#(except the one time i was still unable to work due to chronic pain and the painsomnia made me pass out during the daytime

[robinsnest2111]

always fun whenever I bring up an anecdote from my childhood and it turns out it wasn't an anecdote, but actually recounting an apparently traumatic event. at least according to the people I tell the anecdote to.

[alfordcarlton19]

How Purchase A Home With Good Feng Shui

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[amyhendry-contextualstudiesyear1]

The Legacy of Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is a Mexican born artist formerly remembered for her paintings, more specifically her paintings based on nature and Mexican culture as well as her many self-portraits. Kahlo took up painting whilst recovering for a bus accident she was in as a teenager, the accident left her in a full body cast for quite some time and painting was her way of distracting her from the pain of recovery. Her work is heavily inspired by her culture which she incorporates in the clothing and scenery that she depicts in her paintings. In her lifetime she completed over 140 paintings (55 of which being self-portraits). A common theme in Kahlo’s work is both physical and emotional pain, the physical pain coming from her multiple surgeries she had to undergo because of her accident and her emotional pain came from her rocky relationship with her husband, fellow artist Diego Rivera (who she married twice). Despite that Kahlo is recognised as one of the greatest artist Mexico has ever seen and has become on of the most widely known artist in the world.

Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City on the 6th of July 1907 and her full name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón. Kahlo’s father was a photographer who immigrated from Germany to Mexico where he met her mother Matilde, she is the third child with her two older sisters Matilde and Adriana and her younger sister Cristina. Even before her accident Kahlo had problems with her mobility as she contracted polio at a young age that damaged her right foot and caused her to have a limp from the age of six. In 1922 Kahlo became one of the only female students to attend the renowned National Preparatory School in which she became very politically active and joined the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party whilst still a student. Not long after (1928) she married fellow artist Diego Rivera in what would become a very rocky and unstable relationship going through several periods of separation and rekindling, it was this relationship that would inspire some of her most famous paintings.

Kahlo first exhibited her work in 1939 in an exhibit in Paris, her work received massive praise and not long after Kahlo was commissioned by the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican women in 1941, however she was unable to finish the project due to the passing of her father as well as her chronic health problems. In 1953 Kahlo got her very first solo exhibit in her home city and, despite being bedridden, she refused to miss the opening and arrived by ambulance to celebrate with attendee’s. After Kahlo’s passing in 1954 her work became the symbol for female creativity and helped fuel the feminist movement in the 70’s, it was such events that has made her artwork iconic. “Frida expresses her own experiences in her works, it is exactly what she is living in her present, how she interprets it and how she believes that others live it. She paints after her divorce, as already mentioned before, “Las dos Fridas”, which we can locate within Surrealism (1939), because the surrealists do not want to copy reality but prefer to capture their reality, which is what they interpret of her dreams, or in the case of Frida, her own experiences, since she was able to create wonderful works from them. (…) Frida differs from the surrealists because she does not pretend to paint her dreams or liberate the unconscious, but through the technique of surrealism expresses her own experiences, which emanate suffering.” – Galeria Valmar, artes visuals, 2019.

The Broken Column 

For this next part I wanted to analyse some of Kahlo’s most famous paintings and explore the deeper meaning behind them, starting with ‘The Broken Column’. ‘The Broken Column’ was a self-portrait created in 1944 shortly after a spinal surgery Kahlo underwent due to her accident, the surgery left her in a full body cast and a spinal brace which can be seen in the painting. Also in the painting we can see her body appearing almost cut in half, as if her spine had been ripped out, as well as nails poking out of her body. This actively demonstrates the physical pain constant years of surgery has caused Kahlo with the nails being a physical representation of such. Through the centre of her body the column taking the place of her spine is broken in several places creating the effect that it’s about to crumble and collapse on itself. Almost all of Kahlo’s self-portraits are meant to display her suffering caused by her accident, which left her both unable to bear children and ended her dreams of becoming a doctor, this is often shown by her facial expressions with ‘The Broken Column’ being no exception. After a closer look you can tears falling down her face as well as strong highlights in her pupils to emphasise the physical and emotional pain she was suffering. “The Broken Column was painted shortly after Frida Kahlo had undergone another surgery on her spinal column. The operation left her bedridden and “enclosed” in a metallic corset (…) The accident ended Kahlo’s dreams of becoming a doctor and caused her pain and illness for the rest of her life. (…) Although her face is bathed in tears, it doesn’t reflect a sign of pain. The nails piercing her body are a symbol of the constant pain she faced.” – Zuzanna Stanska, The daily art magazine, 2017.

Some people also believe that this painting is not just a representation of the pain Kahlo endured because of her health, many believe that it is also a commentary on the emotional pain caused by her unstable marriage. Most of the Kahlo’s most iconic pieces are inspired by her suffering and serves as a visual representation to her inner thoughts and emotions, her marriage being a large source of suffering throughout her lifetime. Some view the fragmented column lodged in her chest to be fragments of her marriage impaling her. “Despite the somewhat in-your-face symbolism, this is a favourite subject for bad art theory papers, identifying the column as everything from her fragmented marriage to a giant phallus penetrating her body. While such interpretations could be partially true, we think that sometimes a spinal column is just a spinal column (…) She referred to her medical ordeal as her “punishment.”  She also took her tragedy in good humour, saying of this painting, “You must laugh at life...Look very closely at my eyes...the pupils are doves of peace. That is my little joke on pain and suffering…”  Some claim the larger nails over her heart reflect her tortured relationship with Diego Rivera.” – Griff Stecyk, Startle, 2019.

Thinking about death

The next painting I have chosen to analyse is titled ‘Thinking of Death’ which is a self portrait created in 1943. This painting was created around the time Kahlo’s health really began to deteriorate as it depicts herself surrounded by nature with a small skull in her for head. Kahlo painted herself in very traditional clothing with her hair done up in a bun. The skull depicted in her forehead is supposed to represent the fears Kahlo had due to her health battles, with how sick she was death was a constant thought for her with it having come so close multiple times in her life. In Mexican culture death can mean the rebirth of life with is meant to be represented by the lively green leaves behind her as well as her facial expression which shows no sign of fear or panic suggesting Kahlo’s acceptance of death being another part of life. “Due to her poor health condition, death is an inevitable thought which lingering over her mind. In this painting, death is symbolized as skull and crossbones which shows up in her forehead. In ancient Mexican culture, death also means rebirth and life.” – FridaKahlo.org, 2017.

The skull itself represents the thought of death and sits right were ones third eye would be, this suggests that maybe Kahlo views the thought of death as some kind of wisdom instead of a fear, although Kahlo never wished to be labelled as a surrealist artist as her paintings come from her reality. “In Kahlo’s collective work, death seems to pervade almost every one of her paintings as an expression of pain, or a motif of oppression concerning female gender roles. Kahlo employs an almost anatomical eye in looking at her form, juxtaposing it beside images of adorned skeletons.” – MaryFrances Knapp, Seven Pounds, 2017.

Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird

The final painting I have chosen to analyse is titled ‘Self-portrait with Hummingbird and Thorn Necklace’ which is another self-portrait completed in 1940. In this painting Kahlo is surrounded by animals such as a monkey and a black cat with a large necklace of thorns around her neck, in the thorns there is a hummingbird tangled amongst them. She is also surrounded by green leaves much like ‘Thinking about Death’ with insects like dragonflies and butterflies in her hair, with a blue sky barely peaking behind the leaves. The painting was completed soon after Kahlo’s messy divorces with Rivera following the theme of suffering throughout her paintings. The thorns around her neck could be a visual representation of how it felt to grieve her relationship much like the nails did in ‘The Broken Column’, though it could have a religious meaning referring to Jesus’s crown of thorns. Kahlo also incorporates Mexican culture into this piece with each animal representing something different that is relevant to the context of the painting with hummingbirds symbolising love, black cats symbolising bad luck, Dragonflies symbolising prosperity and monkeys symbolising lust. “This self-portrait was created following Kahlo’s divorce to Diego Rivera (…) There are obvious religious overtones to the piece using Jesus’s crown of thorns. Kahlo has painted herself as a Christian martyr, enduring the pain of her failed marriage (…) In Mexican culture, hummingbirds signify falling in love and are used in love charms (…) Kahlo often used vibrant flora and fauna as backgrounds for her self-portraits, to create a claustrophobic space teeming with fertility. It is thought that the emphasis of her monobrow and moustache – with the lines of her eyebrows mimicking the wingspan of the hummingbird around her neck – was intended as a feminist statement.” – Tara Lloyd, Singul art Magazine, 2019

This painting is a great look into Kahlo’s attention to detail and how every piece of her paintings represents something, she is very in touch with her culture and has great understanding as how to show her emotions and life experiences in each of her pieces. “Like many other of her paintings, this artwork is a lot akin to a painted assortment of symbols. Every element in this painting gives specific clues to Kahlo's mental state, perhaps none more than her still, direct, emotionless gaze that seems to express the immediacy of her pain.” Audrey V, Wide Walls, 2018

To sum up everything thus far Frida Kahlo is an incredible artist who poured her life into her work, her pain and passion has made her paintings so iconic in this modern age. She has become a symbol not only for Mexican artists but female artists as well, paving the way for many like her in the years to come. In response to why she painted so many self-portraits Kahlo responded, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best”.

Bibliography

Galeria Valmar, artes visuals, 2019

Zuzanna Stanska, The daily art magazine, 2017.

Griff Stecyk, Startle, 2019.

FridaKahlo.org, 2017

MaryFrances Knapp, Seven Pounds, 2017

Tara Lloyd, Singul art Magazine, 2019

Audrey V, Wide Walls, 2018

[cripplerage]

I need to go on a rant about my real estate so... cw for real estate, brief mention of c*m, homelessness and abuse, cockroaches, and capitalism.

I live in Queensland, Australia. I'm 19. I graduated highschool 2019, right before Covid. I tried to move out but failed because of covid and stayed living at my foster carer's. In around August, I had to leave suddenly due to the abuse in the home worsening. I was then couch surfing and ended up staying at my partner's parent's overcrowded house with him. Let's call my partner C. Not an ideal situation, but not on the streets either.

We couldn't stay for long, though, because they were moving and they couldn't take C or me with them. There were 2 problems with this:

1. It turns out that it's nearly impossible to get a rental without a renting history, which we obviously didn't have.

2. Our area began to face a very serious housing crisis.

We got more and more desperate, applying anywhere we could afford and reaching out to any and all organisations that might be able to help. In the end, we had one week left when we found out that one of C's siblings had once private rented a room from a guy, and the room was currently empty. Thank god. Again, narrowly avoiding living on the streets.

So, we now lived with someone I'll call A. And... it sucked. The room had a bunch of mold on the walls, A barely cleared any space for us in the kitchen, he would shave his whole head over the sink and never clean up the hairs (in the end, C did it.) He even would regularly leave his c*m unflushed in the toilet. Not to mention he said the rent would be one price before we moved in and then increased it after we moved in. And he tried to get us to lie to Centrelink that we were paying rent so that he wouldn't lose his benefit. AND he's a transphobic gamer man who screams slurs at people on Dota at all hours of the day/night.

But we had to stay, or we'd be homeless. Bit then it comes time to sign the lease, and the rent is increasing. A couldn't afford rent on his own. We don't want to stay that long obviously, so we're forced to move out so he can get someone who'll sign the lease with him.

Side note: when we moved put, he tried to get us to scrub the walls for him because he said it was our responsibility, even though it was the same as when we moved in. I was so mad at this point but also scared because he's a big man, so I planned on us leaving and saying we'd come back but then not. But after my foster carer secretly spoke with him, he mysteriously changed his mind... I guess she's not all bad!

Anyway, again, we're frantically searching for housing, though we had never stopped looking because we hated living with A. Again, nearly homeless. At this point, so many people were homeless that many of them had set up tents on the local showgrounds. Then, an organisation finally came through for us. All we had to do was sign a lease - it's a unit, we were saved!

This brings us to 3 weeks ago. The unit kinda sucks but we have no choice, so we sign. Luckily there isn't an end date, we just have to give notice when we leave. The unit is furnished - it's mandatory. It sounds like a good thing, but it means we're presumably paying extra rent for really crappy furniture and it has to stay. And when it needs fixing, we have to wait for the real estate to fix it.

So we discover, after moving all our cold food into the old shitty fridge with D-rock etched into it with a knife, that the fridge emits hot air instead of cold. It spoiled all our food. So we then have to rely on 2 minute noodles and takeout for over a week until the fridge is fixed. It turns out the issue was that the door jams just slightly open, so that even the light has turned off but it's not closed. We learn how to close it properly, and life goes on. Except the fridge is now only slightly cooler than room temp, and the freezer part is about as cold as the fridge should be. The doors had been closed properly, and the settings had actually been set on the coldest option - more than most fridges need and using more power.

So then we had to ask for another technician. They booked a time, but never showed up. It was too late in the day to call them before we realised they weren't just late. It's now been 3 weeks since we moved in and we still don't have a working fridge - we have to keep our milk in the freezer.

For context - we need a freezer. I have undiagnosed chronic pain. We don't know what it's from yet, but we do know that ice packs are the only thing that significantly helps. So you can imagine the fury I felt in bed one morning, in excruciating pain. I was unable to move; sobbing and nauseous, knowing that something as simple as an ice pack could make a world of difference... and not having any that were frozen because the freezer is broken.

On top of that, the washing machine didn't work, the toilet paper roll doesn't work properly, the blinds are very broken, the hanger rod in our cupboard is detached from the wall on one side, we have a cockroach infection that has been here since we arrived, and we have very loud possoms in the roof and even louder neighbours. All except the neighbours have been reported, only the washing machine has been fixed.

Which would be mostly ok in this timeframe. Except we've just been told that we have a house inspection in 2 weeks? The notice came less than a month after we signed the lease; the standard is 3 months. How are we supposed to be fully unpacked and tidy when we don't have a working fridge/freezer and I sometimes can't walk from the pain because of it?

I am just so mad and upset and I feel so helpless. I feel doomed to be in unstable housing forever. How can I focus on getting better when I literally found a giant cockroach on my pillow tonight???

By the way, we pay $210 a week for this shothole. And it's VERY small.

So anyway, this was part 1 of my war on capitalism and the government. And I didn't even MENTION the homelessness experiences I had as a kid. Let me know if you want to hear the injustices I've experienced in the health system, in the legal system, in the education system, or in the foster system next. Yes, I could write an essay on each of these... and I probably will.

[v8pontiacgirl]

04July2021

I’m still in shock that issues are likely caused by horrible allergies that are likely caused by mold in my house. Due to memory issues, I decided to make a timeline of the last six years, when this started.

September 2015–moved into the house. I was working full time, going to school full time and experiencing allergy issues, such as a sore throat, headaches, and very dry eyes (to the point that I was no longer able to wear my contacts). I actually kept getting allergic conjunctivitis, so I switched to my glasses full time. I’d been able to wear contacts for about 15 years without issues prior to this.

February 2016–injured my knee and found out I had a discoid lateral meniscus with a tear that was hanging up in my knee joint. It took months to get any kind of relief for my knee because the tear didn’t initially show up on the MRI, and because discoid meniscus issues usually show up earlier in life if they are going to be a problem, I wasn’t taken seriously. During this time, I was having issues working because of pain and inability to walk. Also started having more issues with being harassed at work by coworkers. I began to work less and less until I finally quit in September. I had already finished out school in June. I would have had to transfer to a community college two hours away to continue my degree in the fall, and since my knee was being problematic, I decided to hold off.

October 2016–Had my knee surgery. About a week or two afterwards, I got my first vertigo spell (although I didn’t realize it was vertigo at the time). This would become the first of many instances that I would deal with “flares” that would make functioning very difficult for me.

October 2016-March 2017–Some days were better than others. I went to the doctor and blood work and many tests were done. My thyroid levels fluctuated a little, but ultimately seemed ok eventually. Everything else looked normal, except my white blood cell count was always elevated. I was told I was perfectly healthy. The dizziness? It was POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a chronic illness that I had been diagnosed with in 2005 that honestly had never given me too many issues in the past, as long as I stayed hydrated and ate salty foods. I was given some common POTS meds to help me retain water, but, as medications typically do not agree with me, I had too many side effects and was unable to take them.

April 2017-August 2017–I’d been feeling better for about a month (since March), and I was anxious to be back in school. Culinary school had caught my eye a few months prior, so I signed up for the spring cohort. I was in the evening cohort, and I was realizing that my allergies were being aggravated by *something*, so my mornings from 7am to noon were spent cleaning, and from noon to about 8pm, were spent at school. I was able to complete two terms of culinary school. There was to be about a little over a month break from the middle of August to the end of September before fall term began. I went to California in August after finishing Summer term for a few days to visit friends. After returning, I started to feel like I was going into another “flare”. Gradually, my health got worse and worse.

September 2017-February 2018–by the end of September, when it was time to go back to culinary school, I was bedridden. The vertigo was so bad that I was unable to do anything except remain horizontal. For about six months again, my health was unbearable and I was unable to function.

March-April 2018–I finally began to feel a little better in March and April (also around the time when I started to get outside to do more garden things), and decided that I would try to go back to culinary school for summer term (the cohorts had changed because of a new director, and so there were classes I could take toward my degree). It’s really interesting that my heath was generally better the more I was able to get out of the house.

June 2018-August 2018—I was doing a lot of outdoor garden things in the afternoons and going to school for several hours every morning. I was even hired to help cater a wedding in August. My health seemed mostly under control, with only minor symptoms.

September 2018-December 2018—The end of September, I began my fourth term of culinary school. I also joined the culinary team, so pretty much all of my time was spent at school, even most of December, when the other students went home for break, I stayed at school trying to perfect my dish for competition. I was fatigued, but my health was mostly stable.

January 2019–After a *very* brief break, I was back in school for one whole day of winter term. I was definitely feeling fatigued because I hadn’t really gotten a break (and probably, in hindsight, because my allergies had really worn me down, too), and I was told by the coach that he was kicking me off the team because he was concerned my health problems would hold the team back, and he wanted to win. My health had not been an issue that he had seen at all, but he just thought it was too much of a risk to keep me. If I wouldn’t have disclosed that I had health problems when I tried out for team, I don’t think this would have happened. Anyway, I was pretty angry, especially after all the time I’d put in. Since the coach was also the director of the school, and there had also been an issue with the instructor quitting and a new instructor having to take over at the end of the last term, I decided that this culinary school really wasn’t worth my time or money any longer, so I quit. Immediately after, I bought the rest of the books that I would have needed for school and began to teach myself techniques with sugar and chocolate. I decided I was going to start focusing more seriously on Spoon Life Bakery, my cottage bakery business that I had started in July 2017.

February 2019-March 2020—I was the most busy I’d been in a while. Garden projects, baking projects, and painting projects took up all my time. From August 2019 to the beginning of March 2020, I was more busy than I wanted to be with my short lived restaurant project. The restaurant actually opened in October, but there was a lot of prep work prior. All of this kept me out of the house for most of the day. I was exhausted, but not symptomatic. Basically, during this time period, I was either outside, or at another location for the majority of the time. During the rainy months (December 2019-March 2020), the basement of the house flooded. It had always been musty and damp down there, but it had never flooded like that.

March-May 2020—I closed the restaurant in March, and began to be at home a lot more often. I started going hard with Spoon Life Bakery again, baking out of my home kitchen. I got back into Jiu Jitsu. I was doing ok, but by May, I started to feel like something wasn’t right again.

May-December 2020—My health “flared” a little during this time. It wasn’t as bad overall as it had been, but some days were better than others. Some days the vertigo made me bedridden. It was unpredictable. In May, I had to quit Jiu Jitsu again because I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t have the stamina to keep doing it.

January-May 2021–I’d had enough descent days that I decided to try to try to go back to Jiu Jitsu, or rather, a self defense class based on Jiu Jitsu. This class ran twice a week through March, and I was able to keep up and not miss a class. The basement flooded again, so we moved the dehumidifier into the storage room where the majority of the water was coming in. After self defense was over, I started regular jiu jitsu again in April, but felt much more exhausted than usual. My vertigo was getting worse to the point that it was always present. I took a break from Jiu Jitsu again in May.

May-June 2021—My throat was so sore, that I thought I had tonsillitis. My left ear was plugged. I felt like I was getting sick with some sort of virus, except it went on for weeks without getting better. I saw an ENT in mid June. He thought maybe I had Meniere’s, but didn’t officially diagnose me, since I needed to get a hearing test, which is scheduled for this month, and at the time of writing this has not happened yet. Other than that, he didn’t see anything else that alerted him. Soon after, I began to get very sick with horrible vertigo. I was bedridden again.

July 2021–Until the 2nd, I was in an absolutely horrible flare that had lasted without relief for about two weeks. I was convinced that this was just my life now, and in desperation, I called the doctor. She told me to come in that same day. Normally, I don’t leave the house when I’m feeling my worst. I had to keep laying down at the doctor’s because my vertigo was so bad. The doctor performed her usual tests, and looked in my nose. She informed me that it was very inflamed and swollen and she wasn’t sure how I was able to breathe out of it. I admitted that every morning, my nose is stuffed up pretty badly. She prescribed the Montelukast, that I’m unable to take because of side effects, and told me that she really thinks that allergies are causing my vertigo because the ear nose and throat are all connected. At first, I was discouraged with this diagnosis, because I felt like she was brushing off my symptoms. *Just* allergies?! I couldn’t believe allergies could cause such severe symptoms.

We made a few more stops after visiting the doctor, and when I’d been out of the house for about an hour and a half, I miraculously started feeling a little better. What?? Was the doctor right? I knew my house was probably triggering my allergies, but I didn’t think it was *that* bad.

Getting out of the house for two hours brought me out of one of my worst flairs. I’m now about 99.9% that mold in my house, specifically the basement, is making me sick. I’m going to keep testing this to be sure, but I’m now filled with some hope that I may be able to lead a much less depressing life. Time will tell.

[lynny246]

Gods, this took 3 years to do. I started this OC when Season 3 of BNHA began in, like, 2018. I ended up constantly tweaking her and forgot to touch her in 2019. Then came 2021, where season 5 is about to go down and wreck me so without further ado, here is Rune Byougen!

(Credit to Sakimii of DeviantArt for the background)

Character Information 

Name: Rune Byougen

Gender: Female

Age: 15 (Episode 4/Chapter 3 & 4)

Birthday: October 30

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Occupation: Student

Height: 5’8

Weight: 135 lbs

Ethnicity: Afro-Asian

School: U.A. High School

Year: First year

Hero Name: The Placebo Hero: Bacteriune

Appearance

Hair Color: Dark Blue

Hair Type: Shoulder length hair on the right and short hair on the left. Hair on the left is put in a ponytail

Distinguishing Features: Surgery scar between clavicles

Eye Color: Purple

Skin Color: Bronze

Background 

Born with sickle cell anemia, Rune’s adolescence has been defined by consistent hospital stays and minimal experiences. Despite this, she remained optimistic for her future; this is due in part to the constant support from her parents, Takao (who also has sickle cell anemia) and Camilla (a pro-Hero in America known as Wyvern).

During her pre-teen years, her condition would worsen; prompting a great deal of surgeries. It had become so dour that Rune considered giving up after finding out she would be missing her final year in junior high so she could remain in the hospital. During this depression, her father made it a point to emphasize the strength of perseverance and hope for a better future. Through his corny speeches, Rune found some solace and promised to keep fighting for her family.

The age of 12 would mark an important new chapter for Rune: her condition improved greatly which allowed her live independently with minor treatment, her quirk would finally manifest, she could resume schooling, and she had a clear goal for her life, choosing to find better treatment for those dealing with sickle cell anemia. Unfortunately, the biggest change in her life would be the death of her father at the end of the year. After reaching the average life expectancy, Takao had succumb to the illness after being rushed to the hospital after a stroke.

Unable to process the grief, Rune grew to resent her father; seeing his sudden death as not living by the values he set for her during her tribulations. Optimism gave way to pessimism as Rune became more jaded about her circumstances, her future, and her understanding of the world. For the first time in her life, she saw physical limitations that couldn’t be overcome with willpower, she saw a society that had largely forgotten non-quirk related illness and death.

From that day forward, she choose a new path: Uncover all the mysteries medical science had to offer to overcome her limits. On that day, Rune vowed not to succumb to illness or weakness. To see that vow through, she needed to find a way to overcome the natural weakness she was born with. To do this, she would need authority in different fields and money. She would need to be a hero.

Hero work could finance her research, the potential fame would make it easier to join medical projects and resources for research, and hero work could give her access to underground and taboo information not legally accessible. With her family moving to Japan to live with her paternal grandparents, the option of attending U.A. becomes obvious. She spoke with her mother about her desire to become a hero. Camilla, a well-known hero throughout the United States, used her connections to get her admitted with a recommendation. After training her quirk for a year, Rune is prepared to enter U.A. where her next chapter begins...

Personality

A box of intriguing mysteries or a miserable pile of secrets, whichever you choose, Rune qualifies. At first glance, Rune is a calm and ever-curious mind that operates with cordiality. Once the layers are peeled, that cordial and inviting exterior disappears, leaving a more cunning and antagonistic yet dignified and relax individual. At her best, she can be seen as a calming, loyal yet malignant girl who is hard to understand yet fun to be around. At her worst, Rune is a manipulative and inimical girl hiding behind pleasantries. A girl who seeks to unravel all those around her as a hobby

Likes: Herbology, Grimoires, Tarot Cards, Card Games, Botany, Medieval History, Camping, Anarchy

Dislikes: The cold, Paranormal romance novels, Crystal balls, Cosmetology

Habits: Biting her nails, Staring at people

Fears: Relapsing, Abandonment, Porcelain dolls, Limitations

Quirk and Abilities

Quirk: Pathogen

This quirk allows the user to control and manipulate bacteria and pathogens found throughout different environments and bodies. Using neuro-parasitology, the user’s dead skin cells are consumed by the microorganisms, giving the user full control of all bacteria and pathogens for approximately an hour

Quirk Advantages:

Due to bacteria being on every natural surface imaginable, there is no limit to the range of the user

In addition, when the quirk is active, the amount of bacteria present on the body can form a light layer of protection on the body without the bacteria hardening into a solid structure

In warm conditions or against heat-based quirks, the bacteria can be more effective and multiply quickly

Quirk Drawbacks:

Quirk overuse can result in the user losing control of the bacteria and pathogens. When it under direct control, those organisms can become very ensnared with the user’s skin cells and seek to consume them en masse. If not careful, the bacteria can attempt to consume so much of the cells, that the epidermis can be damaged, leaving wounds equitable to first degree burns

This quirk is at a natural disadvantage in colder environments as common bacteria thrives primarily in warmer environments. Extreme weather (hot or freezing) is disadvantageous as well

Overexertion can result in a minor case of chronic inflammation which includes fever, rashes, infection, abdominal pain, and chest pains

Fighting Style: Wyvern-style Martial Arts Created and used solely by her mother, it is a personalized form of martial arts that emphasizes brute force over speed by transferring all the power and force to a specific limbs. When utilized correctly, a simple kick can break a concrete wall. However, the style sacrifices speed, accuracy, and leaves other limbs defenseless. It also requires very specific stances to work properly. The style originated from Camilla who uses it to dispatch larger villains and wrestle Wai, a family friend that lost her humanity and became a large wyvern due to her quirk

Weapons/Items: Vials of poison and medication Most of the poisons are meant to hinder movement, allowing her to fight with minimal opposition. This is beneficial for using wyvern-style martial arts without issue. The medication is penicillin and various antibiotics Rune has created to combat her drawbacks.

Stats:

(Ultra Archive)

Power: 4/5

Speed: 2/5

Technique: 4/5

Intelligence: 5/5

Cooperativeness: 3/5

(Ultra Analysis)

Power: 5/6

Speed: 3/6

Technique: 6/6

Intelligence: 6/6

Machiavellian: 6/6

Relationships

Family:

Camilla Byougen - Mother Takao Byougen - Father (Deceased) In the past, the relationship between the Byougen family could only be described as loving and tight. Despite her work, Camilla was dedicated and active in the family, enjoying doting on her husband and daughter. Takao was no exception, spending much his days looking after Rune and Camilla as a stay-at-home-dad. Rune admired her parent’s strength of character and they served as emotional crutch to a child that didn’t have much in terms of socialization. Times have changed. Rune has come to loathe the type of person her father was, deeming him a hypocrite. However, her relationship with her mother is stronger than ever. The two look after each other and are quite open with one another. If not for the age disparity, one could mistake the mother-daughter duo as sisters

Wai - Godmother Despite being a late addition to the family, Wai and Rune’s relationship is solid. Wai may have lost much of her mental capacities after fully becoming a wyvern, however, she still remembers the love and loyalty she had for Camilla and that has transferred fully to her daughter. The two are very protective of one another and enjoy training together. Since Camilla is needed to communicate verbally with Wai, the two don’t have many secrets or intense conversations, but that doesn’t stop the two from greatly enjoying    conversation and each other's company

Kirika Byougen - Paternal Grandmother Fuga Byougen - Paternal Grandfather This familial dynamic is a tad bit complicated. Although there is clear love between them, there is also veiled hostility laced in every interaction. While a mystery to Camilla, Rune has concluded that the negative interactions stem from Fuga and Kirika being upset with Takao for abandoning his home and former life to chase after Camilla. While her grandparents are trying to overcome that distaste for Camilla and Rune so they can fully embrace the family Takao made, they are hindered by the grief of his death and past pains of his abandonment. Despite this, interactions between Rune and her grandparents are amicable. That is until Rune begins to read their motives and taunt them.

Friends:

Bakugou Katsuki - Close friend & most proficient teammate Tooru Hagakure - Close friend Kyouka Jiro  Reiko Yanagi  Midoriya Izuku - Test Subject 

Rivals:

Fumikage Tokoyami - Friendly rival Tenya Iida - Antagonistic

Enemies:

Toga Himiko

Trivia

Rune’s faovrite food is mitarashi dango

Rune was born in California

Rune prefers hiding her quirk simply to mess with her opponents, tricking them into believing her quirk is simply super strength

Rune is a Wiccan

[dyinglaugh]

The place I work at is an international company that looks super great on paper and shows the best face to customers and the outside world. In fact, they suck ass. Like a lot. They want to have robots do thier work and such for them but instead have humans that they work like slaves. No, really. I am not exaggerating. If you are unable to complete a shift, you get points/time taken and when you're in the negative you're fired. Sounds reasonable but when you have medical problems or family emergencies you're still penalized and not excused (you have to use time you have to cover any missed shift time). I have medical issues that can be accommodated but the process is such with this company that it makes you just throw your hands up and quit, so I havent tried (the process is convoluted and arduous on purpose to make workers not want to do this). I have stories from friends who also work here that will make youre blood boil.

1: My coworker has a daughter that is now 7-8years old. When she was 4, she had gotten very sick and needed to go to the hospital and stay for a while to get better. My coworker, upon getting that call at work went to management and requested to leave early as this was at the time an emergency. He didn't have time left (idk why) but wanted to be with his 4 year old child to make sure she was OK. When management noticed he had no time available all they said was "you can go but you may be fired for leaving early with not enough time" (paraphrased). He couldn't leave his job there as getting fired meant no money to buy food, pay the hospital, pay bills, etc. So he was then forced to continue working while his child was sick. (She's ok now though.)

2: Another coworker had gotten a frantic call from her daughter that the family dog (that was in my coworkers life before her daughter was even born) had been hit by a car, dragged by the car, and is now fighting for its life to see its owner before it died, needed her home to say goodbye. My coworker, crying/sobbing that her best friend for many years was going to suffer in wait, went to a manager and explained the situation. Upon seeing that my coworker had no time left to leave early, the manager then made her follow him around to talk to other managers to "see what they can do". The dog died in the street, without her human (my coworker) because the managers decided to dawdle and make her walk with them knowing full well what they were doing. At some point my coworker called her daughter to find out that the dog died while she being dragged around the warehouse with a manager who was "looking for a way to help" when in reality all that was accomplished was a waste of time and a life lost.

3: In order to enter the warehouse, you have to go through security and the turnstiles and then get your temp checked by a thermal camera. The second you open the doors to get to the turnstiles, there are 6-7feet tall industrial style fans to cool your skin temp before being checked. So if you have a fever and enter the building, your temp is reduced by these fans enough so that you can continue to work and make the company profit. They said that its to cool the building down but there are literally hundreds of fans everywhere to do that. So why do these ones need to be placed specifically by the doors?

4: We are encouraged to tattle on coworkers when we see a "violation". Such things include sitting anywhere besides the breakdown or lunchroom. We stand for 10.5 hours. The entire fucking shift. And get in trouble for being in pain caused by this. Also, if we need a bathroom break, we have 6 minutes to do that. This includes getting to a bathroom (2mins), doing your business, and then getting back to where you were. Many people have been written up, including myself (lactose intolerant=bad night) for being "off task " for more than 30mins that shift simply by going to the bathroom a few times. Drink less? The warehouse is typically between 75-90 degreesF (winter versus summer) and quite a few people EVERY WEEK pass out due to heat stress or dehydration, so less water isn't an option.

I dont have those types of problems at the moment where a life will be lost or is in trouble and i hope it never happens. I had heard these stories from my coworkers and I suspect that managers get reprimanded for trying to be lax about the more ridiculous rules. I myself am going through the problem of not being able to apply for medical leave. I'm in the negatives with time as I type this because every single person I've been emailing to fix my system issues in the portal to open a case, has blown me off. I dont know why this company treats the workers so shitty, except they are worldwide and literally every single person uses thier services. I won't say the name since id like to not be fired but I will give the hint that its an online store with the same name as a big tropical jungle. I've talked to managers there that i can tell hate the policies that work against the workers (alot of the policies do) and the good managers are frustrated too.

The system designed by the company is basically like this: low-level worker is promoted slightly and given 50%-100% more work than before with promise of a better pay and such and all they have to do is enforce the policies and step on people to do exactly that. They themselves are still being trampled by the higher ups while being promised that they will get bigger boots to stomp on low-level workers the better they work.

I despise this company so much that I tell every single person the horrors the company will do and will cover up in order to deter them from using thier services. I understand that prices found through this company are better than almost every other company so its just cost effective with people. I dont condemn people for using that company at all actually. Just those who, despite knowing the hardships and harsh treatments of the workers, laugh and still use it saying, " if its so bad why not leave?"

I'll tell you why. Because the company pays ok enough and offers ok enough benefits that we the workers feel trapped. If we leave, who will hire people that have very few skills since they spent years in a warehouse? If we leave, how will we find a better or equal paying job ($15-16/hr starting)? I have hunted and searched for such a job because of my frustration and found absolutely nothing. This company traps workers in a way that makes it so impossible to leave that many fall victim to depression or other mental/physical illness.

Speaking of, I have heard in the half year of working there of at least 3 people almost killing themselves- thats right SUICIDE- due to the stress. In response, the company sends out information and messages and notifications about Suicide Awareness and Prevention. AS IF THEY DONT KNOW THAT THEYRE THE CAUSE. I personally have thought, " if I kill myself, the company can leave me alone. I wont have to work here anymore and suffer almost every night through inconceivable pain without hope of going home". See, I have chronic migraines that put me out of commission for 20 out of 30days a month. Not only have I worked while sobbing and not being able to see or breathe (one of many symptoms I have) I've been forced to continue working until my illness has progressed until I can no longer function. I can't move or see or breathe or hear or anything at that point. I can only focus on one thing and its typically forcing myself to CONTINUE WORKING because the company doesn't care enough to let me leave early. I end up having panic attacks in the bathroom and vomiting due to the pain. This company, as far as I've heard through people I've talked to everywhere, hasn't officially killed people. Unofficially, i had talked to someone that had almost overdosed in order to be free of the company.

Now, I dont include names simply because I'm not a rat or snitch or whistle blower or etc. and because I dont want them to get in trouble for speaking out. I am posting this here because hopefully, its anonymous enough that I dont get in trouble either. I just hope that before anyone chooses to use this company (that has the same name as a jungle), they remember this post. I hope that this is spread everywhere so that everyone knows the horrors the workers have to deal with. I hope so much that someone reads this and chooses to spend that extra dollar on a different website to not add to this billionaires' pockets. Please, repost. Spread this around and add stories of your own because you're not alone. I promise.

[whitetigerdemoness]

Sooo.....did someone say Holloa sequel?

I give you “Shooting Star”.

Holloa Master Post. A03 link. 

The stars you see at night potentially burned out millions of years ago.  

Lila Rossi left the Dupeng Cheng bakery feeling pretty clever. Her pocket was weighted with the butterfly charm she had stolen from Marinette’s room. She patted her pocket, feeling certain she could get a good amount of cash for it from the pawn shop she prefered. Different products danced in her mind as she thought about what to buy with her dirty money. Some new boots, perhaps? The season was changing, spring right around the corner. 

Yes, she decided, a pair of stylish new boots would be the perfect treat for herself after all the awful trials she had had to endure these past few mon-

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“ Tiki I just don’t understand that girl!” Marinette huffed in frustration, dropping solidly into her desk chair. “Why in the world would she come here to try to apologize of all things, and expect me to believe her, after everything she has done!” The red kawmi sat on the desk with a thoughtful expression.

“I don’t know Marinette. Lila always seems to have another angle. Are you sure that was all she was here for?” Marinette’s eyes widened at the kwami’s observation. Taking a quick look around her room, she didn’t see anything out of place. Her booby trapped diary box was untouched, none of her clothes looked disturbed, the miracle box on her desk was-

SCREEECH CRUNCH!

“What the?!” Marinette jumped at the sound. 

“That came from outside!” Tiki gasped in alarm.

“An akuma?” The black haired girl asked.

“Only one way to find out.” Tiki replied. Marinette raced to the ladder that led to her rooftop balcony. She leaned over the railing, taking in the shouting people below.

It wasn’t an akuma attack.

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“...Wolfram Berger stands trial today for attempted vehicular manslaughter against Lila Rossi, better known to some as Volpina, three months ago. Ms. Rossi remains in a coma in an undisclosed hospital. Ladybug and Chatnoir are standing as witnesses today against Mr. Berger’s chronic harassment of Ms. Rossi as well as two of her classmates, Nathaniel Kurtzberg and Marc Anciel, who will also be testifying today-”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ladybug punched the brick chimney hard enough to leave an imprint of her fist. The trial earlier today had ended with the jury declaring Mr. Berger not guilty. The defense had argued that Mr. Berger had simply lost control of his car and that the fact that Lila had been the victim was merely a coincidence. Chat Noir and Paon were off the side with troubled looks of their own.

“I can’t believe that jury! Four weeks of community service? Not guilty? That awful man could have killed Lila! I might not be her biggest fan but…” Ladybug trailed off with a frustrated growl. 

“The court system is not as straightforward as tv likes to make it dear.” Paon sighed. “If Miss Rossi had actually died the verdict may have been more severe, but she is still alive if only through life support.” The peacock hero rubbed her arms, unhappy with the verdict.

“I don’t know.” Chat noir added, “Berger has a lot of followers. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them managed to sneak onto the jury. I noticed quite a few of them giving Marc and Nathaniel the stink eye, not to mention us.” 

One would think that Hawkmoth being gone for nearly six months now would weaken the Office of Akuma Affairs anti-akuma and anti-hero platforms. The lack of new material didn’t phase the group who were happy to make up new situations to blame on the heroes or skew old ones. Paon especially came under fire often due to Mayura’s past actions, being an easy target due to her public identity. People were unable or unwilling to separate her from her temporary replacement. Being Hawkmoth’s wife hardly helped either. 

“I hate to say it Ladybug, but we have bigger concerns than Mr. Berger walking free. It has been three months and we still haven't found the butterfly miraculous.” Paon gently reminded the steaming hero. Their group, which extended beyond the three on the rooftop, had searched Lila’s belongings and home extensively with no luck. Ladybug had been certain the girl had taken the miraculous having been alone in her room just a day before the jewel had been discovered missing, but it was starting to look like that may not be the case. Lila had been hit with Berger’s car as soon as she left the bakery. The girl would have had no time to hide the miraculous anywhere. Similar searches of Berger’s home and possessions had also been fruitless. The current running theory was one of the many bystanders that day had picked up the broach. The lack of new akumas suggested whomever had discovered it had not been compatible, kwami didn’t show themselves to just anyone, but it was only a matter of time before someone compatible did come along. The miraculous were magic like that, inevitably gravitating towards wielders.

Ladybug groaned. “Yeah, anti-hero sentiment is higher than it has ever been. You would think people would be happy for peace, not calling us useless because we can’t stop every mugging and petty crime.”

“Almost makes you wish Hawkmoth was back.” Chat Noir chuckled. Distantly, an explosion boomed. “uhhh…” The black cat hesitated.

“Let’s move!” Paon commanded, already racing across the rooftops.

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“Please tell me that is not an akuma. Chaton, if that is an akuma I will personally make your life miserable for the next week.” Ladybug threatened.

“If that’s an akuma, I don’t think you’ll have to work too hard to accomplish that.” Chatnoir gulped, taking in the scene. A girl in a multi colored dress was frolicing in the street below, watering people she managed to catch with a watering pail. People who came into contact with water from the pail began to sprout flowers all over their body, older victims looking to have become plants entirely.

“If that is an akuma, the akuma is likely in the watering can.” Paon commented. “She doesn’t look too dangerous.” The peacock wielder leapt to street level without further ado to confront the akuma.

“Paon wait-dammit.” Ladybug muttered. Paon had become active after Hawkmoth had already been defeated. Despite being the eldest hero, she had never actually faced an akuma before and was making a rookie mistake. Akuma were never as simple as they looked. Ladybug exchanged looks with Chatnoir. She could see he was conflicted. Instinct was telling him to leap to his mother’s side and support her. Training was reminding him that hanging back and watching was the wiser choice.

“Go to her Chat, I’ll hang back to watch for tricks.” Chatnoir nodded and joined Paon, who was trying to knock the watering can from the akuma’s hands with her knives. The akuma laughed as she batted the knives away like pesky flies.

“You showed up! Goody! Let me take care of you!” The akuma chirped, gleefully dancing closer to Paon. “Everything will be so much easier once you’re a plant! You’ll be happier!” 

“I like sunlight as much as the next cat, but I’m not too crazy about water.” Chatnoir quipped, using his baton to try and trip the akuma. The action was in vain. Even the combined efforts of Paon and Chanoir were not enough to make the akuma’s ballerina like grace falter. Further from the battle, Ladybug approached one of the flower covered victims.

“Hold on, I’ll get you out!” The man did not respond at first, his eyes glazed and listless. When Ladybug began to try and tear the vines from his body, he began to scream in pain. Shocked, the heroine recoiled. 

“HEY!” The akuma screamed. “Don’t hurt my plants you naughty bug!” The akuma darted towards Ladybug, free hand outstretched. Jumping backwards, Ladybug felt a small trill of alarm as the movement felt sluggish. Moments before the akuma could pour water on her, Chatnoir kicked her away.

“You okay Ladybug?” 

“Be careful, Chat, Paon, I think the plants are giving off some sort of sedative.” Ladybug winced, holding her head. “Harming the plants seems to also harm the host, don’t touch anyone.”

 “Good little bugs should HELP plants!” The akuma fumed. “Bad bugs will be pruned away by the Gardener.” The akuma attacked with a flurry of graceful kicks and wide sprays of her water. Ladybug and Chatnoir put up their shields to deflect the water, while Paon hung back and attacked from range with her knives.

“We need to pull back, one touch of that water and it’s game over!” Chatnoir said after a particularly close call.

“We need some way to prevent her from pouring water.” Ladybug added, movements slower than she would have liked. Gardener’s supply of water seemed infinite, and dodging the growing puddles around them was becoming harder.

“If only we could find someone unaffected by her powers, I could create a senti-monster. Where are all the civilians? This is a busy street…” Paon groused.

“Parisians are pretty good at getting out of spitting range of these fights by now. The police have probably set up barricades to prevent people from coming this way.” 

“It might be time for a Lucky Charm!” Cried out Ladybug, her yoyo toss taking more effort than it should have due to her lingering sluggishness. A chromatic pocket knife fell into her hands. The hilt was ladybug spotted, but the blade simmered in rainbow colors.

“Looks like it’s time to cut ties with the Gardener.” Chatnoir quipped, using his baton to catapult a nearby trash can at the Gardener. Ladybug huffed at the pun as her eyes darted around the area trying to come up with a plan. Other than the Gardener’s watering pail, nothing else stood out to her. Nothing except...Paon. Ladybug cast an eye around the plant strewn street again. A few of the plants still had twitching human limbs sticking out of them. Perhaps someone still had enough consciousness to produce a sentimonster...the Lucky Charm was never wrong. She had to trust it.

“Paon! Are you sure you can’t feel any strong desires?” The street was getting pretty flooded, the heroes had taken to jumping from cartop, to street stall top, to try and avoid the water. On one hand, it kept them dry. On the other this severely limited their maneuverability. Paon closed her eyes and concentrated.

“There is...one...but I’ll need a moment to focus!” The peacock hero threw another of her feather-knives at the akuma, only for it to clatter uselessly onto the street as the agile girl danced and twirled away.

“Right, let’s give Paon some breathing room kitty. Hit the street!”

“You got it Ladybug. Cataclysm!” Dark energy crackled across the flooded street, causing it to heave and crumble in on itself. Chunks of the asphalt shuddered as their supports eroded, falling into the sewers below. The Gardener stumbled, all of her attention diverted to staying on her feet during the mini earthquake. 

Meanwhile, Paon whispered to the blue feather in her hand before sending it on its journey with a blown kiss. The feather didn’t go as far as Ladybug thought it would, fluttering down to land on a twisted pile of flowers and thorns. An image bubbled and coalesced into reality, settling into the kneeling figure of…

“Penknight?!”

[thejackalsden]

Mako & It’s Affect on the Body

Cloud, while he was never SOLDIER, was still exposed to Mako on a regular basis even up to his experimentation at the hands of Hojo once Nibelheim was razed. With just his sensitivity, and working for Medical, it started out small; headaches that would bloom into migraines, loss of appetite, nausea, even an interruption in his circadian rhythm if he was exposed to unstable levels in a SOLDIER for too long, either for procedure or transport.

The Science Department, namely Professor Hojo, knew of his sensitivity and it’s why he chose Cloud specifically to be a combat medic alongside the SOLDIERs. While Cloud was good at his job and earned his eventual role as Chief Medical Officer for ShinRa’s combat forces, there was an underlying push from the Science Department to force him into that role.

However, due to Hojo’s experimentation after the Nibelheim incident, in which Cloud was exposed to Mako for four years, there were obvious changes not too unlike SOLDIER that could be noted.

Disclaimer

Under the cut is how I believe Mako affected Cloud. It is in no means canon, just how I logic it to have happened. This headcanon is important to post Crisis Core, and how my Cloud reacts and works. You can like this headcanon, all I ask is don’t reblog it. If you wish to discuss this headcanon, by all means, come hit me up and I gladly will!

Circulatory System

Prior to Mako exposure, Cloud’s circulatory system was in decent shape, given he still maintained a healthy diet and exercise regime. Body temperature was always relative cool, however, due to chronic low blood pressure - not bad just something he needed to keep an eye on.

After the four years of being exposed to it, the Mako had integrated with his blood, and has reinforced the system. His blood pressure is still low, but manageable - the vertigo is not nearly as prevalent providing he maintains a proper diet. Has little to no issue running long distances, as the oxygen delivery to his organs is better than ever. However, his body temperature is still uniquely cool, and the oddity remains that when he sleeps he has little to no body heat - unlike usual SOLDIERs - and sleeps very cool. Reason unknown, though Hojo reasons it has something to do with the boy’s blood pressure and chronic low temperatures being normal.

Digestive/Excretory System

Prior to Mako, Cloud had to maintain a healthy diet and exercise to keep trim and in shape. His metabolism didn’t quite kick into overdrive until the Mako Experiment.

After the experiment, Cloud has to actively fight to put enough food in his body to maintain himself. The Mako devours everything, absorbing what it needs and giving his body the rest. That being said, it is very rare that Cloud ever eats something that doesn’t agree with him, and there’s little worry for him to put on weight, providing the mako can pull some form of nutrient from the food ingested. 

Excretory system still works the same, before and after. Elimination of waste is routine, and admittedly the Mako makes it so there is less waste to be done, since the body ends up using more of it.

The one exception is alcohol no longer affects the man. It is processed so quickly, that he rarely bothers with such a thing, and prefers to rely on water and tea for hydration.

Endocrine System

There was no noted special marks of the Cloud’s Endocrine System before the Experiment, however afterwards, there were several noted differences in Cloud. Namely in digestion, metabolism, respiration depth, tissue function, and sensory perception. 

Digestion and metabolism were sped up, enabling a faster introduction of nutrients to the rest of the systems and allowing Cloud that energy faster. Respiration Depth increased, allowing for a larger window in the instance he’s running/fighting. Sensory perception increased as well, allowing for increased range of hearing certain octaves, as well as depth perception in sight. 

Integumentary/Exocrine System

No noted special features before Mako, but afterwards, there was noted differences in multiple facets. Cloud’s body no longer became dehydrated at the same rate; he could go longer without worrying about it. Cloud’s Somatosensory system was also heightened, making him more susceptible for determining temperatures, but pain and pressure were not nearly as hindering, same with touch. Subject also, despite such fair skin, secretes more melanin to protect against sunburns, no matter the scenario.

The integumentary system also has a far better reaction to maintain homeostasis in extreme conditions, allowing Cloud to ignore extreme heat or cold and focus on whatever task is at hand. Mako also put his stratum germinativum in overdrive, to assist with self healing of minor injuries in a pinch.

Immune/Lymphatic System

While Cloud’s immune system was alright before the Experiment, after it, there was no worry of disease. The immune system reacts almost immediately to shut down any foreign bodies and does its best to keep Cloud healthy and free of diseases. Any disease that does affect him, runs its course in a day or two.

Lympathic system is reinforced similarly to Circulatory and Endocrine system.

Muscular System

Muscular system, post Experiment, is reinforced. While Cloud still has what would be called almost scrawny build, there is no lack of strength in his form. He is able to run them longer, without dehydrating them, as well as the supplemental help it provides for both his skeletal system, and cardiac as well. 

It is part of the reason he maintains such a proper posture, and is able to keep running long past others. Granted, his recovery period is longer, if he should succeed in exhausting his energy completely. 

Nervous System

At the end of the Experiment, Cloud’s nervous system was spot on. Reactionary times were doubled - already impressive from their normal state - and sensory feedback was also doubled. Over all, Nervous system is doing well post experiment, but if he isn’t careful, pairing it with a high adrenal response will exhaust him - he has the stamina for long fights, but if he has to repeatedly be outnumbered it will wear on him faster than anything else.

Renal/Urinary System

No noted difference in either system; Renal & Urinary system work rather well to keep his blood clean as can be, and allow him to be at his best.

Reproductive System

Only noted difference post experiment is the sterilization of the subject, due to high mako levels. Subject was unconscious and unable to test anything else. Refractory period is expected to shorter than normal though, given that the mako enhances all muscles. 

Respiratory System

Similarly to the circulatory system, it excels at removing carbon dioxide, and other impurities, and getting oxygen where it is needed most, even in dire, smog like conditions - there is little that the Mako can’t help purify and have the man able to use.

Skeletal System

Bone density doubled, post Experiment. Cloud is heavy, and it’s heard in his gait. Despite his small stature, he has a very heavy gait, and his bone marrow is enhanced to aid in red blood cell production both for what little self healing he does have as well as supplementing the rest of his system.

[sadisticscribbler]

Why Suicide?

Why do people kill themselves? I’m not talking about those who attempt suicide for attention, nor do I mean to belittle them, but what of the many more who chose to end their lives?

I am not asking some philosophical question here, but am talking from personal experience. You see, I have just found myself about to take my own life, and would have if I wasn’t disturbed just at the point of no return by a mundane phone call. Maybe because of my autism, but I had to answer the ringing phone which subsequently took me out of what I was about to do.

As a result I was left in some sort of limbo in which my body took me back home, and here I now sit talking to myself via this blog post. So how did I get there, and why do so many people find themselves where I did?

There is no simple reason… or rather there is no single event that in itself triggers suicidal ideation. Contrary to popular belief, suicidal thoughts aren’t caused by moments of depression that need to be “got through”, it is a more serious state of being. Let me explain: I was born suicidal.

As shocking and unbelievable as this might sound, it is true. I first attempted suicide before I was aged three (I drank bleach) which was not recognised for what it was… a genuine attempt to kill myself. I subsequently tried two more times in as many months, but survived them all. But what could have happened, you might be asking yourself, to make me want to kill myself? In a word: Nothing. Or in another: Everything.

For some context, I was born autistic; and I also had a very high IQ. Together, these factors, and the world in which I found myself, made this world intolerable. And it still is nearly sixty years later. The reason I have survived thus far is not because I have found some way to navigate this world, but in spite of it. No matter what experiences I have, it all comes to the same conclusion that I shouldn’t be living in this world. So why am I? For several reasons: external interference (such as my parents as a child), my Catholic faith, but more importantly my constantly trying to deny the inevitable. So what has happened now that these mechanisms are no longer sufficient to stop me doing the only thing available?

Until a few years ago I had responsibilities and family: both extended and my own wife and kids. Then I became chronically ill and unable to work. My parents and brother died and my family fell apart. And then my (now ex-)wife decided I was no longer useful to her and took everyone and everything away from me. I was left disabled and with nothing to my name. I had nothing and no-one… except for one very important friend who stuck by me. Last year she killed herself.

Like myself she was autistic and very intelligent. We talked endlessly about her decision to kill herself but I was unable to give her a convincing reason not to. This is because everything she said had been correct, and I could offer her (nor myself) any reason not to die. Unlike me she was an atheist and so the threat of eternal torment was not enough to deter her (as it had been doing for me). So I was unable to satisfactorily answer the question: What is the point of continuing to live? And my being unable to save her affirmed her conclusion in that, in my case, if I can’t save the life of my only true friend, then what is the point of my being around?

Before continuing with my journey, allow me to add her words herein as they show not just how I feel but how I and others, I suspect, see the world and why we can’t live in it. This is her final statement:

If you’re reading this, chances are my attempt to leave the world has been successful. If you happen to be religious, please pray for me to be treated compassionately in my next life, as I will be praying beforehand for this as well, as a relatively quick and painless death, despite my lack of religion.

Many people say suicide is selfish. To those, I would want to ask: is it not also selfish to expect someone to live, when existing seems to them intolerable?

None of us ask to be born, but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.

People stigmatise death, especially voluntary death, because to them it seems the most terrible thing they can imagine. To that, I say, what is so bad about death? The universe is so very old and will continue to exist long into the future, perhaps indefinitely. So why does it make a difference if someone dies at 20 or at 80, provided their life was not taken against their will?

As an autistic, I long for a world where autistic people can exist happily, but I’m not sure this can ever happen. I have pretty much given up on the world at this point. It’s not designed for people like me.

So who am I in this world? An autistic, chronically depressed, jobless, homeless in effect waste of space who was born into a female body but probably isn’t. Born to a teenage single mother, raised by a grandmother who is now dead and fated to a life where anything I attach to will be my undoing.

Dying isn’t something alien to me. I first began to think about suicide around the age of 7. As a child, I was intelligent and had a seemingly bright future, but that rarely translates into the adult world.

The only thing I really regret is losing the two people closest to me. Mostly, however, I am sad about losing hope, for it is only hope that keeps us going.

I’m also tired. To quote The Green Mile, “I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time.”

Like my friend I am autistic, suffer from chronic depression with episodes of clinical depression, jobless, and as illustrated above: “a waste of space”. I also have a catalogue of degenerative diseases. So what is there left to hope for?

“Oh it’s the depression talking, and that can be managed” you may be thinking. Sadly no… and not just just due to the mental health teams (who spectacularly failed in my friend’s instance). Depression is not an aberration of thought that can be corrected with a shot of serotonin. Rather it is the cold hard truth of reality that serotonin (naturally produced or chemically induced) obfuscates. This is why it is nigh impossible to help someone resist suicide. And I speak from experience of trying to help others, as well as trying to convince myself. In the end, the only argument against ending one’s life is the I “haven’t done it yet, because I’ve managed to knowingly delude myself”.

But what of speaking therapies… can these help? I would say no. This is because that people like I already see the reality of a hostile world, that no matter how hard we try to improve our lot in life, the full horror of it is a mere hair away. Distraction is no solution. So speaking with a therapist can only succeed if he/she can ‘enlighten’ the person to the ‘knowledge’ that life isn’t all that bad… or that it won’t always be that bad. But what if you’re smart enough, or have experienced enough, to see that what the therapist has said does not change the reality that there is no reason to go on, and that continuing to suffer now is worth the remote possibility that a less terrible time might momentarily punctuate the pain.

But it cannot work… there can be no going back: Once a child realises Santa doesn’t exist, there is no way to recapture nor replace what it meant to believe it. And so, once we have seen the world for what it is, there can be no way back. All that is left is how long we can distract ourselves, and finding a reason to so. Sooner or later one or both of these management techniques will fail. And it might take only the slightest of not-so-bad problems to break it all apart. And this is where I find myself.

I cannot promise that what almost happened tonight to me might not happen again, but for now I am still here writing this post in the hope that someone somewhere might be able to find a way to keep going that I, and my late friend, cannot. So, what was my ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’? I have been trying to cope with losing the only, and most dearest friend on whom I leant very much, and whom I loved very deeply; as well as developing cancer to add to my list of debilitating and very painful medical conditions. The Catholic church has become victim to corruption and evil, including in the office of the Pope. So I truly am alone. The loneliness is immense and the daylight short. I am barely managing to live on my benefits, and it is not easy. And then I receive today notification that my benefits have stopped. So soon I shall be unable to feed myself nor have shelter. So is there any reason not to kill myself? I thought not.

I won’t be out on the street tomorrow, but the time is rapidly approaching. This would be the end of the line for me, so as my friend said, we may be unable to fit into this world, “but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.“

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

Crohn's Disease is a Terminal Illness. Coming to Terms.

January 23, 2019

After researching this disease for going on 6 years now, I believe I have come to a rational conclusion about Crohn’s disease which is that it is not a so-called incurable progressive disease but a fatal one: based on all the evidence including anecdotal evidence from patients themselves I now believe that Crohn’s disease is a terminal illness.  I have more or less concluded that before but for some reason I hadn’t yet come to terms with it.  It’s not easy to come to terms with something like that but not because I suffer from what is almost certainly going to cause my untimely death but because everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone is lying their asses off about Crohn’s disease including how “treatable” it is, what kind of quality of life Crohn’s patients can reasonably expect, how predictably disabling it is and why, and how it’s probably going to end.

But before we get to the end it’s important to start at the beginning and admit what Crohn’s disease is at base: Crohn’s patients, including myself, have to medicate in order to eat. And that is serious, very serious indeed.  If there is anything that is any less compatible with life than a disease that prevents the sick person from eating I can’t think of it.  A disease that prevented the sick person from breathing wouldn’t be any less compatible with life than Crohn’s is, it would just be quicker.

To illustrate, for the last 6 weeks or so I have been extremely fatigued to the point of being bedridden for most of it.  If it weren’t for having to get up to take care of my cats and absolutely bare-minimally tending to my small business I probably wouldn’t have been able to get up at all.  Once I had to move from the bed to the couch for most of the day because my bed had become damp and clammy from having laid in it for too many hours, days and weeks in a row: I flayed the covers off it and hit it with a box fan.  I couldn’t change the sheets because my only other set has been sitting in the hamper for 2 months waiting to be washed and other chronically ill people know exactly what that means: the last good day I had was 2 months ago where I changed the sheets and did half of my laundry.  Since then I haven’t been able to do a good goddamned thing.

Anyway, I’ve been so unbelievably exhausted recently that I’ve been unable to medicate properly.  Instead of changing my cannabis-infused transdermal patches every day or every other day, a few times I let it go for 4 or 5 days and for that I paid a terrible price: on top of the crippling fatigue and general malaise, as well as the continuous, daily pain and symptoms from Crohn’s which are always present to some degree and never go away, I was also so fucking sick from not medicating that I could no longer eat.  I had terrible stomach and intestinal pain including distressing burning, itching, pulling, pressure and boggy sensations as well as gastroparesis, nausea, heartburn, esophageal spasms and unsurprisingly, a profound aversion to food.  Which was good in a way since I was so tired I couldn’t have gotten to the grocery store to buy food anyway even if I had money to buy it or even a way to get to the store which I don’t.  And all of this misery, every bit of it including my poverty are due to the last 6 years spent as a full-blown Crohn’s patient but again, let’s not forget what Crohn’s is at base: it’s not about fatigue, it’s not about pain in a general or even in a specific way.  Although there is plenty of it it’s not about pain.  Crohn’s patients cannot eat.  We can’t eat.

As one might expect, following days, weeks, months and longer without a proper meal Crohn’s patients often become crazed and try to “eat something” — food which is then processed in our bodies exactly like poison.  We get nauseated and sweaty, we wretch, we heave, we shit our fucking brains out, all of which exacerbates our food aversion.  And as Crohn’s is admittedly a lifelong, incurable and progressive disease it goes on forever.  Forever.  Until you die from it.  No, Crohn’s patients do not die natural deaths peacefully in their sleep at an advanced age.  Crohn’s patients don’t sleep, at least not without massive pharmaceutical or other interventions.  When they die, Crohn’s patients die from not eating, or from the effects of their medications, or both. Or they die on the operating table or by suicide, both because of the Crohn’s.  They don’t have a chance to become old but again, that’s focusing on the end which becomes confusing as to cause.  Here it is helpful to go back to the beginning to what Crohn’s actually is at base: Crohn’s patients cannot eat.  We can’t eat.  And if you can’t eat you die.

All the conventional treatments we take, all the chasing our tails with alternative treatments including medical cannabis that aren’t sustainable anyway, all the resources poured into us (or not) by family and friends, all the money we spend on ourselves to get relief from this hideous disease is because we can’t eat and we are trying to fix that.  Even Crohn’s patients who achieve so-called “clinical remission” using dangerous and life-threatening drugs continue to have issues regardless of what the scopes say, regardless of whether there appears to be any active inflammation or not.  But if the treatment is successful, no matter how sick they still are, even if the medication gives them lupus or diabetes or AIDS or cancer, the “successful” Crohn’s patient will be able to eat.  That’s all we are asking for and it’s all some of us ever get — that’s what the successful ones get.  Although we are still sicker than most people can even imagine, finally, finally we get to eat.

And many Crohn’s patients never achieve clinical remission or have any success or get any relief at all from conventional treatments (i.e. we still can’t eat).  I didn’t.  After 2 entire years on conventional Crohn’s treatments I couldn’t eat a fucking thing.  Out of desperation I spent thousands of dollars on a sickening enteral feed that was supposed to give me all the nutrients I needed but without any fiber or anything to digest — it all went straight to my liver.  But because it had to go through my stomach and small intestine first, otherwise known as eating, all it did was make me sicker.  I was literally starving to death and there was nothing I or my doctors could do about it.  I was absolutely circling the drain.

It took me an entire year on mega-doses of marijuana (approaching 1,000mg THC daily, where 5-10mg is a standard recreational dose and 25-50mg is a standard medical dose) including smoking pot and eating simultaneously — a bite of food, a bong hit, repeat — to be able to tolerate food again.  After I stopped eating GMOs and switched to an exclusively 100% organic diet (including raw fermented organic food and various organic and non-GMO supplements) I didn’t have to smoke during meals anymore, but I still had to medicate daily.  In order to eat.  Of course, marijuana is also an exquisite pain reliever so a goodly portion of my pain and symptoms were also quelled and I felt remarkably better — about 50% better than I had since well before my diagnosis.  I was still extremely sick and I didn’t understand that part but I could eat again, I could sleep again and that was good enough for me.

I thought I would continue to get better though and I didn’t.   Because with Crohn’s the best you can hope for is to be able to eat again and even that’s not expected to last; it’s a progressive disease so you’re doing well if you stay the same and don’t get worse.  For me, because of the pot, I can still eat but I am, in fact, getting progressively worse.  The fatigue is worse, the good days are fewer and farther between but for now, because I can medicate, I can eat.  Of course, I can’t eat dairy, eggs, legumes, or anything in the gourd family (including squash, cucumber and melon) but I can eat.  As long as it’s organic and non-GMO I can eat (unless I can’t).

But what does it mean to be reliant on a consumerist solution — meaning “treatments” of any type including conventional, alternative or herbal including cannabis — in order to be able to eat?  That’s what no one seems willing to say.  From any angle, being dependent on a consumerist solution or any solution in order to eat means that you have an extremely serious and likely terminal disease.  Doesn’t it?  The fact that Crohn’s only gets worse over time underscores that point, where even if you do manage to find a consumerist solution that works, and even if you have easy access to it forever (most people don’t) over time you will find that you’re unable to eat once again.  Crohn’s “progresses” into stricturing or fistulizing late in the game, but early on it progresses from not being able to eat certain things to not being able to eat at all.  That’s the moment you would normally die except for consumerist solutions that only prolong the dying process.   You will face death by starvation again if you live that long where conventional treatments are known to kill you.

And that’s another point isn’t it — the drugs.  How, one may wonder, does Big Medicine justify giving extremely toxic drugs to Crohn’s patients when the drugs themselves cause hideous and disabling iatrogenic illnesses and injuries including lupus, opportunistic infections and cancer?  How can anyone reasonably accept being “infected” with full-blown untreated AIDS via immune system decimating “chemo” cancer drugs which themselves also cause cancer as a treatment for anything, especially something so (allegedly) trivial as Crohn’s disease?  The seriousness of Crohn’s is consistently downplayed by everyone who refuses to accept that it’s a terminal illness if you can’t eat you die, but the fact remains that no matter how sadistic our Big Pharma overlords really are, and it’s a lot, the benefit of the treatment still has to outweigh the risks at least on paper.  And the only way I can imagine that AIDS and cancer are better to have than Crohn’s is that Crohn’s is worse.  More relentlessly painful.  More predictably and profoundly disabling.  More likely to result in imminent death.  And everyone, and I mean everyone is lying about that.

I blame Big Pharma with its fictional Crohn’s drugs commercials that show (for example) a perfectly healthy actor in no distress whatsoever resting one hand on the waistband of his flat-front Dockers suggesting virtually nothing about what Crohn’s disease really entails (it’s not just about having unpredictable “bathroom visits” but it often includes that).  Also, in this culture, “the bathroom” is the final phase of eating.  Duh.  Read between the lines here people.  Eating is not comprised solely of chewing and swallowing (although some Crohn’s patients can’t even do that much).  If you can’t process food you will die and Crohn’s patients cannot process food whether they barf it up, shit it out too soon and too unprocessed, fail to assimilate it even if they can keep it down and/or in, or if they give up and/or can’t “eat” it at all.  I’ve seen Crohn’s patients admit that they often chew up food for the taste/craving satisfaction and then spit it out without swallowing.  That’s not eating y’all.

No one accepts that Crohn’s disease is fatal but now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I kind of have to.  I was unable to eat for 2 entire years and I felt like I was dying; I once told a friend that I couldn’t imagine living that way for another 40 years (I was 40 at the time) and I had no idea how right I was about that.  It’s unimaginable in this case because it’s not possible; it is not possible to get out of a fatal disease alive and Crohn’s disease is a fatal disease.  I was, of course, dying.  It took someone like me to figure it out — a professional problem solver and someone used to looking at patriarchal insanity and making perfect sense of it — and even I almost missed it because I was so unbelievably sick and weak, so brainwashed by the propaganda and so insane from the pain and medication I was unable to research much of anything let alone to deeply analyze it.  I spent easily $100,000 and 4 entire years this March getting comfortable/well enough to even attempt to get my head around what was happening to me, to organize my thoughts and to write about it on this blog.  I’ve written about it extensively for almost a year now and I just came to this conclusion a couple of days ago as what seems to me a natural progression of this research, these discussions and this work.  Crohn’s is fatal, I have a terminal disease, and now I get to come to terms with that.

I won’t comment on whether other autoimmune diseases are similarly fatal where patients are also prescribed the same immunity-decimating drugs that cause (essentially) AIDS, diabetes and cancer because I don’t know enough about them, but I think there is plenty that suggests that they are.  Why is letting a doctor give you AIDS better than living with untreated MS, RA and all the other autoimmune diseases that are routinely treated with chemo and biologics that leave the patient without an immune system and who is it better for, seem like questions worth asking.  In the case of Crohn’s, there is at least a chance (allegedly and on paper) that the patient will temporarily be able to eat again; and I think untreated (and treated) MS eventually stops your breathing but I’m not sure.

But why is Crohn’s specifically so downplayed when it is so gravely serious, why are Crohn’s patients specifically expected to continue working and recreating as if nothing is wrong when they are literally fucking dying and have to medicate successfully in order to eat?  Why in this case specifically will no one call a spade a spade and admit that it’s a terminal illness/fatal disease when it pretty obviously is one?   That’s what I’m thinking about now.

Please feel free to leave comments below.

[generallynerdy]

Distracted (Stephen Strange X Reader ft. Chronic Headaches)

Summary: As a student at Kamar Taj, learning to be a sorcerer is one of the most amazing experiences you’ve ever had. However, it is dulled by your chronic headaches, a constant barrier in the learning process. Luckily for you, Stephen Strange is always there to help when you need it. When you start to get distracted by an absolutely ridiculous onslaught of feelings for the former doctor and fail to notice that he’s acting similarly, Wong, Mordo, and the other sorcerers at Kamar Taj have had enough. It’s time for them to step in.

Requested by Actually_An_Insane_Fangirl: I just found your fics and I loved your Dr. Strange fanfic! If it's alright, I'd like to request a Stephen Strange x Reader. I requested something similar from another author, but they ended it in a way that I thought was funny but not exactly what I wanted (it was an April's Fools joke and I wasn't the happiest that my request was used for that). That being said, can I have a one shot where the reader comes to train at Kamar Taj and Strange is your teacher? At first you have problems learning due to your chronic headaches. Now, you can't focus because you've developed feelings for Stephen. Stephen knows it's not your headaches anymore but doesn't have a clue about your feelings. In fact, he's the only one who doesn't know about your feelings, even when he gets distracted by his own feelings toward you. Everyone at Kamar Taj helps you get together, even Wong. Humor and fluff if possible. If this is too long, then ignore it. Have a great rest of your day!

Key: (Y/N) - your name

Warnings: Chronic headaches, fluff, Mordo Doesn’t Go To The Dark Side AU

Word Count: 1,709 ish

Note: Ach, I’m so sorry they used it as an April Fool’s thing! That’s an awful thing to do! I love this idea, it’s super cute! I tried to do it justice, but I don’t know if I put enough humour into it. I don’t have that great of a sense of humour, tbh. I’m sorry this took so long, friend!! It’s been a super busy month and writer’s block hit me like a brick wall. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for your request! <3

           Being a sorcerer and having chronic headaches don’t mix very well. At all. You’ve always had difficulties learning the trade, even when surrounded by the most talented sorcerers in the universe here in Kamar Taj. Your headaches get in the way of everything.

           Luckily for you, Stephen Strange is there to help. Since you’ve come to Kamar Taj, he’s been right there to help the learning process. He’s the greatest teacher anyone could ask for, especially since he’s training to be the next Sorcerer Supreme, from what you’ve heard. He’s not only a great teacher but a good friend, as you quickly got to know each other during your training.

           While your headaches left you completely shaken and unable to work, Stephen was there to help you. They still haunt you some days and leave you completely distracted, but with him there, they aren’t as bad.

           But lately, you’ve been distracted from your lessons by something that definitely isn’t a headache.

           It did start when another one of your headaches hit, though. You skipped training for the day and tried to nap it off, which, unbeknownst to you, worried Stephen. When training was over, he knocked on your door and you answered.

           “I was worried,” He told you.

           He’d said this many times before and it was nothing new, but this time was…different. In a word, it was different. It was odd and sensational and struck you as completely ridiculous. When he said it this time, your heart beat like the background music in an action movie, your breath hitched as if you were suddenly dunked in ice cold water, and your face was red like you had contracted a disease. You had no idea what was wrong with you.

           You reassured him you were fine and you’d be there for training tomorrow, which sent the man on his way but left you completely flustered. What was that?! You couldn’t help but shout at yourself.

           For days, you were in denial. But now, you’ve pretty much come to accept it. You have feelings for Stephen Strange, which is probably the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

           Now, you can’t think straight. Every lesson with him is an utter disaster and you’re all over the place. Your mind is elsewhere, usually thinking on the topic of what it would be like to hold the former doctor’s hand and maybe even kiss him. It’s starting to get ridiculous, to the point where even Stephen himself is noticing how often you get distracted. He’s starting to realise that it’s not your headaches anymore, either, but he can’t pinpoint just what it is, something you consider a blessing.

           Oddly enough, Stephen has been rather distracted as well. You don’t notice at all, of course, as you’re a little preoccupied, but he’s starting to get nervous at his own actions. More importantly, his emotions.

           It happened to him the same day that it happened to you. He didn’t see you at training and panicked, so much so that he could barely teach his lesson that day. He made his way straight to your quarters after, something that didn’t go unnoticed by others in Kamar Taj, except for you. To be fair, you weren’t exactly around to see it, but you might have noticed the time he came to see you was a little early for training to be over yet.

           Stephen is in much more denial than you, so much so that he has yet to accept his feelings, though they’ve been hanging over him for weeks at this point. His denial is leaving him distracted and that, in his case, is anything but good.

           Now, you haven’t noticed him being distracted and he can’t figure out why you’re distracted, but everyone else in Kamar Taj is more than capable of doing both. Literally everyone.

    So, they come up with a plan. It’s a terribly messy plan, but they’re confident it’ll work.

    Today, you find yourself in the library late at night. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, but today is a little different. One of the other students in your training group wants to study with you, weirdly enough. They even said the headaches aren’t a problem, which definitely is different. The only one usually willing to study with you through headaches is Stephen.

    Speaking of Stephen, he is also in the library, though you don’t know it. Wong brought in a new set of books today and he’s, as usual, set on being the first to get through them. He’s already halfway through, but it’s starting to get late. So, he makes his way out of the library, knowing that if he doesn’t leave now, he never will. It’s then that he spots you across the room, at a table with a book wide open.

    The man walks over, a stack of books in hand. He smiles a little when you don’t notice his approach. You’re too wrapped up in your book. “Hey, (Y/N).”

    You nearly jump out of your chair when he speaks, which makes him chuckle. “Don’t scare me like that!”

    “Sorry,” he laughs a little before glancing around. “What are you doing here? It’s nearly midnight.”

    “Huh?” You blink a few times. “Really? I guess I lost track of time...I was waiting for someone. We were just gonna study, but they never showed.”

    “You should probably rest,” Stephen says concernedly, “We’ve got stuff to do tomorrow.”

    “Sure, mom,” You tease and stand, gathering your things. Despite your sass, you’re flustered by the mere presence of him, which is made especially worse by his concern for you, though it isn’t new at all.

    Stephen rolls his eyes fondly, “I’ll walk you back.”

    Still flustered, you pull yourself together long enough to walk to the library’s exit with him. You chat a bit about what’s been going on lately, especially during training. Stephen also asks you about your headaches and how they’ve been. You tell him you’re having them less and less. You’re starting to think that learning magic can truly heal you.

    When the two of you get to the front door, you find it strangely closed up for the night. That’s odd, you think, because you never noticed Wong leave.

    Stephen has a similar thought process, frowning at the sight of the gate, which is pulled closed and padlocked. “Wong isn’t due to close up shop for another hour…” He mutters almost to himself, pulling on the lock experimentally. It’s enchanted, of course; only the best magic to protect Kamar Taj’s libraries, especially after last time.

    “That’s okay,” You reassure him quickly, going to search your pockets for your sling ring, “I’ll just- damn. I could’ve sworn I brought it with me.”

    Stephen reads your mind and searches for his own sling ring, but can’t seem to find it.

    Little do the both of you know, Mordo is one hell of a pickpocket.

    From there, things spiral downward. The two of you desperately shout for Wong to open the door, hoping he’s somewhere nearby. He is, of course, but the two of you don’t know that. This is all part of their master scheme and, so far, it’s working pretty well. The rest of it is up to the two of you.

    “Damn it,” Stephen refrains from bashing his head against a wall, “Everyone is asleep.”

    “So...we’re stuck here for the night?”

    “Pretty much.”

    There are a few more attempts to get out, but because of your failure to retain your sling rings, you’re pretty much screwed. Eventually, the two of you accept that you’ll be stuck here and end up doing your best to find someplace to sleep. You decide to stick by the front door, just in case someone wanders by, and Stephen stays with you.

    After what feels like hours, you feel a sharp pain in your temple and hiss, rubbing the side of your head. Stephen immediately looks at you with furrowed eyebrows, “You alright?”

    You shake your head, “Headache.”

    “C’mere,” He motions for you to move closer to where he’s leaning against the wall. “Don’t exactly have any pillows, but you can use my shoulder.”

    Despite your protests, he reassures you that it’s totally fine with him. So, you give in and lean against the man’s shoulder in a weak attempt to get some shut eye. The pain in your head increases rapidly, but you’re able to take it. It isn’t one of your worse ones, so that’s a blessing.

    As your head throbs, you clench your fists as a natural reaction the pain.

    Stephen notices this, of course, and somehow musters up the courage to reach for your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. You tense up at first, but quickly relax at the gentleness of his touch. Though hesitant, the sorcerer rubs his thumb across your knuckles carefully, hoping to distract you from your headache.

    However, something else distracts you.

    You suddenly realise that you can feel Stephen’s pulse beating rapidly as you hold his hand. It makes your heart leap a little and you sit up just enough to look at him confusedly. Could he be nervous?

    He glances away from your questioning gaze for a split second before he looks back, suddenly lost in your eyes. He draws closer until you can almost feel his breath on your lips. You’re too caught up in the excitement to even make a move, so Stephen is the first to capture your lips, his eyes shut tightly.

    For a long moment, you relish the feeling of his lips against yours, shifting so that you can still hold his hand and kiss him comfortably. When you do draw away, you’re too befuddled to say anything, your jaw slack.

    Stephen chuckles, squeezing your hand. He clears his throat somewhat awkwardly, “How’s your headache?”

    In a daze, you blink a few times before replying, “What headache?”

    On the other side of Kamar Taj, two sling rings shake in Mordo’s pocket when he cheers quietly and reaches over to high-five Wong, who can’t help the small grin on his face. If they had known it would be this easy to get the two of you together, they would’ve trapped you in the library months ago.

Masterlist

[sharingshane-blog]

Why I am a Leftist

I thought I would spend some time discussing some of my socio-economic beliefs and how I came to where I am today.  My battles with poverty, disability, chronic illness, and discrimination (being genderqueer and bisexual) have largely informed my current beliefs about how society should function.  Just like anybody else, my environment and struggles have shaped who I am and what I believe today.

I have been registered in every party with the exception of the libertarian party.  Currently I have no affiliation.  I have become increasingly more frustrated with the socio-economic and political climate of today, and it is not due to how divisive people are after the orange was elected in 2016.  That divisiveness was always there, and it was always meant to be there.  The so-called problems in this current system are not really problems at all.  They are simply injustices, but those injustices were meant to be there.  The United States was never founded as a land of freedom and democracy.  Hell, only about one-third of the population in the American colonies actually wanted to break away from England.  The vast majority were either ambivalent or actively opposed separation.  The Constitution was drafted and ratified by a legislature that consisted solely of white, cisgender, heterosexual, wealthy, privileged men.  Some were rapists such Thomas Jefferson.  Some were frauds such as George Washington.  Some were narcissists such as Benjamin Franklin.  All of them were racists.  They all possessed power and influence in their given states.  The America today is exactly what America was always meant to be, a place where those privileged few controls and uses the rest of the population for their own personal gain.  It is an oligarchy disguised as democracy and exploitation at its finest.  I am completely pessimistic about the future of America unless the entire system is uprooted and we begin again from scratch.  Anyone who believes that the system can be fixed are unfortunately sorely deceived.  

I came to this understanding during my one-year hiatus from college in 2017.  During this time, I was working at Panera Bread as a cashier. As the year progressed, the job became more difficult.  I was unable to work full-time because of my health.  I was in intensive therapy for the first half of 2017 spending about 10 hours doing that and 20 hours working each week.  It was emotionally exhausting and my chronic fatigue was weighing heavily on me.  During the course of the year my anxiety and PTSD became more intense.  Near the end of my intensive treatment, I began to develop these disassociative episodes or stupors when I was triggered or overwhelmed. It happened to me once while I was driving causing me to have car accident and total my car.  They began happening more at work and I would have to be sent home.  During these episodes, I cannot respond to most external stimuli and am largely unresponsive.  I am unable to speak or speak very little.  I lose track of reality.  I cannot feel different parts of my body particularly my arms and legs.  There became an increase fear that they may be seizures.  Sometimes it appears I am having a stroke.  So far there is no evidence of either.  I developed more chronic pain.  It is highly suspected that I have endometriosis although I haven’t had the opportunity to have the surgical procedure to confirm the diagnosis. There is more, but I will not get into that now.

During this time, I realized how little my health seemed to matter to my employers.  They could make some accommodations for me, but in the end, it was their priority to make sure that business ran smoothly.  If my health got in the way too much, then I could face the chopping block.  I watched as two other fellow coworkers got fired for taking too many sick days. Both have debilitating chronic conditions that could become life-threatening if not treated.  Of course, it would be outright discrimination to fire them based solely on their health conditions.  So, they took another route.  I was terrified of losing my job.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and would neglect my health in the process. It became clearer; however, that I could not maintain the work.  My managers began cutting hours.  I was already not making enough to satisfy basic necessities and now I was making even less.  I was forced to have to live with my parents which was an unhealthy situation for me (which I will refrain from explaining why for the time being).  I felt like a burden on everyone which took a toll on my mental health.  I attempted to return to school after my hiatus while still working my job at Panera and living with my parents.  This proved to be too much for me to handle.  I quit college and moved in with a friend.  I came out as transgender and my hours were cut more at work.  I was eventually forced to quit.  I caught my manager complaining about my health issues behind my back to other coworkers.  This is actually a HIPPA violation, and I could potentially press charges.  In the end though, I am poor.  I do not have the financial and emotional resources to fight her.

Be patient.  I promise you this is all relevant.

In all this, I tried to develop a better way to organize the business in order to make the employees feel less like they are part of a massive machine and more like individual human beings.  I felt as though I was part of that machine, and if I became too weak, the machine would break.  Another thing I realized was that I was easily replaceable.  There is not much incentive for employers to work with me when they could easily switch me out for a stronger part.  No matter how nice they seemed, their primary duty is business.  If they are not successful at it, they will lose their position of power.  The system requires them to be exploitive towards the lower-wage workers.  I could not develop a system in my mind that would fix this unless capitalism as a whole was completely abolished.  If we remove CEO’s and had the workers run the industries democratically, that would fix the problem.  However, this would require a complete uproot of the system today.  I became more familiar with the term class-consciousness.

I am a hard worker and a fighter.  However, I am human and limited.  Because of my disabilities, employers consider me to be a malfunctioned part. I cannot lift heavy things or be on my feet for too long without feeling like I’m about to collapse.  I have now been reduced to a cane.  There is nothing that I can do to change this.  The phrase, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” did not work for me.  It did not matter how much effort into the system, I was stuck.  It would have to take sheer luck and a willingness to exploit others to rise up in the ranks.  The latter goes against my moral compass.  I realized that I could never bring myself to ever be a manager.  I cannot ethically justify being in such a position where I have to treat money with greater importance than the human beings that would work under me.

However, in order to create a society in which people are treated as human beings, and true equality is obtained; it would mean that those on the top would have to relinquish their power and wealth.  There is this narrative in which people believe that it is perfectly natural and necessary for there to power figures; otherwise, society would turn to chaos. It is true that we make decisions on our self-interest, but that is why an anarcho-communist society could honestly work.  It is in the workers’ best interest to distrust power figures, to have control over industry, to regain their humanity, to maintain industry and do their part in society, and to be a part of a society.  It will not happen without a fight though.  Millionaires and billionaires will not relinquish their power easily.  The system was created to keep those people at the top.  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia have been perpetuated to pin those on the bottom against one another, to keep them from uniting. The police were established to enforce this narrative and protect capitalist interests.  In the North, they were established to protect the transportation of goods and keep poor workers, largely immigrants, from collectivizing and prevent them from having a voice.  In the South, the police were derived from overseers with the intent to preserve slavery. The police system is not broken. It is running exactly how it was intended to run.  The narrative that there must always be people on the top and those on the bottom was a common defense of African-American slavery.  It is an idea with the sole intent to keep people oppressed.

Helen Keller, the famous activist who fought for the rights of those disabled, understood that equality for those disabled could never be obtained in a capitalist society. Disabled people will always be seen as inferior.  Safety was secondary; so, businesses can maintain their quotas increasing the possibility of accidents causing workers to become disabled.  It is not commonly known that she became a socialist herself and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which believed that that the workers must run industry.  It is a workers’ union dedicated to democracy and solidarity. Their core belief is that you have nothing in common with your boss.

Bernie Sanders is not a true socialist.  He is a social democrat, and lately he has had to tame his speech in order to maintain his power and influence.  He believes in a highly regulated capitalist system.  Socialists believe in abolishing capitalism altogether.  

I am an actual socialist.  I do not believe the system is flawed.  I believe the system works exactly how it is supposed to function and it is disgusting. This ended up being a loner post than I had planned it to be, but I do have much to say on the subject.  It is something I am passionate about even though I will probably not see this come to fruition.  I hope this was insightful to how I have come to my beliefs which I hold today.

[aquarianlights]

It kills me that I can put forth 110% for someone I love and that person barely gives me 50% back when I need it the most.

I've finally grown up and realized that that is what a true friend does: They're there for their friends even in the midst of their own issues. And when I grew up and finally realized that and started putting that out into the world, it turned out that the people I thought were closest to me tended to be the ones who would only give back on their terms or not at all.

I don't ask for people to physically be there for me much anymore. I used to ask for it daily. Most of the time, I'm p content to be alone and just do my thing and incorporate others into my plans or incorporate myself into their plans if invited or if I ask what they're up to and I wanna join.

But during the times when life is most stressful and I'm sitting alone with pills and a knife like I used to when I was young, I still tend to drop everything and act like I wasn't just about to hurt myself or kill myself if someone needs me.

But now I'm finally honest about it and ask for someone to be there in the midst of a very dark hour for me. A moment where I'm feeling the most lost and helpless I have in years due the extreme stress of medical complications lately, financial struggles, school issues I'm having due to surgical complications, handling trauma from dealing with my one of my worst fears almost every single day for 4 days in a row now, multiple times a day each, much more physical pain than normal (as I have acute pain added onto my chronic right now), and so much more. . .and you can't even spare a couple hours for me?

Even on the day that I had 6 panic attacks in a row and absolutely could not handle coming out of my apartment whatsoever, you indicated you needed me and I was doing you wrong by not coming out despite the fact I was laying in my closet curled up, shaking and hyperventilating, choking and unable to breathe or move due to trauma. But I went out despite the fact I cried the entire way there and cried the entire way home and had a breakdown through the entire night and still haven't mentally recovered from being forced out. But I don't regret it because I was there for you and was able to force myself to act normal and cheery and bury my issues because you indicated the same thing I'm indicating to you now.

I put out 110% into a friendship that I only get 110% back on their terms. I put out 110% no matter what I'm going through and despite the plethora of terrible things happening to me that shouldn't be happening at all and I get almost nothing in return unless it benefits them. As long as it makes them happy, benefits them, and doesn't bring their mood down, they'll be there for you. But if you have a real crisis where you need someone to be there for you despite the fact you will need to lean on them and cry on them (or with them, depending on circumstances), you can almost count on the fact that they won't be there for you.

The only reason I was never there in the past was because I honestly didn't know what friendship was supposed to really be. . .what one was supposed to put out and get back, etc etc... how good friendships are somewhat symbiotic. I had no idea that you were supposed to be there for your friends no matter what (unless, ofc, you have to go to work or something of that sort and have to put being able to pay bills and such first; there are definitely practical exceptions after you enter adulthood). It may sound stupid, but I couldn't understand the social cues.

But when I finally experienced it with someone and I started doing the same for them, my entire world changed and I remember even asking them one night after explaining all this, "Is this how friendship is supposed to feel? Unconditional warm fuzzies with no underlying pain?" I was surprised to find out the truth, honestly. I was more surprised to find out most people get this in childhood, where I only experienced it and understood it in adulthood. And it was magickal.

But then you have long time friends that constantly make you feel the opposite and you wonder "Is this also what friendship is supposed to feel like?" When talking to friends and professionals about it, it is apparently not supposed to feel this way or be this way. Not a good friendship, at least. A friendship can feel anything, but a *good* friendship is something special and unique. I really don't have a point of reference since I didn't pick up on the fact it was supposed to be a 50/50 relationship like in romantic relationships until a few years ago.

The thing with romantic relationships is that it is a 50/50 during the good times... but there are times when your partner falls and you have to give 60 while they give 40. But that's okay because you know they will do the same for you when it is time for you to only give 40.

But what do you do when you have someone who just constantly uses the same excuses over and over and over? They're never "in a good place" and they're always "in the worst place they've ever been" and they constantly apologize for it like they're promising and giving you hope for that future moment when you desperately need them specifically again only to be given the exact same excuse. What kind of an apology is just mere words with repeated harmful actions behind them every single time for years and years and years?

I wish I had noticed the pattern so long ago, but it took me forever to notice because I'm honestly not a detail oriented person like that. I wish I were, coz I would probably be able to remember people's names and faces a *lot* better and not end up in situations where I have to try to figure out who the fuck I'm talking to since they know me lol.

I just wish... for once... I could be the 40. I used to be able to give 40 and they would give 60. But it was still on their terms even back then. But at least they would show effort at all. These past handful of years, any time you need them, if it's not directly benefiting them and bringing up their mood in some way and/or if they are not being rewarded with some form of social outing with someone else to cheer them up after "sacrificing themselves" (as they always see it) for a couple hours to help a friend to continue baiting them along in hope that one day, they'll give the same you're giving.

But when you're alone, both physically and mentally exhausted from having panic attacks all day long, and are ready to end it and they still just don't care enough to be there, it really shows who has the power in the relationship.

I've been here before with so many people. Never in my life did I think it would be them. But narcissists are generally a wolf in sheeps clothing. It's terrifying. I thought maybe since we are older and they continue to claim how much better they're getting and how they're trying and how they're getting help and this and that... it would finally be different and I thought after a few years of this excuse being recycled almost weekly, sometimes as often as daily, maybe I could be blatantly honest about what I need and where I am, like they were the day that I was having so many breakdowns and panic attacks that I ended up throwing up twice. I still went because they expressed what I expressed to them now, just in a different way. I was there for them despite it all and just used my alone time later to breakdown until it put me to sleep.

Will they ever do the same for me? I feel like I should know the answer by now. But seeing direct situations and roles reversed and seeing they are not doing what I would do for them. . . I'm feeling even more helpless and unloved than before. If I wanted to end it before, well I had no idea how badly I would want to end it after getting my hopes up.

I still don't know why I did. I should never be honest with them because I can almost predict exactly what they will say to get out of it. The excuses just keep coming and I don't know how much more rejection when I'm at my worst I can take.

I knew being alone was the right call to make. I should have stuck to it. I don't know why I thought I could have a friend physically near me that would do for me what I do for them in their times of need. I'm so exhausted from fighting to try to keep my hopes up. I'm so exhausted from believing in them only to be let down over and over again. I'm so exhausted by taking a chance to ask and see if they still value me as more than a pawn in their mind games only to find out that they don't. I'm so exhausted by getting hurt over and over and over again. I'm so exhausted by not having a soul that truly loves me and only people that perpetuate the idea of loving me around me so that I'll fall for their tricks.

This is, by far, the longest game of anyones I've ever played. I wish I could take myself away from it. But I know the second they are back to wanting me on their terms as always, I'll be right back at their side laughing and asking them to a coffee shop to study or just to come hang out like a kicked puppy who has to pretend he was never kicked and is the happiest dog alive.

I'm so tired. I'm so goddamn tired. I just want someone to actually be what they appear to be for once... I'm so fucking tired.

[ezatluba]

How Koalas With an S.T.D. Could Help Humanity

When it comes to finding a vaccine for chlamydia, the world’s most common sexually transmitted infection, koalas may prove a key ally.

Skroo, a wild koala visiting Endeavour Veterinary Ecology clinic, on June 25. Researchers at the clinic are testing a vaccine against chlamydia in koalas, which is very similar to the human form of the disease.Credit...Russell Shakespeare for The New York Times

By Rachel E. Gross

July 13, 2020

The first sign is the smell: smoky, like a campfire, with a hint of urine. The second is the koala’s rear end: If it is damp and inflamed, with streaks of brown, you know the animal is in trouble. Jo, lying curled and unconscious on the examination table, had both.

Jo is a wild koala under the purview of Endeavour Veterinary Ecology, a wildlife consulting company that specializes in bringing sick koala populations back from the brink of disease. Vets noticed on their last two field visits that she was sporting “a suspect bum,” as the veterinarian Pip McKay put it. So they brought her and her 1-year-old joey into the main veterinary clinic, which sits in a remote forest clearing in Toorbul, north of Brisbane, for a full health check.

Ms. McKay already had an inkling of what the trouble might be. “Looking at her, she probably has chlamydia,” she said.

Humans don’t have a monopoly on sexually transmitted infections. Oysters get herpes, rabbits get syphilis, dolphins get genital warts. But chlamydia — a pared-down, single-celled bacterium that acts like a virus — has been especially successful, infecting everything from frogs to fish to parakeets. You might say chlamydia connects us all.

This shared susceptibility has led some scientists to argue that studying, and saving, koalas may be the key to developing a long-lasting cure for humans. “They’re out there, they’ve got chlamydia, and we can give them a vaccine, we can observe what the vaccine does under real conditions,” said Peter Timms, a microbiologist at the University of Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He has spent the past decade developing a chlamydia vaccine for koalas, and is now conducting trials on wild koalas, in the hopes that his formula will soon be ready for wider release. “We can do something in koalas you could never do in humans,” Dr. Timms said.

In koalas, chlamydia’s ravages are extreme, leading to severe inflammation, massive cysts and scarring of the reproductive tract. In the worst cases, animals are left yelping in pain when they urinate, and they develop the telltale smell. But the bacteria responsible is still remarkably similar to the human one, thanks to chlamydia’s tiny, highly conserved genome: It has just 900 active genes, far fewer than most infectious bacteria.

Because of these similarities, the vaccine trials that Endeavour and Dr. Timms are running may offer valuable clues for researchers across the globe who are developing a human vaccine.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery

How bad is chlamydia in humans? Consider that around one in 10 sexually active teenagers in the United States is already infected, said Dr. Toni Darville, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina. Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide, with 131 million new cases reported each year.

Antibiotics exist, but they are not enough to solve the problem, Dr. Darville said. That’s because chlamydia is a “stealth organism,” producing few symptoms and often going undetected for years.

“We can screen them all and treat them, but if you don’t get all their partners and all their buddies at the other high schools, you have a big spring break party and before you know it everybody’s infected again,” Dr. Darville said. “So they have this long-term chronic smoldering infection, and they don’t even know it. And then when they’re 28 and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m ready to have a baby, everything’s a mess.’”

In 2019, Dr. Darville and her colleagues received a multiyear, $10.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop a vaccine. The ideal package would combine a chlamydia and gonorrhea vaccine with the HPV vaccine already given to most preteenagers. “If we could combine those three, you’d basically have a fertility anticancer vaccine,” she said.

Chlamydia’s stealth and ubiquity — the name means “cloak-like mantle” — owes to its two-stage life cycle. It starts out as an elementary body, a spore-like structure that sneaks into cells and hides from the body’s immune system. Once inside, it wraps itself in a membrane envelope, hijacks the host cell’s machinery and starts pumping out copies of itself. These copies either burst out of the cell or are released into the bloodstream to continue their journey.

“Chlamydia is pretty unique in that regard,” said Ken Beagley, a professor of immunology at Queensland University of Technology and a former colleague of Dr. Timms. “It’s evolved to survive incredibly well in a particular niche, it doesn’t kill its host and the damage it causes occurs over quite a long time.”

The bacterium can hang out in the genital tract for months or years, wreaking reproductive havoc. Scarring and chronic inflammation can lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancy or pelvic inflammatory disease. Evidence is mounting that chlamydia harms male fertility as well: Dr. Beagley has found that the bacteria damages sperm and could lead to birth abnormalities.

All of this — except the spring break parties — is true in both humans and koalas. Researchers who work with both species note that koala chlamydia looks strikingly similar to the human version. The main difference is severity: In koalas, the bacterium rapidly ascends the urogenital tract, and can jump from the reproductive organs to the bladder thanks to their anatomical proximity.

These parallels have led Dr. Timms to argue that koalas could serve as a “missing link” in the search for a human vaccine. “The koala is more than just a fancy animal model,” he said. “It actually is really useful for human studies.”

An ancient curse

No one knows how or when koalas first got chlamydia. But the curse is at least centuries old.

In 1798, European explorers reached the mountains of New South Wales and spied a creature that defied description: ear-tufted and spoon-nosed, it peered down stoically from the crooks of towering eucalyptus trees. They compared it to the wombat, the sloth and the monkey. They settled on “native bear” and gave it the genus name Phascolarctos (from the Greek for “leather pouch” and “bear”), spawning the misconception that the koala bear is, in fact, a bear.

“The graveness of the visage,” The Sydney Gazette wrote in 1803, “would seem to indicate a more than ordinary portion of animal sagacity.”

In the late 19th century, the Australian naturalist Ellis Troughton noted that the “quaint and lovable koala” was also particularly susceptible to disease. The animals suffered from an eye ailment similar to pink eye, which he blamed for waves of koala die-offs in the 1890s and 1900s. At the same time, the anatomist J.P. Hill found that koalas from Queensland and New South Wales often had ovaries and uteruses riddled with cysts. Many modern scientists now believe those koalas were probably afflicted with the same scourge: chlamydia.

Koalas today have even more to worry about. Dogs, careless drivers and, recently, rampant bushfires have driven their numbers down so far that conservation groups are calling for koalas to be listed as endangered. But chlamydia still reigns supreme: In parts of Queensland, the heart of the epidemic, the disease helped fuel an 80 percent decline over two decades.

The disease is also the one that most often sends koalas to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, the country’s busiest wildlife hospital, located 30 miles north of Endeavour. “The figures are 40 percent chlamydia, 30 percent cars, 10 percent dogs,” said Dr. Rosemary Booth, the hospital’s director. “And then the rest is an interesting assortment of what trouble you can get into when you have a small brain and your habitat’s been fragmented.”

Dr. Booth’s team treats “chlamydia koalas” with an amped-up regimen of the same antibiotics used on humans. “I get all of my chlamydia information from the C.D.C.,” she said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, “because America is the great center for chlamydia.”

But the cure can be as deadly as the disease. Deep inside a koala’s intestines, an army of bacteria helps the animal subsist off eucalyptus, a plant toxic to every other animal. “These are the ultimate example of an animal that’s completely dependent on a population of bacteria,” Dr. Booth said. Antibiotics extinguish that crucial gut flora, leaving a koala unable to gain nutrients from its food.

In a 2019 trial led by Dr. Timms and Dr. Booth, one of five koalas treated with antibiotics later had to be euthanized “due to gastrointestinal complications, resulting in muscle wasting and dehydration.” The problem is so dire that vets give antibiotic-treated koalas “poo shakes” — fecal transplants, essentially — in the hopes of restoring their microbiota.

For the past decade, Dr. Timms has worked to perfect a vaccine. Rather than treat animals once they are already sick, a widespread vaccine would protect koalas from any future sexual encounter and from passing the infection from mother to newborn. His formula, developed with Dr. Beagley, appears to work well: Trials have shown that it is safe to use and takes effect within 60 days, and that animals show immune responses that span their entire reproductive lives. The next step is optimizing it for use in the field.

At Endeavour, the vets treating Jo got a surprise: Molecular tests showed she was chlamydia-free. That meant she could be recruited for the current trial, which is testing a combined vaccine against chlamydia and the koala retrovirus known as KoRV, a virus in the same family as H.I.V. that similarly knocks down the koala’s immune system and makes chlamydia more deadly.

Dr. Timms is hoping that this trial and another in New South Wales will be the “clincher” — the last step before the government rolls out mass vaccinations. If he is right, it could be good news for more than just koalas.

Of mice and marsupials

Dr. Timms began his career studying chlamydia in livestock before moving on to using mice as a model for a human vaccine. Cheap, plentiful and amenable to genetic manipulation, mice have long been the gold standard for studying reproductive disease.

But the mouse model comes with serious drawbacks. Most glaringly, mice exhibit a profoundly different immune response to chlamydia than ours, making the idea of testing a mouse for a human vaccine “completely flawed,” Dr. Timms said.

After a decade of doing mouse work, he reasoned that he could take the insights he had gleaned and apply them to an animal that was actually suffering and possible to cure: the koala. “We don’t need a vaccine for mice,” he said. With “koala work, as hard as that is, and as difficult as that is, the results you get are the ones that matter.”

The more Dr. Timms worked with koalas, the more he realized that these marsupials were not so different from you and me. Here was a species that, like us, was naturally infected with several strains of chlamydia and suffered from similar reproductive outcomes, including infertility. He realized he might have a useful model animal on his hands.

“You’re better off doing a bad experiment in koalas than a good experiment in mice,” Dr. Timms said. “Because koalas really do get chlamydia and they really do get reproductive tract disease, so everything you do is relevant.”

Outside Australia, many researchers say the idea of a koala model is clever but difficult to implement. Dr. Darville pointed out that it would be expensive and logistically impossible to test 30 different vaccines in koalas. (According to Endeavour, it costs roughly $2,000 to pluck one koala from its tree and give it a health exam.)

Still, Dr. Timms said, the challenge was worth attempting: “The reason that we’re making a case that in between mouse and humans you should put koalas — rather than guinea pigs, minipigs and monkeys — is that koalas address all of the weaknesses, to some degree, that the others have.”

Paola Massari, an immunologist at Tufts Medical School, is collaborating with Dr. Timms to test a different potential vaccine in koalas. “The koala represents a perfect clinical model, because it’s an animal for which you can do some experimentation that’s a little more than what you can do in humans,” she said. “And at the same time, if you get results, you are curing a disease (in koalas).”

An unlikely alliance

On a hot February afternoon, Dr. Booth strode out into the blaring sunlight of the Australia Zoo grounds. She was heading to the chlamydia wards, which in 2018 were officially named the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward after a grant was donated on the comedian’s behalf. About 20 sick koalas were being treated with antibiotics that day, with dozens more on the road to recovery.

Dr. Booth stepped up to a leafy enclosure, where a fluffy gray female eyed her curiously from her perch. This koala was originally brought in for chlamydia but had since recovered; her reason for being here, listed on her cage, was “misadventure.”

“This is little Lorna, who’s rather interesting,” Dr. Booth said. “She has a baby in her pouch and she’s had problems with her glucose metabolism” — she had diabetes.

Wasn’t it unusual to have an animal that gets such humanlike diseases: diabetes, cancer and sexually transmitted infections? “We are but an animal,” Dr. Booth said, throwing her hands up in a gesture of unity with the world. “We didn’t think of it first.”

It is still uncertain to what extent the research on koala chlamydia will help in developing a human vaccine. (Dr. Darville had been working for nine months when Covid-19 hit, shuttering her lab and slowing scientific progress.) What is certain is that the research done on human chlamydia has greatly benefited koalas. From human antibiotics to mouse insights, wildlife veterinarians have far more tools than before to save the vulnerable marsupials.

For Dr. Booth, helping koalas is more than enough. “I don’t want to save humans,” she said. “My emphasis is completely the other way: I want to use human research to help save other animals. Because they don’t have a voice unless we speak for them.”