#which ruins the scientific integrity i guess? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

eevee-haze · 4 years ago

Text

Aight so It's... not news to literally anyone that I like Ink sans a lot as a concept, and his birthday is today, so I figured what better way to celebrate his birthday than to make a brand new AU (or at least post the info for it)! Or I guess three since I'm working on Swap and Fell variants for it as well.

One of my main questions about the Underground was "how do they handle seismic activity" which was how this AU started forming. It's probably not at all scientifically accurate in the least, but oh well. I call it Rifttale. Cause the earthquakes cause literal rifts in the mountain lmao. I'll put the rest under a read more since this'll get long.

The idea of Rifttale is that Mt Ebott is located on a fault line, and all the hollowing out the monsters had to do made the mountain extremely unstable, and that problem only increased the more the underground's population grew. It's pretty dangerous underground in Rifttale what with the constant threat of cave in due to poor structural integrity and the fact that they don't really have much to work with to make their homes and businesses quake resistant. A fair portion of houses get rubble rained down on them and something always needs fixing.

All four sections of the underground remain, but the layout and placement are different. (And probably larger scale) For example, Snowdin is located near the top of the mountain since snow from the peak falls in through the cracks left in the roof of the cavern, and Hotland is at the very bottom of the mountain, where lava has surged up from the seismic activity. Both Waterfall and New Home are around the mid section, but are separated by a thick wall of rubble that followed a quake that happened maybe days before Frisk fell.

Sans

The man of many jobs adds two more responsibilities to the list rather begrudgingly in this AU. As one of the only Monsters capable of gravity manipulation and teleportation in Snowdin, he and his brother are tasked with being emergency responders in case of an earthquake as well as assisting with any initial construction steps in order to make bridges across newly formed gaps. Sans often gets called to other regions for his services too, but he really doesn't appreciate it.

Frankly he's convinced the mountain's going to crush them before they get the final soul they need, which is part of why he agrees to keep Frisk safe so easily. He doubts anything will change about their predicament with or without them. A No-Mercy route in Rifttale would see him saying things like "Couldn't have waited for the mountain to get us?" Or "I think I would have preferred a cave-in."

Something Rift!Sans doesn't really tell people is that he's blind in his right eye. When he and Papyrus were little, he shielded Papyrus from falling rocks during a quake, and one of them got him good just above his right eye. Most of the injury healed but it left a nasty crack in his socket which prevented him from actually being able to see. He can light the socket, and does so strangers don't needlessly worry about him, but it can't light up all the way like his left does.

Papyrus

Ah yes the sunshine boy. Personality wise he's not that different in this AU. He still wants to be in the guard and he's still confident and friendly, but sometimes he gets a little subdued and worried about Sans since Rift!Sans is much more obvious about his emotional/mental struggles. Another notable part is that he's being kept out of the guard mostly because he's more useful in the emergency unit. He's strong and capable enough to be a guard, but he's too soft, so they gave him a job that was helpful while playing to his strengths.... though like a silly he doesn't see the admirers he has and still hopes to become a guardsman one day.

Frisk & Chara

These two are interesting in this AU. Chara was around 13-14 when they died and spent years underground with the Dreemurrs before their death. They have a strong distaste for their own kind for several reasons, among which being the way they were treated (that led them to run away in the first place) and the fact that they forced such nice creatures into what is essentially a death trap.

They're a bit of a gremlin, but they're certainly not all bad like they consider themself to be.

Frisk on the other hand is a quiet child of roughly nine years. Adventurous and curious, but also blind. They hadn't seen the hole when they were exploring and ended up falling down. They rely on Chara to lead them around the more treacherous parts of the underground since they can't see it. (Chara is able to touch Frisk and tends to tug them by the wrist when guiding them.) Chara starts off really unhappy about guiding them, and depending on the route will even refuse to do so, not that it matters in a No-Mercy route. That's because in the No-Mercy route the Player is more of an active component. Frisk physically can't fight back on their own, and Chara would never help them do so. Essentially the Player is just an entity used by us creators to manipulate Frisk into a No-Mercy route since it wouldn't happen otherwise.

Asriel & Flowey

Personality wise the two really aren't all that different. Asriel is the slightest bit more skittish thanks to his timid nature and the uncertainty that comes with the constant tremors, and Flowey is the slightest bit more bearable. He still doesn't have much in the way of emotions, but it's pretty obvious their situation is bleak without him making it worse (As such, while he has tried No-Mercy in the past, most of his runs were seeing what effects smaller changes had. The volatile environment made it interesting regardless).

Though he's notably far more annoyed about losing his save and reload powers in Rifttale because he'd been in the middle of trying something when Frisk fell.

On the more technical side, Flowey doesn't tend to get around much when there aren't bridges over the chasms. While he can cross them himself, its a pain if they're too awfully wide. This means that the severe quakes tended to impede him a lot.

Toriel & Asgore

As a result of the meddling Flowey was doing, Toriel reclaimed her place as Queen and has been talking things over with her husband about everything that happened. Stuck in the ruins she hadn't gotten the news that Asgore amended his statement later on to say that they would only take the souls of humans that fell if they were hostile or after they died of natural causes. None of the children who fell were killed by monsters. (Many died in partial cave-ins or from falling into lava or the like, though so a quick death from a monster likely would have been preferable.)

Toriel still thinks that going out and just collecting the remaining souls they need would be faster, but Asgore argued a few points on that such as doing so likely angering the humans and giving them a further negative bias as well as the fact that whoever went to get the souls may well die like their children did.

They're still working things out but it's better than how it was before.

Toriel still spends a lot of her time in the ruins, but now its more out of a sense of duty since most of the children fell into the ruins first. She actually guides Frisk up until they meet Sans where she passes escorting them to him since he is more capable of ensuring their safety, and she needs to hurry ahead to make preparations for their stay and inform Asgore.

Alphys

Predictably not much different personality wise. She's actually one of the safer monsters since she never leaves her lab and it's reinforced to withstand rockfalls to some degree, not to mention the basement level with the true lab in it (though its hot as heck down there cause of the magma nearby.) Her primary goal is more geared toward keeping the underground as stable as possible so that they can hopefully last until they get the last soul. That's not to say the amalgamates don't exist, they do, but she's at least been looking busy as sort of an excuse why she hasn't answered back any of the letters. No time for mail when she's trying to save people, after all.

Undyne

Captain of the Royal guard, still. The guard does still exist, it's just less numerous and has more focus on recruiting strong members. After all they exist in case a hostile human arrives instead. So naturally Undyne is even more of a badass than normal, and she's ready in the event of a No-Mercy run. Even in a pacifist playthrough she's a bit wary of Frisk, notably not wanting to leave Alphys alone with them in case they were hiding their true intentions. This means she's the one who ends up escorting the human through the first little bit of Hotland after Waterfall, whereupon Mettaton would take over.

Mettaton

Considering a Human-killing robot was no longer needed, he was created with maneuverability in mind. The idea was that he could help others when needed, much like the emergency rescue portion of the guard, but Mettaton much preferred to focus on his career of course. He’s part of the reason Sans keeps being called to help out in other regions which gets him a healthy amount of resentment from the older skeleton.

Gaster

No major story involvement, but he does have plot importance. Gaster was the Skelebro’s father, and while he made them artificially, he did care about them a lot. Not much about him still remains and very few remember any details about him since he was quite a reclusive skeleton. He was close friends with the Riverperson however, so that’s who ended up essentially raising the two skeletons after Gaster fell into the Core. They provided for them despite being gone a lot.

Misc. Details

Children that stayed for an extended period were often called the “New Hope” a term coined when Chara first became a part of the Dreemurr family

Not all children opted to stay with the royal family, hence their belongings being stored in different regions

There were hostile humans that fell as well, but most met their fate in the lava and their souls were burnt up before they could be retrieved.

Frisk had fairly negligent parents. They weren’t outright abusive, but they really didn’t pay much attention to them.

Portions of the Waterfall part of the Underground have large nets bridging the gaps to catch the garbage that falls down that way nothing gets wasted falling into the chasms.

The Delta Rune on Sans’s coat is a reflective sticker. They told him he needed to wear something reflective for visibility’s sake and because he wasn’t willing to mess up his jacket, nor go without it, he cheated the system.

Papyrus wears a battle body just like normal, but he hot-glued some of the reflective material from human clothing that ended up falling down onto it so that he could both look cool and follow rules

Despite being a very neat and cleanly skeleton, Papyrus often ends up dirty as a consequence of his job. Because of that he takes care to meticulously clean both himself and the house before they go to bed.

#undertale #undertale au #reference #new au i guess #rifttale #utmv #happy birthday inky ily #abuse implied #with chara's bg that is #neglect mention #it's a lot of minor changes but i love this au okay

7 notes · View notes

pinkysfaultorbrainsfault · 4 years ago

Text

pinky and the brain - s1e3b: that smarts

here it is. lol.

episode summary: frustrated at pinky’s constant disruption of his plans (okay, brain, if you say so) brain invents a machine to make him smarter. it goes about as well as you think it would.

the rundown:

it’s acme labs.

unless this is just some cage in the middle of nowhere, i guess. i don’t know.

no, wait. definitely acme labs. brain is writing in his Mouse Diary, probably relating the weird dream he just had about being in post-war japan. he has a lot of those, it seems, probably because it’s a good way for the writers to keep the status quo.

mumble mumble grump grump mumble mumble

“ah!” like he’s just discovered something. you’re not getting anywhere with those formulae though, brain. ∞A2-A= 2 to the tetration is just absolute gibberish and it’s not going to help you at all.

still, i’m glad he’s found what he’s looking for. satisfied with his nonsense calculations, brain calls pinky over.

bomp.

“narf.”

“what were you doing up there, pinky.”

“oh!” says pinky, who has just remembered he’s british. “i was having a devil of a time cleaning the chimney, brain.”

“we don’t have a chimey.”

“oh, well. there you are then.”

yeah.

brain reassures pinky that he is nowhere near the ceiling, which is good, because we don’t want more asthma than this poor guy already has. instead, he proposes to pinky that he’s figured out why they haven’t taken over the world yet.

“oh, i know why, brain. it’s gremlins.”

LITTLE SPRINKLY SPRITES THAT CONFUSE US

ALWAYS TWIDDLING THEIR LITTLE FINGERS IN OUR EARS

“an interesting theory.”

i like how brain draws himself, here. with the little ¬¬ face. grompy.

“but i have reviewed our past efforts, pinky, turning the situations into numbers in an effort to locate the exact problem.”

“well that sounds, um. narf.”

“yes, i’m sure it does.”

luckily, he’s plotted them all out on his little graph plotter, which is apparently going to paint a picture of the thing that’s ruining their plans... because... that’s how numbers work.... apparently? coming from the guy who thinks you can multiply infinity by -2 tetrated, forgive me for being skeptical.

let’s see how this goes!

oh.

still, pinky looks like he wants to put it on the fridge, so it’s not all bad, i guess. “egad, brain! that looks like me! but flat!”

“it is you, pinky. my calcuations have indicated that you are the problem.”

ouch.

“p... pinky?”

the leering figure of brain in his Man Suit behind him doesn’t help the tone, and should also probably serve as a reminder that sometimes it’s-- well, we’ll get to that.

poor pinky. ):

brain rubs it in further by deriding pinky as a “spazzy, beetleheaded dufus.” he has.... diagrams, to match. this is all very rude and unneeded.

😭😭😭��😭

“but you’re not getting rid of me, are you, brain? i mean you? working as a single? look at what happened to jerry lewis when he split from dean! all that stuff in your hair--”

“point taken.”

“but fear not.” <gay little hand flip in response.>

but brain has another plan! he is going to make pinky smart. so that’s not too bad, i guess? oh he’s making me change everything about myself! but at least he didn’t dump me.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

i’m waiting for the christmas episode.

so brain gets pinky all strapped into the promare spinny machine.

he also makes this face when pinky asks why people don’t usually just make themselves smarter. so okay. he maintains that “the problem is in the execution”, but quite frankly i think it’s because most people aren’t into eugenics.

anyway brain activates the smartsotron.

it, uh. i don’t know why this shot was taken from this angle. i’m sorry. i’m sure, historically, it made a lot of people happy.

brain does some more scientific mumbling.

“fourty seven knots, six-- nineteen kelvin, fibbonaci, n minus one,”

“coming-- coming--”

in the nicest way possible, brain, i’m not sure he is.

“now!”

if you say so, brain. he goes off to pull the lever that. does that.

it has an effect.

the face of a man who is enjoying himself, apparently.

brain also shorts out the whole electricity for acme labs, which is very funny.

“pinky?” says brain, like he was concerned for his health like five minutes ago, when he put him into the bloody thing in the first place.

“oh, that was fun, brain! haha ha. narf. hoo! i’m all tingly! woo woo.”

“fun, perhaps, but obviously not successful.”

“oh, no, no, i think it was!”

“at first i thought the folded dipole wasn’t working as your centrefed, horizontally mounted conductor,”

“but frequencies below thirty megahertz--!”

“loud and clear! haha!”

“and i must say, brain, the peak value wave shape of the impulse voltage? glorious! i mean, hitting that maximum value without appreciable, superimposed oscillations! egad brain! brilliant!”

haha ha.

“YES!”

good for brain. the worrying implications of his assumption that making pinky smart would cure his tourettes??? we can worry about that later.

narf.

anyway, so tonight’s plan for world domination is that brain will pose as jimmy hoffa--

okay.

anyway, he intends to pose as jimmy hoffa and manipulate the old labour leaders into worshipping him.

with that, they will help him utilise the industrial complex to build a “forced vertoconvector”, whatever that means.

“it will create millions of steaming, tiny guysers that will actually lift people several inches off the ground, immobilising them.”

“egad, brain! it’s like giant air hockey!”

unfortunately for brain, his coefficient values are wrong. “it’s suppose to be sin, not cosin. kind of flips the whole thing around. haha. won’t work.”

inside his head, brain screams, quietly.

but never mind! initially, he’s excited, because pinky has saved them a whole night’s work! tremendous!

and luckily, he has a backup plan, which is also totally going to work. “take a look at this one,”

“colleague.”

“oh, brain.”

this is how mice flirt, i guess.

ignoring that “colleague” is a slight downgrade from “lifelong friend,” brain explains that he intends to program a computer to generate a fantastically popular romance novel, that i actually don’t want to look at the cover of for too long.

ew.

let’s move away from that. the romance novel “will contain a hypnophonetic sentence so long and so confusing that the reader will be forced to reread it, endlessly, out loud, and the frequencies of those sounds will hypnotise all those around them, primed for my suggestion that,”

I RULE THE WORLD. it’s not quite a close up but it’s a funny face so i’m counting it.

pinky is not as hype.

“the frequency needs to be an exact integral multiple of the input, doesn’t it? or it’ll be all wobble wobble bluueeroooogh.”

that’s one way of putting it. “not hypnotic at all, nope. won’t work.”

“yes. you’re right.”

brain is not enjoying this any more, it seems.

“by converting our cage into a nuclear reactor, we can produce enough energy--”

“but your migration area is tiny, brain! the neutron will never be able to slow down from fission to thermal in here!”

“please, pinky. let me finish--”

“but it’s got to be at least one sixth of the square distance between--”

“pinky!”

lms if you are the square distance between pinky.

“it seems to be, brain, that it’s not my fault at all that these plans haven’t worked.”

man. we don’t get to see pinky mad at brain very often? i love it. please let him get this mad in the reboot. madder, even. let them argue, wb!!

i don’t think brain has much grounds to argue, considering that he is, of course, the inventor of Really Big Magnet That Sticks People To The Floor By Their Pocket Change. still, he gives it a go.

he drags pinky back over to his weird little graph machine, citing that he “calcuated it himself” and “the numbers don’t lie.”

<gay little hand flip>. that’s not entirely fair because this is a tween but. it’s funny.

“actually, there seems to be a little booboo right here.”

poke.

he sets about correcting it, of course!

brain may well be at his limit.

(they angle that through the bunsen burner as it boils over, which is a very nice touch. it’s a metaphor, kids! he’s having a Hard Time.)

“these-- this!--”

“it’s preposterous what you’re saying! it’s ridiculous! it’s absurd!”

“but brain--”

“just go!”

“naaaaaarf.” going mouse! leave. ):

but now that brain has vented his own raging insecurities, he has some calculating to do.

well! isn’t that a merry little plot twist.

brain’s response to this is to have a nervous breakdown, because of course it is.

“no!” he cries. “he’s even smarter than i! smarter!”

“but i have accepted my own errors. the team needs balance. balance! yes.”

this can’t be good.

conclusion:

meanwhile, pinky is mourning their friendship! and all of the bops on the head.

“being a smarty is no fun! brain doesn’t like me.”

awww. ):

hm.

meanwhile, brain is wittering on about how “sacrifices must be made,” as he plugs himself into the machine.

“fourty seven knots, six-- nineteen kelvin, fibbonaci, n plus one, coming.” despite that, he doesn’t seem very happy to be here.

bonk.

brain runs back to their cage excitedly, to show pinky what he’s done!

and immediately falls over in the process. aww.

“pinky! look! i’m a ninny! a wooden headed dumbdumb!”

“there’s not a smart thought in my whole empty head!”

this man is having a nervous breakdown.

“narf, i say! narf to the world!”

wait, what’s that noise?

ah.

“ah! it’s good to be back. brain? brain?”

bonk.

that doorway is evidently a real problem for them. someone should probably fix it before they break their little ankles. ):

“i fixed it! i’m a nitwit!” pinky cheers. “hurrah!”

“yes. i fixed it as well, pinky. i’m as dense as a tree stump.”

“you mean--”

“yes.”

“well, we’ll just have to make you smart again, don’t we?”

“we can’t. we’re both too stupid to operate the machine.”

so instead they just sort of sit down and give up, i guess.

“what do you wanna do tonight, brain?”

“the same thing we do every night, pinky.”

“what’s that?”

“i have no idea.” says brain, in a monotone, clearly upset deadpan. “narf.”

so that’s that, i guess.

originally, i was going to give this to brain - they were both as smart as each other, and if they had worked together they probably could have taken over the world. all he had to do was take the L and let pinky advise him.

on the other hand.... pinky is emotionally intelligent enough that i think he could have had a shot at reasoning with brain about it. and if he’d tried, then he would have figured out that brain had put himself in the machine, and if brain had tried to reason through his insecurities, he would have worked out that pinky had put himself in the machine, and--

basically they get half a point again.

brain: 6 pinky: 7 outside influence: 11

because i think that’s fair.

either way, they seem to have fixed it, somehow, by the next segment. so it’s all good.

BRAINSTEM BRAINSTEM.

#patb #pinky and the brain #i could have found some funny parts in this episode but #i wanted to remind everyone of brainstem #BRAINSTEM BRAINSTEM

18 notes · View notes

whatsarasaid · 5 years ago

Note

As a prompt: Heartman & Mama nerding together pls

title: tossing rocks. fandom: death stranding. rating: teen & up. word count: approx. 1000. characters: heartman, mama (målingen).

—

“What’cha got?”

Mama had stopped answering with the typical ‘hello.’

They rang each other multiple times a week with new research or ideas on how to help Sam, so it seemed silly to chirp a formal greeting at every call. Heartman found their growing familiarity refreshing. Though he had worked with Mama and Lockne during the initial expedition out West, they were never close. The twins may have been an integral part of the Chiral Network, but they had also been young, and there were many, more experienced engineers with whom Heartman had consulted instead. But Bridges, having lost a majority of their workforce to BTs and voidouts, now relied heavily on Mama and her expertise. Which meant Heartman did, too.

Not that he minded in the least. Her measured confidence was a counterbalance to his frantic theorizing, steady when he raced and focused when he diverted course. Whenever he needed to chatter out his constellational thoughts, she was there to map them. To understand. He could blather to Sam all day (and, sometimes, accidentally did just that), but he realized that the porter’s intelligence lied in the kinesthetic, not the scientific. Mama, on the other hand, could track with his jargon. Speak his language.

The moiré chiral projection showed her lying beneath a suspended trike, wrench in hand, and grease spotting her forearms. Multitasker that she was, she had set up her chiral camera to record in her workshop so she could tinker as they spoke. She said keeping her hands busy got her brain turning enough to keep up with his.

“Sam’s bodily fluid analyses are back from Deadman and they are fascinating,” Heartman said as he paced back and forth across his lab, articulating with his hands, “They contain chiral matter, as we knew they would, but it seems as though these excretions negate the chiral matter within BTs. As you know, when living matter meets dead, they mirror each other, resulting in annihilation. But Sam’s bodily fluids don’t mirror. They match. This causes the BT to, well, dissolve. Or, maybe ‘resolve’ would be a better word, if we’re being philosophical about it. Who knows? Either way, this is a magnificent discovery.”

“So, I’m guessing the question is now: how are we going to utilize it?”

“Precisely, how are we going to utilize it,” he opened his palms, “My initial thought is in some sort of anti-BT weaponry.”

“I mean, it’s definitely possible,” Mama shuffled up onto her elbows, tapping her spanner against the floor in thought, “Sam’s blood—or whatever—just needs a vehicle to travel its target, right? So, we encapsulate it in a projectile—a bullet or grenade or something. The ink in marking rounds and paint grenades could even be swapped out. Easy.”

“Indeed,” he thrummed his fingers against the AED as his mind revolved, “Quite a simple solution. Though I’d want to further refine the technology. Give it some elegance.”

“Heartman, considering what these things are,” she smirked, “I’m not sure you could ever call them ‘elegant.’”

“I will admit that when you look at it in a certain light, it is unfortunately vulgar.”

“Don’t worry, it’s still a good idea,” she raised an indifferent shoulder, “Telling Sam will be interesting, though.”

A sharp squeal pierced from the other side of the line. Mama jerked up, and peered out into the distance, checking on something in her lab. After a moment, she settled back down with a dismissive wave, “Sorry ’bout that. Her new favorite thing is randomly squawking. She’s fine.”

Heartman’s smile grew tight. He didn’t know much about Mama’s situation. Just that she had been pregnant with Lockne’s child, and after the attack on her hospital, had cut off all contact with her sister. But the whole thing radiated suspicion. Like how Mama had turned the ruined hospital into her lab. Or how she had adopted a moniker. Or how she had given birth over fourteen months ago, but her daughter’s vocalizations still sounded like those of a newborn.

“Are you ever going to talk to Lockne?” The question was asked in concern, but as soon as it came out, he wanted to stuff it back in. Who was he to confront her on such a thing? People in glass houses ought not throw stones.

Mama went silent. And then a fizzled clatter rang through the chiralgram as she tossed her wrench into the nearby toolbox. “Sure,” she said, lying flat against the ground. Her hands sat limply on her ribcage as she rolled her head against the concrete to sigh up at the ceiling, “Someday.”

“That was inappropriate of me, Målingen, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Mama mumbled as she rubbed her forehead, leaving behind a dark smear, “Some days are just harder than others.”

“They are,” he echoed back, thoughtful.

Uncertainty undertowed between them. Heartman longed to say more—he did, truly. But it seemed as though he had already mucked things up enough. He wished she could visit, wished she would open up, wished he would open up. But all the wishing in the world didn’t help.

Thirty-seconds until cardiac arrest. Please hold on to something secure. Activating lab security measures.

“I’ll let you get to dying,” Mama said as she sat up and dusted off her hands, “In the meantime, I’ll draw up some plans for prototypes. Should have them to you in a few days.”

“Målingen-”

“Take care of yourself, alright?”

Heartman plopped down on his chase lounge, feeling defeated. His mouth opened and closed, searching for words to comfort her, to let her know she didn’t have to pretend to be fine, to let her know he too knew what it was to be trapped and alone and scared.

But all he could get out in time was, “I’ll do my best.”

Five, four, three-

His heart stopped as her image flickered out.

end.

#death stranding #heartman #mama (death stranding)#målingen #prompts #this has 'life in the time of corona' vibes

10 notes · View notes

sending-the-message · 7 years ago

Text

I got a job at the local movie theater by Windmill-Hill

The next time you go to a movie theater I challenge you to find gum at the concession stand. As a part-time usher I can tell you that gum is enemy #1 and most, if not all, theaters don’t sell it in-house. Among those is Pintura Theater, aka the only place to catch a movie in all of Windmill Hill. And the only place I could be hired in the span of an hour.

I recently started working at Pintura. The old man running the theater, still called Red even though his hair had long since turned grey, placed a help wanted sign and I just so happened to be a broke college kid. My interview consisted of “Do you do drugs?” to which I responded “Maybe” and bam… I got the job. I was one of the four unfortunate souls Red managed to convince that spending our Friday nights in a decrepit theater was well worth the minimum wage.

My first day I got to meet the rest of my coworkers: Carmen, Joe, and Susan. Carmen worked the concession stand and ticket booth. She liked to hide her signs of middle age in at least four layers of makeup. It had the effect of making her look like a clown extra in one of those creepy circus B-Movies. Joe was a scrawny teen that loved to babble about the most obscure films he could find. He joined the theater in hopes of convincing Red to “bring some culture to Windmill Hill”. Two years later and all he accomplished was a pencil thin mustache with a side of acne. Susan was hired a week before me but had already missed work the last few days. I had a feeling I was taking her job and didn’t see her most of my first day.

As the senior employee, in more ways than one, Carmen showed me the basics of cleaning our three viewing room theater. “This is Viewing Room 1. It’s part of the original theater.” “Original?” I asked, though honestly I wasn’t paid enough to care. She didn’t seem to hear me and explained the finer points of sweeping aisles and scraping off gum. Which was no easy task. Despite the theater not selling it, Viewing Room 1 was rampant with ABC gum. I figured it was because it was the oldest room and didn’t spare it much thought. The other two viewing rooms were newer and cleaner which meant less work for me.

The rest of the tour was as uneventful as the start. Though it wasn’t going to be my main job I was shown how to work the fryers and where the key was to the frozen products. Carmen told me they had to lock up the perishable food at night due to “miscreants” which made me reevaluate her age to the next tier of old. For all I knew her and Red were siblings but I made it a point not to get too close to coworkers. A fact that made Joe all the more obnoxious.

I had a feeling that Joe wasn’t the type that made friends easily. Was it his constant references to old movies? Or the fact he chose to breathe through his mouth more often than not? Either way, he immediately latched onto me while demonstrating how to work the projectors. “Rooms 2 and 3 are digital, and therefore inferior, projectors. Easier to work but at the cost of the film’s integrity, you know? Just push a button and instant entertainment. Oh how our modern ways have eclipsed our sensibilities…” He trailed off, waiting to see if I got the reference, then sighed before continuing. “Any monkey can run the digital projectors but what I’m about to show you next takes some real talent!” Mentally I questioned how much talent could be bought in a town like Windmill Hill. It wasn’t as if my home was void of potential. We were well on our way to having the most missing persons in the country. But being known for that didn’t exactly bring in the money.

Joe’s enthusiasm for the ancient projector in Viewing Room 1 was almost contagious. I say almost because the sheer amount of cobwebs and old discarded gum was enough to make me reconsider following him inside. “Did you know almost every theater has converted to digital projectors? Awful, right?! Just look at this beauty.” I wasn’t sure what was particularly impressive about an old hunk of metal but somehow I knew Joe would clue me in. “Oh! Let me show you it in action. Can’t appreciate all it’s wonder otherwise!” A few levers and a couple switches later the ancient machine sprung to life and started playing the reel on it. Looking through the projection window it was some old timey horror film.

“The Hidden Horror of Factory Five. A classic! We have one of the only remaining copies. I was planning on showing this for this week’s midnight movie.” I apparently looked interested enough for him to explain. “Each week we run an old movie at midnight. Red finally agreed to let me do it a few months ago and it’s been quite a success if I do say so myself! Except for the troublemaker.” Joe pointed to a seat right below the projection box. It took me a moment to realize it the different coloration was due to dozens of gum pieces.

“...gross…” I mumbled as Joe continued. “Right?! Some woman keeps coming for the midnight showing and leaves her gum behind. Filthy animal. Susan tried to get her to leave and that wench put gum in her hair! Poor Susan spent all night trying to get it out. She hasn’t come back to work since…” I shuddered imagining someone putting their chewed gum in my hair and was immediately grateful the barber cut my hair a little on the short side last time. “But hey! Now we get to hang out!” Offering my most sincere “Yeah.” I left to go clock out.

Someone was already at the machine when I arrived, a girl with her hair tucked up into a hat. I figured it was Susan but she ran off before I could introduce myself. As I approached the punch cards I noticed hers was covered in sticky strands of gum. For a place that didn’t sell gum, Pintura sure had a problem with it.

I clocked out before I could be asked to clean it up.

College expenses and dreams of eating something other than ramen led to me taking more hours at Pintura. Susan’s hours, to be exact. It turned out I was the last person who saw her, leading to a lot of questioning and zero answers. But that was the way things were in Windmill Hill and it was better not to dwell on it. Maybe she made the smart decision and left this town to its own ruin. Maybe I was getting a bit dramatic as I scraped off my fiftieth wad of gum.

I wasn’t originally counting. It just got to the point that I needed to keep track of the amount of gum Viewing Room 1 was coated with for scientific purposes. That… and I was bored. Granted I wasn’t bored enough to clean off that “troublemaker’s seat” and knew the day I was asked to I would quit this job. But as luck or lack of proper management would have it, Red never entered Room 1. He just took my word that it was fully cleaned and let me collect my pay. If I were someone of even slightly less morals and more apathetic I would have probably never cleaned in there. Sometimes I wished I cared just a little less.

Then I wouldn’t have had to see her.

The Midnight Movie was genuinely a success and I had to admit I was surprised. I guess there were a lot of people in town that enjoyed old films and stale popcorn. Far be it from me to judge their entertainment standards because it meant extra dollars in my bank account. Just the thought of buying meat that wasn’t in the “special discount” bin kept me patrolling the aisles every fifteen minutes or so.

Other than my employee vest the only thing I was given for this job was a flashlight that may have existed when the “original” theater was built. I’m talking about a huge clunker of a flashlight that ran on those batteries you could kill a man with. Yet despite the size it barely produced enough light to actually illuminate anything. Red told me to use it to check for anyone illegally recording and to mess with anyone using their cellphone. I had more fun with the latter.

With each pass through the theater I had to use the light-challenge flashlight to check each aisle. But whenever I reached the row before the top I paused. The screen wasn’t very bright and what it did reveal always stopped before the back row. It was pitch black there and I should have been content to pretend nobody was there. A foolproof plan...

If I couldn’t hear the chewing.

At the start of the show it was quiet enough that I could ignore it. And I would have if it wasn’t for the fact with each theater check the sound was louder. By my fourth trip I could hear her obnoxiously smacking the gum like a teacher’s worst nightmare. A couple of the moviegoers started to complain and I began to understand why the last few rows were always empty in a packed theater.

“Hey, do you work here?” The tap on my shoulder caused me to jump way more than I would have liked. The woman behind me folded her arms and waited for a response. “Uh, yeah I…” She immediately cut me off and at that point I really should have ignored her. “Someone is chewing like, super loud in the back. Super. Loud. I didn’t pay to listen to that. Can you like, tell them to stop or something?” Before I could respond she was already returning to her seat. I muttered under my breath and began walking back to the lobby when something made me stop. Grimacing I lifted my foot and felt the familiar cling of discarded gum.

That was what set me over the top. Flashlight in hand I stomped up the stairs to the back row, using the slight suction on my shoes to fuel my bravado. I wasn’t a confrontation type of person. Few things were worth the effort of a face-to-face dispute. But I spent the last several hours cleaning this place and the idea of removing another piece of sticky garbage made me erupt. Armed with my ancient beacon I approached the source of the sound. And promptly regretted it.

The woman was there in all her nightmare inducing glory. Tattered rags of once clothing clung to her emaciated frame, covered in what I first thought were spider webs then realized… they were strands of gum. The spider like designs covered her body leading up to hair made of the same sticky substance. I couldn’t tell where the clothing ended and her hair began, the tangled mess seemed to overwhelming for someone so small. Her eyes shined in the dull light, but they were nothing but blank orbs stationed above a mouth of jagged teeth.

I watched, unable to move, as a crooked grin crossed her almost absent pink-stained lips. All the while her chewing didn’t stop, a thick wad of gum being mashed over and over again. Yet somehow through it all I heard her voice, sickly sweet with an accent I couldn’t place. “Want some?” She outstretched a clawed hand covered in gooey string that…

The flashlight fell from my hand and my eyes widened as they traced the start of the gum.

What remained of Susan rested limply against the creature’s legs. The top of her head was caved in and covered in gum. Occasionally her body would twitch, the last semblance of life she held, as more of her gumified insides were greedily dug out by the chewing woman. Bits of pink goo oozed from her ears and nose as the question was repeated.

“Want some?”

The theater’s lights flickered on and the sudden brightness caused me to wince. Opening my eyes the creature and Susan were gone only leaving behind a few rogue strands of gum. Chatter filled the air as the moviegoers started to exit, completely unaware of the monster that shared the last two hours with them. Faintly I could hear the woman who complained earlier cry out in disgust.

“Eeeewwwww! There’s gum in my hair!”

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

0 notes

vaultsixtynine · 8 years ago

Text

wyn is a wanderer and always has been; she takes life one day at a time, and that was always Enough

at some point… she realizes that it’s maybe not enough. but she doesn’t know what else she’s supposed to want, or what kind of life she’s supposed to lead, or what goals she’s supposed to be aiming for, which builds into this kind of ‘you’re another year older, time to have more 3 am existential anxiety attacks’

her independence has always been her primary concern and goal; ‘comfort’ or ‘personal security’ have never been anywhere near the top of the list, because it’s just her, no ties, no roots - she can go anywhere, be anything, free to come and go as she pleases, responsible only for herself. so she’s used to that, and even as she gets older, the ‘personal freedom to wander’ aspect not likely to change Too much.

but as she puts her stake into the mojave and also into other people - reconciling & recommuning with family, making close friends of companions and others, sometimes getting involved w/ avery depending on if he’s around or not, etc. - she starts to wonder how long she can really carry on the way she’s always carried on; she wonders what she’s going to make of herself in the long-term. she’s always been Very Shitty at thinking about the future in any great capacity, but it grows into a serious concern.

wyn’s been a lot of things - doctor, caravan runner, ruins explorer, graverobber/scavver combo, adventurer, conwoman, drug queenpin, porn star, courier, briefly the holder of the entire new vegas and hoover dam territory (before negotiating with the ncr for peaceful and proper integration rather than rushed and sloppy imperialist takeover), a handful of other temporary professions, etc. - she just starts to get increasingly restless as she begins to feel like she’s on the precipice of the age where she’s supposed to ‘settle down’

she doesn’t necessarily see herself doing that in the ‘typical’ way, but she does want… something. some great thing that she’s been looking for for years and still doesn’t know what ‘it’ even is. when she left the boneyard at 17, she just assumed she’d ‘figure it out’ at some point, but she hasn’t yet, and i think at some point she’ll just be like… she’s never believed in any kind of ‘this is what you’re Supposed to be’, but she knows herself well enough to know that to find a true home where she’s happy will take her actually allowing herself to be vulnerable long enough to stay somewhere for longer than a few months. this is an intensely unpleasant and mildly daunting thought to her.

the mojave gets very close to this - ‘home’ - for a long time, but i currently have a mostly-sensible plotline where, after the vegas-ncr power transfer happens and after she (and ana and a lot of slaves) kills caesar, she takes a vacation (workcation) to the east coast (FOR FALLOUT 4 U GUESSED IT) to prevent hildern (yes, that scumbag) from getting a bos-held weapon, and then uses that to blackmail the osi (who gave hildern clearance for the op) into hiring her in his stead.

her ruthless efficiency in getting the ncr’s shit squared in the osi east division rapidly gets her into an audience with ncr leadership, where she proposes (and is accepted) that she replace the current director (an ex-follower who basically betrayed the followers bc the osi was offering him a bunch of money to be a shittier scientist) and restructure the entirety of the OSI into the NCSD (new california science division, she argued for almost 2 months with several people for it to get renamed because OSI sounds stupid) - so that the osi’s old dedication to political/bureaucratic ladder-climbing can die and instead they can focus on actual science to advance burgeoning civilization. also, she’s very adamant @ ncr leadership that they reconcile with the followers; two heads of scientific advancement are better than one.

the ncsd becomes her baby and she gets to face a bunch of new shit at its helm; i don’t think she’ll stay there forever (pass it on to another scientist she trusts to not be a fucking bastard and ruin all her hard work) - but it’s definitely something she does for a handful of years at the very least, a return to her follower/doctor roots and something that satisfies her and holds her attention.

#got a bit long #anyway......... wyn is a wanderer by nature and it's sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse #wyn

2 notes · View notes

juliettespencerus · 5 years ago

Text

Wisdom from a Functional Nutrition Dietician Interview with Kathie Swift

Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating interviews Kathie Swift, a registered dietician, and nutritionist, who has pioneered and directed leading-edge nutrition programs at Dr. Mark Hyman’s UltraWellness Center, at the famous Canyon Ranch Health Resorts, and at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Kathie speaks about how her personal struggles with fatigue led her to switch gears in college and why she started studying nutrition. Kathie shares how nutrition is not just for the body, but true Nutrition is at a much deeper level. Nutrition is of the mind, spirit, and heart. Learn some of Kathie’s insights on how she helps her clients navigate all the influx of information and technology we have available to us.

youtube

Transcript:

Marc: Welcome, everybody. I’m Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Here we are in The Future of Healing Online Conference. I’m here with a wonderful friend and amazing colleague, Kathie Swift. Welcome, Kathie.

Kathie: Welcome, Marc. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.

Marc: Oh, absolutely, absolutely! You and I go back a long way. I’m super proud of that. Let me say a few words about you for our listeners and viewers so they can get caught up, and then we can jump in.

Kathie Swift is a registered dietician, nutritionist, who was awarded the firstever Visionary Leadership Award by the Dieticians and Integrative and Functional Medicine Dietetic Practice Group and recognized by Today’s Dietician as a dietician making a difference.

Kathie Swift has pioneered and directed leadingedge nutrition programs at Dr. Mark Hyman’s UltraWellness Center, at the famous Canyon Ranch Health Resorts, at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. She’s been the Education Director for the Center for MindBody Medicine’s premier Food As Medicine professional training program for 15 years.

Kathie serves on the advisory board for Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal. She’s a scientific reviewer for military medicine and served on the Institute for Functional Medicine’s nutrition advisory board. Kathie has spoken all over everywhere in the universe. She’s been interviewed in hundreds of articles, published in the U.S. and internationally. She’s also the cofounder of the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, and that’s an online training program for registered dieticians, nurses, all kinds of practitioners and health professionals.

Kathie is the coauthor of The Inside Tract: Your Good Gut Guide to Health. Her latest book is The Swift Diet, and we’ll be able to talk about that as well. You’ve been a busy lady for the last—since you’ve been born it sounds like! You’ve covered a lot of turf and I’m just wondering if you can start out just by sharing how you got on the journey into being a dietician and just specializing in functional nutrition.

Kathie: Well the beginning of my journey, Marc, I started off in my undergraduate in nursing school. By my third year, I think I had compassion fatigue already, and I decided, too,

that there was, perhaps, a better pathway to helping people heal. I felt that doorway was through food and nutrition. I switched gears and started studying nutrition, went on for my Master’s degree at Arizona State University and really then had a lifechanging experience with a chronic illness.

That’s when I had to—so I was trained as a traditional registered dietician, and then became unwell and had to figure things out. It was through my own personal health crisis that I began to explore nutrition on a much deeper level, which led me to some of my mentors like Dr. Jeffrey Bland and Dr. Sidney Baker and others. It really made a big difference in my life and how I have been able to help others.

Marc: Kathie, are there any kind of bigpicture pieces that you could share with us in terms of here you are, and you’ve been in this field for a while. Any big picture pieces in terms of what you’ve learned over the years as an educator and practitioner when it comes to people and food? Any just kind of broad brushstrokes you can give us from your perspective?

Kathie: Okay, broad brushstrokes. Well, as a nutrition practitioner, people seek my help to manage chronic health conditions, whether it’s autoimmune or a digestive disorder, weight issues. Many of the patients I work with are highly motivated. They’re convinced that food is medicine, and they want personalized nutrition information.

I think that is really key. People are seeking what is right for me? I think that what I’ve learned over the years is that for true healing to take place, it’s nutrition for the physical body, of course, is so important, but nourishment on a deeper level for the mind, the spirit, and the heart, which truly is our greatest teacher, is vitally important.

I’ll just share, if I can, a couple stories of patients come to mind. Of course, the names have been changed, but I think about Rose, who came to me because of irritable bowel syndrome and she’d been struggling with weight issues. She had read my latest book, The Swift Diet, and just really wanted to know exactly what supplements would help her IBS and help her lose weight.

But in the course of our conversation, what I really—her story—what really I uncovered was that she was stuck in a job that she really hated. Interestingly, Marc, her chief compliant, so to speak, was chronic constipation, IBS/constipation predominant. She was constantly sleep deprived. She had, because of her work schedule, a lack of social

connection and friends. It was that shifting of someone who came seeking shortlived solutions to a journey of selfdiscovery and true healing.

I guess when you say bigpicture broad stroke it’s this partnering of both nutrition, the science, and this art of nourishing, nourishment. Just recently I met with another patient who I had actually seen about 10 years ago. Someone had referred to me. She came. I’m going to just call her “Diane.” Diane came to me. She drove over four hours to see me. Just when I met her in the waiting room, I could sense her anxiety, her fear, and she began to ramble very nervously.

When we got to my office, instead of, of course, sitting across from her, which is how the office and this clinic was set up, I sat next to her. I invited her to breathe with me. I think this is another broad stroke, and she really became more relaxed, and it was also important that I, myself, as someone to help facilitate her healing, was centered.

I think those are what I really have gathered as broad strokes for healing to truly take place. It’s important that we integrate mindbody practices along with the nutritional therapies that we know can be so very helpful. I think that’s part of the clinical wisdom that I feel is so important.

Marc: For me, I’ve noticed that the first times ever that I did something like you’re describing. “Okay, Mr. or Mrs. Client. Let’s just breathe together.” I was so scared. I was so scared. I thought, “Okay, this is going to be the death of me. This is going to be the end of my career.” I think what I’ve noticed is that not only didn’t I die, not only didn’t it ruin my life, but people were actually hungrier for it than I could have even guessed.

Kathie: I love it! I, too, had a little trepidation, Marc, in this encounter in starting the session off, but I really felt there could be no better way to help this person. I will say we had a really, really powerful, powerful session. I appreciate you sharing that because even for us these techniques and skill building require an eagerness and a willingness to proceed.

Marc: Yeah, I’m also thinking. Let me make a comment and then just get your thoughts on the comment. It seems like, on the one hand, when people come to a practitioner such as yourself, they’re coming for information, for wisdom, for guidance. “You’re going to help me move in a direction that I don’t really know what I’m doing.” In a sense, you’re the expert, but at the same time, doing something like, “Hey, let’s sit down and breathe

together.” There are these moments where, in a sense, you’re becoming equal with your clients. You’re just sort of sitting alongside them.

It seems like there’s this interesting balance, maybe, between being in the position of leadership with a client or a patient and also letting them know somehow that, “Wait a second. We’re all equals on some levels.”

Kathie: Love it. Absolutely. You’re reminding me even thinking about how this session unfolded was that at another point in time I invited her to do a Qigong movement because we’d been sitting for a while, and she loved that and wanted to explore Qigong. Even though she came seeking, and in fact, in her own words she said to me, “I’m scared. I’m so far gone. I need the right diet, the right diet to help me.” Even though that’s what was part of her expectation, by shifting gears and helping her tap in, appreciate, and access the healer within, it was really powerful and can be life changing. So yes, it really is—it’s relationshipcentered care, isn’t it?

Marc: Yeah, let me ask you another bigpicture question. Just in your observations working with a patient, client population over the years, have you noticed any greater trends and I’m asking you more from just observational—have you noticed any trends in health?

Like, “Oh, my goodness! I see more people coming in with this complaint than ever before,” or “I see less people coming in with suchandsuch complaints.” Anything you’ve tracked that’s caught your attention.

Kathie: Yes, there definitely have been some trends that I’m seeing in practice. These trends, Marc, are quite different than I would say even certainly a decade ago, perhaps even five years ago. I am definitely seeing more individuals with what are referred to as “adverse food reactions and chemical sensitivities.” Adverse food reactions, the umbrella term for food allergies and intolerances.

Interestingly, not something I’m solely observing in my practice, just last week I was at a dinner meeting and was chatting with a woman next to me, and she shared with me that her daughter—she had recently lost her daughter, 27 years old, to a food allergy. She had a lot of fear around food and such.

Yeah, it’s an emerging problem. A few years ago, I think it was in 2011, the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the cover story was on this exact topic. I think the World Allergy Organization, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,

they’re really examining this very, very closely, looking at the epidemiology and the diagnosis, the management, the controversies, the gaps in our knowledge. It’s something that I’m definitely, definitely seeing more of.

Another thing that relates to this, as I mentioned, is chemical sensitivities. A couple of my favorite researchers in this area, Claudia Miller at the University of TexasSan Antonio has published some great work. She came up with the TILT hypothesis, which TILT means ToxicantInduced Loss of Tolerance and how that impacts different individuals and different systems in an individual.

She also came up with what’s called the QEESI. It’s an assessment that can be used even in primary care to evaluate toxic burden. She’s done some great work in this area. Then another one of my favorite researchers in this area, so I follow these people and their work because I think it’s really important that we, as providers, stay uptodate on this evolving, emerging area.

Stephen Genuis, he’s a Canadian researcher and just published a great paper in behavioral neurology on toxic burden bioaccumulation and cognitive function and dementia.

That’s one thing I’m seeing. Along with that, the other trend and I don’t think it’s just because I’ve written a couple books on digestive health, but is the increase—stealthlike increase in digestive disorders, and along with that, brain health. I put gut and brain together because, of course, we know that they’re intimately connected via the lovely wandering vagus nerve, the brain and the belly and the central nervous system.

I think that the good news in this is that we, through integrative and functional medicine, nutrition therapies, we are definitely seeing ways that we can repair and even reverse some of these really serious conditions. I think the appreciation of what I call the “four domains of the gut,” which are the great wall, the intestinal barrier, the immune system in the gut, and the nervous system in the gut, the enteric nervous system and also, of course, the hottest topic it seems like in medicine and nutrition, the microbiome.

You can see how they all relate. More food allergies, food intolerances, chemical sensitivities because of gut distress and then also brain, mental health disorders. In fact, there was a white paper recently published that was a call to action globally because of

mental health disorders impactingI mean onethird of the world’s disability is due to this. I think these are the things I’ve definitely seen an increase.

Some other things that are, of course, changing I think the practice of nutrition is what I would call the quantified self. More and more patients are coming in to our office because of wearables and watches and apps and gadgets and such with a lot of personal data. Data with regard to their food, their dietary intake, their sleep patterns, their stress patterns, their anthropometrics and vitals, and their expectation, of course, is that we can—we, as providers, can interpret this in a realistic and reasonable way, make sense of it, so to speak, with recommendations that are personalized to their condition and their lifestyle. I think we all need to be prepared for that.

I think an important thing that I found is we can get really excited about technology, too, and we have to, I think, be aware of the latest app that we really love came out. Is it a fit for them, for that individual?

Funny, I had a patient just this morning who I’ve been working with and I felt like the FODMAP app, which she had irritable bowel, so we were experimenting with the FODMAP diet. I felt that it would be a good match for her. She said to me this morning. She said, “Kathie, that has been so helpful.” Because how it helped her was some of it is colorcoded and she saw that it didn’t mean total exclusion of a particular food. She could have a small amount.

I think that’s changing the practice of nutrition in medicine. Certainly Skyping with patients, telemedicine, telehealth, the whole landscape is changing, so that’s another trend. Along with that and I didn’t mention as far as with this data is more and more patients just in the last year, Marc, have asked me to interpret their genetic test. Just yesterday at a clinical rounds meeting in a clinic that I work that, that was our discussion. We were evaluating and looking at a number of different genetic tests and the various profiles, whether the profile, for example, weight management, which interestingly they’ve identified some snips, some gene variants that have to do with exercise responsiveness, insulin sensitivity, the satiety, taste. I mean you start reward, the whole dopamine pathway.

I think we are going to see more of that in the future. I know I’m seeing more of that in my practice even right now. I certainly see both the promise and also I guess I also like hightouch, lowtech. I think where genetic information can be useful is it can provide

insights and awareness, but I think that there’s a lot more that we’ll be learning from this as the OMICS revolution continues to unfold.

I think another interesting part of this story is the research that’s looking at various conditions, and again, how personalized treatments, how personalizing even drug therapies can be really, really useful. I’ll mention one other trend that is, I think, a really positive high note and that is the recent data that U.S. adults now over 30% are using complimentary and integrative approaches. In fact, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine changed their name recently to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Care, meaning to reflect the evolution that’s happening that alternative medicine is no longer alternative, that a larger umbrella is the entire healthcare landscape, teambased care, a number of different providers.

They do a survey every five years. In this latest survey, interestingly, what they found and they defined two broad categories of integrative approaches. They define them as natural products, supplements, and mindbody practices. I thought it was really interesting that in both adults and children the use of natural products was quite high. Fish oil being the #1 with melatonin and probiotics growing. Then the mindbody practices, everything from spinal manipulation, meditation, Qigong, yoga, stealthlike growth in yoga by both children and adults. I’m really encouraged by that, just as an observation, as a practitioner, too, certainly seeing that in practice.

Marc: It seems like we’re in a time now where there is such an explosion of let’s just say information or information that’s available. I think on the one hand we now have just unbelievable access to endless amounts of information around nutrition, around health. And there seems to be more interest, so there’s more information coming out. I guess my comment/question that I would love to hear your thoughts on is it seems to me a lot of times that people, the average consumer of information, the average person, they’re taking in a lot.

You can read nutrition information because you and I are educated in this realm, so we can at least make our assessments, check it out, do I like this, do I not like it? Wow, is the average layperson exposed to so much! How do you help people navigate that or how do you see your role or even answer the question what can people do to kind of help them digest the different amounts of information?

Kathie: Marc, what’s coming up for me is a quote and I don’t know who said it. “We’re drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” Digest is the perfect metaphor here. I will say it really depends on the person that I’m working with. For some people, I actually encourage a sabbatical from trying to digest so much information. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear, and this has really been a good practice for some.

On the other hand, and I like the use of your term “navigate,” I do help individuals navigate. I think one of the things is they’re coming to me because they trust me and they feel that—and they want help evaluating, whether it’s a new food that they’ve heard has been extolled for health benefits or whether it’s a dietary supplement. It’s my role to be that navigator in a trusting relationship.

For myself and for all of us as providers, I’d learned to kind of distill it down to a few of my favorite resources, and I’m certainly—and even if something, say, for example, you read on a website or from a food blogger or such and you kind of even—as we should. We should have what? The curious mind, the inquiry around it. I would then, first off, go into PubMed and what I’m thinking about was years ago when someone first mentioned—asked me about oil pulling. Well, one of the first things I did—and I always acknowledge if I’m not aware of something. I think it’s good to be honest and authentic, but I want to check that out and I’ll get back to you.

Sure enough, I went into the National Library of Medicine and there were some articles, some research on it. And even in looking at a study, is there bias? Is there disclosure? Who funded it? There are all those things that we learn in research methods, so to speak.

I guess I certainly see myself as a navigator to help people who trusted me to share my opinion on some of the information, often prescribe sabbaticals. It’s an interesting experiment. How did that feel to them? Then distill it down into resources that I’ve found especially helpful in my own life to keep up with the latest information, which it is a tsunami.

Marc: So favorite resources that you would recommend for the layperson who’s educated and wants to stay up on things, educate themselves better in terms of on the Web.

Kathie: Okay, for the consumer. My mind immediately went to some of the ones that I use, which for the consumer, I like MindBodyGreen. One of the reasons I like it is, because as we

know, one of the challenges that many people have is time constraint. People often love their simple style of five ways, 10 things, six.

I found that the information certainly can be backed up. Of course, my colleague Dr. Hyman. I think Dr. Mercola has some very interesting things. I love Science Daily.

Marc: So do I! It’s so great!

Kathie: You do? Yeah.

Marc: Yeah, love it!

Kathie: That one I really look at science that even a layperson can understand, and then there are links for those of us who want to learn more. There’s the journal article or such.

That’s actually one of my favorites. Medscape, I use Medscape. As the member of the Academy of Nutrition, I get a daily newsfeed, and it’s been interesting how many dieticians weren’t aware of this, but it doesn’t include just research journal articles, but it also includes a lot of articles from food bloggers and a lot of consumer information. It’s actually really, really good.

I love SmartBrief. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that one. SmartBrief for nutrition. They also have digestive briefs that I enjoy. Again, these are really nice for the layperson, the consumer.

Marc: Great! Good insights, good info.

Kathie: Another one, Marc, since supplements are certainly on the rise is Consumer Labs. Yeah, Consumer Labs, I think, does a really nice job.

Marc: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Tell me about your new book.

Kathie: Well, my new book—it’s The Swift Diet, like The Slow Down Diet. I actually didn’t pick the name—the title, I should say, but it really focuses on the latest research on the gut microbiome. I sat down a few years and thought, “Well, how do I work with individuals to help them with digestive issues and also weight issues? Kind of what I call irritable bowel, irritable weight.” I came up with this acronym when I thought through it and that is what I used in the book. It’s M.E.N.D.S.

The chapter begins, the first chapter, with M, which is for Mind your digestion. It’s about integrating mindfulness into your life to help that enteric nervous system, the brain and the belly. The E stands for—that chapter is on Eliminate. That is for eliminating dietary incitants, foods that may be aggravating your digestive system. N is for Nourish, bringing in, how we can feed our gut garden, our microbes and optimizing our digestion through nourishment. Then D is Dietary supplement chapter. I really honed in on the supplements that I found in my years of practice that have been most helpful for digestive issues. Then the S is really about bringing about—it’s bookends. It’s Supporting practices. I expanded on things like Qigong and yoga and how these practices can be very, very helpful for mindbodyspirit. Thank you for asking.

Marc: Yeah, it’s exciting! Congratulations!

Kathie: Thank you.

Marc: As you were saying when I’d asked you earlier about trends that you were noticing, it seems like not only are we living in a time when digestive challenges seem to be on the increase. At the same time, there’s so much new, fascinating research coming down the pike and new insights into the gut, obviously into the gut microbiome. It almost feels like not a moment too soon is this new information exploding because we need it. It really feels like we need to mind what’s happening in our digestive tract like never before.

Kathie: Absolutely. It is an exciting time. I’m very hopeful that the attention and research on the gut and the microbiome is going to—as we know, I mean I referred to the gut as our highway to health, our pathway to pathology. This is everything from brain health to skin health to every system in the body is affected by the ingestion of food and this journey through the digestive tract. It’s an exciting time, and I really am very grateful for all the scientists that are in the field and in the clinics and in the laboratories that are exploring this.

In fact, when I was just over in the U.K. recently at one of the museums, it was all about the gut and the gut brain. They had a wonderful artificial gut that they’re studying and every single thing that goes on in the gut. It was kind of fun to see in this. so even in our travels we’re going to see…

Marc: You’re still bumping into your own digestive tract, so to speak.

Kathie: Exactly.

Marc: Yeah, it’s so fascinating, because on one level, we sort of know that it’s ground zero intuitively. If your gut is doing fine, you sort of never notice it. You don’t notice it and you don’t complain, and you might never in your entire life talk about it if it’s just functioning fine, but as soon as it’s off, wow, do we know it and are we talking about it, thinking about it, and worrying about it!

Kathie: Yes, 24/7. You bet!

Marc: Right. I like that phrase that you used. What did you say? It’s either the highway to health or the…

Kathie: Pathway to pathology.

Marc: To pathology. How true is that?

Kathie: Yes, yes.

Marc: Either or.

Kathie: You bet! You bet. So hopefully we can employ these nutritional strategies to further the highway to health now.

Marc: Where do you see healing going when it comes to the nutrition profession? When you look into your crystal ball, what are just a couple of pieces that you see unfolding into the future or that you would like to see unfold into the future?

Kathie: Well, what I would like to see unfold in the future, Marc, is #1 what I’m feeling right now is more integration, teambased care. I really think that the patient, our clients, are served best when we are working in teams. I hope to see the delivery of functional medicine in an affordable, in an affordable and accessible way for all patients to take advantage of this. I think that another thing that comes to mind for me is more group.

I think the connection—I love teaching workshops. I teach at Kripalu, and in fact, I have a workshop there next week. There’s so much to be shared and learned, and it’s such a

rich, rewarding experience, the group, the power of the group. I also do work with the Center for MindBody Medicine, and that is their whole model, small group work, and just recently experienced it myself in their advanced mindbody medicine training.

All of those things come to mind. Of course, I feel very passionate about the promise of integrative and functional nutrition. So much so that my colleague, Dr. Sheila Dean and I just launched the new academy, the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, with our mission being to transform the practice of nutrition by educating, educating dieticians and others in integrative and functional nutrition therapies.

It’s a bit different than our conventional model. if I take GERD, for example, we may conventionally—GERD diet, right? And avoiding these things, whether it’s spicy foods, citrus, peppermint, you name it. Whereas an integrative and functional approach, we’re going to think about what are the root causes of the dysfunction? What tests might be helpful? Is there a breath test or stool test that might uncover infection or something? H. Pylori or another root cause. Is there a dietary incitant that’s aggravating their system that needs to be removed? We’re thinking about their nervous system in the gut. We’re thinking about are there natural products, DGLs, Ncarnosine.

Then mindbody practices that could be integrated, whether it’s imagery or meditation or dancing, who knows? It’s a more holistic approach. I’m really excited about launching this both online and onsite training program. Really!

Marc: Good for you! You have some amazing projects going and I would love for you to share with viewers and listeners how we can keep up with that, how we can learn more, how we can plug into you and your world. Tell us where we go.

Kathie: Thank you, Marc. Well, for any listeners interested in training through the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, going to the website www.ifnacademy.com. They can also send an email to [email protected]. Then to keep up with things Kathie Swift, www.kathieswift.com and that’s kathieswift.com.

Marc: Well, Kathie, I’m just in awe of the body of work that you’ve created over the years and how you really just beautifully blended being a practitioner, being an educator, really diving into the research and just getting a bigpicture view from all angles of what nutrition is and isn’t and what works and what doesn’t. To me, you’re one of the icons in

this field and in this universe, so tons of respect and just thank you for all the great work that you’ve done.

Kathie: Thank you, Marc. I really appreciate it.

Marc: You are so welcome and I’m so glad we had this conversation. Very inspiring for me and I’m sure inspiring for a lot of people. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Thank you, Kathie and I’m Marc David, on behalf of The Future of Healing Online Conference. Lots more to come. Take care!

Kathie: Take care. Byebye.

from Healthy Living https://psychologyofeating.com/wisdom-from-a-functional-nutrition-dietician-interview-with-kathie-swift/

0 notes