#I NEED IRON. AND ALSO BLOOD.

[unsettlingcreature]

Hey gang, I'm anemic, who's going to let me schlorp some blood directly from their neck to fix that?

[lloydfrontera]

my biggest gripe with the manhwa rn is that they made javier more of an asshole than he is in the novel and then took away most of the scenes where we see him being kind and soft with others.

javier can be an ass, he is a brat and he's especially annoying when he's with lloyd, but above anything else he is kind and loyal and selfless and good. i cannot emphasize enough how good javier is. he's the kind of person who cannot see someone in trouble or danger and do nothing about it. he's the kind of person who would sacrifice his life for total strangers and no hope of any reward. he's the kind of person who can't even enjoy a lavish party without feeling guilty because he'd much rather help people in need with that money.

he's so fucking good, lloyd is a little annoyed by it because he keeps getting dragged into life-threatening situations because javier just won't stop helping people they don't even know. mind you, lloyd is also endeared by this and would not want him to change but god can it be frustrating in his endeavor to keep them both alive.

there's this particular scene that i just. i'm so sad it was cut. where javier is helping around the refugee camp, going without sleeping and eating so he can focus on helping as many people as possible and then he spots a little kid that got lost on his way back. so he decides to help him.

and he's so gentle with this kid.

Javier walked over to the kid and called him. The flustered boy looked up. Javier strove to put on a warm smile on his face. "Are you lost?" “...” The boy nodded, his eyes all wet. Javier carefully stroked the boy's head. "I think I can help you with that. Why don't you let me help find your tent?" suggested Javier. “...” The boy nodded again. "But why didn't you eat the food? It's going to get cold. Are you not hungry?" "I am… hungry," the boy finally said. But what he said next caught Javier by surprise. "But I won't eat it," said the boy. "Why not?" "My mother is hungrier." "Is that so?" "Yes." “...” Javier wondered why this kid came out to take the food when he had a mother. There must be a reason, he thought to himself. He held out his hand. "I will hold the tray for you." "..." "I won't spill it. I promise." "Okay..." Javier took the tray and wrapped the boy’s hand with his own.

like. god. javier is not a naturally warm person. he's very reserved and stoic and sometimes outright cold, but he still tries so hard with this kid. because he knows what it's like to be him. he knows what it's like to be a child and be scared and hungry and without a home. and he remembers how much it meant for a kind adult to reach out a hand to him and help. and he wants to be that to others too.

everything he does, he does because he genuinely believes it's the right thing to do and therefore his obligation. and even when it doesn't come naturally to him, like being warm and gentle to a child, he still tries his best to do so.

and like that wasn't enough, when they finally find the kid's mom, javier finds out she's blind. recently blinded actually. that she used all her strength to get her child to safety and now she has to depend on him to take care of them because she can't do it anymore. her blouse is smudged with porridge.

so javier kneels down and explains who he is, why he's there and that he wants to help. he lifts up a spoonful of food and slowly and carefully starts to feed her himself. she's a complete stranger and javier doesn't hesitate one second to do this for her.

this is who javier is!! this is who he is at his core!! he's kind and he's selfless and he's above all else good!!

if your audience can't imagine javier comforting a child, then you failed your audience. you missed the point of his character.

[tj-crochets]

I'm not iron deficient anymore!!! :D I just got the blood test results back and for once I had a fixable problem and it is fixed*!!!! *well okay my total iron saturation % is still a little low but the rest of my numbers are in the normal range! Even ferritin!! My ferritin levels have almost quadrupled and are now in the normal range!!! :D

[lilbitofmac]

There are no strings on me… or so I think.

[acertainmoshke]

About that casual murder…

(Obvious tw for descriptions that go along with murder)

Thing one: search the court for a single human who could be anywhere from an infant to 40. Great. No. That was wrong. There were holes worn in my still-damp overalls. They were also, it turned out, a little small and I needed to be ready to do some reaching and kicking. Thing one: find new clothes. Thing two: search the court for a single human who could be anywhere from an infant to 40. A groan from the other room reminded me that still wasn’t everything. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of title High Fae was, but it sounded powerful. Lilt was definitely old. We couldn’t rely on embarrassment at having their ass kicked by a young unarmed changeling to keep them from sending whatever the Fae equivalent was of soldiers after us. And Maggie had made that bad deal... Thing one: deal with the half-conscious threat in the dining room. Thing two: steal clothes from this very old and very rich Fae. Thing three: search the court for a single human who could be anywhere from an infant to 40. Lilt groaned again and I carefully squared my shoulders before striding into the room and their line of sight. They were awake but still lying flat on their back, eyes glazed. There was definitely a joke here somewhere about the medicine I had just used up to fix my own mind, but I wasn’t clever enough to find it. I straddled them, settling hard enough to get a soft oof, and pulled my switchblade from my pocket. “He seemed tough but he would never have killed you, you know. He’s better than that. But I don’t take risks.” I didn’t give them time to answer. This wasn’t a comic. My blade sliced easily through their soft throat, a near-instant gush of hot red blood flowing over my hands and soaking into my pant legs. Lilt barely had time to gasp wetly before falling completely limp. Their blood continued to pool on the floor and on their stomach under me. It was almost mesmerizing, swirling into bright sticky puddles. It didn’t smell like blood, though—no iron—and the room filled with the odor of almonds. That done, I stood up and padded through the puddles of blood to Lilt’s handwashing basin on a small table against the wall. I didn’t look back at the body or my own bloody footprints. My heart raced, but surely I wasn’t monster enough to enjoy this. It was merely necessary. I could prove that to myself by not giving into the temptation to look. I dunked and swirled my blade first, finding a clean spot on my overalls to wipe it off, then did the same with my hands.

Tag list: @stesierra

[wordsandrobots]

Today we are referencing McGillis Fareed: Twink Edition.

I'm always impressed by how this side-story de-aged him. The circumstances are perhaps unusual (this is his first meeting with Almiria, so hardly a typical day), but he still seems a lot less impressive than he will be when the series begins and considerably more . . . mild? The first shot where he appears, which is admittedly just a static screen, he's virtually blank, a very different mask than the one he'll adopt when he gains a ranking position.

(This is *delightful* to me given what I did with his 'younger brother' in my fanfic.)

In any case, it's a great bit of retro-fitting, positioning this version of McGillis four years prior to the first episode.

I would be remiss not to mention that I am also referencing Cyclase Meyer: Teen Archaeology Assistant as well.

This demonstrates a less interesting transformation, since the gap between the younger and the adult versions is mostly just a case of 'and then the fictionalised psychopathy kicked in'.

[forgotten-daydreamer]

vent moment but my health is a bit worse than i let on, which is weird ik since it seems like complain about it all the time here, and apparently i also look sick, because two separate people in their 40s or 50s asked me, 24, if i needed their seat on the bus. kind of them. but humiliating nonetheless.

[reksink]

Happy Birthday, Reks!

(Hands you a Lemon Cake) 🍰 ^w^

Mmmmmm lemon cake my beloved THANK YOU FUZZBALL!!

[avantguardisme]

ill write a life update post sometime soon i think but long story short turns out my anemia issues got bad again and i had 0 energy for a bit! im doing better now! i will maybe be a bit more active on here as a result but we will see!

[codewitch]

Doctor 4 years ago: you can take birth control continuously to stop your period there’s literally no downsides

Me, now, getting tested for a rare genetic disorder because not getting my period has allowed me to accumulate an abnormal amount of iron in my blood:

[falldogbombsthemoon]

Nice I got my blood results today. I have iron deficiency and Hypothyroidism. Both make me fucking eepy. And I googled some symptoms for the second one;

rapid exhaustion, depressive mood, difficulty concentrating, lack of drive, general and sexual disinterest, sensitivity to cold

Why so personal

[kaijugroupiee]

they took so much blood for my blood test today and then the results came back and are like. hey you don't have enough blood

YEAH DOESN'T HELP THAT YOU TOOK SO MUCH MORE OF IT I'M SURE

[tj-crochets]

Went to the doctor just for a check up and he basically just told me "your body just processes sugar very well! :) :) :) It's a good thing! :) :) :) It can't possibly be the source of your symptoms even though eating fixes it :) :) :)" But there was also a moment when talking about my iron deficiency that is possibly one of the funniest things a doctor has ever said to me, up with the cardiologist who said "you're a medical mystery": He was going over my blood test results, and said "Your iron levels haven't gone up at all, they are still extremely low, but you're not anemic anymore" And I was like how am I not anemic anymore??? And he said "Your hemoglobin levels have gone up...somehow..." while frowning at the blood test results on his computer. It was very "somehow, palpatine has returned" lol

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Gaslighting? In MY household? It’s more likely than you think

[whatudottu]

Me, remembering that pill bugs can filter heavy metals from soil:

My brain: You know what this means, don’t you?

Me: What-

My brain: You can make talpaedans part pill bug-

Me, working on amperi headcanons: Wait LET ME FINI-

I’ve gone over a few times that I like to think that talpaedans are techno-organic, less so being silicon or silicone based beings but being an integration of organic carbon materials and the more industrialised physiology of being a walking talking construction equipment. I have also previously made use of the whole ‘machine’ aspect of their natural biology to not only consider them as burrowers, but also as ant-like burrowers with haplodiplody, this form of sex-determination system being used to expand the combinations of construction equipment that an individual talpaedan might have, but also as a basis of which I form the sociopolitical building of talpaedan cities, in which case we have large city state colonies of ant inspired pangolins recreating feudalism Europe of the 10th-13th century.

But up - until this point - there was not quite a lot of circumstances that would allow for actual metallic components to not only present itself biologically but also do so naturally, so with the heavy metal eating pill bug there’s a source of extra inspiration. Oniscidae (apparently the more accurate name for pill bugs/rollie pollies and literally any name under the sun) can remove arsenic (which is actually a metalloid), cadmium, lead, and depending on sources also mercury from the soil; additional metals that can be extracted from soil are copper and zinc. The pill bug in question would crystallise these ions in their gut and create spherical deposits within them, but since we are not talking about the isopod alone surely it isn’t too much of a stretch to the idea that perhaps talpaedans can use these deposits within themselves to feed into the development of their most notable features, their built in equipment?

Assuming that Poiana Lüncas has these metals and that talpaedans would in fact filter for them, in real world human employed Earth uses of these metals can indeed be of fine use. Both arsenic and cadmium can be used as alloys and zinc specifically can galvanise other metals such as iron to prevent rusting, very significant indeed in industry, notably especially with large amounts of zinc can be used in hardware industries. Copper has a very notable use in electronics and wiring of which motors are included, let alone more refined wiring in TVs and radio. And argueably the more infamous of these metals (at least to a standard ‘basic’ level of understanding) we have mercury and lead, the former being used in many different industries for it’s ability to measure the change in temperature and pressure, and the latter for some solders, gasoline/petroleum and wonderfully hazardous cosmetic items that uninformed humanity has come to be harmed by.

ngl, spent a bit of time trying to find an oxygen-carrier of these metals that can feasibly make black blood but i literally do not know if the colour of oxides is in any way relevant to how oxygen-carrier bloodcells would actually be coloured as i’m not a chemist

But in highlighting these metals, I am not simply looking to see if a techno-organic talpaedan can have galvanised armour nor if they come built in with blood pressure monitors. No no no, I am saying more than what talpaedans eat but also what metals can talpaedans have easy access to in the development of technology, and how one might say that actually interacts with the ant-psychology of utterly fucking despising other colony.

Well-

Let’s say that google might be a little concerned about me learning about elements used in the construction of ammunition and radiation protection ehek-!

With the earth tilling that many developing talpaedans need to incorporate necessary metals into their diet, depending on the availabilty of said metals they may be an over abundance for food alone; especially with the pressure of competition of resources in combination with a general disdain for anything extracolonial, a factor that may lead to an escalation of tech development. There is an inherent baseline for technology in talpaedans that would already give their industrialisation a boost, in addition to the materials that may vary on quantity based on the region, colony size, and general population needs. Before long there are city states reinforcing their own barriers and expanding their borders for more and more materials - to consume and to create - to in fact increase and increase the tension between colonies so loud to the point pressure spills like a broken thermometer spills mercury and conflicts arise.

And when everything boils over do they realise that many have to balance the act of raising young and building more weapons, the factor that may in fact be the tipping point to realise that the colonies with the most resources are not only a threat but a threat that can overwhelm on the technological scale and the population number. In spite of how many colonies may indeed hate each other, it is more than worth it to them to compromise and in fact LIVE rather than be caught between the suddenly unveiling superpowers of the world that had previously lay unknown thanks to willful ignorance. Decimation of land is significantly reduced from cataclysmic to catastrophic as entire colonies are rased and in fact dug out into craters, many war-era alliances held to the modern day of Poiana Lüncas. A tithing - remnants of the treaties formed at the peak of desperation - of the youngest generation of adult men stands as both tradition and of appeasement, a colony trade and marriage across many different colonial alliances as a symbol of what had to be done before, sharing resources and rearing while the soldiers fought to live.

And all of this because they got a pill bug diet see this is why ants aren’t allowed to have materials for megaton bombs smh 😞

[julioclaudian]

how do i start setting firm boundaries with this kid in my club who keeps making unfunny jokes and taking over the whole meeting and pissing me the fuck off without like dragging down the vibes of the entire thing. because i did not manage it tonight, i got genuinely hostile and killed the vibes👍