the big dipper? Thats so cool! Not as cool as sixer but its close. Lemme see it" and telling dipper that he looks nice when he isnt hiding the mark with his hat or hair and bam dippers following young!stan around with the biggest doe eyes.

[cracked--inhalf]

Enot and saint adventures

[yellowocaballero]

Omg hi Ms. Yellow Caballero big fan of your work <3 For real though, I'm really excited that your sharing the Weekenders, it was a joy to read and I'm bongocat-ing now that others also get the privilege to read it as well.

Referencing your tags, would you please elaborate of ableism in fandom and, like you said, how fandom treats characters with unpalatable disabilities?

Hi Ms. Bud Lite I'm a big fan of you <3

TL;DR A fear of writing characters of highly marginalized identities shields you from criticism and discomfort, but it's actively stigmatizing to people of these identities and as a writer you really need to get over yourself and write The Icky People.

I guess I'll come out swinging on this one and say that fandom doesn't like severe mental illness. (As a note, when I say severe mental illness (SMI) I mean illnesses such as psychotic disorders, bipolar disorder, substance use disorders, personality disorders, etc)

Obviously, nobody likes people w/SMI. It's just insanely egregious in fandom to me, since fanfic writers absolutely love writing characters or HC characters with depression, anxiety, or a specific variety of PTSD That Isn't Scary. People actively reject any character HCs for a SMI. When people write a character with SMI, they nicely downplay it, ignore it, substitute it for a disorder they like better, or rewrite it. It's completely untolerated, in both headcanons and in fanfiction, and every time I bring it up I always get the most interesting reasons why somebody couldn't possibly acknowledge a character's SMI in their writing. I've heard all of these:

"I don't know enough about the disorder to write it accurately." Do research.

"I'm not X, so I can't really depict it." You probably aren't a cis white man, but you depict those guys just fine.

"It feels insulting to the character." There is no shame in having a SMI.

"I can't understand what it's like, so it's better to be cautious and avoid giving characters stigmatized identities." There are LOTS of experiences that you'll never understand because you've never had them - you just don't want to write anything you're uncomfortable with. People with SMI make you uncomfortable, and you don't want to write anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, or think of a comfort character in an uncomfortable way. SMIs are marginalized differently than solely depression/anxiety/The Nice PTSD, and by refusing to write them you're actively contributing to the stigma.

I think (?) I've spoken in the past about how I believe that the rigorous external and internal policing of writing people of marginalized identities is actively harmful towards efforts to increase diversity of experience and background in fiction. A lot of fanfiction writers are just terrified to write people who they can't directly relate with, because they're worried 'they'll get it wrong' and be Big Cancelled. I think this is negative enough when it prevents people from going outside of their comfort zone, but on a macro level I think this results in people refusing to write characters of marginalized identities as all. It's an insidious thought process, and it's reflected in people's unwillingness to diversity their writing or acknowledge canon diversity.

'Well, I don't understand what it's like to be Black, so I don't want to write Black people'. 'I want to project on this character, so I only want to write them with mental illnesses and identities I have'. 'If I write a marginalized character incorrectly people will yell at me, so I won't write a marginalized character who's marginalized differently than me at all'. Can you imagine writing a lesbian character with a boyfriend because 'you feel uncomfortable writing lesbian experiences'? It's blatantly homophobic. But people do that with disability and race/ethnicity ALL THE TIME.

People with SMI notice that you feel uncomfortable with them. It's obvious. They notice when a character has a SMI + anxiety, and you only write their anxiety. They notice when a character displays symptoms of a SMI in canon, but you write it out. And POC notice when the characters of color are written out. I know we all like to project on the blorbos and relate to them, and in the joys of your own head do whatever, but as a writer if you only stick to identities you're comfortable with you are actively being a worse writer. Which to me is the REAL sin lmfao.

[jazzically]

guys i think The Vast as a concept is my favorite. or at least in my top 5. i love it so freaking MUCH AAAAHHHHHHHHH I . LOVE THE VAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's SO COOL AND SCARY i mean have you ever laid on your back in a field at 4 pm in perfect weather and just. stared. for an hour into the empty blue. or ducked your head underwater after going "just a bit" farther than you can touch. or traveled a winding freeway in the valley of two giants of the earth and recalled a time you looked across the land from one of their peaks. or taken a microbiology course and, even once, attempted to liken yourself to an atom. cuz i have and it's one of the greatest thrills i have experienced. michael crew and simon fairchild's statements are among my favorites (i have so many aaaa reeeeeee)

in mag 174 there is a comparison of different vastnesses (those on the ground and those making up the Great Beast) and they are both INCREDIBLE the ambience is amazing

[verenvuoto]

Opinions on Korekiyos sister?

who?

Eeeeeeeeeh, we don't really have one? As in, canon-wise she's not really a character, all we know about her in the game is just what Kiyo tells us and that's not much. Not to mention he's not really a reliable narrator. The way we see it, she's more just a narrative tool for the third trial's story. And that whole trial is a mistake lmao.

[evil-mcytblrconfessions]

tumblr kww fandom was formed seperately from most other social media corners of the fandom. and that leads to silly things like the commonly used name "kww collab" and kenfies vs kenifies. and probably more. cedar if theres any more im forgetting that u know of say them pls

(in response to this confession)

[cerealmonster15]

i forgot grunt meant like henchman or whatever for a second i thought they were like yeah leonas bitch ass grunts and growls are partial proof to savanaclaw being an athletic leaning dorm lol

[louwhose]

Oracles Zelink are so cute and it is long overdue that I give them some love.

[mleprae]

may i have some more details about physical illness baldwin could suffer? exhaustion, unconsciousness, etc. since your post about sarmenti's irrational anger at his illness inspired me quite a lot, and more detail is better here!! he's so stalwart and strong in soul, i want to contrast the worst of his ailment against his unshakeable spirit

I had to write this on a google docs because there was just SO much text that doing it on a tumblr ask lowkey annoyed me. Sorry for any weird formatting issues or missing words!

I ended up writing this bible because I only realized later that you asked for general symptoms, and not ENL ones. Oh, well, I Italicized all the symptoms that are present in both leprosy and ENL, and just in case, I bolded and italicized the symptoms in ENL only.

Here’s the original thing I wrote!

If you are talking about that one post, I was talking about ENL / Type 2 lepra reaction specifically. My biggest mistake was never talking about leprosy reactions too much in-depth here, and it's partially because we don't know much about them! D: Despite being one of the most serious complications, we haven't explored why it exactly happens. (I know I say 'we don't know' alot about leprosy, but it's just because it's really really really hard to study it)

Leprosy reactions are some brief moments that the disease may develop new symptoms or become temporarily worse, we don't know what starts this, just that it's a type of hypersensitivity. (Which is what we call any blown-out-of-proportion immune reactions, allergies and autoimmune diseases are also hypersensitivities) These episodes are usually short (few days) but the longer and serious ones can last a month or two.

If I were to cite every single symptom during this episode + leprosy in general I'd be here forever, there's just so so sooo many!! But since you asked for the worst of the worst, here's the more severe + common ones. (I obviously cannot testify for myself that those are the worst symptoms because well, I probably will never catch leprosy, I'm quoting the ones where have been described as most life-threatening and the ones that are more inconvenient than others.)

The ADHD version: Amyloidosis (high amyloid count) - CKD (Chronic kidney disease)- Heart issues which may lead to heart failure - Fluid buildup in the limbs (especially the legs) Muscle issues- Muscle pain - Muscle weakness, trouble swallowing and chewing (Although it gets worse in ENL)

Bone issues- Severe bone pain, mostly on the longer bones like the tibia. Hip is also common but it’s more characteristic of any disease than leprosy-specific. (There are a lot of bone symptoms of general leprosy, but I don’t think any of them cause pain.)

Skin & nerves

-Painful nodules pop up throughout the entire skin, pressing on them is extremely painful. They may become pustules or necrotize. (Characteristic of ENL) - Nerve pain, usually worse at night time. Others - Overall malaise - Low to high fever, though if we are talking about ENL, it’s probably more to a high fever. High fever can make you delirious and confused. - Stuffy nose, trouble breathing. Something that haunts me is that dying suffocated to your own mucus/snot is not an uncommon death.- Headaches

The hyper fixated autistic version, in which I just yap about some specific details and add my jester x leper headcanons in the end. (just a complement to the ADHD version)

Full body pain We know that ENL is a type of hypersensitivity, which means that any tissue that has the leprosy bacteria in it becomes inflamed. If you’re having ENL, it probably means leprosy has you by the throat at this point, because it does not happen to any other leprosy types in which the bacteria population is small.

So muscles, nerves, eyes, bones, lymph nodes, skin, everything is invaded by millions of cells sending a shitload of chemical warfare. Inflammation is a destructive reaction, it helps you, but it is destructive in nature; Your immune system is not here to protect you, it’s here to destroy invading pathogens and it will do so by any means necessary. (Even killing you!) Not to mention, the body was already severely impaired before the invasion, a lot of people die during their ENL episodes because it just gets that bad, and if they recover, the damage is too severe to be healed.

All of this is extremely overwhelming to the body and to the person, everything gets swollen, pressing on those nerves that are already firing pain signals. I cannot state how excruciatingly painful all of this is. By the day, it can be something from low to mild pain but it becomes worse as the night falls, as it's usual with nerve pain.

So on top of all the pain, you have some muscle weakness. You can’t move or walk properly but laying down is also painful, trying to sleep becomes a challenge, it’s been noted that despite everything, most can only sleep very lightly. (When they can) A little trivia is that thalidomide, a drug originally used to help people sleep, can actually help in managing ENL. It was discovered when a doctor prescribed it to one of his leprosy patients to help him sleep during those episodes, and they discovered his condition improved afterwards, which is pretty neat!

Involving organs and whatnot

Amyloidosis might be like, 99% the reason why leprosy complications are fatal. Most of them will target the internal organs, like the kidneys, heart and the liver. It’s a little misfolded protein usually associated with long-term/chronic infections… and Alzheimer’s.

The protein causes fluid buildup in the limbs but also it can block important arteries to the heart, causing heart failure. (2nd leading cause of death, after suicide) But for the most time, it causes arrhythmia, which as someone who has a type of arrhythmia, it sucks, it does, alot. It hurts like hell, it makes you dizzy, it feels like your heart grows 4x in size and is trying to claw out of you via your throat. And I have the easy type!

Before I go on about anything else, I wanna go about diet, I already answered here about the complications of weight loss and leprosy and the reason behind it. (I do recommend reading it before this part) Amyloidosis causes CKD (chronic kidney failure), filtering the blood is pretty important… A failing kidney means increased blood pressure due to the fluid buildup.

If they don’t have any sort of knowledge on how nutrition works in the Darkest dungeon medical world, it could make things even worse. Salty foods and pork are the worst offenders, salt will increase your blood pressure by disrupting the osmotic balance, pork has too many fat/lipids, which stimulates the adipose tissue (the one responsible for storing fat), which in turns pisses the immune system EVEN more than it already is. (And this is why you’re advised to not eat pork after a tattoo) So that’s 3 strikes to the heart and 2 to poking the nuclear-tempered cells with a short stick.

As a complement to the original post, I forgot to mention why not only Baldwin isn’t eating properly but that he would probably be losing weight faster than he should. This is one of the more ‘gross’ symptoms you can’t lionize in fiction, but something that stuck to me alot was how the urine goes from liquid to a red, foamy thick paste. The kidney is also responsible for taking proteins instead of letting them go to waste, a dysfunctional one will just start discarding proteins, ESSENTIAL proteins, making the urine foamy or thick depending on which proteins are being discarded. (Red being from blood, which is another topic) Even if he was eating properly, his body can’t help but discard the food he needs. There's a wildfire in the distance of people fighting if intestinal leprosy is a thing and that can cause constipation. I’ll leave it up to you, most people do not believe it though.

My overall fandom Thots(™) In a selfish way, I think it’s fair that Sarmenti would be irrationally upset at it, considering everything, Baldwin would probably need to have some around-the-clock care as it happens IRL with ENL reactions (patients are supervised by nurses until the reaction is over and they can go home). I don’t think Sarmenti is caring for him directly though, it would be much much worse if he did; because he would need to help him eat, sleep, move around, change his wraps and clean him if needed. It makes more sense to me that Paracelsus is doing it, and Sarmenti is just there to visit or do some small things if he can, and even then, there’s not much she can do. While some leprosy antibiotics can be made by harvesting and refining things found in nature, even crudely, the ones that are used to manage ENL need high-tec labs and industrial wide scale production for it, there’s not many things to help it either, we didn’t even knew Thalidomide helped leprosy until like…1960? It’s not even recommended.

All that can be done is just wait until the reaction takes its course and doesn’t take his life with it, you can do some pain management to help him sleep better, but other than that? In this situation? I think they can only just make him as comfortable as possible and wait. In Baldwin’s POV, he’s in severe pain and discomfort, stuck in a room warm as possible as to not stir nerve pain. Confused/Delirious from fever and exhausted from lack of sleep, it’s normal for people in these states to just get up and… leave? Because they don’t know what’s going on or where they are, if he can still walk of course. Sarmenti depends on Baldwi emotionally, but it’s almost never the other way around, so this sudden change in routine is pretty upsetting for both of them. I think Baldwin needing him or “avoiding” him are two interesting takes, in one hand, he’s in pain and confused and Sarmenti is the only one who he recognizes to give him comfort but on the other hand, I’d understand why he wouldn’t want him to see him that way, he’s in a pretty bad shape...Well, up to you!