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wood-white-writer · 2 years

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“In the Land of the Blind” [Chapter III]

“In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King”

Pairing: Silco x Doctor Toxicologist!Reader

Summary: Silco's POV & Reader's POV TW: Underage usage of medicine (nothing forced) A/N: Sorry if there are any grammatical errors of any kind. I've been hella sick these last few days so my brain is a little stuck in the clouds. I'll edit later. For now, I hope you enjoy <3

Read the AO3 version here | > Chapter IV

“I already know what those are, Silco,” Jinx gripes exasperatedly as Silco hands her one of the pills from the jar, looking every bit as suspicious as he usually does, if not a tad more. “They’re not that bad,”

“Forgive me if I like to be a little cautious about giving pills to a young child,” he adds with a twinge of sarcasm.

“I’m not that young. I’m almost ten!” She huffs and puffs out her chest a bit to appear bigger, although she still stands inconsequentially small in comparison to him. An endearing feat, but ultimately meaningless. “Besides, if you were that worried, we wouldn’t have gone to her in the first place,” she points out. “I know all about those things. What they’re doing and how I’m going to feel. They taste like shit, though,”

“Language,” he chides. “I’m starting to think you’re spending too much time around Sevika,”

The dark look in her eyes simmers hotter and hotter by the second. Jinx has never made her distaste for Sevika subtle, and though he isn’t necessarily thrilled about it, he would rather know of it than be ignorant and suffer the consequences of it if she chooses to go about her own way of dealing with his right-hand woman.

Silco considers the green and white with a sharp glare before begrudgingly handing it to the girl, followed by a glass of water. “And you’re certain it’s the same kind as you’ve used before?”

“Yep!” She replies with a prominent ‘pop’ at the end to accentuate the word. “It really helps whenever I’m feeling … You know, weird.”

The way her face morphs into a disheartened countenance does not evade his notice, and he places a hand on top of her head that vaguely resembles something he’s experienced in the past, though he can’t be certain. It’s a gesture of warmth and comfort, the kind only a parental figure can provide. He’s never given his own parents – whoever they were – much thought, since they didn’t live long enough for him to establish consisted memories of them, but he likes to believe that this is something a passable guardian would do.

She doesn’t seem to mind, anyhow, and leans into his touch like it’s an oasis in a desert. She truly is the embodiment of why he’ll keep fighting for the cause of Zaun. He’s witnessed her episodes at alarming frequency nowadays, and although he’s tried his best to remedy them, his efforts have ultimately been in vain. It’s begun to affect her both physically and mentally, with a lack of sleep and a loss in appetite to accompany.

That’s when he grudgingly decided that he needed someone else’s help for this, if not Singed, then someone else.

“There’s nothing remotely weird about having emotions, child,” he says in a way that he hopes can convey some level of comfort. “We all struggle to keep them in check at times,”

She shoves herself slightly out of his hold. “Not you, though. You’re always calm!”

He chuckles velvety at her allegation. “I have to act the part, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have my weird moments as well on occasion,”

He revels in the fact that he manages to make her smile, if only a little. Jinx then gives the pill a quick look before popping it into her mouth. She grimaces for a few seconds, looking every bit as appalled as he imagined she would be before chucking back a good portion of water to ease the process. Once she’s finished, Silco gives her an expectant look.

“Well?” he asks.

“Well, what?”

“How are you feeling?”

“It’s only been a couple of seconds.” She points a finger at him. “It usually takes a short while before I feel anything,”

“The doctor claimed it’s supposed to have a quick effect on children,”

She scowls, but her left eyelid drops slightly. “I already told you, I’m almost ten,”

His lips quirk slightly upwards in amusement, but he can already tell that she’s becoming tired. Quick effect, indeed. “We won’t ever use this medicine unless you want to. They’re only in case you feel …” he tries to find a substitute for the W-word.

Jinx comes to his rescue with a yawn. “Weird?”

“Your word, not mine,”

She laughs briefly, but drops back against the couch, already looking prepared to sleep. “I know, but they’ll help me until I get better,”

He reaches for his overcoat by the edge of the couch and drapes it over her. “You don’t have to get better from anything. This is just temporary, and I’ll discuss more with the doctor on a later note if you’re feeling better,”

She suddenly perks up, if only a little. “You know, she doesn’t like to be called that,”

Silco tilts his head the fraction of an inch. “Doesn’t like to be called what?”

“Doctor.” She stifles another yawn as she rolls down to the side, nestled comfortably with the coat over her. “She’s always preferred being called that Toxi-thing instead,”

“Toxicologist, you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Odd name,”

“I see, she mentioned that.” He gets up to his feet and makes his way over to his desk. “Then, I’ll be sure not to repeat that mistake,”

“Good, or she’ll threaten to poison you,” Jinx murmurs before succumbing to sleep.

---

“Holy shit, you’re kiddin’!”

“I’m not,”

“Yer’ seriously telling me that yer’ workin’ for Silco now? As in, the Eye of Zaun ‘imself, the Kingpin of the Lanes, Silco Silco?!”

“Do I need to get you a hearing aid or are you naturally just that slow?”

“Hey, don’ give me that attitude! Just lookin’ out for you, tha’s all,”

“I’d rather you didn’t,”

You take a deep drag from the cigarette before handing it over to Jarenth, who’s inhale almost threatens to finish the whole thing in one go. The two of you are seated in the back alleyway behind your shop, hidden from public view in the way that only the alleyways can provide. Jarenth is a pain in the ass, but he’s about one of the few people in your life who comes close to being a friend. His father used to handle the shipments when your old man was still around and occasionally brought his son along to teach him the reins. He was a slow learner, but he learnt.

Time went on, and eventually Jarenth took up the mantle and has served like a thorn in your side ever since. He handles your shipments, offers some half-assed advice whenever the opportunity shows itself, and every in-between, you share a drink or a smoke together to get a break from the ruckus that otherwise plague your everyday lives. It’s a quiet – pleasant – tradition you established after the incident with the bridge all those years ago, and it’s still going on.

Jarenth flicks the burnt edges of the cigarette to the ground, but doesn’t hand it back. “So, what’s a guy like him need help with anyway? Isn’t he the most powerful man in the Undercity and all that?”

“You would think so,” you shrug noncommittal with one shoulder. “But I can’t risk enclosing that with you,”

The faux look of disappointment in his eyes is almost laughable. “C’mon, doll! We’ve been friends since we we’re kids! Surely you can make an exception for ‘yer trusted, ‘ol shipmenter,”

“That’s not even a real word,”

“Sure it is! I invented it!”

“All the more reason to take everything you say with a grain of salt,”

He blows you a raspberry, to which you roll your eyes. Then he finishes what little remains of the cigarette and stumps it under his boot before getting up from his crouching position to dust off his clothes. “In all seriousness, though, I’m surprised he’d come to you and not that other scientist-y guy he already has workin’ for him,”

You quirk an eyebrow. “He did mention he already had someone on the sides for that, but apparently, he didn’t want to go to him.” You deliberately leave out the fact that it’s not, in fact, Silco himself who doesn’t want to go to him.

Jarenth scoffs and drags a hand through his chipped, red hair. “Yeah, not even I can blame the guy for that. The doctor’s a real piece of work, I’ll tell you that,”

“I take it you know who it is, then?”

He grins. “’Ye hear a lot of things passin’ ‘round with the way I do,”

“Mind indulging me then about the identity of this enigmatic scientist, then?”

He taps his chin with deliberate thoughtfulness, adding a contemplative hmmm to match. He then proceeds to grin rather devilishly as to indicate that he got something sinister in mind. “Guess I can loosen my tongue for a little quid pro quo, if you get what I’m sayin’?”

You sigh. “What the fuck do you want, Jarenth?”

“Tell me a little more about your … Excursions with the big Eye, and I’ll give you the name,”

Your answer is quick and firm.

“No.”

He pouts. “C’mon, just a little crumb?”

“Telling you that I’m working for Silco alone is enough to get you killed, you know that, right?” You point out. “Surely you value your life a little bit – however miniscule it is sometimes?”

He crosses his arms and turns his head the opposite way of the alley, much like a child would after having been chastised by their parent for doing something wrong. “Fine, be like that,”

“I’ll give you a cigarette?”

And like that, he promptly snaps his head back at you with a look of utter adoration. “Deal!”

You barely have time to pull the thing out of its container before it’s snatched out of your hold and firmly tucked between Jarenth’s lips. You pretend not to be irked by the rude gesture and speak nothing of it. Fortunately, he has a lighter of his own, and once he lights it, he takes a deep breath and looks the most content you’ve ever seen him since the last cigarette he snatched from you. God, the lungs of that man are probably so ashen that not even a Piltie X-ray machine would be able to look at them.

Not that you’re in any position to talk.

“So, what’s the guy’s name?” you finally decide to ask as a comfortable silence settles between you.

“Oh, right.” He briefly pulls the cigarette out. “I think his name was … Syric? No, give me a second,”

The glare you aim at him could probably melt steele. “I gave you one of my priced smokes, and you’re just telling me now that you can’t even remember the damn guy’s name?”

“Hold on, I have it somewhere back here.” He points to his head where that small, nut-sized organ called a brain probably resides. “Silver? No … That’s no–” Suddenly, like a light, his expression morphs into pure euphoria. “Singed! That’s the fucker! I remember now!”

You like to believe that there are few things in life that have the uncanny ability to unnerve you, after everything you’ve witnessed and experienced. However, upon hearing that name, it echoes back and forth between the walls of your skull and leaves a metallic aftertaste on the tip of your tongue that almost makes the hairs across the nape of your neck stand up. “Singed?” The lack of change in your tone successfully conceals just how ill you’re starting to feel. “You’re sure?”

Jarenth nods a little to quickly for you to register. “Yeah. Creepy guy, no one around here really likes ‘im.” He glances curiously over at you. “Why? Know him?”

Now, you wouldn’t particularly say that you knew him, as in you shared a history with him. When you were younger, however, the man himself – thin, gaunt and disheveled as he was – made an appearance at your shop while your father was still around to do the heavy lifting. The scientist was apparently looking for an apprentice of sorts, and when he discovered your penchant for the occupation and general chemistry, he suggested that you become it.

It was something you, at the time, could’ve gladly accepted. In response to that, your father, on the other hand, ushed you away and all but threatened to throw the scientist out with all of his bones misplaced at the wrong angles. As it turned out, the scientist didn’t have a good reputation to precede him, and with time, it only went downhill from there. His name became hushed and taboo like whispers on the street, and some even used him as a Boogeyman figure to keep their children from misbehaving.

“Don’t do anything bad or the Singed Man will come for your eyes,” or something like that.

You never saw him after that, but you can’t imagine that time’s been generous towards him. It usually never is.

“We’ve met, once,” is all you supply with before turning to head back into the shop. “See you later, Jarenth. Keep me posted on anything new,”

“Will do,” he replies with a short-lived wave of his free hand. “Try not to get killed, and give Silco a kiss on that shiny eye of his from me, will you?”

“Go fuck yourself, Jarenth,”

#arcane silco #silco x reader #arcane fanfic #arcane #in the land of the blind #silco/reader #silco x oc #silco x you #silco imagine #arcane x reader #arcane lol #silco x y/n

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catthefeminist · 2 years

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Physician-Assisted Death

Okayyy so this is for an assignment for English class. I had to write a rhetorical speech based off of my research paper (which is on the morality of physician-assisted death) and find a way to publish it/ share it outside of the classroom. First I have my speech, then I have my research paper which is followed by sources. Happy reading :)

Physician-Assisted Death Is An Acceptable Option (the speech, by yours truly)- 585 words

When you think about death, what do you envision? If it's not the ominous drone of medical machinery, the sterile smell of a doctor’s office, a terminal diagnosis, or an overpriced prescription, then you're thinking about death incorrectly. Modern death is characterized by debilitating, chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer-- all of which are illnesses that lurk in the shadows, waiting to prey upon their next victim. Even though new studies from Stanford, the National Institute of Health, and other scientific leaders have shown that 90% of Americans now die from incurable, terminal diseases, modern medicine often fails to provide proper comfort at the end of life. For years, many terminal patients have been throwing out the idea of hospice care and painful procedures in favor of physician assisted death, which is an end of life option that allows those with less than six months to live to self administer a painless, lethal dose of medication. We must respect and accept physician assisted death as a valid option for the terminally ill as it embodies qualities that are central to the foundation of our human morality such as peace, dignity, and compassion.

Terminal death is like a relentless tide. Each new physical symptom, painful procedure, emotional battle is a wave that envelops unsuspecting patients and drags them further into the depths of their suffering. The fact that the human body shutdown process is a two-sided coin that causes both emotional and physical turmoil makes this month long progression brutal. Patients are expected to happily trudge through the rest of their days with the knowledge that they will experience the excruciating pain that accompanies organ failure along with digestive issues, extreme exhaustion, weight loss, poor circulation, and hallucinations. Furthermore, imagine having the knowledge that your days are numbered. Imagine waking up only to realize that you were one day closer to a life characterized by immobilizing pain, perpetual anxiety, and complete loss of self, independence, and dignity. Physician assisted death grants the gift of ultimate peace. Additionally, it gives these people--who have lost so much, whose lives have been dictated by doctors and their disease--a choice. A recent survey conducted by the Yale Department of Biology and Medicine revealed that 90.6% of Oregonians undergoing the death with dignity process were concerned about losing their autonomy. In 2017, Don Monroe, a resident of Arizona, found himself in a similar situation after being diagnosed with a rare form of terminal throat cancer. His condition landed him in the intensive care unit where he was intubated without anesthesia due to being underweight. Don Monroe made the only choice he had when he shot himself less than twenty-four hours after his discharge. Physician assisted death places the most important medical decision back into the hands of terminal patients; it provides people with a compassionate choice, a kind opportunity, and a peaceful option. It allows those who are suffering to die on their terms.

As the population ages, terminal illnesses will only become more commonplace in our society. You will know someone who is diagnosed with cancer or heart disease, or you might be given a terminal sentence yourself. We must remember and respect that terminal death doesn't have to mean white hospice wings, noisy ventilators, and bottles of pills. Better ways of dying exist--we just have to open our minds to them. For those looking for an option that embodies our widely accepted human morals of compassion, kindness, and dignity, physician assisted death is the answer.

Physician-Assisted Death Does Not Undermine Human Morality (aka the research paper, by me again :) ) - 2351 words

“If we ask for a dignified death it is because we are tired of all the illnesses that overcome us,” explains Victor Escobar. A few weeks ago, Escobar became the first person to end his life using Colombia’s new assisted death law despite being a devout Catholic in a country where 70% of the population follows this belief system that opposes suicide (Beltrán). In 2008, Escobar suffered two strokes and had since been diagnosed with a litany of other debilitating conditions. After living for over a decade in excruciating pain that even morphine failed to subside, Escobar opted to petition the courts to allow his physician to assist him in dying (Suárez). As the population ages and medical technology advances, cases like Escobar’s have become more common. Despite the concern that physician-assisted death contradicts human morality, countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and even several states, have protected this end-of-life option for years (Emanuel). Further exploration into the topic of physician-assisted death reveals that the idea is based upon traditional, widely-accepted morals such as compassion, acceptance, and the pursuit of peace. Allowing people to make end-of-life choices including physician-assisted death does not undermine our generally accepted view of human morality.

Physician-assisted death is a procedure that allows terminally ill patients to legally end their lives with the assistance and supervision of a medical professional (Dugdale). Often incorrectly referred to as physician-assisted suicide, this form of death differs from traditional suicide in the sense that these patients are not depressed, but are simply waiting for their terminal conditions to catch up with them (Goy). The movement began in the United States in 1975, when Derek Humphry helped his wife with terminal breast cancer end her life. After her death, he formed the Hemlock Society, America's first major right-to-die organization. Humphry and the group focused on advocating for assisted death laws and helping terminal patients achieve peaceful deaths. Attention surrounding the assisted death movement skyrocketed in 1990 when Dr. Jack Kevorkian invented a machine that allowed people to inject themselves with lethal doses of prescription medication in the back of his van. In the span of eight years, an estimated 130 people suffering from terminal conditions ended their lives in Dr. Kevorkian’s presence. Dr. Kevorkian explained that he believed physicians had several responsibilities and “those responsibilities include assisting patients with death” (Childress). In 1994, Oregon became the first state to approve an assisted death bill, known as the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. Since this historic piece of legislation was ratified, nine other states and territories have passed similar laws allowing physician-assisted death (States with Legal).

Further expansion of the movement has been met with varied reactions. In 2018, a poll conducted by Gallup revealed that 54% of survey respondents from the United States believed physician-assisted death was morally acceptable (Brenan). The main concern cited by the remaining 46% was that the legalization of physician-assisted death would cause a slippery slope effect that would increase suicides among those suffering from non-terminal chronic conditions and lead to the eventual legalization of nonconsensual euthanasia. In 2004, an extremist group known as Final Exit arose, claiming to be another right-to-die organization. However, Final Exit’s three thousand plus members believed that everyone, regardless of physical or mental health status, should have the right to kill themselves legally. True right-to-die organizations distanced themselves from Final Exit, and in 2009, four of the groups’ leaders were arrested and charged in court for illegally assisting hundreds of people in dying and running a “suicide ring” (Childress). While it has been seen that the right-to-die movement provides an outlet for groups with nefarious purposes to spread their ideas, the strict criteria listed in death with dignity legislation makes it difficult to act outside of the laws’ boundaries without legal repercussions. With the exception of the state of Montana, which allows physician-assisted death only through court rulings, all current legislation regarding the right-to-die movement is fairly uniform (States with Legal). All individuals must be at least eighteen years of age, have less than six months to live, reside in the state whose law they plan to use, make two formal oral requests to their physician to receive the lethal medication, sign a written request in the presence of two witnesses, undergo a psychological evaluation for mental competency, sit through a fifteen day waiting period, and only then can they receive the prescription which they then must administer themselves. In addition to this, all of these steps must be documented in the state database (Chapter 70.245 RCW). With all of these regulations and roadblocks in place, it is highly unlikely that a slippery slope effect would be successful. Since physician-assisted death creates a conflict of interest for doctors who are most concerned about saving lives, acquiring a true understanding of how this end-of-life option morally fits into our society requires a look at the complex role of medicine.

While modern medicine has benefited human society, its techniques often prolong death and suffering. In the past several decades alone, new medical innovations including ventilators, chemotherapy, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the creation of the intensive care unit have added years to the average American’s life expectancy (Gordon). But at what cost? At the beginning of the 20th century, most people died as a result of accidents or sudden illnesses such as influenza. A study conducted in 1994 revealed the top two leading causes of death in America to be heart disease resulting in 25.7% of deaths and cancer-causing 20%. Chronic conditions such as these are the direct cause of over 90% of Americans’ deaths (Death and Dying). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, six out of ten adults suffer from a chronic disease that reduces their overall quality of life (About Chronic Diseases). This coupled with the fact that over one-third of the American population is over fifty years old means that death intervening technology has only become more commonplace in our society (Rogers). However, doctors’ and scientists’ current hyperfocus on death prevention is at odds with medicine’s traditional purpose to mitigate patients’ suffering and provide them with comfort. This is a larger issue when applied to patients who are terminally ill. Are intrusive medical procedures and painful resuscitation attempts the best option for someone with mere days to live? In 2012, Corinne Johns-Treat, a faithful Christian, was diagnosed with stage three lung cancer. That year she had a portion of her lung removed and underwent several rounds of chemotherapy. In March of 2015, Johns-Treat discovered her cancer had spread to her neck, chest, and brain. After a second failed surgery to remove the tumors in her brain, she was given only several months to live. With all other medical options exhausted, Johns-Treat began to research physician-assisted death. Though she lived in California, where physician-assisted death was legal, she was criticized for even considering that route by others in her faith community. They believed the process to be suicide and against the will of God, but Johns-Treat saw this a different way. “When science can’t offer life-sustaining treatments anymore, then the role of medicine should be to relieve suffering,” explained Johns-Treat who was still facing excruciating headaches and undergoing chemotherapy at the time. She added that though she hadn't definitively decided on the procedure, she felt that it was in line with her morals and that God was showing compassion by presenting physician-assisted death as an option (Johns-Treat). This desire to achieve peace after a long medical journey is a common motivation for many considering physician-assisted death.

Physician-assisted death allows patients to avoid the inevitable emotional and physical pain surrounding their deaths. For terminally ill patients, death is an excruciating experience due to the human body’s shutdown process. This process, which can begin as soon as months before a person’s ultimate death, is gradual. In the first stages, one experiences decreased circulation, poor brain function, and extreme exhaustion. This progresses to include weight loss, digestive issues, hallucinations, and difficulty breathing that lasts until one’s heart eventually stops (The Physical Process). At this point, death is often a welcome visitor, its arrival signaling that the sufferer can finally lose consciousness and slip into a permanent, painless peace. The knowledge that they are to endure agony as their organs shut down in the months leading up to their final moments is one of the top reasons terminal patients ultimately choose physician-assisted death. One study by the American Medical Association reveals that the majority of their fifty-six survey goers who were on the list for physician-assisted death placed “concerns about future pain” at the highest level possible (Goy). Aside from experiencing physical pain, patients must additionally face the emotional turmoil of knowing that their days are numbered and that they will be forced to live out the rest of their time feeling unlike themselves. The same American Medical Association study also asked questions regarding emotional motives and saw patients list reasons such as “loss of mental clarity”, “poor quality of life”, “inability to care for oneself”, and “loss of dignity” as significant (Goy). All patients surveyed resided in Oregon, a “death with dignity state”, so they were able to go through with their intended procedures. Those suffering from terminal illnesses in other states still experience these same concerns, and many also look for ways to avoid the inevitable pain. Dr. James L. Werth, a psychologist involved in conducting the study, explains: “Many more people with serious illness end their lives through some other negotiated means, such as ceasing medications, withholding food or drink, refusing life-sustaining treatment or signing ‘do not resuscitate’ orders (Weir).” The fact remains that those who are set on escaping their pain will find ways to do so, even if those ways are less humane. Don Monroe, a resident of Arizona, began experiencing pain radiating from his ear to his jaw along with difficulty swallowing in 2017. After two years of suffering from these pains, Monroe was diagnosed with a form of throat cancer. By this time, his condition had progressed to the point where he could no longer eat, speak, or hear and he was admitted to the intensive care unit due to extreme weakness. Because he was underweight, he could not be fully sedated as he was intubated and given a feeding tube. His wife, Robin Toole, described her husband as being in constant fear and pain. When Monroe was released from the hospital twenty-four hours later, he chose to take his life with a gun rather than suffer a single second longer. Toole explained that her husband didn't believe anyone should suffer and that he would have chosen physician-assisted death over traditional suicide had it been an option (Toole). While physician-assisted death allows people to gain freedom from pain peacefully and humanely, the desire to have the ability to make decisions regarding one’s own death is another gift this option grants to the dying.

Physician-assisted death allows patients to have control over their deaths, which is a leading concern of those interested in this option. The American Medical Association study results also revealed that the desire to have “control of the circumstances of death” was the highest ranked reason (Goy). A separate survey conducted by the Yale Department of Biology and Medicine showed that 90.6% of Oregonians undergoing the death with dignity process were concerned about losing their autonomy. The survey report written by a panel of doctors explains that the reason for this is simple: “Patients accustomed to making their own healthcare decisions throughout life should also be permitted to control the circumstances of their deaths ” (Dugdale). If people go their entire lives having control over their bodies and the ability to make their own medical decisions, what disqualifies someone from making the final, most important one? This desire to have control over the circumstances of death was a leading motivation for Brittney Maynard. Best known for her involvement in several states’ eventual legalization of physician-assisted death, Maynard was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at the age of twenty-nine. Upon her diagnosis, Maynard lived in California, which did not allow for physician-assisted death at the time. When she was given six months to live and started experiencing seizures, Maynard and her husband made the decision to move to Oregon so that she could use the state’s Death with Dignity Act. She had planned to spend a few weeks traveling with her family, but had to cut that time short as her debilitating headaches, strokes, and seizures made it difficult for her to continue. She decided to undergo the procedure while she was still coherent enough to make the decision. “I am choosing to go in a way that is less suffering and less pain,” Maynard explained. She additionally stated the importance of having the ability to choose a peaceful death, explaining how it brought both her and her family comfort. “The thought that I can spare myself the physical and emotional pain of that, as well as my family, is a huge relief (Death With Dignity).” Allowing patients to have the choice to control their deaths provides a significant amount of peace.

Physician-assisted death falls within the guidelines of human morality as it provides compassion, acceptance, and peace to the dying. Death is the ultimate human experience, and being able to have control in death is just as crucial to that experience as having control in our lives. In his last few days, Victor Escobar explained that he looked forward to the tranquility of his death and saw his end as the beginning of something else. “It is the door so that a patient like me, with degenerative diseases, has the opportunity for a dignified death (Suárez).” Physician-assisted death can give people the chance to close the last chapter of their lives in a meaningful way that avoids suffering, which is something we should all find morally correct. Morality exists to guide humans through life, and we must learn to understand how physician-assisted death and other manners of dying abide by this concept to create a future more accepting of death as a whole.

List of Works Cited

“About Chronic Diseases.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Apr. 2021, www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/index.htm#:~:text=Chronic%20diseases%20are%20defined%20broadly,disability%20in%20the%20United%20States.

Beltrán, William Mauricio. “Descripción Cuantitativa De La Pluralización Religiosa En Colombia.” Departamento De Sociología De Universidad Nacional De Colombia, Universidad Nacional De Colombia, 6 July 2011, web.archive.org/web/20140329185722/www.bdigital.unal.edu.co/8486/1/williammauriciobeltran.2011.pdf .

Brenan, Megan. “Americans' Strong Support for Euthanasia Persists.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 31 May 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/235145/americans-strong-support-euthanasia-persists.aspx.

“Brittany Maynard's Legacy, Five Years On.” Death With Dignity, Deathwithdignity.org , 14 Jan. 2022, deathwithdignity.org/news/2019/11/brittany-maynards-legacy-five-years-on/.

Brown, Harold O. J., and Robert D. Orr. “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Overview.” Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Overview | The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, Trinity International University , 30 May 1999, https://cbhd.org/content/assisted-suicide-and-euthanasia-overview.

“Chapter 70.245 RCW: The Washington Death With Dignity Act .” Washington State Legislature , State of Washington , https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=70.245.

Connors, Alfred F., et al. “A Controlled Trial to Improve Care for Seriously III Hospitalized Patients.” JAMA, JAMA Network, 22 Nov. 1995, jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/391724.

Childress, Sarah. “The Evolution of America's Right-to-Die Movement.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 13 Nov. 2012, www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-evolution-of-americas-right-to-die-movement/.

“Death and Dying in the United States.” Multi-Cultural Palliative Care Portal, Stanford School of Medicine , 25 Mar. 2014, palliative.stanford.edu/overview-of-palliative-care/death-and-dying-in-the-united-states/.

“Death with Dignity Advocate Brittany Maynard Dies in Oregon.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 4 Nov. 2014, www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/death-dignity-advocate-brittany-maynard-dies-oregon-n235091.

Dugdale, Lydia S, et al. “Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, YJBM, 20 Dec. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913818/.

Emanuel, Ezekiel J, et al. “Attitudes and Practices of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States, Canada, and Europe.” JAMA, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 5 July 2016, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27380345/.

Fine, Perry G. “Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life.” American Society of Anesthesiologists, Oxford University Press, 1 Sept. 2017, pubs.asahq.org/anesthesiology/article/127/3/589/17780/Modern-Death-How-Medicine-Changed-the-End-of-Life.

Ganzini, Linda, et al. “Mental Health Outcomes of Family Members of Oregonians Who Request Physician Aid in Dying.” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Elsevier, 24 Sept. 2009, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885392409007076.

Gordon, Michael. “Rituals in Death and Dying: Modern Medical Technologies Enter the Fray.” Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, Rambam Health Care Campus, 29 Jan. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327323/.

Goy, Elizabeth R, et al. “Oregonians' Reasons for Requesting Physician Aid in Dying.” Archives of Internal Medicine, JAMA Network, 9 Mar. 2009, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/414824.

Forest, Catherine Sonquist. “I'm a Doctor. Here's What It's like Helping Terminally Ill Patients End Their Lives.” Vox, Vox, 21 Sept. 2017, www.vox.com/first-person/2017/9/21/16335534/aid-in-dying-california-legal-end-of-life.

Johns-Treat, Corinne. “I'm a Christian with Cancer. I Want Death with Dignity.” Time, Time, 10 Aug. 2016, time.com/4445019/christian-death-with-dignity/.

McDermid, Robert C, and Sean M Bagshaw. “Prolonging Life and Delaying Death: The Role of Physicians in the Context of Limited Intensive Care Resources.” Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine : PEHM, BioMed Central, 12 Feb. 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2644722/.

Rogers, Luke T. “America's Age Profile Told through Population Pyramids.” The United States Census Bureau, The United States Census Bureau, 8 Oct. 2021, www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/06/americas-age-profile-told-through-population-pyramids.html.

Samuel , Lawrence R. “Death, American Style.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 23 June 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-yesterday/201306/death-american-style.

“States with Legal Physician-Assisted Suicide .” ProCon.org, Britannica , 14 Dec. 2021, euthanasia.procon.org/states-with-legal-physician-assisted-suicide/.

Suárez, Astrid. “Colombian Man Felt Tranquil before Euthanasia Ended His Pain.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 8 Jan. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/health-religion-colombia-caribbean-euthanasia-ae9b3a2ec40ab8665dc3318438095134.

“The Growing Crisis of Chronic Disease in the United States.” Partnership to Fight Chronic Diseases, Fightchronicdiseases.org , www.fightchronicdisease.org/sites/default/files/docs/GrowingCrisisofChronicDiseaseintheUSfactsheet_81009.pdf.

“The Physical Process of Dying.” Healthdirect, Healthdirect Australia, www.healthdirect.gov.au/the-physical-process-of-dying.

Toole, Robin. “Robin Toole: Having Control at Life's End.” Death With Dignity, Deathwithdignity.org, 12 Jan. 2022, deathwithdignity.org/stories/robin-toole-having-control-at-lifes-end/.

Weir, Kirsten. “Assisted Dying: The Motivations, Benefits and Pitfalls of Hastening Death.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Dec. 2017, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/12/ce-corner.

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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RE8 Ladies + S/o with chronic pain HCs

Type/cause of chronic pain is kept ambiguous, but some of the hcs might seem geared towards migraines, since that's the main thing that I personally struggle with (and these are very definitely comfort hcs). Features Alcina, Bela, Cassandra, Daniela, Donna, Mother Miranda, and as a 'lil bonus Ava. Not particularly long, but the combined length of every character is enough to be put under a read-more (About 2,500 words in total).

Alcina:

It’s difficult for her to know that you are suffering, but be unable to deal directly with the source of the problem. Chasing off unwanted nuisances or hunting down threats to the castle was one thing, trying to solve complicated medical issues was another thing entirely. If only she could tear your condition asunder without tearing you asunder.

That being said, she’ll still support you endlessly, however she can. It doesn’t matter how expensive or hard-to-access possible treatments are. If there’s something you haven’t tried, and are interested in trying, she’ll find a way for you to get it.

The biggest, and arguably most helpful, thing that she does is set up a space for you within her office. She spends quite a lot of time there for her family’s business, but doesn’t want to leave you alone on bad days. So this was her idea of a nice compromise.

There’s a very comfortable sofa that folds out, a cabinet filled with the softest blankets, and several pillows of a few different sizes. Servants are instructed not to interrupt Alcina’s work without good reason, but she has a couple who ensure your snack cabinet is always well stocked.

If there are certain environmental factors to your condition, such as sensitivity to light and sound, she does her best to reduce their effects. Lights remain dimmed (or she’ll rely on candlelight), her music will be kept quiet enough to be soothing, and she’ll refrain from taking any calls while you are with her.

Bela:

To think that Daniela once tried to claim that Bela would “never need to know any of that (medical) stuff”! Sure, there haven’t been many people who have needed (and received) treatment from her, but that didn’t mean the skill was useless. Admittedly, she doesn’t know enough to replace one of your doctors, or try to create her own version of a cure, though no one really expected that much from her.

Still, she knows enough to help soothe your pain. Obviously there are different techniques for different kinds of pain, and she does research before trying anything specific. Bela’s also aware that you’ve been dealing with this for far longer than she has, meaning that you probably wouldn’t be pleased if she came in, acted like an expert, or assumed that you hadn’t really thought about the most popular remedies. So she’s tactful with how she approaches things, always checking if you’re familiar with a subject before she tries to explain anything.

Bela ends up surprising you with a lesser-known skill of hers: Massage. Studying anatomy has given her a decent idea of the body’s more sensitive spots, and the rest she’s figured out through her own, ahem, experiences. Regardless of where you’re in pain, your girlfriend can help reduce your suffering. Okay, well, if your pain is more internal than external, it’s a bit harder for her, but she can still help you relax.

One of her favorite things to do after giving you a massage is to just pull you in close for some cuddling. Preferably you’ll be in her lap, with her arms around your waist, her chin tucked on top of your shoulder. Then she’ll do her best to whisper you praises, reminding you how strong you are, and that she’s incredibly proud of you.

Cassandra:

She’s, uh, not great at this. At least not at first. Maybe she’ll never be more than good at it, though. But she’s definitely trying! And learning! By Jove, that’s something, right?

First things first, she’s always ready to try to distract you, primarily through kisses and gentle touches. Fingers softly trailing over your skin, lips tickling your neck, featherlight in all the right places… It’s not inherently sexual (though it can quickly go that route if you ask), just intimate. It’s harder for your brain to process pain when you’re also processing pleasure, so there is some science behind Cassandra’s methods, even if she herself isn’t entirely aware of that.

While she’s not great with words, there are certain things that she manages to articulate well enough. For one, she makes sure you know that you aren’t a burden. Taking care of you- no, helping you take care of yourself- is a labor of love, if a labor at all. More than that, she knows full well that you probably don’t like feeling pitied, or coddled. That, over time, being sick ends up being beyond frustrating. She never wants you to feel like your condition defines you, or like it puts any strain on your relationship.

That said, she’ll avoid telling her family any specifics unless you do first, and ensures that the staff know how to accommodate you (without telling them why, because it’s none of their fucking business, and she’s their boss, and for fuck’s sake it’s their job to do what she tells them. Maybe she gets a lil bit overzealous with it). At no point will she ever complain about helping you, or otherwise indicate that your needs are “troublesome”.

At the end of the day, the best comfort she brings you is her presence, simply being near you, endlessly loyal, tireless in her affections. Especially considering she gets clingier the worse your symptoms get.

Daniela:

Hope you enjoy cuddling. Seriously. There’s nothing Daniela loves more than curling up with you, and that goes double for bad pain days. Some adjustments will be made position-wise if you need, but she’ll still hold you as close as possible, for as long as you need. Although she might eventually fall asleep (because damn are you comfy), she’ll play with your hair or run her fingers along your scalp until she eventually dozes off.

If you want a little more from her than light snoring, or if she feels like going above and beyond, or honestly just if she’s thinking about how much she loves you (so all the effing time), she’ll do something she’s always loved in movies/books: Reading to you! She’ll pick special books that neither of you have read before, so you can experience them together on your sick(er) days. Which does, of course, mean that it might take months to finish even a single one. Surprisingly, Daniela won’t even briefly consider reading any without you. Even if the plot is really good.

But, uh, if you wanted her to read to you on a day where you aren’t bedridden? Hell yes, my friend, she’s absolutely down for that!

On days where she’s too busy to spend hours upon hours in bed with you, or days where her ADHD is just particularly bad, she tries her best to leave you with a “substitute”. AKA a massive fucking teddy bear, in a reddish brown color, with a green bowtie. Custom ordered (The Duke did not dare tease her for it). There’s a heart stitched onto the stuffed animal’s chest, which features your first initial alongside a D for Daniela.

Additionally, she has a blanket she only brings out for you, which she periodically sprays with her favorite perfume. That way you can hold it close when she’s not around, as if you were cuddling her. For her sake, though, don’t hold the teddy bear or blanket too tightly when she is around. Homegirl here will get jealous of inanimate objects, even ones that she gave you.

Donna:

“I think I have a tea for this…” Damn right she has a tea for this. Donna has a massive garden, with dozens if not hundreds of different plants, including a variety of herbs/spices. At least one of them has to be a little helpful for you. Whether it relieves pain, helps you nap off some of your misery, or just distracts you by tasting bloody-well delicious! Besides, few things make you feel quite as loved as holding a cup of freshly brewed tea in your hands, knowing your lover made it just for you. Like a hug in a mug, it is!

Similarly to Alcina, Donna will also try to create a comfortable space for you, but isn’t likely to put it downstairs with her workshop. Instead she’ll let you take over one of the larger guest rooms, customizing it to suit your specific needs. There will be some easy to care for plants for decoration (ones that won’t mind potentially missing out on natural sunlight), a couple relaxing paintings, and a shelf near the bed with things to help you pass the time, mainly books.

Furthermore, she’ll do her best to keep you company as often as possible. She’s naturally a fairly quiet person, so you won’t have to worry about sound if that’s something you’re sensitive to. While she prefers using a sewing machine, she’ll do things by hand while you’re in pain, just to reduce the chances of you getting irritated by the sound.

Speaking of potentially irritating sounds… by god can Angie be difficult to be around when you’re ill. Thankfully, Donna is perfectly understanding of this, and, as the only person Angie ever listens to, makes sure to give the doll a stern talking to about your health. To your immense surprise, it actually works. You’re not exactly sure what was said, but Angie certainly becomes a lot more compensating afterwards. She’ll keep her antics to herself, and usually even on another side of the house from where you rest, but only for as long as you’re tucked away in your room. As soon as you set foot outside, her restraints are metaphorically removed. All hell breaks loose (as is her universe-given right as the physical embodiment of both Chaos and Entropy).

Mother Miranda:

If the two of you weren’t lovers, there’s a decent chance you would completely misinterpret her actions. She might come off as irritated, like she has bigger concerns than your health, you fragile little human. After all, she is a goddess (well, practically). But the truth is that she’s aching inside every time you have a bad pain day, knowing that (for once) she cannot cure your ailment. Maybe if she had infinite subjects with the same condition as you…

But, at the end of the day, that’s the problem. There’s only one of you. One of her beloved, her little human darling, so dangerously fragile in comparison to the scale she works on. Even with all the time in the world, which she most certainly has, she cannot cure you without taking incredible risks. With your life at stake… It is a gamble she refuses to take. You are hers, and while she hates to see you suffer, the truth is that she’ll always be selfish enough to let you endure on your own.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t help, though, just that she doesn't do a full-out experiment on you. Instead, she keeps notes. She’ll track your activities, bedtimes/when you get up, dietary habits, when you have pain, what you do to treat said pain, how effective the treatments are, etc, etc. All of this can be very useful in establishing patterns (a skill she’s gotten very good at, in her many decades of being a scientist), which can in turn lead to less pain days.

(For example, many people with migraines find that certain foods seem to trigger a migraine, or at least increase the chances of getting one. Though admittedly they don’t always end up cutting the food out of their diet. I mean, come on, you want me to give up chocolate? You want me to drink normal milk, like an adult? Kidding, kidding, I don’t have any food triggers. Nor do I particularly enjoy chocolate milk, nor do I dislike it.)

Moving on! While her work seemingly takes precedence over your condition, Miranda is not heartless, and she does do some things to lend you more direct comfort. Specifically, she tries to work in the same room as you when she can, normally while making electronic copies of physical documents, or while looking over the details of a finished experiment. She’s not always one for cuddling, so she won’t often get in bed with you during the daytime. But at night? Yes, fine, she will wrap her arms around you, maybe one of her wings too if you like how soft they are.

Just don’t think that she secretly loves every second. It’s not like she’ll spend half an hour whispering about how sweet and adorable you are as soon as you fall asleep, or anything like that. It’s twenty minutes at the most.

Bonus!Avaskian Caldwell:

“Oh, fuckin’ mood!” Followed by a solid thirty seconds of pure regret. Seriously, though, Ava has spent xer entire life (starting at age 10) dealing with chronic migraines. For a while xe also dealt with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which meant lots of chest pain, but that (thankfully) faded as xe grew into an adult, as is fairly common with the condition. If anyone in Castle Dimitrescu understands unrelenting, unexplainable pain, it’s xer.

That being said… Ava never really managed xer chronic pain, at least not when xe was at xer worst. Xe had to drop out of school because of it. Hell, xe didn’t have a “real” job until xe was almost 23! Didn’t have a chance until things just calmed down for xer. So xe gets anxious whenever you talk about your health, worried that things are (or will at some point be) as bad for you as they were for xer. Other than that, though, you might initially think that xe doesn’t care, or didn’t understand the conversation.

Truth is, xe knows how absolutely fucking ANNOYING it can be to have to explain your health to every new person you meet (like the dozen different doctors you’ve met over the years, possibly every nurse who takes your pulse and thinks it’s a little bit high). So xe did a shit ton of research on your condition, in order to reduce how much you need to explain. Sure, xe will still have questions, and there are always aspects that only you can tell xer, but it’s a nice gesture.

As for helping you destress, xe’s pretty much a mix of Bela and Miranda. You’ll get plenty of massages (because Ava has learned from personal experience what sort of touches help with which sorts of pain), but also some scientific insight on any noticeable patterns. Lots of holding you close and telling you that you’re the coolest person in the world, and that Ava feels beyond lucky to have you.

#alcina dimitrescu x reader #bela dimitrescu x reader #cassandra dimitrescu x reader #daniela dimitrescu x reader #donna beneviento x reader #mother miranda x reader #oc x reader #avaskian caldwell #j has ocs #re8 village #resident evil: village #hcs

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linkspooky · 3 years

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mechamiwa got me feeling like T_____________T

Mechamiwa is such a well-written tragedy. It’s rare that in a shonen manga such a flawed love story gets to be told. How the characters feel about each other is so clear, and also why they can’t be together is just as clear. Just to make you cry anon, an analysis of MechaMiwa under the cut.

1. Strong and Weak

Mechamaru and Miwa both embody one of the central themes of the series, there’s strength in weakness, and there’s weakness in strength.

Mechamaru is most likely the strongest Kyoto student, not only that but he has a measure of control because of his puppetry technique, he can doctor records, manipulate people, and is smart enough to play double agent for awhile to further his own goals.

Mechamaru is very strong as an individual. He’s very selfish as an individual As a person he’s weak, however. Not because of his disability, but rather his inability to handle his own emotions. Of course, Mechamaru has a right to resetnment, he even has a right to hate the whole Jujutsu System, but the way he chooses to handle his emotions by lashing out is not healthy for him ultimately.

Mechamaru hates himself, and hates his own weakness. Rather than trying to live with his own weakness, or be open about it, he hides behind his strength. Which is why rather than accepting other people’s help, he tends to be secretive, keep his distance, and he prefers attacking them rather than opening up to them.

Mechamaru has this assumption that other people are going to look down on him, dislike him if they meet the real him, and that’s why he’s so defensive. That’s why he goes on the attack right away when he meets Panda. To stop others from looking down on him, he looks down on them first.

Mechamaru is a strong person who can’t bear his own weakness, and can’t bear to see himself as weak.

He has his reasons for this of course, but his primary strategy of keeping distance from others so they never have to meet the real, weak him gets in the way of what he wants.

Miwa wanted to see Mechamaru as he was, in person. He didn’t need to be strong for her. The only ones who told him Mechamaru couldn’t be with his friends were Mechamaru himself, and the society around him, but his friends were always willing to accept him for who he was. Mechamaru can’t accept himself because he interanlized too much of what the Jujutsu Society taught him about weakness and it became a part of his own self loathing.

Mechamaru wanted nothing more than to stand with his friends, but he did everything, manipulate them, betray them, protect them from afar, instead of taking the first step out himself to go see them.

All because of his fear of being weak, and being seen as weak.

Then, there’s Miwa who while not a fully developed character is a change of pace from a lot of the Jujutsu Kaisen characters because she accepts how weak she is.

Miwa is the opposite of Mechamaru, a weak person, who doesn’t see her own strength, and doesn’t try as hard as she could to be strong.

Miwa isn’t motivated to fight for herself, but her siblings she’s currently trying to take care of, so she lacks Maki and Nobara’s complete self possession. She’s not obsessed with the world of Jujutsu and treats it more like a dayjob, so she’s not motivated by saving others like Yuji or Megumi are either.

However, in the Jujutsu World there’s someone a common sentiment that if you get stronger you’ll never have to lose anything. Characters believe everything is decided on strength alone, and an individually strong person will never have to face any loss. You can fight your feelings somehow. You can punch your feelings in the face, and you’ll never have to be sad again.

When losing Yuji for the first time, Megumi and Nobara’s response is to hide their feelings, and then try to fight the loss. If they get stronger they’ll never have to lose again. The motivation to get stronger isn’t wrong per se, but even the absolute strongest Satoru Gojo could not save his best friend.

Miwa desires to get closer to others in a way most Jujutsu sorcerers just don’t. She’s a bit of a parallel for Utahime, who unlike Gojo was able to become someone who tethered Shoko and kept her connected to others. This is in part because Utahime is someone much more open with her weakness.

Miwa tries to get close to Mechamaru anyway, despite knowing she might lose him, and the end result is she does. When she loses him, she feels weak, useless, she cries over it. It’s also the most emotionally open I’ve seen a character be with their grief in this manga.

There’s an emotional strength in being able to process sadness, and grief and yet still want to get close to others, instead of keeping your distance to shield yourself from those negative emotions. That was Miwa’s strength, but also Miwa didn’t push hard enough. Miwa sees herself as weak and because of that she’s desperately lacking in the ambition Nobara, and Maki ust have naturally.

Miwa also could have been fighting by Mechamaru’s side. She could have pushed harder, she could have confronted him and challenged him more, but she was ultimately too passive until it was too late.

Mechamaru was unwilling to give up his control, Miwa was unwilling to take his control. Mechamaru and Miwa both saw themselves as too weak individually, to stand by each other’s side, which is why they couldn’t be together. No matter how much both of them wanted it.

Mechamaru and Miwa could have lended each other that strength: we see this in the fight against Mahito. Mechamaru uses Miwa’s techniques, his main motivation to fight is Miwa’s words to him.

Simple Domain is a pwoerful technique, especially when cooperating with others. There’s a first grade who uses simple domain. Mei Mei uses simple domain as a part of her ultimate attack. It seems really well suited towards cooperation, which is also Miwa’s strongest character trait her desire to connect with others in spite of the pain.

However, Miwa didn’t assert herself.

The last symbol of Mechamaru and Miwa’s relationship is the distance between them. mechamaru can’t be there for her in person, in any way, emotionally or physically. They are two people who love each other deeply, but couldn’t be together because of their individual flaws.

It’s because they both avoided each other in a sense. Miwa doesn’t think she’s strong enough to fight with others. Mechamaru is so afraid of being weak, just naturally assumes people will project her, that he preferred to protect MIwa from afar the whole time instead of being close to her.

While it is a failed relationship, I think Mechamaru’s love for her was very real, and if Miwa processes the grief from this she has potential to grow as a character. There is set up for MIwa, her parallels to Utahime, the fact that there’s a simple domain user who’s a first grade right now who uses shadow style the same as her.

What I hope is this will be the push Miwa needs to get stronger, not so she can fight as an individual, but so she can drop the “Miwa the Useless” attitude and fight together with the others.

There’s something to be gained even by loss, which is why I think it’s better for characters not to lose fearing this loss. I don’t think Miwa regretted opening up to Mechamaru, or loving him, even if in the end he died, and all it did was hurt her, because she can still carry on his wish and that is their way of being together. Accepting loss also means accepting the people you’ve lost, and being able to struggle together with them even though they’re no longer there.

Yuji can take on Nanami’s suffering, Miwa can take on both Kokichi’s suffering and the happiness he wished to give her.

#Anonymous #kokichi muta #kasumi miwa #miwa kasumi #muta kokichi #mechamaru #mekamaru #mekamiwa #mechamiwa #jujutsu kaisen #jjk meta #jujuts kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory

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theforgottendaydreamer · 4 years

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Haikyuu sick/hurt characters headcanons: Karasuno edition!

⚠️ sickness, injuries, phobias, allergies and correlated symptoms ahead. If these themes upset you, proceed with caution. If you use these, credit me, please. ⚠️

Sawamura Daichi:

He doesn't let anyone know when he's sick. He'll show up to practise with a fever of 39°C and say that he's fine if someone points out how warm he is ("It's just overextertion. If you're not warm, it means you haven't been exercising well!")

He doesn't actually believe that he's fine, he knows his limits, but he just doesn't want to alarm anyone.

Luckily, he always manages to hold on until he reaches the bathroom if he's feeling pukey.

When he does get sick, he's very quiet and discreet. He always tries to go back to what he was doing before, insisting that he's okay.

When he's sick or hurt, the other third-years can see through his "I'm okay!" act (remember that time he hit his head and insisted that he was fine to play?), and know how miserable he really feels, so they force him to take it easyー he's no match for Suga, who will use mild violence if that's what it takes to make Daichi give up and rest.

Sugawara Kōshi:

He's anemic, cue to his constantly cold hands (and feet). Because of this, he takes iron pillsー or he should, because he forgets more often than not.

When he forgets the pills, he gets dizzy and weak, and needs to sit down for a bit. Once, he passed out due to anemia during practise, and he doesn't want to repeat that ever again, so he's extra cautious.

It's easy to understand when he's feverish, because he gets unexpectedly sleepy and quiet. He will fall asleep in class without even realising it if his temperature's any higher than 37,5°C.

He rarely gets hurt, but when that happens nobody's sure if he's okay or not. It's not that he denies it, but he simply doesn't say anything ("why didn't you say anything sooner!?" "B-because you didn't ask..?")

Once, he twisted his ankle and walked on it for a little less than thirty minutes before actually asking the coach if he could go get himself some ice. Of course, they didn't send him to get the icepack, but he had to sit there and listen as Coach Ukai yelled at him for not speaking up sooner.

Azumane Asahi:

He gets anxiety-induced stomach aches very often, and that's why he's used to feeling dizzy and to puking. Vomit doesn't scare him anymore.

Whenever he's sick, he runs away from the others; he needs to flee, far away. He loves his teammates, but he's scared that they'll accidentally overwhelm him further, and he doesn't want them to feel guilty.

This man can't stand the sight of blood. Like, at all, not even a little. Not even in movies. When Shimizu got a shallow paper cut, the Coach actually had to physically support him when getting him seated on a bench.

He broke his left index finger when he was a first-year, and as soon as he saw the bone sticking out of the skin (it looked worse than what it really was) he fell backwards and on a very concerned Sugawara without a word.

Cue to lots of tears and puke on the way to the hospital. He was inconsolable, but when Daichi had the idea to hide the injury from his eyes, Asahi managed to calm down a bit. In every situation, it's not the injury that scares him, but the blood.

Nishinoya Yuu:

He's reckless, he won't even notice when he gets injured. Since he's so used to bruises, bumps and shallow cuts, he doesn't understand when he's actually injured.

This guy played a whole set with a sprained wrist before realising that "hey, this feels kinda weird..?" and he didn't tell anyone until the end of the game, when his wrist was visibly swollen.

High pain tolerance plays a major role when he's injured or sick. Still, the others wish he would have a more average pain tolerance, because, once, Nishinoya felt sick during math class, and still claimed he was fine. He thought he was.

When he was rushed to the hospital due to a "mild ache in his lower stomach" that had been going on for two days after the math class incident, along with a 38,7°C fever, he was told that he had appendicitis ("I thought I just ate something bad or that I needed to take a huge dump! How was I supposed to know!? I thought I was fine."). It was clear that he wasn't, in fact, fine.

Tanaka Ryuunosuke:

He will try to toughen everything out and ignore the pain until it gets unbearable. Be it an injury or some sickness, he will automatically ignore it if he doesn't think it's serious enough to be life-threatening.

That's why he almost died when he ate one of the peanut butter cookies that Yachi had baked. Turns out, allergies do existー but he wished he'd found out in a different way. Sometimes, "My throat's kinda itchy. Does my tongue look... too big? It... it feels too big." can be synonym of "Hospital, now." Bless Takeda-sensei.

The time when he collided with Daichi, Tanaka completely ignored the fact that his arm hurt, and only realised when he took his shirt off in the locker-room and heard a screech from Yamaguchi. The bruise went from his shoulder to his elbow, blue and swollen. Cue to lots of pain relief cream and ice packs.

Ennoshita Chikara:

He never broke a bone in his whole life, but he's very good at dealing with it when it happens to someone else. He's just fascinated by how the human body works, and sometimes people think he's being cold in front of someone else's pain, when he's really just being logical.

He's good at dealing with his own pain too, though he rarely gets hurt or sick.

When he gets sick, he recovers pretty rapidly, but this leads him into relapse. That's why he's not allowed back to practise for a whole week after he recovers ("I'm fine. I've been fine for three days already, my fever wasn't even that high..." "Last time you said you were fine, you almost got pneumonia. Go home.").

He gets bad allergies during spring, and takes a lot of antihistamine pills which make him sleepy. He often has to excuse himself from class to go take a nap in the infirmaryー the teachers and the nurse know, so they always allow him to.

Narita Kazuhito:

This man is the embodiment of health. His diet and lifestyle will probably allow him to live until past the age of 100.

That's why he's not used to getting sick. And when he does, he's a confused mess with no idea of what to do with himself.

When he puked on himself after practise he was so shocked that he chuckled nervously and stood still, frozen, until Kinoshita and Ennoshita dragged him to the bathroom. He almost found the whole ordeal funny.

Kinoshita Hisashi:

He really despises vegetables and fruit, and often gets mocked because of it. He often stuffs himself with sweets and fried food until he feels sick ("But... how? That cake had strawberries in it! It's supposed to be healthy!").

He gets very bad seasickness. Once, his friends decided to drag him to Miyajima: he spent the time on the ferry and first hour on the island puking his guts out.

The thing he doesn't do good with is fainting: if someone passes out in front of him, he does the same, always. When Daichi passed out in the middle of the court, Kinoshita was thankful that Narita was there to hold him up, because he was ready to leave the land of the living.

Kageyama Tobio:

Always denies everything ("my nose is not bleeding!!") and this only makes everything worse for him. If he feels shaky, he won't take a clue and sit down; instead, he'll push himself and end up falling down on whoever's closest to him ("Daichi-san, nice receive!" "Now's really not the time, Hinata...").

When he gets sick, he gets sick hard. The flu has him puking all day long, with a fever of 39.5°C that, he insists, is not that high. His family and friends are smart enough to understand that he's lying. Not even the doctors and nurses at the E.R. can convince him that he's sick.

To be fair, he does not lie when he says that he's not hurt or sick: he genuinely thinks that whatever's going on with him is normal and not that bad.

He accidentally tripped on the leg of a desk in class, and fell face first into the teachers'. The deep, bleeding cut on his forehead wasn't enough for him to understand that he needed to go to the infirmary, and he just sat back at his desk, apologising for the mess. Turns out that his "little cut" needed six stitches in the end, and that his "mild headache" was, in fact, a mild concussion. He showed up to practise the following day anyway, and the Coach had to physically prevent him from joining.

He doesn't do good with nausea, though; he doesn't mind fevers, joint-pains, blood, bruises, or the act of throwing up itself. But when he feels nauseous he actively wishes to pass out, because anything is better than dealing with feeling like that. That's why he'd rather stick his fingers down his throat to get rid of the nausea already than waiting for it to pass naturally.

This got worse when he started suffering from migraines. As soon as he feels one starting to build behind his eye, he throws himself over the toilet, waiting for the dreaded nausea to come so that he can get rid of it before it gets too bad. He stays like that for hours if that's what it takes.

Hinata Shōyō:

He pukes a lot, and for a number of reasons: nervousness, motion sickness, fear, hungerー this guy can't even take it to the bathroom.

His guts are a mess, and he either vomits or poops every time he feels any strong emotion (which is...pretty often, for him). Thank goodness his friends always have pills that help with motion sickness with them, along with antiacid pills and sparkling water, and that Kiyoko and Yachi often restock the bus and everyone's backpacks with paper bags.

The higher the fever, the more he moves. Ever since he was a kid, a fever has never stopped him, and to be fair, fevers make him feel more motivated and energetic. He takes "Hey, no. Sit down, drink up, and rest." as an insult because "I'm fine. You're benching me because you think I suck, huh!? But I was doing fine! I- I was being good, right..?"

Yes, fevers make him emotional. He'll cry for anything once they make him admit that he's sick. He mostly cries because "How could I get sick? I'm going to be useless! I should've paid more attention, I should've been better!" but Kageyama knows for sure that he saw a feverish Hinata crying over a picture of his sister, for some reason.

He doesn't mind blood when he's the one to be bleeding, but if it's someone else, he freaks out. Seeing someone else having a bloody nose or bleeding from some injury, even small and insignificant, makes his stomach flip.

Tsukishima Kei:

He's never said "I'm in pain." in his whole life. The most honest statement he managed to grit out was "It kinda hurts.", but he never said anything more than that. He won't show himself being so vulnerable, ever.

Whenever he has to go to the optometrist, he won't eat anything for at least half a day before the appointment, because he knows for sure that he's going to throw up after the doctor dilatates his pupils.

He's a quiet puker, and he always locks himself up in the bathroom, which can be dangerous in those situations. After that time when he passed out after throwing up, his mother got an extra key of the bathroom, and always lingers close to the door when she knows that her son's about to be sick.

If anyone tries to interrupt him when he throws up or when he's in acute pain, he will yell at them. It's not that he doesn't appreciate the help, but he hates how everything feels so crowded around him when he's down. The only person who's brave enough to help him when he's like that is Yamaguchi, mostly because he's used to hearing his angry words (even if Tsukishima's never insulted him personally).

Yamaguchi Tadashi:

Terribly emetophobic, he won't throw up even if he has to. He just won't do that, no way... Which is cruelly ironic, since he gets sick pretty often due to anxiety and weak immune system. Tsukishima doesn't mind helping him out (but he would never step close to anyone else when they're sick) but he can be a bit rough sometimes; this both reassures and agitates Yamaguchi. "I'll stick my fingers down your throat if you don't throw up now." doesn't sound too kind, but when Tsukishima adds "it'll make you feel better, I promise." Yamaguchi feels a bit calmer. He’s also a loud puker.

He's a type-2 diabetic, though he has it under control and hasn't had any problem related to that in a while, not since the beginning of middle school, at least. Still, sometimes he needs to reluctantly sit practise out because he's obviously too shaky and weak to strain himself that much. When that happens, they all make sure that someone sits with him to make him feel less alone... and he appreciates it immensely.

He's on anxiety meds, but they make him feel dizzy sometimes, which leads him into a spiral of panic for fear that he'll get sick. It's a huge contradiction, really, and he hates it with his whole soul.

He's one of the people in the team who can handle others' sickness and injuries better; it might shock him for a second, but he's ready to jump into action and solve the problem in order to help his friends out.

Injuries don't scare him, though the worst thing that ever happened to him was when he got punched in the face by a bully. He also broke his arm in middleschool once though he doesn't remember muchー maybe it was the shock, or maybe it was that it hurt less than he imagined. The punch freaked him out more than that.

Yachi Hitoka

She's a good caretaker, but an absolute mess when it comes to taking care of her own injuries and sickness.

She's clumsy so she's not new to bruises and cuts, but this doesn't mean that she doesn't freak out a bit whenever she sees blood on her legs or arms. On their way home from school, one day, Hinata and Yamaguchi decided to get her band-aids with little chicks and kittens on them. She finished the 30-pack in less than a month.

She got her period a bit late in life, a couple of months before turning 15, and whenever she's on her period, it hits her like a train at full-speed in the guts. Kiyoko taught her some yoga moves that help with the cramps, and the boys never bother the two of them when they see them doing yoga in the corner of the gym. In fact, they also bought her an electric heating pad for her birthday along with an indecent amount of chocolate that didn't fit in Yachi's bag (and various other presents not concerning periods).

Shimizu Kiyoko:

The scars on her legs are fully healed, yet the skin there is thinner, and so the wounds reopen whenever she accidentally hurts herself there. They sting quite a bit, and though it's unusual, she hisses out loud when it's bad. Everyone agreed to make sure that medkit is always equipped with antiseptic cream. To this day, Kiyoko insists that it isn't necessary, but they disagree.

She always knows what to do when someone else feels sick, but she's unsure about what she'd do in case of her own sickness. She hasn't been sick in too long to know.

She hasn't gotten a cold since elementary school, and that one time when she thought she'd caught something, when she sneezed at the age of 16, it was actually just a bit of dust allergy. She doesn't even need meds for it.

Takeda Ittetsu:

He hardly gets sick, but he ends up hunched over the toilet more often than not after a Friday night out with his friends. He drinks quite a bit for a teacher, but only when he knows that he can do that without compromising his career or setting the wrong example. Hangovers also leave him a messy wreck, and that's why he only drinks on Fridays: that way, he has until Sunday night to recover.

For someone who's constantly surrounded by teenagers, he doesn't get sick much. He catches a cold every now and then, but nothing more serious than that. And when he's sick, he always tries to prevent the others from catching what he's got, without actually taking care of himself to heal.

Once, he got a fever of 40,1°C and luckily for him Ukai was coming over to discuss about the volleyball club; he found Takeda sprawled face-down in front of the open door. He was boiling, so Ukai took him to the hospital where he stayed for two days. ("I didn't think it was this bad." "So you knew you had a fever and still went to work?" "Yeah, but I had a mask on so that the others could be safe." "And you didn't buy medicine in the meantime?" "Ah, no." "...what the hell!?").

Ukai Keishin:

He catches a cold every other month, no matter how many layers of clothes he wears. These colds are often accompanied by low fevers, but he's used to those so he simply chugs some orange juice and moves on.

He tried to quit smoking countless times, especially since he started coaching these kids, but he can't help smoking at least three of cigs per day. Still, sometimes his chest aches a bit, and maybe it's just paranoia, but when that happens he doesn't touch tobacco for a couple of days.

His liver would even be able to survive Takeda's nights out; his guts, in general, are strong and he swears he's never felt nauseous in his whole life.

💫 I might think of more sick karasuno hc soon, but that's it for now. Expect more characters hc soon! Again, credit me if you use these, and please feel free to share this post! 💫

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k7l4d4 · 3 years

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Luz SMASH!! (Just Kidding!) An Owl House AU Idea!

Hello all, this here is an AU Crossover Idea for, you guessed it, the Owl House! This idea crosses the Marvel Universe with that of the Owl House, helped by the fact that both are run through Disney, it isn’t a full on crossover, as only specific elements are supposed to be relevant. Now, on to the background information and premise! Everybody clap your hands!!

First off, in the Marvel Universe, Gamma Radiation, the highest known form of radiation and incredibly deadly besides, comes in a third variant that possesses Mutagenic properties, causing Superpower bestowing mutations in those exposed to it, and live that is. This third form is the emissions of an ancient existence known as “The One Below All,” a malevolent mindless monstrosity that sits below all of existence, and is the gestalt of all hate, pain, negativity, and suffering, as well as the physical embodiment of the concept of destruction itself. For all that The One Below All is dangerous, it lacks both a mind and a personality of its own, needing sufficiently malevolent and outright evil individuals to act as hosts for it and give it a mind and personality to work with.

But I’m getting sidetracked. One of the big themes of The One Below All is that those who wield powers from his Radiation, known as Gamma Mutates, are incapable of truly using their powers for good. I call bull on that. Destruction isn’t evil, it just IS, nor can The One Below All decide how those who wield his power decide to use it, and while certainly some have chosen the path of wickedness, others have counted themselves among the most powerful of heroes, such as the Hulk himself! As I see it, destruction and creation are intrinsically linked; for something to be created, their must be room for it to inhabit, ergo, something must be destroyed. The power of the Gamma Mutates is the power to create Change, whether for good or evil is irrelevant. So, I thought, why not give the power of a Gamma Mutate to someone already known as a harbringer of change, chaos, and destruction of the prior status quo. I’m talking about Luz Noceda ya’ll!!

Luz's Home Earth is a variant of the Marvel Earth, minus the Mutants who are one world down the metaphysical scale, and she's well acquainted with the unusual, the bizarre, and the super, if only due to TV and the Internet filling her in. This version of Luz has always had her head in the clouds, being slightly off-put by how little the Supernatural events going on in the world touch her home town. (After gaining her abilities she gets a little more appreciation of why that sleepiness is usually a good thin) Luz gained her Gamma Mutate abilities due to her mother, Camila, helping with a Gamma Radiation-based clinical trial years prior. For the longest time, Luz's latent abilities lied dormant, only emerging when she enters the Isles, and gradually at that, only becoming noticeable when she tries to free the prisoners in the Conformatorium and actually making slight headway before her arms give out. Luz's Gamma Mutate abilities manifest, at first, as a form of absorption and emission, allowing her to take in energy and emit it as her own, with a Gamma Charging twist. The big issue is two-fold, in that Luz both has very poor control over the ability and cannot reliably absorb or emit at will just yet, and she also personally dislikes her powers, as she feels they undermine her dream, as well as her goal, of being a Witch, often looking for excuses not to use them or practice with them. When she finally manages to get over her hang-ups, Luz also discovers that she has the power to temporarily convert others into Gamma Mutates themselves by emitting raw Mutagenic Gamma Radiation directly into their bodies. By temporarily, I mean it lasts from around a minute to an hour, depending on how strenuous their activity is, and she has no control how their Mutate Status will manifest in the slightest. Her absorption ability only works in the form of directed energy, such as a flame, light, or electricity, things of that nature; she absolutely CANNOT absorb another person's energy directly from their body, and trying to do so causes her body to emit large amounts of Gamma uncontrollably as a result. Her distinctive signature trait that marks her as a Gamma Mutate, that is to say the Green coloration the vast majority of Gammas typically have in some form, manifests in her skin and hair, but does so in an odd way, fluctuating in response to her energy stores, causing her to become more green in color the more overall energy she has absorbed into her body so far, and fading back to normal the less she does. Because she can absorb Light as an energy source, Luz always has a slightly green tint to her skin and hair, even when at her absolute lowest energy store, but most people can't actually tell, only being able to note that something is off about her appearance but can't figure out WHAT it is.

Luz’s powers have a REALLY bad habit of kicking in at literally the worst possible moment, such as releasing a sudden burst of energy out of nowhere when she or her friends need to be stealthy, or accidentally absorbing a very much needed spell cast by Eda or one of the others when they are in a pickle.

Like in Canon, Luz lies to her Mami about going to Camp, but makes a better effort of staying in contact with her in a more meaningful capacity than just passing emojis at her. She also reveals the fact that she is a Gamma Mutate to Camila, in the hopes of gaining an explanation as to HOW she’s one, as well as any advice she can give on keeping herself or others safe.

Other MU elements are most definitely present, for one thing, do to some of the chaotic events resulting in conflict between known heroes, magic is a known force on her Earth, so Luz KNOWS magic is possible, she just doesn't know how, and her mother has been adamant about her not trying to learn on her own, mostly out of concern for her safety. I would say that Eda is familiar with Doctor Strange and other Earth-born Magic users, and may even have some practice with their methods, if only to stick it to Belos and only in the form of Cantrips and the like, as well as being more familiar overall with Earth and Human Culture, as opposed to her just above baseline knowledge that most Boiling Islanders have canonically. She's still not totally savvy, but she's heads and shoulders above her Canon self, in that she genuinely knows what the things she's selling actually are, but still sells them as random garbage anyhow just because the weird and insane explanations she gives are more likely to get her sweet, sweet profits! Eda, in addition to her Con-Woman gig, was tasked by the Magical Orders of Earth to monitor and intercede with Magical Matters on the Isles as price for allowing to keep her portal and her scams running, as well as charged with keeping the Portal as far from Belos' grubby mitts as she can.

If you all have any questions, comments, or anything, feel free to let me know!

#the owl house #owl house au #Luz SMASH (Not Really) AU #marvel #marvel comics #hulk #gamma mutate #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #camila noceda

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daresplaining · 3 years

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Have you ever done a post regarding Elektra and all her love interests in the comics? I know it's done often with DD (and how he is quite the ladies man) but was wondering who she has been romantically involved with in the Marvel Universe.

I haven’t, and I really should, so thank you for asking! This is one of those questions where the longer I thought about it, the more difficult it became to actually answer, and the reason is this: Elektra tends to be a sexualized character. She is frequently written as something of a femme fatale, and people are constantly lusting after her. This means that in some cases-- especially cases in which Elektra is not the narrator of the story-- it’s difficult to distinguish between Elektra partnering with someone who is attracted to her and Elektra actually being engaged in a romantic relationship. There is a ton of subtext involved in some of her interactions with people, and I will be the first to admit that I’m not the best at decoding romantic subtext. A great example is Agent Garrett from Elektra: Assassin (who I have not included on this list). We are in his head for most of the story, and he is going gaga over Elektra the entire time. On the page, it doesn’t look like she’s reciprocating, but Garrett imagines that she might be, and so you get into this situation where you start to think... maybe they’re being romantic off-panel. Maybe Elektra is actually into him. But since we’re not in her head, and because Garrett is an unreliable narrator, it’s very difficult to parse what is actually going on between them.

In any case, here is a list of people with whom I’m pretty confident Elektra has been romantically involved (in roughly chronological order).

Matt Murdock

[ID: Elektra and Matt seen from the shoulders up, kissing. Elektra has her arms around Matt’s neck.]

Obviously, number one on the list is this guy, the college boyfriend, Elektra’s first love, the one that accidentally got her father killed which caused her to become so disillusioned with life that she dropped out of school and became a ninja assassin got away. Elektra is very much her own character and has been for a long time, but she will always-- to some degree-- be defined by her relationship with Matt. This is partly because Matt was a significant player in her origin story, but it’s also because their relationship embodied a happier time, and is something that Elektra has continued to cherish through all of the chaos that she has been through in the years since. Matt serves as a bit of an ideal for her; she will occasionally compare other men she meets to him-- particularly men who she is considering involving herself with. If you want to play Elektra bingo, “Thinks About Matt” should be the free space because it happens at least once per run.

I tend to think of Matt and Elektra’s relationship as one of a connection that transcends their actual interactions. Their lives are so intensely paralleled, and their college-era time together was so important to both of them, that they are always present in each other’s lives even when they aren’t physically together. Elektra will frequently show up when Matt needs help-- sometimes in person, sometimes psychically, sometimes just in his imagination. They have shared a lot of closeness and are very important to each other. But they haven’t actually spent that much time together. Elektra was interested in resuming a romantic relationship with Matt immediately after her resurrection, during Chichester’s Daredevil run, but Matt wasn’t in the right emotional place for it. They tried, briefly, to date during Elektra volume 1, but that fell apart right away. Now, in the current DD run, they have started up a relationship-- which is hugely significant after years and years of pining and angst and near-misses. I’m curious to see where this will take them moving forward.

Tekagi

[ID: Two panels showing Elektra and a burly man embracing in a stream in the moonlight.]

Tekagi (caption): “My past with Elektra? Is that what really troubles you, Genkotsu? It was exotic and intense, yes... but it is also long over!”

In Elektra: Root of Evil, we learn that during her time training with/infiltrating the Hand, a lonely Elektra had a passionate but brief relationship with one of her teachers, an ambitious (and ultimately bad news) Hand warrior named Tekagi. While they both end up with fond memories of their time together, they also both treat it as being very much in the past. When they meet again as enemies, years later, Elektra doesn’t suffer too much angst about killing him.

Wolverine

[ID: Elektra and Wolverine, both in costume, are sitting together on a low wall with a Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters sign on the front. Wolverine looks sad; Elektra is embracing him from behind. They are surrounded by green trees.]

When Logan has the Adamantium ripped out of him and the trauma causes him to revert to a feral, animalistic state, Stick sends Elektra to help him find his way back. This comes at a time when Elektra is also struggling to re-find herself after returning from the dead. Together, the two go on an emotional journey of self-discovery that turns them into very close friends. Since then, they have frequently stepped into each other’s lives for team-ups and to provide emotional support. I have to admit a little ignorance on this one. While Logan’s appearances in Elektra-focused comics appear platonic, I haven’t read many Wolverine comics, and I've gotten the sense through my general Marvel reading that there is a romantic element to Elektra and Logan’s relationship that I just haven’t come across yet, which is why he’s on this list. If any of my followers can clarify this one, please do!

McKinley “Mac” Stewart

[ID: Elektra (in a jacket) is leaning down toward Mac, a beefy guy with a mustache and a ponytail. Her hand is on the side of his face. The scene is tinted dark blue.]

Elektra: “Stop talking. The answer is yes, Matt.”

Mac: “You mean... Mac.”

Elektra: “That’s what I said.”

Elektra’s first solo series takes place soon after her resurrection, and is centered around her attempts to put her life as an assassin behind her and start anew (spoiler: she fails spectacularly). One of her projects in this new life is a dojo that she founds and funds to give local kids a place to go to receive training and support. Elektra brings in two guys to help run the dojo: a martial artist named King Lau and a heavyweight boxer named Mac Stewart. Mac quickly develops an attraction toward Elektra, and while she at first hesitates to accept his advances for personal baggage-related reasons, she eventually ends up engaging in what seems to be a mostly physical relationship with him. However, this relationship doesn’t receive much development. Most of their interactions happen off-panel or in the background of the main plot, Elektra almost ditches him for Matt at one point, and when the series ends, Mac is in a coma thanks to an attack by the Hand and (to my knowledge) never appears again.

Frank Castle

[ID: Elektra and Frank are sitting across from each other at a diner-style table, drinking out of the same cup with straws. They are pointing weapons (sai and gun) at each other under the table.]

Elektra and Frank have tended to run in the same circles, kill the same types of people, etc. and through encountering each other and learning each other’s reputations, they end up developing a healthy admiration for each other. Frank asks Elektra to train him, in recognition of her superior skills. This blossoms into a romance that lasts throughout their time working together on the Thunderbolts team (she gives him the heart of a mobster she killed and he gets it bronzed... it's very sweet). They end up having a (verbal and physical) fight and breaking up at the end of the run, though they still seem to be on fairly good terms.

Stephen Strange

[ID: Elektra and Doctor Strange, both in costume, are kissing in front of the big window in the Sanctum Sanctorum. A full moon is rising over the buildings behind them.]

This is new! Elektra and Stephen are currently working together on Conan-related shenanigans in Savage Avengers, and a few issues ago they slept together. For the moment, they both seem to be treating it as a casual one-time thing, but time will tell if that remains true.

#Elektra Natchios #Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Tekagi #Wolverine #Mac Stewart #Punisher #Frank Castle #Doctor Strange #Asks #Adventures in Continuity

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ozarkhealingtraditions · 4 years

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Spiritual Healing in the Time of a Pandemic

More articles on my website!

I often think about my path as a healer in this time of so much sickness and death. My role, which has been so based in guiding and cleansing those suffering not only from physical illnesses but also sickness of the soul, has made me face my own insecurities and doubt in new and more complex ways. I wonder what healers across the world and throughout time have had deal with when facing similarly overwhelming chaotic forces. What songs they must have sang, what prayers they must have prayed as they watched their communities and families dwindle. It reminds me of a story a healer once told about her grandma who desperately tried to comfort and support her own community during the Spanish Flu outbreak. Despite her efforts, she was still left alone in the end, one of only three survivors in her own family along with a handful of others grieving so much loss. She was left to pick up the pieces and try and rebuild what was now in ruins.

The story this healer told me felt like a tale pulled from ancient times. It was only an anecdote or perhaps a warning about some far-off possibility that my mind at the time couldn’t even comprehend. I’ve revisited our conversation on many occasions lately. I can now relate to the countless sick who visited her and the many she wasn’t able to heal. I can now feel the same pain she felt at the amount of death she faced on a day-to-day basis. I remember asking the storyteller about what her grandma did for the living and the dead, desperately trying to sift out some sort of practical advice from amongst all the tragedy. One phrase stuck out for me at the time, something that I’ve been replaying in my mind over and over again lately: “She just tried to give people a good death.”

Healers here in the Ozarks and likewise from communities across the world, have historically had to face many incurable diseases and situations where the only answer is the inevitable end of a life. What does it mean to give someone a good death? Maintaining the comfort of the body, as best as we can, might contribute to this, but for me there’s a much deeper work that needs to be done as well. For those whose worldviews include a whole host of invisible entities that exist alongside the living, the soul often needs as much healing as the body.

As a Spiritist as well as a healer, I know that we as human beings are embodied spirits, whose purpose in this world is to learn what we can and grow before passing back into our spirit forms to be reborn again for more education. I’ve seen firsthand the effects of a tragic or violent death on the state of the soul. I’ve met spirits who were still wandering, confused by why the world and their families now ignored them, and angered by being pulled from their lives too soon. For me, giving someone a good death means nourishing and comforting this immortal spirit to prevent them from being lost in the shadows. It means offering a lamp, a light in the darkness and guide on the path ahead. I asked the storyteller how her grandma soothed these lost and dying spirits. She said that she read the Bible and sang hymns to many, even if they were unconscious, knowing that while the physical body might be sleeping, the soul was still awake. But for many others who weren’t religious she offered her own words of comfort, shaping their dreams from anxious and fearful locations to places of warmth and verdant peace where. With her songs she surrounded them not only by the healing presence of angels and family members, but also those guiding spirits ready to set them on their new path.

In the Ozark tradition, this idea of healing the spirit goes hand-in-hand with healing the body. Not only in the more modern sense of maintaining mental or emotional strength through the healing and dying processes, but also in a very literal interpretation of ensuring the spirit housed inside of a body knows what’s happening and that death might be near. Or, as one prayer I was taught begins, “Spirit inside this body, your body lies sick and dying.” As I was taught, this awakening of the spirit is vital in cases where the individual is unconscious on their deathbed as it’s believed their spirit might be wandering outside of the body, unaware of what is happening. Up until this year, I’ve never had to use this prayer and now I seem to be using it more and more as this sickness claims its victims.

In my experience, the nature of this virus leaves those infected in a dream-like state from lack of sleep, or worse in a simulated coma as they silently suffer on ventilators surrounded by other confused spirits. According to Ozark folk belief, this is the worst possibility for the individual soul, as it plunges them into a state of darkness while their body is completely unaware of its own decay. Traditional Ozark rituals surrounding deathbed care were once focused not only on maintaining the comfort of the body, but also seek to awaken the soul to what is happening. Fumigations of cleansing plants like red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and tobacco are still used today by healers in the area to protect against angry ghosts who smell death in the home and try to lure away the spirit of the afflicted to join their gangs. Meanwhile, the soul is comforted with offerings of water, nourishing food, and kind words, with the hope that through this caregiving the soul will have an easier transition into the otherworld.

Today we’re left in a very different situation where so many are dying alone. As a healer, I struggle with this thought every day of my life. I struggle with the thought of so many spirits left behind wandering and confused. I’m pained by thinking about the spirits of the living, nurses, doctors, and hospice workers, who are nearing the end of their rope with no little to no support from those around them, completely unaware of whether their dying patients can even hear their kind words. Like so many other healers, I’m left without any advice or words of encouragement. I have no cure, no magic pill that will make everything better. I send out words into the ether, unsure of what effect they might actually have. I watch as more and more people die alone, and as many others contract a sickness that is completely unpredictable. I watch as so many gamble not only with their own health but actively seek to throw the lives of others into the gears of materialism. I fear for my own life and the lives of those closest to me, knowing full well that darker days might be ahead us. Under such a crushing weight, I find myself pulling inward. In my darkest hours, as I shake with grief and fear, I sing songs taught to me by others who have had to face similar times as these and for a moment I can see the flicker of a flame growing in the distance.

I sing songs to the souls of the dying, that they might be given peace and guidance. I sing songs to those suffering from this sickness, that their pain might be lessened, that they might face death bravely. I sing songs to the healers struggling to cope with their burden, that they might be strengthened in their work. I sing songs to the grieving families, that their own souls may be comforted. I sing songs to those with power, that they might see reason. I sing songs to the living, that they might see what a precious gift life really is.

I sing songs to give a good death.

#ozarks #traditional witchcraft #folk magic #witchcraft #covid-19 #herbalism #traditional medicine #traditional healing #ozark folk medicine #Ozark Folklore #ozark magic #ozark folk magic #ozark healing traditions

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omgviolette12 · 3 years

Text

Helena’s Skin

Chapters: 1/1

Words: 4500+

Pairing: Original female character of color/Tom Hiddleston

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Angst, Horror

I’ve also posted this on AO3

There’s pictures there, in case you want some bonus content.

Story Playlist, for optimal reading experience : Here

Phew..this plot bunny was running around for a HOT minute! I'm not sure what my obsession is with stories that deal with betrayal of some sort...but I think I'm just a slut for some angst. Also, I've been listening to a ton of silent hill soundtracks, which put me in the mood to write something depressing. And goodness is that game good. This story is largely inspired by it, with some of the dialogue, text, and locations from the original game interwoven with my story. I changed things up a lot to follow the flow of my narrative though.

-----

Tom dreamt of her again that night.

Pale, blue-tinted skin. Dark sunken eyes. Her stiff, swaying feet. He could even see the chipped red nail polish on her toes with clarity.

The cruel memory was always, without fail, in perfect detail.

Over the years though, he had slowly come to accept it. The pills never helped to stop the nightmares, and no amount of avoiding sleep was going to help his case anyway.

He liked to think of it as penance.

As always, he jumped up from the bed in cold sweat. And from the cross look on his girlfriend’s face, he must’ve woken her up on accident as well.

“I’m...I’m sorry Jen,” He turned a bit to rub at her naked shoulder, and hoped the action would coax her back to sleep, “ Just another one of those falling dreams..”

“Hmrrph..” She shrugged off his hand, and turned to face away from him. Thankfully, it didn’t take much for her eyes to close once again.

Tom sighed, and rubbed at his face tiredly. Whenever he had that dream...he could never fall back to sleep. It was as if all the emotions of that day were renewed, and it was hard to shake them off until morning.

His therapist suggested he acknowledge what he felt, during this time. The sorrow. The regret. The guilt. The gut-wrenching pain.

And if he were to be completely honest, it worked most days.

Often, he would find himself scribbling away at his personal journal at 3 am, nursing a cup of tea.

He wrote about how much he wished he could reverse time. The words he could have taken back, and the words he could have said instead. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, and that he regretted ever leaving her.

Helena. Her name was Helena, but he could never bring himself to write it out. Just referred to her vaguely with pronouns.

But tonight...he couldn’t even bring himself to write. The dream was especially vivid this time around, to a disturbing degree. He could even smell the stench.

What’s worse, that smell was just as he remembered it three years ago.

Tom resisted the urge to throw up at the thought of it, and stumbled out of bed to the bathroom. He turned on the sink, and splashed the coldest water he could onto his face.

That probably wasn’t the best thing to do, either. He could still see her, swaying in that dark room against his closed eyelids.

His eyes shot open immediately, and he found himself dry heaving into the sink.

“Fuck…” he cursed silently, as his eyes began to well with tears.

It was going to be another one of those nights, and the only thing he could do was suffer through the dark memories until morning.

Slowly, he made his way to the kitchen. There was little tea could do at this stage, but it was a welcomed distraction.

“You’re really leaving...aren’t you?”

Her voice was soft, softer than it usually was.

All the yelling and screaming must have destroyed every malice she could have mustered in her body.

Her dark brown eyes were downcast, red-rimmed with sorrow.

“Lena. No...Helena. I never wanted for any of this to happen.” Although Tom intended to sound a bit caring, the words left his mouth with harsh coldness.

“I love Jen too much. Too much to stay...I’m sorry. Please understand.”

His wife looked up at him then. Her chapped lips trembled immensely with bridled anger. And even though her long hair was rather unkempt, he could still see the glare she sent his way through her bangs.

“Five...f..five years Tom. You’re r-really going to...to throw it all away for that..for..for her?”

Tears spilled from her eyes as she stuttered in anguish, and she fisted the fabric of her dress painfully as she continued, “ I... I love you so much, Tommy. I never meant anything I said...I was sick and -“

“Stop with that!” Helena was startled, and she stared up at him with wide eyes. Throughout their argument, this was the first time he had yelled so loudly at her.

His eyes were narrowed, shoulders squared. He was the embodiment of hostility.

“Don’t say things that you don’t fucking mean.”

Tom didn’t wait for her to reply. He grabbed his jacket, and left the house with a slam to the door. He’d pick up his belongings later, after he cooled down.

Although Helena infuriated him, he could never forgive himself if he hurt her physically. A part of him still loved her, even if it was small.

They were married for five years after all. He couldn’t necessarily forget it all, no matter how much he wished it was possible.

Their marriage...it was a happy one, at first. He remembered the day when he met her, how stunned he was by her beauty and tenderness.

He loved how her brown eyes looked against the sunlight, and the lone dimple that revealed itself when she smiled. He loved her gentle voice, when she would tell him about her day. Everything. He loved everything about this woman. Down from the hair, right to the toes.

However… things took a sharp turn for the worst when she became ill.

The doctors were clueless about what it was. It attacked her body so quickly and suddenly, no one could do much to help her ailing health.

Slowly but surely, she began to lose her glow.

Her smiling face was replaced with an ugly snarl, her body became skin and bones, and her kind words transformed into insults that aimed to shred at his heart.

She pushed him away with every chance she could, when all he wanted was to be there for the woman he loved.

So, who could blame him for straying?

Jennifer was kind, new, and beautiful. Everything that Helena was, but now wasn’t.

It didn’t matter to him that she was good friends with his wife. Surely, Helena would rather it be Jen than some stranger.

But now, she wanted to take back all those words of hatred, and backtrack like a coward. She begged for him to stay, despite all the times she pushed him away.

Her insults drove away the guilt whenever he went to Jennifer for solace. But if she decided to just take it all back now… where did that leave him?

Tom stewed like that for hours, walking about the neighborhood before he decided to make his way back to the house. It was late morning when he left, but the skies were already starting to darken.

Time flies when you’re upset, it seemed.

He readied and steeled himself to face her again. He was going to pack the rest of his things, and then leave.

For good this time.

But he hated that his heart still ached at the thought of it, despite everything that she put him through.

Tom entered the house cautiously, and searched for any signs of his wife. When he left, she was still sitting on the living room couch. Hours had gone by, so he wasn’t sure why he still expected her to be there.

Worst case scenario, she was in their bedroom. With how erratic she’d been acting lately, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she tried to prevent him from leaving.

Best case scenario, she was asleep in there. Her illness made her extremely weak, which caused her to sleep more often than not.

Tom found himself in front of the door, hand frozen on the knob.

He was tired, tired from all the fighting. If possible, he wanted to ignore her as he quietly gathered his things together.

With these thoughts in mind, he opened the door -

To the sight of Helena’s feet hovering above the floor.

“Tom, Tom? Thomas!”

He jumped from the kitchen table, and knocked his knee on it in surprise.

He grimaced, and looked up at Jennifer who gave him a worried look.

“Why are you out here? You even fell asleep..”

Tom looked around his surroundings, disoriented. He fell asleep?

He remembered coming to the kitchen to make some tea for his nerves. But before he realized it…

“I’m not sure how that happened...I’m sorry Jen.”

“..It’s okay, Tom. Are you feeling okay..?” She placed her hand on his forehead, her voice tinged with concern, “ You can call out sick, you know? Talk to me,”

Tom stiffened. He contemplated many times, talking to Jennifer about his dreams. But...she had been badly affected by Helena’s death as well.

She was friends with her, after all. Jen felt just as much guilt and shame that he did.

But Jennifer refused to talk about it, about her. Her way of coping was to forget Helena ever existed for her own sanity.

They were both monsters, monsters who drove the one they cared about to her death. They truly deserved one another.

Tom only shook his head at her question, and attempted to reassure her with a weak smile, “I’m fine, honest. But I’ll call out today...I’ve been working too much at the office.”

Jennifer didn’t pursue the topic any further, and returned his smile. “ Thank gosh, you’ve been taking way too many hours. Just relax for once,”

He watched as she moved about the kitchen through tired eyes, to fix herself some coffee. “There’s some mail on the table, by the way. I picked them up before I came in here.”

Now that she mentioned it, there was a small pile of envelopes on the table. He looked at them all indifferently, and dismissed the majority of them as junk or bills.

“..I’ll sift through them. Make me a cup as well, would you?”

He dragged the pile in front of him, and wiped his eyes to take away some of the droopiness.

He cracked his neck, and massaged his shoulder with a hand as he began to look through the mail. Like he expected, there were some bills, some junk… and..

A beige, worn out envelope that was sealed with red wax.

But the look of the envelope wasn’t what caught his eyes. It was the name on it that caused Tom’s throat to go dry, and his sweat to grow cold.

From: Helena

There wasn’t a return address, just her name.

Was this some sort of sick joke?

Unless it was possible for a dead woman to send letters, then the likelihood that it was his Helena that sent it was extremely low.

Still though...his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Why did he feel so terrified?

First the nightmares, now this.

“Hey..everything okay?” Jen placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, and sat at the table, “You’ve been staring at that for a good minute now...is the bill that much?”

She took a sip of her own coffee, her voice lightly teasing.

“What? Oh, no, it’s nothing,” Tom quickly snapped out of it, and tossed the envelope aside as casually as he could, “Just some junk.”

Tom wasn’t sure what possessed him to take the envelope with him on his run.

Despite everything that told him to leave it closed, to leave it unread, he also felt the urgent need to keep it by his side.

He ran through a secluded park, with the envelope stuffed in his jacket pocket. If he was going to read it, he didn’t want Jennifer to know. Especially if it was actually from... her.

There was a drizzle earlier on, so the park benches were rather wet. However, he didn’t care as he plopped down to sit, and reached into his jacket pocket for the envelope.

A stray droplet of water from the overhanging tree fell on the envelope, as he sat and stared at it in silence.

Tom felt that he was probably overreacting. No, he most definitely was. There was no way on earth it was from his Helena. The same Helena who he still loved, to this very day. The same woman who took her own life that fateful evening.

He was only going to set himself for extreme disappointment if he hoped for that much.

Tom held his breath, and tore open the envelope without any regard for the wax seal.

And as he read its contents, the entire world came to a standstill.

In my restless dreams,

I see that town.

Silent Hill.

You promised me you'd take me

there again someday.

But you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now...

In our 'special place'...

Waiting for you...

Waiting for you to come to see me.

I know I’ve done some terrible things to you.

Something you’ll never forgive me for.

I wish I could change that, but I can’t.

I just...didn’t want you to see me like that anymore.

That ugly, repulsive me.

I was so angry all the time, and I

struck out at everyone I loved most.

Especially you, Tommy.

That's why I understand if you hate me, even now.

But I want you to know this.

I'll always love you.

And I want to see you, no matter how long it takes.

I’ll always be here…waiting.

With love,

Lena

He remembered her handwriting. Her letters were always scribbled elegantly, but felt rushed at the same time. This was written by her. There was no doubt about it in his soul. He could even hear her gentle voice as he read it.

The emotions Tom currently felt was like a kaleidoscope. Confusion, hope. Sorrow, fear. And above all, excitement.

Excitement, at the small, unlikely chance that she was still alive.

Even if it didn’t make sense, even if it went against all reason. Even if he had been the one to pull her dead body from the ceiling himself.

If he had the chance to see her again...just once more…

He was going to take it.

-----

Tom vaguely remembered that town she spoke of, in the letter.

Silent hill.

They went there once, for their honeymoon. It was a foggy little town, ways out in the middle of nowhere. Although it was scarcely populated, it was beautiful.

Helena had a strange obsession with the town, and she begged him constantly to take her back. But he was the type to enjoy the hustle and bustle of people, and the town was far too quiet for his liking.

Quiet to the point of being unsettling.

So although she begged him practically every year, he would always dredge up some excuse as to why they couldn’t go.

But now here he was, on his way to that very town against all sense.

“This place...isn’t it a bit too creepy for a resort?” Jennifer’s voice broke the silence in the car, and reminded him that he was not alone. Her eyes were trained outside the window, with furrowed brows.

Tom ground his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t come up with a proper excuse, as to why he wanted to leave so suddenly without arousing suspicion.

So...he disguised the trip as a mini-vacation, for the both of them. It would have been extremely preferable if he came alone... but he’d figure something out, eventually.

“It’s supposed to be a quiet, peaceful getaway. We’ve been needing some of that for a while now,” Tom said, in a nonchalant tone. “Besides, it’s only for a day or two.”

“Eh...I guess,” Jennifer still sounded thoroughly unconvinced, as they passed by the dilapidated welcome sign of the town. “I just thought it’d be, I don’t know...well kept?”

“It’s a part of the charm.” Tom wasn’t sure if he wanted to convince her, or himself with that statement.

Jen had a point. It’s been years since he came to this place, but he remembered that there was a decent amount of people that lived here.

Although the area was indeed very quiet...it definitely wasn’t a ghost town like he was seeing.

They were well inside the town now, but they still had yet to see anyone. The oppressive fog didn’t help matters either. He glanced down at the map on his lap, just to make sure they were going in the right direction.

“Hey...do you think we should just turn around? It looks pretty abandoned,”

Jennifer worried at her lip, her expression uncertain.

“...Like I said. A part of the charm. We’ll see some people, eventually.”

He could feel her anxiety from the passenger seat, and it started to affect his own mood.

The only thing that kept him from turning the car around, was Helena. The prospect of possibly seeing her again was too great a temptation.

But the question is...where was she, exactly?

Helena mentioned something about a ‘special’ place in the letter. That she’d be waiting for him there. But there were just so many possibilities… because this whole town was their special place.

Did she mean the park, by the lake? They would spend hours sitting on the bench...just the two of them, staring at the water. In their own little world.

Could Helena truly be alive...waiting for him there? The man who betrayed her so cruelly?

“Tom...Tom!!”

At Jen's sudden screech, Tom hit the brakes immediately, which caused the car to lurch forward violently.

He looked at her, as his heart thrummed against his chest, “What, what is it!”

“There.. right there, there was... there was..!”

She looked absolutely terrified, as she stared outside of the passenger window.

“Jen, calm down! What did you see?”

She didn’t look at him at all, and continued to stare outside the window, “In the fog. I saw a lady..and she.. she looked like… she was just right there..!”

Tom couldn’t make sense of what she wanted to say at all. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and addressed her once again, “I know you’re paranoid, Jen. But please, just calm down. It was probably just a resident.”

He really wished he came here alone all the more.

Jennifer was really shaken up, for whatever reason. And she went silent for the rest of the ride. Though, he certainly wasn’t about to complain about that.

Eventually, they saw a large building in the distance, right alongside the lake they’d been driving by.

Lake View Hotel. The same hotel where he stayed with Helena, on their honeymoon.

“...We’re here.”

Tom parked right by the curb of the sidewalk, a reasonable distance from the building.

But...something wasn’t quite right.

When he first came here with Helena, he clearly remembered that the hotel was on the other side of the lake, and they had to cross it with a rowboat. It was surrounded by a body of water, after all. And it was only accessible by a boardwalk.

However, the building was on this side instead. Completely opposite from what he remembered.

He decided not to think too deeply about it, though. Years had passed, and things might’ve changed.

“Wait, we’re getting out here?!” Jennifer asked in disbelief, her voice raised. The area was run-down, foggy, and quite frankly, disgusting. Tom couldn’t even blame her for her discomfort.

“Yes, Jen. There’s nowhere else to park,” he said, and exited the car first. “Come on, before it starts to get dark.”

Jennifer left the car with extreme hesitancy, and crossed her arms to hug herself. “Tom...this...this is like a freaking ghost town! Are you sure we can’t just...go somewhere else?” She tried to reason with him...but it was like he was another person entirely when he replied.

“If that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you. Take the car.” He answered curtly, and began to walk ahead of her.

“I...what? Wait, please, Tom!” She ran up to him, and grabbed his arm, “What do you mean take the car?! You know I can’t drive. And I can’t just leave you behind! This...this isn’t like you,” Jennifer attempted to turn him towards her, but he remained stiff.

“...Did you ever really know me, Jen?”

When he finally looked at her, Jennifer took a step back due to his scary expression. “Because I don’t think you do. Not like Lena did anyway.”

“Len...Helena? Why..what does she have to do with this?!”

Jen immediately went on the defensive, and matched his hostile energy.

“She has everything to do with this! You were her friend, and she was my wife. Yet you refuse to even talk about her-”

“She killed herself! She left us behind! Even before that, she treated you like shit! She broke your heart...and I was the one who picked up the fucking pieces!”

The argument had escalated extremely quickly. But Tom didn’t care.

“How..how fucking dar-”

Tom didn’t even get to finish his sentence. He had blinked his eyes for even less than a second.

And then she was gone.

Tom was stunned, and didn’t register what happened.

His mouth was left open as the sentence died on his lips.

“Huh..?”

He looked around disoriented, whiplashed, and confused.

What? How? Where..What?

These were the questions that ran rampant inside his mind, as he looked about frantically for the woman he was just fighting with.

Jennifer was just right there, in front of him. He even remembered her angered expression clearly. But he had barely blinked his eyes before she disappeared into thin air.

She didn’t even scream.

Tom’s bones were weak from fear and confusion. He felt nauseous.

“..Jen? Jennifer? Jennifer!” He began to walk ahead, almost running, and screamed into the fog.

He walked around the area, and yelled her name like that for what felt like hours. But what answered him back were the endless echoes beyond the mist.

“Where...where the hell..?” Tom was out of breath, his body wrought with fear and exhaustion. He brought his hands to his knees and hunched over.

He came here to find Helena. He just wanted to see his wife again, to talk to her one last time. Even if it were some sort of delusion he concocted to stay sane.

But now..even Jennifer was...

He tried not to think about that possibility. Jennifer had to be alright. She had somewhere in this godforsaken town.

Tom looked up from his knees, and up at the large building ahead. Lakeview hotel.

He was going to start there.

Inside the hotel was a stark contrast to the rest of the town. While the outside was in a state of disrepair...the inside of the hotel remained untouched by time. In fact...it was just as he remembered.

The only difference was...the lights were almost dim to the point of darkness, and he needed to use his phone light for added visibility.

“Jennifer..? Are you in here?” Tom called out, as he walked the halls of the hotel. He passed the receptionist’s desk, and moved towards the elevator in the distance.

Despite the apparent lack of proper electricity, it still seemed to function perfectly.

According to the elevator, there were six floors in total.

And without hesitation, he immediately chose the third floor.

Jennifer could have been on the first two floors, for all he knew. He could have searched every room, every corner.

However..he and Helena stayed in room 312 for their honeymoon.

It was a beautiful room, he remembered. There were large windows, and the view of the lake was extraordinary.

As Tom felt the elevator move, and watched as the numbers slowly rose to three...he recalled a memory.

“Goodness...isn’t it beautiful, Tommy?”

Tom watched as his beloved sat by the window, her hand pressed against the glass.

“I’m so glad we came here...it’s peaceful.”

He laughed, and moved closer to sit next to his wife. He draped his arms around her shoulders, and pulled her closely to his chest.

“I think it’s a bit too peaceful, though. I’m not sure how you convinced me to come, but,”

Tom breathed in the scent of her hair, and closed his eyes. “I agree, it is beautiful. Hazy and mysterious, just like a dream. It reminds me of you.”

Her embarrassed laugh echoed throughout the room, and she nuzzled her head further into his neck. “Hehe...you’re such a charmer.”

She tightened her arms around his body. Her next words were whispered faintly, but he heard her clearly through the quiet of the room.

“But if this is a dream...I don’t ever want to wake up.”

Tom stood inside the room. By the large window, was a figure.

Her hair was a short, dusty blonde, and she wore a white floral dress.

The same dress that Helena wore that day on their honeymoon.

However...his wife was far from blonde.

The only blonde he knew was Jennifer.

“Jen..Jennifer? Is that you..?” She turned to look at him, instead of the window.

As soon as he saw her face, his suspicions were confirmed.

“Oh.. oh thank goodness,” Tom breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that his hunch was correct. He didn’t know why she suddenly appeared in this room, but was pleased that he found her this quickly.

“Jen, you were right. We..we shouldn’t stay here…”

Jennifer only looked at him with a confused expression, and approached him with an air of worry.

“Tommy, did something happen to you? Are you...confusing me with someone else?”

Tom looked at her like she was crazy. “What? Jen, what are you on about..? And why are you wearing that..”

Jennifer had never, not once, referred to him as ‘Tommy’ in the three years they had been together. That was Helena’s endearment, and no one else’s.

She giggled, the sound of it melodic and gentle. “Oh, Tommy...you were always so forgetful. Remember that time, when you got lost trying to find our room at this hotel? I almost had to call a search party!”

She laughed once again, this time unrestrained. He recognized that beautiful laughter.

“Aren’t…” Tom’s throat felt impossibly dry. “Aren’t you Jennifer?”

Jennifer went silent. Her smile deepened, and her eyes darkened from their previous shade of blue.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m here for you, Tom.”

He didn’t move an inch as she approached him.

Slowly, she removed the straps of her dress.

He allowed her to take his hand, and she placed it on top of her naked chest.

Tom didn’t realize it, but his face was drenched with tears. He squeezed the softness of her flesh, and his nails dug to the point it drew blood.

It was warm. He held his blood-stained fingers up to his face.

Before him, stood a woman with dark brown eyes, that would reflect beautifully against the sun.

Before him, stood a woman with the gentlest voice.

Before him, stood a woman with long dark hair, that ended right below her shoulders.

Helena smiled a sickly sweet smile. She took his hand once again, and moved it to cup her face.

“...See? I’m real.”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fic #Tom Hiddleston fandom #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #silent hill #silent hill 2

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justkindaoverhereobsessing · 4 years

Note

39 from the fanfic prompt list please!!!!!

Fanfic Prompt List (Again!)

#39: “I love you. I just love her more.”

“Hey, Tony?” Ziva calls.

“Yeah?”

She finds him in the kitchen.

He’s been working all afternoon, giving his very best effort to decorate their almost 7-year-old son’s birthday cake. Ziva watches him for a moment, suppressing a smile when she sees his tongue poking out between his lips. Does that help him concentrate on the task at hand?

Well, what she’s come to say certainly won’t.

“I am pregnant,” she tells him.

He crumples silently to the floor in a dead faint, and Ziva thinks she should have seen this coming.

_________________

When he comes to, he asks if she was joking.

“I was not,” she answers, and this time, she’s close enough to catch his head before it hits the tiles under her feet.

_________________

Tali is none-too-thrilled when they announce that they’re expecting a new bundle of joy.

“Dad, babies cry all the time,” she informs Tony, irritated and determined to convince him what an awful idea this is. “Did anyone ever tell you that? Plus, I didn’t sign up for this—I bet it’s not even going to be all that cute, and it’s going to be loud.”

“Yeah, and we all know you need your beauty sleep, sweetheart,” he teases, unmoved by her arguments.

She whacks him—she’s as strong as Ziva.

At fourteen, she’s old enough to have unshakeable opinions, the most emphatic of which is that having one kid brother is more than enough. “Can I move out before the baby comes, at least?” she tries.

“Sure,” her dad agrees easily. “You just have to come back every night and twice on weekends.”

Tali frowns at him. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

He mimics her expression. “And you’re not as grown up as you think you are, baby girl.”

_________________

Tony and Ziva are old enough now that rather than being met with ecstatic surprise when they give people the news, what they get is a number of polite variations on the theme of “oh, how… nice.”

McGee helpfully suggests that Tony get a vasectomy before the baby is born to avoid this happening again later.

“Excuse me?” Tony demands, offended by the very idea. “I’ll have you know that my manhood is in perfect working order and will stay that way until I—”

He stops when Ziva smacks the back of his head.

“What does manhood mean?” their son Adam pipes up curiously, and Ziva leaves Tony to figure out how to answer that one on his own.

_________________

All the pregnancy clothes Ziva can find as her belly grows are meant for younger women. She’s approaching fifty, and a floral romper just doesn’t suit her like it might have twenty-five years ago. She ends up wearing mostly old sweatpants of her own and old sweatshirts of Tony’s. When Tony finds her in front of their bedroom mirror, critically examining her polyester-clad bump, he pauses to watch her.

“You’re still the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen,” he tells her, wearing a smile that makes his eyes crinkle.

Ziva decides the polyester isn’t too bad after all.

_________________

This baby, informally dubbed Tadpole, refuses to cooperate at ultrasound appointments, so going into the last few months, they’re still not sure what they’re having. That means they have to settle on not one name but two. Making the decision requires twice the bickering, twice the disagreements, and twice the competitiveness.

“And just to make sure we’re agreeing on the rules,” Tony reminds Ziva sternly, “this challenge will start with sixty seconds on the clock. Whoever can balance the most spoons on their face without dropping one gets to pick Tadpole’s middle name, right?”

“Right,” Ziva agrees, brandishing a large serving spoon that she’s already selected as her first choice for balancing.

When they’re tied forty-five seconds in, four spoons on each of their faces, Tali walks in to get a glass of water. She observes them for a moment, nonplussed, before shaking her head, throwing her hands up in exasperation, and walking right back out without the drink she came for.

“Do you guys always have to be so weird?” she complains as she goes.

_________________

Ziva’s third pregnancy is more physically uncomfortable than her first two, and she grows bigger at a much faster rate.

One night, she puts her palms on her rounded belly and groans in annoyance, making Tony ask what’s wrong. “I am all blubber. I feel like a fat whale,” she decides.

Her husband disagrees. “I’d say you look more like a cute little cow.”

If not for the saving grace of “cute”, he would be spending tonight on the sofa.

_________________

Tony has always been protective of Ziva, but that reaches new heights when she’s pregnant. She’s nearly due when, crossing the street hand in hand with her husband, disaster strikes. Tony sees rapid movement from the corner of his eye and reacts without stopping to think, yanking Ziva back to the safety of the sidewalk to avoid what he thinks is a vehicle.

There was something coming, as it turns out, but it wasn’t a car. It was a large page from Le Parisien newspaper, carried speedily toward them on a gust of strong wind.

They watch it pass. “I am glad you still have your lightning-fast reflexes, my love,” Ziva says dryly. “We would have been crushed, otherwise.”

“Sarcasm isn’t a good way to thank someone for saving your life, sweet cheeks,” Tony replies, his twitching lips matching hers. He lunges forward to tickle her, and it doesn’t matter if he acted unnecessarily this time. He’ll pull her out of the way of every non-threatening item in Paris if it’ll keep her safe and by his side, giggling like she is now.

They both find it relaxing to stand on the side of a random street in the 8th arrondissement and laugh at each other…

…at least until Ziva pees herself. Oh, the joys of pregnancy.

_________________

In the end, Ziva’s labor is astonishingly short, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s wonderful because the process is, of course, incredibly painful, and there’s little to be gained by suffering for longer. It’s also a problem, though, because they barely have time to leave Tali and Adam with friends in their hurry to get to the hospital.

Ziva is in such rapidly progressing labor when they arrive that the wheelchair phase gets skipped entirely and they put her straight on a stretcher. Then it’s a race to reach a room before the baby can make its grand entrance in the hall.

As they rush, the doctor can’t make Ziva respond to her instructions, and she turns to Tony instead. “You must convince her not to push yet,” she insists, emphatic.

Not sure Ziva will listen to him, either, Tony passes on the message. “I will push if I want to!” his wife snarls, which is more or less what he expected.

They finally arrive in the delivery room, huffing and puffing—Ziva because she’s in agony, and Tony because he’s not used to exercising this intensely anymore. (He’s getting old.)

Not three minutes later, their third and final baby is born.

_________________

When things are settled again, they’re left alone with their newest family member to bond. “She is so lovely,” Ziva murmurs, mesmerised. Tony can’t agree more. Maybe they didn’t plan for her, and maybe they didn’t expect her, but… her tiny face, fresh and new and hopeful, is something they must have needed.

Later, the exhausted Ziva falls asleep in her hospital bed, and Tony bounces their newborn daughter as he paces the room. “We’ll do our best by you,” he promises the little one softly, “but I don’t think this is one of those times when ‘third time’s the charm’ really applies. I’m afraid you’re stuck with the same clueless parents Tali and Adam have had. If we’ve learned anything from raising them, we’ll probably have forgotten it by the time you’re old enough to benefit from it.”

She feels indescribably tiny in his arms, and he runs a single finger through the hair on her head. There’s a lot of it, and it’s the fairest, most unusual shade of strawberry blonde he’s ever seen. It seems odd, since he, Ziva, Tali, and Adam all have dark hair, but the reddish color seems to suit this sweet Tadpole. Everything about her is light. “You’re just the prettiest thing, aren’t you?” he coos.

He hears a tired, croaky laugh, and he looks up to see Ziva observing them. “There is nothing I need to be jealous for, is there?” she teases hoarsely, watching the pair with groggy affection.

“I’m afraid there is, actually,” Tony answers grimly. He sits down in his chair next to the bed and leans over the baby to kiss Ziva’s forehead. “I love you. I just love her more.”

_________________

Tali surprises everyone by bursting into joyful tears upon meeting her brand new baby sister.

“I thought you didn’t want another sibling,” Tony recalls. (His heart aches a little at the sight of her tears, though, no matter their cause.)

“I was on my period when you told me!” she protests, her chin still trembling. “You can’t hold that against me!”

Her dad isn’t sure what to say to that, but, careful not to jostle the baby Tali’s holding, he wraps her in a tight side hug.

“Alright, Tali-Tee,” he agrees, kissing her temple. “I won’t.”

He can’t hold anything against her, and he already knows it’ll be exactly the same with the new baby.

_________________

It takes them a week to name the little girl, and when they finally do, it’s during a midnight feeding.

Ziva strokes the baby’s hair as she nurses. “Did you know that traditionally, Hebrew names are considered prophecies? People often choose names of people they respect, or virtues they hope their children will embody.”

Tony snuggles in closer to the two of them and rests his chin lightly on Ziva’s shoulder. “Well, what do we want for her?”

Ziva smiles. “The same things we want for Tali and Adam.”

“And those would be?”

“Joy, I think. A life full of love and with as little pain as possible—a stable life.”

Tony nods, thinking about that. He reaches over to the bedside table where a well-loved name book rests, and he thumbs through it for a moment.

“What are you looking for?”

He holds up a finger, and it doesn’t take long to be ready. “I was remembering a few Hebrew names that I thought would fit that theme. Here’s what I’ve got: Rena, meaning joy, Ora, meaning light, and Tova, meaning good. Any of those sound right to you?”

Ziva glances from Tony to the baby and back, and then she shrugs, taking care not to make the baby unlatch. “I think they are all nice. You should choose.”

“Me? Why?”

He seems surprised enough that she laughs quietly; it’s a sweet sound. “I am the one who named Tali, and you did not have any input. We named Adam together. Now you can choose.”

Something soft about him grows softer, and he kisses the heads of both wife and daughter. “Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“In that case, maybe… Ora. I want her to have a life full of light, you know?”

“I think it suits her.”

“Ora it is, then.”

When Ora is done nursing, he tells Ziva to stay where she is and let him return the baby to her crib. He places the newborn gently on her miniature mattress, watches her fondly for a moment, then leaves.

Instead of going straight back to Ziva, though, he checks up on the other two. Tali is, as usual, barely visible under a vast mound of blankets; her feet are sticking out, however, so, shaking his head, Tony tucks them back in. Adam, on the other hand, is curled in a tiny ball, both little fists clenched in the fur of a stuffed buffalo someone gifted him on their last trip to the United States. Tony tucks him in again, too, because his heart is very full tonight.

He returns to bed, thinking about the meaning of his new daughter’s name: light. They’re all living a life full of that now, aren’t they? Things are happy, and easy, and they haven’t always been.

He can’t stay up long, exhausted as he is, but when he curls against the curve of Ziva’s back and goes to sleep, it’s with a faint smile on his face.

#oooooooops i did it again #i took a normal prompt and turned it into a baby/kid fic #they just make me so soft inside #thank you coffeedepablo for the ask!!!!! sorry i'm sending you something that's way too long to be a drabble #and sorry it's more tivali + fam than just tiva #i got carried away #if you send me another ask i swear there will be no children involved lmao #did i spend a solid hour scouring name sites trying to figure out wtf tiva might name a kid after running out of Important Dead People #yes i did and i'm STILL NOT CERTAIN #ncis #ncis fanfiction #tiva #tivali #tony dinozzo #ziva david #tali david dinozzo #plus a couple of extra kids

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therootsprojectuk · 3 years

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Webinar Transcript : Cultivating Medicinal Mushrooms 26.01.2021

Webinar transcript ‘Cultivating medicinal mushrooms with Hossein Hekmat 26.01.2021. This webinar is a part of a series run by ‘The Roots Project’ X Kirkstall Valley Farm. The Roots Project is a fundraising, and resource platform for refugees and migrants. To learn more, support and donate check out or linktree : www.linktr.ee/therootsprojectuk

Seren Oakley (Host): I’m Seren, I’m with Kirkstall Valley Farm, and this is Hossein.

Hossein (Speaker): Hello

S: So, Hossein is going to be our mushroom man for today. I wanted to start off by – I don’t know if any of you know Merlin Sheldrake is, but there’s a really nice bit in his book that I think could intro quite nicely into what you’re going to tell us about mushrooms. So, it says “Mushrooms provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the way we think, feel and behave. Yet they spend their lives largely hidden from view and more that 90% of their species remain undocumented. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.’ So, Hossein can you tell us, what are mushrooms? Firstly, before we start, and what you do in relation to them maybe.

H: I can. I discovered mushroom cultivation. Well, I’ve come across adaptogens a few years ago in pursuit of holistic health. Trying to figure out why conventional medicine doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. So, I mean one of the biggest influences on me was Paul Stamets. You may or may not have heard. Hopefully. He’s a person who really embodies something that I’ve always wanted the world to progress to which is the spirituality of science and the science of spirituality. The understanding that the holistic approach to the planet in terms of how we look at ourselves in terms of individuals. The way mycelium works both metaphorically and literally teaches you that the planet is one, the universe is one. But they’re actually connected in scientific ways. Mushrooms have networks underground caused mycelium. They spread out. They have a symbiosis with the ecosystem that they’re in bringing nutrients to things that need it, trading nutrients with plants, bringing nutrients from the mother tree to like a seedling. They seem to have been around a lot longer that mammals. A few million years ago, if I’m correct they helped bring plant life from the oceans to the land. Most people don’t realise humans are more closely related to mushrooms than plant life. Because they breathe in oxygen and they breathe out carbon dioxide. So, when I kind of got into understanding natural, more herbal solutions to human issues. Adaptogens became a big thing.

S: What is an adaptogen, for people who don’t know?

H: There’s different ways to explain it, it’s a natural holistic product, that has a lot of benefits for your body, but also tells your body how to improve itself instead of giving your body what it wants. It’s like a key to a programme that it unlocks a process in your body where things improve. Typically, adaptogens are things tat tell your body how to adapt to stress, so often it’s adapting to physical or emotional stressful environments. Or improving your ability in those ways. A couple we’ve mentioned in podcasts before, for example, Ashwagandha; is a nootropic. It improves cognitive function. It has benefits for thinking and cognition. It has some prospects in that regards for things like Alzheimer’s and dementia. It regulates hormones like testosterone naturally, down regulates cortisol the stress hormone. These things have multiple properties. If you follow the trail of natural adaptogens you’ll inevitably get to mushrooms, to fungi.

S: What are some of the first adaptogenic mushrooms you got into? And what do they do?

H: So, Lions mane is one of them, you’re familiar with as well. It seems to have the properties that ashwagandha has for the brain, but a lot more pronounced. I’ve got some notes here actually. There’s a lot of adaptogenic mushrooms that I’m quite into and most of which I’m growing but there’s a couple more you need a bit more time to do so. Lions manes a good one you can grow at home. It’s got a lot of benefits, and helps with ulcers, and tumours. It’s an anti-inflammatory as well. There’s a study from 1987 showing it’s beneficial for throat cancers, and gastric cancers. A few other benefits are that it’s one of two types of mushrooms that causes neurogenesis. It helps the neurons regrow and repair. Which is something you can’t really find in the synthetic world. It’s actually quite rare anyway. That’s a really good adaptogenic property of lion’s mane, the neurogenesis. Specifically, the outer part of the neuron, it helps that part grow, which could be damaged by, you name it PTSD, Stress, Depression, all sorts of issues. Again, it highlights a perspective of a human made issue, resolved or addressed with a fungus. As we know fungi adapt to the environment and try to help it balance out. So, on a physiological scale, they have a lot of potential to help us, because we are basically the planet, conscious. Just like the fungi we’re not really separate from them. But there’s this illusion that we are. There are a few other benefits to thee mushrooms that we’ll talk about today. They all have a common theme between them, they all have a massive boost to your immune system, they seem to be very effective for a few cancers. And they all have an anti-inflammatory effect on your body as well. A lot of medicines that help your immune system, caution needs to be taken with them, because they can cause inflammation to your immune system. Most thee mushrooms don’t seem to do that. They have what exerts call, immune-regulatory properties so hat means they regulate they boost it, but they have an anti-inflammatory effect as well, so people with an auto-immune disease should look into a few of these.

S: Other than neuro-performance, are there any that really benefit with physical performance that you’d recommend to people?

H: Yeah, to be honest! Quite a few of them have positive effects on your body, you mean like physical benefits, you mean like exercise and physical performance? Cordyceps are a good one, you might have heard of, in the wild they grow on insects. They’re a little more difficult to cultivate at home because of that. There’s a couple of strains. There’s a very famous Tibetan one. There’s a lot of benefits to taking them the list is massive. But again, like with all the other adaptogenic mushrooms, they have a benefit for immune system, some studies show anticancer properties, and anti-inflammatory properties, but with cordyceps, studies show - for example - they all seem to have a speciality property on top – (with cordyceps) is athletic performance. They oxygenate your blood, I think it’s to do with how they affect your blood, they have a life prolonging effect as well. These are studies that are still going through, mainly because there’s no profit big pharma kind of studies for them. But cordyceps is something I would recommend to someone who would benefit from, if they’re suffering from anything, a disease or an issue that slows you down or you require, or you require extra athletic performance. Just generally we need to start a culture.

I used to be in the gym industry, the fitness industry, you observe a lot of artificial profit-based solutions. People are addicted to getting bigger and more muscular. You reach a certain age, and it’s a given in the personal training scene where, they reach a certain age, they all start taking testosterone. Whether on their own, or they go to their doctors and ask them to top them up. But if you have a bit of knowledge, you can have your performance naturally improved adaptogens do that, they tell your body to give it what it needs. Cordyceps have those benefits, they seem to create a lot of circulation, they improve athletic performance to the point, this would have to be quoted properly, but a bunch of athletic teams were accused to be doping because they were taking cordyceps, cordyceps have some anecdotal stories of athletics being affected quite positively to the point that people think they’re doping. So cordyceps would be a really good one. For anyone wit hypothyroidism that would help a lot with as well

S: Before we move on to the process, because I’ll show the video after this, how did you move from the supplements and eating mushrooms to the decision to start growing mushrooms yourself

H: I think there was a lot of spare time during lockdown. I’m self-employed effectively, with more focus on sports massage therapy, but that’s not really happening. So, you have a lot of time to learn thigs and do things during lockdown, so it just felt like it was meant to be. I was already following that path of holistic and natural medicines. You get to a point where you do your own research and things and you realise what we’re taught, and what the reality of what can help us is based on profit. It’s based on funnelling us into a system, where if you feel like you want to help people improve their lives, health, improve their mental health, you’d be channelled into a degree that ignores a lot of things, the university system is funded by a capitalist system that wants you to just, kind of go into an industry, and make profit, make money. So, decades of watching medicine fail, and realising this more and more. I remember seeing years ago the negative effects of pharmaceutical on myself, my family members, people I care about, so it kind of woke me up to the anti-pharma stuff that everyone’s now picked up on, but still has very little power against. That’s the drive, the drive comes from realising pharmaceuticals are not here to help us, they’re here to make to profit. When you live in a world where everyone’s taking testosterone when they turn 25, and you pop an ashwagandha and a cordyceps, and you know. You’ve done the research and you see the people behind it, you see like Paul Stamets, or Merlin Sheldrake, these absolute legends who want to make the world a better place, so we can make the planet a better place with less suffering, so you know the planet will survive a lot better, that’s the drive that makes you want to do your own research. I’m not talking about some paranoid conspiracy talk; I’m talking about the basis of what science there is out there. Why it’s not prominent, why it’s not on the news, why Phizer, a company with evil, evil, evil track record, where they’ve caused deaths in children in places in Africa, and just shell out millions and millions in dollars, to make up for it’ company like that is trusted and accepted as a solution to COVID-19. Which we know is making endless profit for the billionaires that really aren’t here for our benefit in the first place. When that’s accepted, I don’t think it’s going to get that many results, and when people don’t really know what medicinal mushrooms are, that’s what I want to tilt the balance of.

When you get the knowledge, and you get into mycology and understand these breakthrough mycologists and what they’re doing, you understand that one or two of these mushrooms, is enough to covid proof you. With a healthy lifestyle, where you’re eating the right foods, making sure you’re getting your zinc, your vitamins, there’s nothing that comes close to enabling your body to do what it’s meant to do. With the help of you body and the earth extended, because that is your body, that’s the earth. So, we live in a world where people are conditioned to trust medicines that are no good for anyone apart from the people making profit, and often they’ll cause adverse effects. We need to change that because those drugs aren’t good for your physical health or mental health. But what I’ve found is that adaptogens, fungal based or not, counter the negative effects of pharmaceuticals.

S: Let’s go through to the process I think, when we do it would you rather, we go through the pictures, and explain what’s going on in the pictures first or go through the video and then talk about that at the end?

H: Lets go for the pictures and talk a little bit about that first.

S: Cool, I’m going to share my screen with everyone, yeah. So, what is happening in this picture?

H: That’s a aby lions mane growing out. Lion’s mane has, as the name suggests kind of like a beard, or some people say like a brain, or some people say like a fluffy pom pom. Most would agree it’s a pom pom mushroom. The good thing about lion’s mane is it’s also a gourmet mushroom. Like it really tastes nice, fry it up with some garlic, some sesame seeds. The aim is to really be growing enough to eat it really as opposed to buying or taking the extract. So, the process with most medicinal mushrooms is, and we’ll go through more later is you need – it’s micro biology – you want to kind of, if you’re using spores, you want them to germinate, they need to be in a completely sterile environment, no other bacteria, or other fungi are there. Because they’ll compete with them, and in a lot of cases, if it’s a predatory fungus, they’ll kind of take over. So, there’s a lot of sterilisation.

With this Lion’s mane I kind of grew it out. On grains, so what I did was bought liquid culture. I ordered liquid culture from gourmetmushrooms.co.uk they’re based in Leeds. They’re a really good mushroom supply company. The person who runs it, is a big fan paul stamets. I’ve got his book here. This is the main for of inspiration, and thing that I learn from. Apparently, this lions mane that I’m growing, is a Paul Stamets strain. So, he met Stamets, and he kept it and he’s kept it for a while. What you need to get is liquid culture, or spores in grans that have been prepared. Typically you hydrate the grains, s you soak them for 24 hours, then you simmer or boil them for a bit, so they absorb moisture, but then you drain them so they’re dry on the outside. Close to when you’re ready to eat them, if you were to eat them really. It’s a process of putting them in jars, carefully prepared jars, you’d sterilise them. So what most people do is use a pressure cooker, between an hour or two of 15 psi, it kills all the spores or anything competing in the grains. Then after that it’s a case of finding an environment, or like a still air environment, to put your liquid culture, which is the mycelium in a liquid form, or your spores which have germinated, into the grains to incubate for a while. With Lion’s Mane for example for a few weeks, or even a couple months if it’s a big bag. Often with gourmet medicinal mushrooms, the incubation temp is higher than fruiting temp so when you’re ready to fruit you lower the temperature. Another thing that mushrooms really like is humidity, I use a fogger here. But anything to make humidity around it. I’ve got bit of a Lion’s Mane culture here to show actually. This is something I’ve used already, so I don’t mind opening up and exposing it to air because that would usually contaminate it. The mycelium of lion’s mane is a bit whisky; it doesn’t look that strong. It’s a bit sporadic. Some mycologists might see this and think of is that contaminations. But it’s just the way lion’s mane grows it’s a it sporadic. This is what I use instead of a petri dish, you can sterilise and use these cups. You can put a little bit of this into the grains, to inoculate it, or you can make liquid culture and put that in. So that’s Lion’s Mane. It’s gorgeous and it tastes beautiful.

S: I’ll go to the next image. What are these?

H: So, these are bags, sawdust bags. I was in the process of filling them up. You can grow a lot of these medicinal mushrooms on sawdust. Supplemented sawdust. In fact, that’s the main method. Grains are a way to get the mycelium in something high nutrient so it’s strong. So, you can put the grains to sawdust as well. Usually, you hydrate it to something known as field capacity. What it is is I get a formula from the supplier. With this beechwood sawdust, for every 1kg of beechwood sawdust you put three Litres of water, and that should hydrate sufficiently, for the mycelium to grow out on and the mushrooms to grow. I put it in a spawn bag or a grow bag, and these are autoclave-able, so you can kind of have them at about 15-16 psi which is about 120 degrees centigrade, and they’ll sterilise what’s inside them. So similar to what we said with the grain jars. You put these in a pressure cooker, sterilise them, and once they’re out they’re ready to inoculate. Then you can the liquid culture in there, you can put a piece of mycelium in there from agar or petri dish. Some people do spore syringes in there. It just creates a potential for variations in genetics.

S: and what is that?

H: This is liquid culture, I was talking about, an if I’m not mistaken that’s enoki in a jar. It’s a medium where the mycelium can grow in water. So, you do the same kind of process, if you want to create liquid culture, from spores. For example, you could get spores of a mushroom from a vendor, they usually come in a syringe, and you inject it into the medium. The medium is usually a small percentage of carbohydrate, 4% by weight. I’ve used light malt extract here, which is another way of having a nutrient broth. I put 1g to 600ml. Then you put it in the pressure cooker, because tit’s liquid it only needs to be sterilised for 25 minutes. Once it’s sterile you can kind of inject it or put a piece of mycelium in there as well again it has to be in a sterile environment. Usually like a still air box, something I can go into later, or another episode. Where you can open the top and be confident nothing else can get in. Then you spin it out, you spin it out everyday for a week or two. As you can see the bits of mycelium grow. Then the bits in between, are just like the water medium.

I think there’s another one here as well you can show. Maitake, or yeah hen of the woods… Yeah, so the last one was Maitake, this is Enoki. It’s actually looking a bit healthier than the other one. When you spin it round it breaks up. It’s actually got a jelly fish like cloud. I love it it’s beautiful. That’s healthy-looking mycelium, from enoki. Basically, I bought the spores, so it was already in a syringe ready to spread, and then I expanded it to liquid culture. That’s the benefit of liquid culture you can just keep expanding it for a while. Then have more of it.

S: We’ll go back to this picture as well.

H: This is a very interesting thing, so those sawdust blocks that we showed earlier. This is a shitake fruiting block that’s already. I can kind of go into the benefits of shitake as well, because its one of the tastiest gourmet medicinal mushrooms so it’s like a very potent anti-cancer mushroom as well. So, I’ll go into polysaccharides as well. So, the way mushrooms work and their adaptogenic properties, is in some of the compounds called polysaccharides, and there’s a type of those called beta-glutens. These are basically very complex carbohydrates, that can work with and bind proteins, and the complexities are like a key that work and unlock something in your body, to create an adaptogenic effect. So, a few studies I’m looking at here, there’s a study from japan that show it has anti-cancerous properties, there’s a study from 1978 from a scientist called Shiharo, where it almost completely performed regression of many solid tumours that were looked at. There’s a poly saccharide called KS2 in it for example, it’s a powerful anti-carcinogen, anti-tumour. Again, it’s an adaptogenic compound that binds to proteins, it tells your immune system what to do, how to deal with it better. Another notable benefit of Shitake for example, is its immunity boosting properties there’s a study from 1993 that shows it can reverse the effects of herpes, it can slow down HIV, and has immunity boosting effects in it as well. There’s another study Seren, that you might like, that says, fermented shitake is a lot more effective. They say fermented shitake is even better.

So, this is a shitake block. Even compared to other medicinal mushrooms, it does take a bit longer to mature, and most mycelium has a white-ish colour and so does shitake. But after a while it goes brown, and that’s when you know it’s ready to fruit. So, this is a shitake fruiting block, that we’ve actually harvested, and eaten, it’s been put out for it’s second flush because shitake usually does a couple of flushes, it just takes ages. It’s worth it though.

S: Yeah, I’ll play the video now. I guess if you want to just talk over it because it’s quite fast moving but we can always watch it twice through if people want. Hossein if you want me to stop the video at any point just let me know because it is in sections so we can just stop it.

H: Sure, Sure. I’m ready.

S: So, this is the cloning from shop bought mushrooms.

H: So, this is a still air box, I was referring to earlier. You clean it up first, wipe it down with alcohol. 70% plus iso-propel alcohol, or Dettol or both. Then you wait half hour for everything to settle in there. Anything you need to work with, you put in there. So, I’m working with a scalpel, exacto-knife in there. Cloning’s a really good way to grow mushrooms, you don’t necessarily need to buy culture from anywhere. You can clone from the wild or even super market, as we’re doing here. So, this is shimeji mushroom. Another mushroom that has a lot of benefits, similar to Enoki, which I’m growing at home as well. The process is you find the healthiest happiest one, amongst some healthier friends as well, that’s like a healthy cluster. You find the best one.

I’ve been a bit extra careful here and sprayed it down as well so it’s clean on the outside. A lot of people don’t do that. You spread it apart and you get a little bit of the flesh, ad that’s all you need. You put the flesh in a petri dish, that you’ve got the medium on already, similar to a liquid culture the medium, it’s like a gelatinous version. You watch it grow out and as it grows out, over the next few days, weeks. It takes a couple weeks to grow properly then you can observe it see if it’s healthy, the healthiest strand that’s kind of coming out from where you’ve planted it, you can watch that grow out. You can keep doing that until you’ve got a healthy culture. That’s also how you eliminate contaminants, especially if you clone from the wild. You’re going to have other fungi contaminants competing, likely to be with the mushrooms. Same with shop bought, you can’t guarantee it being sterile. Here we can see I’m opening up the flesh of the mushroom, so I can get into the middle, cause in the middle it’s less likely to have contaminants, even if it does have contaminants, it’s going to have less of. I’m flame sterilising the head of my needle here. This is all happening in a still air box, that’s why it’s a bit blurry, it’s PVC.

I’m taking a little bit of the flesh from the centre of the mushroom, to minimise the risk of contaminants being on it. I’ve got a little piece there, just putting it into the middle. Once you get used to this kind of stuff, I want to get to a place where everyone’s doing this kind of stuff, like it’s plant work. Like Myco-phobia is the reason none of us are doing this kind of thing. Everyone could do it. Everyone should do it.

So I’ve got a fogger here, which creates a moist environment for mushrooms. That’s the top of a bottle which I’m growing Enoki mushrooms on Enoki’s have a different way to fruit they cultivate and fruit to grow short and thin. So, I used a method to make them grow long and thin by reducing carbon dioxide levels.

This is Hen of the Wood, maitake. Another mushroom with loads of medicinal benefits, similar to maitake. So, this study from 93, from a guy called Chan-young; reduces tumor mass. I’ll go into Maitake a little bit as well. The thing with maitake is as well, again we’re talking about man made problems. I don’t know too much detail about hormone effecting pharmaceuticals, but I have observed a lot of common issues that happen in modern society that happen with men and women. I’ll go into what Enoki does in terms of certain tumours or cancers. As well as having all the benefits we’ve mentioned, is a very effective treatment for treatment resistant malaria. So that is something to look into. A natural treatment to help malaria. Also, there’s a study that shows – this is in the Paul Stamets book. 76% improvement in pregnancy rates, in women who were not ovulating due to PCOS. So, PCOS, 76% improvement rate in pregnancies, for women who were not ovulating before. Now, you could say – how did that happen in the first place? I don’t know. But pharmaceuticals in general are a massive part of why we have that issue in the first place. I’ll go into Enoki as well, and how that affects men.

Yeah – so these are three shitake clone plates that I’ve grown before. So, when I grew out the shitake, I took a piece of the flesh from an area that had nice big mushrooms around it. I think in the video I’m trying to show what it looks like, but I’ve got a sample here that I can show. It’s gorgeous, it puts a smile on my face. The fractal-ness of it. I’ll show you now, if you can see. So that’s the mycelium of shitake, that I’ve used before ad gown out. I’ve kind of put some of it in the fridge. It’s gorgeous. It has similarities with so many things in nature, it looks like an eye, or a mushroom top.

Here is another process, where I’m taking a bit from one petri dish and putting it into another. Tis is like the clean up process where you take the healthier process, and moving it to let that grow out. So, once you get to your mushroom lock that your growing, you’ve got the healthiest part. The most contaminant free. It kind of becomes, similar to like a whisky where people say single malt is better than multi malt. Especially when you’re doing this stuff, the spores will have multiple genetic so you’ll want to isolate the healthiest genetics and transfer that.

That’s a T2 transfer, that means I’ve transferred it twice. From the original petri dish onto the second petri dish.

Sweet.

S: There’s a question in the chat, we could answer that quickly if you can see it, it’s from Goldi. It says ‘I live outdoors most of the time, what advice do you have for growing mushrooms in unpredictable environments? Like it can get warm and cold quickly and sterilising things can be difficult.

You can kind of sterilise things without a pressure cooker. You can steam sterilise things, but you’d have to do that for a good 24 hours, to really – endo spores are an issue. Spores are actually really cheeky. They can survive a lot. They hide in the middle of grains like ‘Don’t tell anyone and I’ll like come out later, and BOOM’ they take over the grow so, predatorial fungus, or bacterial spores. They have this defence mechanism, where they can deal with a lot more heat and pressure. When that heat and pressures gone, then they start evolving, and the DNA changes and they start becoming the fungus. If you don’t mind putting something on the hob for 24hrs, you can do it.

In terms of unpredictable environments, you would have to incubate at warmer temperatures, that’s just a given. Some of these you could incubate at as low as 15 degrees, these medicinal mushrooms. I would recommend using strong aggressive strains. Oyster mushrooms are a very tasty gourmet mushroom. I plan to grow some; they seem to be to be fastest most aggressive strain. Some of them are really fine with cold environments. You’d have to look at incubation as well, because incubation is always warmer. All these mushrooms will grow in the cold. All of them will fruit in the cold. It’s just whether they will incubate. So you want to normalise the temperature but I would also look at your local environment specifically, and see what advice there is online also. I’m coming from the perspective of someone who’s like learned this stuff, got into this stuff. But I’m definitely not a specialist. Or a mycologist. An amateur enthusiast. Which we should all be, cause that’s the whole point of the culture, is to normalise it; where we have mushroom grow kits in the kitchen. Some people even put them in the bathroom, once the mycelium has taken over the substrate and it’s quite strong, you don’t really have to worry about contaminations as much as you would. Especially a clean bathroom would create a good steam level for it. For humidity I’d look at Oyster mushrooms. They do have some medicinal benefits. Some Oyster mushrooms have closed to these [mentioned mushrooms] kind of benefits.

S: We’ll open it up as well, if anyone else wants to unmute themselves or type any questions in the chat

H: Robbie?

Robbie: Thank you. Lots of good information there. I’ve been getting into medicinal mushrooms. Mainly foraged ones that are picked out and about. Turkey Tails and Birch Polypore’s and things like that.

Growing medicinal mushrooms is something I want to get into. So I was kinda thinking like it seems like a bit of a mine field of so much stuff, but what do you need to start a simple grow? I mainly wanna grow Lion’s Mane

So what i would recommend is, if you want to get into it quickly. There’s a couple of methods. I started with kits. I got a Lion’s Mane grow kit and from that I cloned instead of getting the culture.

If you want to start from a base level and growing them regularly, I would recommend getting a good liquid culture from a vendor. There’s no guarantee that they're completely sterile but pretty much [are]. They use a Flow Hood which is this thing which blows sterile air where they can work on and they cost £100s. I use the Gourmetmushrooms.co.uk Liquid Cultures and they worked absolutely fine.

Liquid cultures are better than a spore syringe, because someone's already isolated the good spore genetics and hopefully taken away any contamination from it.

So if you are going to start growing, you can buy the liquid culture, then in terms of equipment, I use jars.

I’m an audio/kinaesthetic/ visual learner. I love books as well when there’s a passion and enthusiasm but I’ve learned so much from university of YouTube.

R: yeah

Because there’s a lot of talented enthusiastic mycologists in the UK and in America to learn from, that I’ve kind of become obsessed with [watching]

Basically you can use jars and there’s a process where you do ‘Culture’ to ‘Grain’ to ‘Substrate’ or you can grow straight from culture to substrate. All these gourmet/medicinal ones grow on woodchips or supplemented wood because they’re used to growing on or near trees.

The other category of medicinal mushrooms which were seeing a revolution in, grow on different substrates. For example , the Psilocybin based ones are part of a mental health revolution. I think its an example of how we’re going to make the world a better place. They don’t grow on woodchips, but they're definitely powerful medicinal mushrooms. But the rest of them [medicinal mushrooms] grow on supplemented woodchips.

The only drawback t large scale mushroom growing is the big plastic grow bags, but the good thing is it’s the same industry that’s finding the solution to the plastic problem. I don’t know if you’ve heard, there’s a lot of beautiful intelligent people working on engineering one of the 50 species of fungus that eat plastic. But you can get grow bags with filtered air patches that don’t let bacteria in. You can get about 20/30 fairly large ones for about £15-£20. I get sawdust and supplement it between 10-15% with organic wheat bran. That kind of gives it the equivalent [nutrition] of what a tree would have , then you bring it to “Field capacity” with water, put it in a pressure cooker at 15psi for 2 hours. 15psi pressure cookers are very very difficult to get in the UK, because in Europe and the UK they're usually 10psi, which you can experiment with. There’s the Idea that you just do it for 2/3 times as long [as the 15psi would] it will work.

You can steam sterilise as well. You put the big blocks in a pan, but you’d have to boil it for 24 hours so you’d have to figure out having to keep boiling the kettle and adding more water in.

If you see it as process that you’re passionate about, it’s a wonderful thing and if you eventually save up and get a pressure cooker , the most common one that everyone uses is a ‘Presto 23 quart’, it’s like a 21.5Litre pressure cooker with a pressure gauge. In America it’s cheap, like $100 but for us to buy it’s about £130 plus import duties etc on eBay. If you can save up its worth it, otherwise if you can find a way to steam for 24 hours, then you can get your substrates prepared.

Otherwise, I think we can segway this [mushroom cultivation] culture with grow kit culture. Depends how deep you wanna go. If you wanna be someone provides the grow kits as well or someone who provides information on growing or just a mushroom product user, either way that’s welcome from the mushroom world.

With grow kits, they send you it already covered in mycelium, ready to fruit. That’s when they send you it. They're usually not that expensive. The £1 Shiitake block £7 and I think they had one over 2kg at £15, something like that.

S: I’ve posted the website that you use

H: Bless bless

Another thing I’d say is do what you’re doing now. Ask ask ask. I nagged so many people with so many questions. I bought 2 Shiitake blocks and get texting him about what to do J

R: Cool, that sounds good. Ill definitely do a bit more reading on it too. What was that book you had, also?

H: This is definitely something I’d recommend. My friend lent me it but I’d buy it a 1000 times:

Growing Gourmet Medicinal Mushrooms – Paul Stamets

R: oh Paul Stamets, cool

H: yeah , this isa good reference book. The only thing it doesn’t include is Cordyceps but its absolutely amazing. For indoor and outdoor and medicinal mushrooms.

Does anyone have any more questions ?

I did wanna mention Enoki. They all have these common benefits: on of the polysaccharides in Enoki is called Flamulin. From a study done by a scientist called Ying, from China in 1987 that shows 80-100% effectiveness for treatment of Sarcomas and Carcinomas

They have unusually low cancer rates in areas where these mushrooms are consumed in Japan. Studies of anti cancer properties go back as 1968 and another from 1990. Alot of these studies were initiated such a long time ago that you wonder how the worlds, where the information is geared towards making more profit.

Another property of Enoki I wanted to bring up is it shows fantastic results for prostate cancer as a speciality. Enoki is good for enlarged/tumourus prostates. It’s kinda cool because you see these specialities they do as well as the common benefits among them. Like for example with Maitake and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

I did wanna mention a couple more mushrooms whilst I’m here. So these are all mushrooms I’m growing or intend to grow:

There’s a couple more mushrooms that are like wood conk style. There physically a bit more dense.

These are medicinal but not really gourmet. So you either do extracts or teas or tinctures.

This might be most famous of medicinal mushrooms you may have heard of so this is Reishi.

There’s loads of studies showing disease resistance, [life] longevity and improvements of thyroid issues. Cancer fighting properties. Been used as an ant cancer medicine in asia for 100s of years. Includes very complex Beta Glucans. Some species have 40% Beta Glucan content - really high adaptogenic content. Ive noted a bunch of things for example the way it stimulates T – Cell production, immune system boosting while maintaining anti inflammatory effects on the immune system.

Good for blood health. A study from 1989 mentions it regulates blood sugar and lipids. Another study from China (Yung 1995) showing significant reduction in lung cancer cells. A study from Japan shows its toxicity to cancer cells (Mizushima 1998)

Reishi has show significant reduction in HIV cell production in humans from a study in 1994 and there’s another study proving it fights DNA damage.

Reishis’ all over the world as well in different forms. Ive not seen too much of it in the local, local areas like Meanwood/Woodhouse but what I have seen is Turkey Tail.

Turkey Tail’s everywhere; if you do some research you’ll see you’ll find it in warm countries, cold countries in different variations. you can find it in Woodhouse ridge before all the critters get them, they're quite pretty.

There’s a study from (Nakazuto 1997) (Sugimeshi 1997, 1994). Im mentioning the studies so people can reference it and also so it’s not some generic advice you may hear from people about things. These are serious studies.

Paul Stamet’s mentioned, combined with chemotherapy, it increases the survival rate of many cancers with the help of its main Polysaccharide known as PSK . A study (Kobiashi 1995) shows it reduces cancer metastasis. It’s also a powerful anti free radical. There’s another Polysaccharide in it called PSP which inhibits HIV production. So that’s 3 different [medicinal] mushrooms that fight HIV.

Othere Polysaccharides in it include RPSB. They all have a bunch of benefits including immunomudulation and anti inflammatory benefits.

Studies show Turkey Tail has a great effect for treating Leukaemia and it has strong anti microbial properties.

So these are really really good Covid time mushrooms.

There’s an anecdotal story about Turkey Tail too. If like me you follow Paul Stamets you may know about the story of his mother he mentions in his lectures where his mother in here 80’s called him one day... yeah Catherine, do know this story?

Catherine: Nods

H: Yeah so she had incredibly enlarged breast. Doctor gave her very little time [stage 4 breast cancer] her doctor or friend mentioned a study about Turkey Tail and she mentioned her son Paul makes Turkey Tail. Paul gave her 8 Turkey Tail extract capsules a day (I have 2 day) and he famously in his lectures brings his mum on stage 10/15 years later, well into her 90’s alive and healthy J.

Sorry my housemates just cooking :D

Has anyone else got any questions of advice or anything you want to tell me or I’ve missed. Any Mycologies here? ... sweet

Seren: I think we’ve had quite a lot of things for us to think about.

Thanks, let’s wrap things up here. Thanks a lot for teaching us all this . are there any websites or resources you’d like to suggest before we go. Ill post the links to the roots stuff as well in the chat for next week.

Hossein: I want to thank Seren. You’re a legend. You see magic all around the world and you bring it to light and you inspire people to do what they might be a little shy to do. Thanks so much because you bring so much light to the world. Eternally love you

Seren: And you man

H: sorry what did you ask again?

S: Links

H: oh yeah, for learning I use YouTube or these peoples websites. So as you get into mushrooms you’ll hear Fresh Cap Mushrooms alot. They have a website and are on Youtube. They're a really informative Gourmet/Medicinal Mushroom group. They have a lot of videos where they show you indoor and outdoor cultivation. All the stuff that I’ve mentioned about the benefits, they go into a little more detail. In their videos they have this massive massive Reishi mushroom the size of a table and its beautiful. So that’s FreshCapMushrooms

There’s ‘Fresh From the Farm Fungi’ as well. They're a specialist mycology centre. They show you how to grow. I’m following them now and they're growing and experimenting with Cordyceps at the moment. They're still in the experimental stage where people are trying to work out the best way to grow them. What we grow is Crodyceps Militaris, which is easier to grow and more potent than the rare Himalayan Cordyceps Sinensis that only grows in insects. If you ever see an orange twigletty thing sticking out of grass in fields, that’s Cordyceps, pick it and try to clone it from the wild.

There’s a few mycology places and websites based in the UK as well but I forget. They usually have the word mushroom or fungi in their names

I would definitely recommend Paul Stamets. He’s got his own website too. For more specialised people, he’s got links to the studies he’s done and part of or any studies pertaining to mushrooms helping the world.

Another shout out Id recommend as well is Natura Studios. They're on instagram too and there website is https://www.naturadesign.org/ [corrected]. They're quite legendary, revolutionary people as well. Ive talked to the main guy who was a design student who got into mycology. They're designing a vegan leather based on a mycelium structure. Theres people growing mycelium based objects and things at the moment. But he’s supportive of the fungi eating plastic [movement] as well. I think the fish and everyone would benefit from that. S: we’ll add the kinks in the chat H: thank you bye

#mycelium #mushrooms #shitake #enoki #miatake #lions mane #holistic #natural #paul stamets

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becomewings · 4 years

Text

Shadows of My Childhood

Analysis: ON Children + Shadows of the Past (BU/HYYH)

Note: All names herein refer to fictional characters in BU (BTS Universe/HYYH/The Notes). The events described are entirely fictional and not representative of the members' real lives.

Content warning: contains mentions of abuse, abandonment, trauma, and suicide; images of blood

Some of the most compelling aspects of the ON official MV, and indeed most of BTS’s cinematic repertoire, are the multiple layers of meaning and opportunity for interpretation woven throughout the video. While this version of ON has not been confirmed as part of BU canon, it contains enough explicit references to visual material in other BU videos to merit analysis of the deeper thematic connections between the two.

In this post, I will specifically look through the lens of the pairing of child figures with BTS members in ON to address possible implications within the context of their corresponding BU characters. If the children of ON represent the shadows of the characters’ pasts that continue to haunt and shape them, then the relationships and interactions of the video pairings map to each character’s coping mechanism for handling these ghosts: JiMin’s denial of trauma; YoonGi’s self-inflicted destruction; and TaeHyung’s spiral of violence that starts within him yet increasingly splinters outward. But they also shed light on the future’s hope for moving forward and healing.

The blindfolded girl + TaeHyung

The child with the most screen time and arguably the most significance in the unfolding of ON’s cinematic narrative is paired with TaeHyung. But taken in the context of BU, why is the child a girl and why does she wear a blindfold? Blood ties and violence are the roots of TaeHyung’s shadows. Yet it is impossible to address the years of his suffering without acknowledging the individual who bore it alongside him, the person one may interpret as represented by the blindfolded girl: his sister.

This portrayal does not reflect their true age difference. She is depicted as a child because, as a protective brother, he views it as his duty to safeguard her innocence. The blindfold reinforces the symbolism that he is trying to protect her from the atrocities and darkness of the world. In ON, it is the aftermath of a bloody war (a battlefield upon which he possibly fell and was reborn, given the grave marker of gathered objects and the cross-like pose of his awakening). In the BU narrative, the darkness is domestic violence and their father.

As young children, TaeHyung and his sister were abandoned by their mother, who was pushed to terrible extremes by her husband's treatment, and left to fend for themselves in the home of an abusive alcoholic. Violence is perpetuated throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Every time she suffers, he suffers too, whether by his father's hand or the guilt that he is powerless to stop him.

“Then. That night. That night ten years ago when Mom left home. That night when Mom, my sister, and I were beaten to a pulp by Dad and we cried ourselves to sleep. … My sister is weeping quietly. It was even more distressing to hear it today.” — TaeHyung, 24 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

This cycle of violence traps TaeHyung in a private nightmare, making him afraid of his own nature's potential: vengeful fantasies (and half-remembered events from parallel timelines) of killing his father; lashing out physically at his friends in moments of conflict. Perhaps more than anything, he fears turning into his father (20 May Year 22, The Notes: Her). Denial is a disease. The more he withholds the truth of his pain and fear, the deeper the darkness takes root in his heart. The pressure threatens to break outward, consuming the people closest to him, or shatter him from within. At his most desperate, TaeHyung views suicide, an act of violence against oneself, as the only way to break free of this cycle.

“I almost killed Dad who brought me into this world and who beat me every day. I almost killed him. No, I actually killed him. Countless times. I killed him countless times in my head. I want to kill him. I want to die. I don’t know what to do. I’m lost.” — TaeHyung, 20 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

Outside, TaeHyung dons a mask to conceal the circumstances of his home life, even around his closest friends. Despite his grinning and loud-mouthed persona, this mask is cracked. His friends see the signs: bruises on his face and back, the emotional marks that run deeper than skin. They follow his lead and do not speak openly of the abuse. TaeHyung refuses to acknowledge that they can see through his mask. They all skirt the uncomfortable truth:

“TaeHyung laughed sheepishly, taking off his torn shirt. Under the dim light hanging on the trailer box, for a second, I saw his bruised back. HoSeok looked at me in shock. TaeHyung looked at himself in the mirror wearing my T-shirt. And he laughed.” — NamJoon, 11 April Year 22. The Notes: Her (translation credit: KRN - ENG © ktaebwi).

“I couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling when I felt this chilly inside. His heart must’ve felt ripped and torn. Or, does he have a heart left at all? How much anguish has he endured? … I first saw the scar on TaeHyung’s back in NamJoon’s container. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about it when he was smiling so broadly with his new T-shirt present.” — HoSeok, 20 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

He cannot seek help from his friends, because that would admit his powerlessness and give voice to the truth of his suffering. And if his pain is real, then so is his sister's.

TaeHyung cannot protect her from the brutality of their father's abuse. He cannot shield her from the cruel reality of their world. The gateway to healing will never open while he turns a blind eye to the ramifications of the violence committed within his family. In ON, acceptance of these truths is embodied in his removal of the girl's blindfold. She gazes forward, unafraid, at the wall toward which she has been looking the whole time. Standing, he takes her hand and discovers that the once-impenetrable wall is in fact a gate. With open eyes, he can see the blossoming land beyond. The future has hope, if only he can face the reality of his family’s violent history.

The drummer boy + JiMin

This is not the first time a blindfold has been employed as a significant visual symbol in BTS’s MVs. Blindfolds, in the form of silk or other members’ hands, figured prominently in Wings-era BU content, particularly in association with JiMin. Therefore, it is all the more noteworthy that in ON, he is not the one paired with the blindfolded child. However, there are several cuts from TaeHyung and his blindfolded partner to JiMin and the drummer boy, or vice versa, that feel like a deliberate choice to draw attention to this absence and the contrast against previous representations.

In the BU narrative, JiMin suffers from seizures likely caused by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as the result of an as-yet-unspecified traumatic childhood event that he has tried, and often failed, to repress. He is forced into extended hospitalizations by his parents, who seem unwilling to face the reality that something happened to their child and seek to bury his “abnormal behavior” behind doctors and drugs to preserve the family’s appearance of normalcy.

“When I was taken to the hospital after they found me unconscious at the Grass Flower Arboretum, my parents didn’t ask any questions. They ignored the fact that I had blacked out there. It was the same when I developed seizures. They hospitalized me, discharged me after some time, and transferred me to another school. Family reputation was important to them. A son with mental illness was unacceptable.” — JiMin, 11 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

JiMin, for his part, wants to live a normal life by attending school and cultivating friendships. Maintaining both presents challenges that he struggles to overcome, doubting his own fortitude and questioning the lie that he perpetuates to save himself: nothing ever happened to him. When his seizures are triggered by stimuli that resurface memories of the past, he winds up in the hospital again and again. Donning a metaphorical blindfold to deny the truth of his trauma, he attempts to convince the medical staff of the same lie.

“When the doctor asked me about it in a concerned tone, I trembled and apologized at first. I repeatedly said that I was sorry. It was all my fault. Please let me forget all about it. Then, I tried to pretend nothing had happened. I didn’t remember anything.” — JiMin, 11 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

After HoSeok and his friends help break him out of the hospital (15 May Year 22, The Notes 1), JiMin recognizes that in order to keep his freedom, he must prove both to his family and to himself that he is “okay” and will not relapse.

“I had to return to the Grass Flower Arboretum. I had to stop lying about not remembering what I’d seen there. It was time to stop hiding in the hospital and put an end to my seizures. To do that, I had to go back there. But, for days, I went to the shuttle bus stop and failed to get on the bus.

After I watched the third bus of the day pull away, YoonGi suddenly appeared and plunked down next to me. … Then he asked what I was doing here. I kept my head bent low and kicked the ground with the toe of my sneaker. I was sitting there because I didn’t have courage. I wanted to pretend that I was OK now, that I knew enough, and that I could easily overcome this. But I was afraid. I was afraid of not knowing what I was about to face, whether I would be able to endure it, and whether I would have a seizure again.

… The bus stopped and the door opened. The driver stared at me. I asked YoonGi. ‘Will you go with me?’” — JiMin, 19 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

The drummer boy in ON may represent, in part, JiMin’s childhood: his real younger self, the one who experienced an event with long-reaching, traumatic consequences, just as the drummer boy marched into the horrors of war. User @cinnaminsvga points out that the boy’s striped pants (and I will add, shaved head) may refer to the common style of uniform assigned in Holocaust concentration camps, drawing in additional themes of imprisonment and persecution. In JiMin’s case, the violence against his true identity is committed by himself, in the attempted act of self-preservation, and his family, in turning a blind eye and forcing his hospitalization.

JiMin has spent years of his life denying the truth of what happened in the arboretum, hiding behind a blindfold of denial and lies. Embarking on the arboretum shuttle with YoonGi marks his first conscious effort to remove that blindfold. This is paralleled by his interaction with ON’s drummer boy. For the first time, he reaches out to that boy of his past, in a striking visual homage to Blood, Sweat, & Tears. Instead of running away, he chooses to face the reality of his trauma, in the hope of walking a new path toward acceptance and healing.

Later events in the Notes and BU films remind us that the path to recovery is not easy or straightforward. It is riddled with pitfalls and switchbacks, challenges and missteps that threaten to drag oneself into relapse. When JiMin accidentally stumbles into his dance studio partner and they fall, the sight of his own blood once again triggers him.

“The blood reminded me of the Grass Flower Arboretum. I felt suffocated. I couldn’t remember how I got up, ran out of the practice room, and made it to the restroom. I scrubbed and washed the scrape like crazy, becoming more and more frightened at seeing the blood sucked down the drain. I thought I’d overcome this. I thought I was OK. But I wasn’t. I had to flee. I had to wash it off. I had to look the other way.

… On that day, I’d run away from the Grass Flower Arboretum. My body was covered with mud that looked like blood. I hadn’t grown up one bit from that little eight-year-old kid.” — JiMin, 4 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

The road to the future will be paved with hardship and setbacks for JiMin. However, the act of reaching toward the drummer boy in ON may further represent the acceptance that he has more challenges to overcome. Although the young age of military drummers has been exaggerated and romanticized over the years, their role is uncontested: drums helped the formations march in step, and a language of rudiments (basic rhythmic patterns) relayed commands from officers to soldiers. Despite the danger to their lives, they accompanied the troops to war and played on the battlefield. JiMin’s partnership with the drummer boy in ON signifies his willingness to brave the conflicts, personal and external, ahead. Though his private battles to survive his trauma are far from over, if he does not surrender again to denial, he will one day see light breaking through the storm.

The candle girls + YoonGi

In ON, YoonGi is connected with not just one child, but an entire congregation. The scene appears as a kind of candlelight vigil or memorial service, likely composed of girls because all the men and boys have been summoned to the war. Fire has been one of the most significant, recurring elements since the very beginning of BU content, especially in association with YoonGi, so the choice of imagery is impossible to miss. Fire is the root of his obsessions, the heart of his torment, the means to his self-destruction.

YoonGi has never truly come to terms with his mother's death, locking away the suspicion that she was responsible for setting the fire that took her life. His love for music is bound by the painful memories of his mother and the piano. Love and pain are inextricable. His mother's love for him and for music were not enough to save her life. Again and again, in countless timelines, he plays out that same act of self-violence, throwing himself into the flames.

“I tried to imagine what was going on in YoonGi’s head. Once, I followed him secretly for hours. His footsteps were insecure and unpredictable. He staggered through the night streets and tried to fling himself into the fire. He sometimes squatted on the ground and listened to music that flowed out of somewhere inside an underground shopping arcade. … The suffering he must have endured, going from one extreme to the other, were beyond my imagination. All I could do was watch him stagger on.” — SeokJin, 2 May Year 22. The Notes 1.

Like TaeHyung, YoonGi attempts to hide the true depths of his despair from his group of friends: the wildly uncontrolled mood swings from fits of creative passion to destructive tendencies of alcoholism and self-harm. Though he finds a kindred spirit in JungKook, his own internal conflicts and fears repeatedly force him away when they get too close. When they are reunited physically at key moments throughout the BU narrative, he cannot bridge the emotional gap. YoonGi’s mother abandoned him to an inheritance of grief and mental health struggles, neither of which he is capable of working through alone. But he recognizes that his self-destructive habits spin out of control, and he does not want to inflict that pain upon others through their closeness.

“I turned my eyes away. I didn’t want to get involved in someone else’s life. I didn’t want to try to console someone who was lonely. I didn’t want to be important for someone. I wasn’t sure I could protect that someone till the end. I wasn’t confident I could stand by that someone till the end. I didn’t want to hurt that someone. I didn’t want to get hurt. It’s hard enough for us to try to save ourselves when the last moment comes, let alone someone else.” — YoonGi, 7 April Year 22. The Notes 1.

“‘Why didn’t you go see JungKook? Don’t you know what you mean to him?’ Of course I knew. Maybe that was why I couldn’t go into his room. I was distorted and thorny. Anyone who tried to come near me was bound to get hurt.

… I’d inflicted pain on others as I suffered greater pain. I looked away from their wounds. I didn’t want to take any responsibility. I didn’t want to get involved. That was who I was.” — YoonGi, 25 July Year 22. The Notes 1.

YoonGi is eventually driven to understand that he cannot survive alone. When he fears that he pushes away HoSeok, the “one who always pave[s] the way for [him] to come back no matter how far astray” he has gone (28 July Year 22, The Notes 1), for good this time, HoSeok later texts him privately to ask if he is okay. In between those two points of contact, YoonGi discovers a new purpose for living: completing the melody that has nearly driven him to madness, as it haunts him across many parallel timelines in tantalizing and ungraspable fragments.

“I completed the piece several days ago. I changed the version I sent to HoSeok a few more times. I gave it the title ‘Hope.’ To be honest, the title didn’t actually match the piece. It contained my fear, cowardice, and inferiority. It contained all the moments I tried to avoid, get away from, and reprimanded myself for. But I couldn’t think of any other word that could encompass it all.” — YoonGi, 30 August Year 22. The Notes 1.

In sharing this musical representation of his innermost self, YoonGi opens himself to vulnerability. This is a step forward in accepting the turmoil of his heart and allowing others inside to see his true self, too. It is particularly striking to see YoonGi, who has forbidden himself emotional proximity to others for so long, emerging from isolation to participate in ON’s candlelight service. Linking him to a community of children, rather than the solo partners of TaeHyung and JiMin, signifies his progress in growing beyond the shadows of his past and exploring new ways to manage his grief. Even the cuts to him alone in this sacred, ceremonial space reflect his development. He is not torn by anger or despair, but given to reflection. He does not stare obsessively into the flames, but instead gazes outward at a beam of sunlight. Despite the somber undertones, this scene in ON is one of the rare instances of YoonGi associated with fire in a positive light: not one of violence and self-destruction, but reflection and healing through the allowance of both private and shared grief.

Bonus: HoSeok + the bag girl

While all seven characters of the BU narrative are influenced by their pasts, the ones whose lives are most acutely shaped by the ongoing traumas and conflicts that are rooted in their youths are the characters reflected here: TaeHyung, JiMin, YoonGi. And, I am inclined to say at first pass, HoSeok. Like TaeHyung, he was abandoned by his mother, but this left him without any family and he was consigned to an orphanage. He carries the weight of his abandonment with him into adulthood, influencing multiple aspects of his health and manifesting an unconscious obsession with seeing his mother in other women.

So where is his child representation in the ON video? It is entirely plausible that another pairing included was not included for timing reasons. Another possible reason is that he has made considerable progress in his personal growth by the end of the Notes 1, and therefore the shackles of his past have loosened: he confesses to JiMin that his narcolepsy is fake (16 May Year 22, The Notes 1) and in later months recognizes the problematic nature of seeing his mother, whose face he can no longer remember, in other women in his life, strangers and friends alike.

That being said, the presence of the girl with the bright yellow bag in the shot of everyone looking beyond the wall (included in the first photoset) might be a coincidence… or it might be a small nod to the shoulder bag carried on tour by the real-life HoSeok and gifted to a fan during the New York Citi Field performance in October 2018. The one in ON is not red (although the girl standing next to her has one with red embellishments), but the yellow is a surprising pop of color amid the subdued color palette in the rest of the shot. She does not stand near HoSeok (although neither does the drummer boy near JiMin)... But perhaps, if we are inclined to read into it, we may find a dash of hope in the separation of this mother/child reference, as HoSeok gazes forward with the others at the opportunities and dreams promised by the future.

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If you made it this far, I sincerely thank you for coming on this little journey with me. Please do not repost this analysis on other platforms. If you have any questions, comments, or wild theories of your own… send them my way! I would love to hear from you. -- wings

Added Note: This was written before I read actress Rina Johnson’s statement about playing the role of Taehyung’s sister and prior to the release of the ON behind-the-scenes video.

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voidvoyeur · 4 years

Text

GIVE A MAN A MASK ...

As always, a disclaimer that this is my personal lukewarm take, imbued in my portrayal. I do not regard the following analysis as an objective truth to all - but an important facet to the writing and characterisation on this blog.

The use of masks in the horror genre has consistently been a crux to unsettle its audience. By not showing a face we perceive as ‘true’ there is the instinctive notion that such a character who wears a mask has something to hide. A masked villain is intentionally separated from their cast of heroes, victims and extras, all of which are unveiled. In Michael’s case, his mask is meant to unnerve these characters before it terrifies, at first sight forcing the onlooker, Laurie, to question whether she has something to fear at all, if she is being too superstitious - especially on Halloween of all days.

This is achieved with the mask’s design, an uncanny impression of a man’s face (originally William Shatner’s...). The facial structure alludes to an initial, unremarkable presence of a passing stranger, but the hollowed, black eyes and impossibly white pallor intrude - presenting a loss or absence of humanity. One of the most succinct explorations into this effect is by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces, most relevantly quoting J.P. Telotte, ‘[the mask] is neither grotesque or distorted nor natural, but more resembling the face of a dead man.’ With this analogy, it becomes clear that Michael’s face serves as a reflection of the fate of his victims, inhabiting both the fear he evokes and death he inflicts. Doctor Loomis prophecises this in his monologue, detailing the ‘blank, pale, emotionless face’ and ‘the blackest eyes, the devil’s eyes’. What makes this a prophetic monologue is that this reading of Michael’s maskless face becomes a reality which we and Laurie have experienced, and will continue to do so with Michael’s ‘mask’. It is now an argument of whether the mask is a mask at all, but Michael’s true face. If Michael himself is aware of this encapsulation of both fear and death, then Loomis is a mouthpiece for Michael’s own self-fulfilling prophecy, embracing the belief of being ‘pure and simply evil’ - using the mask to enact his role, as Murray Leeder claims, ‘Like an actor in a Greek drama, [wearing] his villainy plainly on his face,’ but I would modify that it is not ‘on’ his face but ‘as his own face.’ In Dead by Daylight, his place as a killer among killers still may not deter from how eerie he is to see from a survivor’s perspective. Applicable is thegamingmuse’s analysis of Valtiel in Silent Hill 3, ‘He looks more human than almost all the other creatures we see, but that only makes him more upsetting. The similarities make the differences stand out all the more.’ Michael stands within the space between the familiar and unfamiliar, what we know and what we don’t know. In the film, he demands to be looked at, especially in Haddonfield where he agitates the suburban safety of the town. And when he is not in the scene at first glance, he still demands to be looked for because we know he doesn’t function within the same physical laws as a human, but we do not know the exact extent of what that power means. When comparing his 1978 mask to the 2007 remake’s, the original mask’s ‘wholeness’ is much clearer. For the most part, Carpenter and Hill’s Michael is pristinely presented - his mask unblemished, suggesting a fully realised sense of self in both his role and belief of being a villain. In contrast, Zombie’s Michael is damaged and deteriorating. Befitting the director’s more psychological interpretation of his character ambling between the role of victim and villain - a cracked and marred mask portraying a more ‘damaged’ and unstable sense of self, a malformed identity hinged upon reuniting with his sister - and when he fails to do so that mask and identity becomes all the more ‘incomplete’ in the sequel. Whereas in 1978, Michael is (presumably) completely extricated from his family after murdering Judith, assured and arrogant in his character of stalker, perpetrator and killer. What is notable is its only point of damage would be a hole in the neck from Laurie stabbing him with a knitting needle - leaving a permanent mark in the same area of anatomy Michael exploits to overpower his victims through strangulation. Her action in the narrative showing her refusal to be disposable — consequentially having ‘living’, tangible proof. She, along with Loomis, is one of the rare few to try and prove his mortality - only to result in him getting back up, asserting his enduring immortality. This immortality is even foretold in his face, ever watchful with an unblinking stare - bearing a likeness to ivory statues and figure sculptures throughout Western art history, depicting culturally significant fictional and historical figures. Just as sculptors like Michelangelo, Bernini and Rodin have brought such characters to solid life, Michael is immortalising himself just as these statues are commissioned to immortalise their subject, mythologising himself (which ... considering his fandom cult status). If he is likened to a marble statue then he assumes the infallibility of the same material, his silicone flesh does not decay. Simultaneously, we know he can move therefore we are prey to an ominous atmosphere, led to think when he is not immobile within our line of sight, he is still able to walk behind us without our knowing. It also raises the question of if his mask is what grants him infallibility to death... In contrast to his impassive white mask, his smiling clown facade at the start of the movie seems to be a hyperbolic mockery of emotion. Compared to Zombie’s choice of Michael wearing his most recognisable mask when murdering Judith, Heller-Nicholas stating, ‘Here the mask has a distinctly adult look, and on Michael’s body it suggests he is a child capable of committing ‘adult’ crimes.’ Whereas in the original, the clown mask has a disarming playfulness and infantile innocence, further adding to the shock reveal that this was a child who killed his older sister. For five minutes (or a few seconds if you were unaware of his age) he fits within the uncanny child trope, defamiliarising what we expect a child to be capable of, the unmasking of a child doubles as the unmasking of a killer. More so is it unnerving to consider how much in the same way clowns exist between comedy and tragedy, evoking laughter from their audience with staged stunts going awry and choreographed misfortune, the young Michael derives joy from the tragic act of murdering his sister. It is also important to note that Judith immediately recognises her younger brother while he is masked, solidifying he will be the mask he wears. Fifteen years later, his victims are deprived of this same familiarity and knowledge. The sinister truth of the clown costume is brought home all the more when Jamie Lloyd chooses similar garb as her trick or treat outfit in Halloween 4. Later fulfilling - or possessed by - the same prophecy of evil when killing her foster mother at the end. Throughout the movie, everything she feels is written on her face, she is unmasked and entirely honest in her terror, pain, brief happiness and sympathy until she has inherited Michael’s evil, the red pom-pom nose referencing Michael’s own crime when he was a child, while the eyemask also references his visibly void gaze now – adopting his mask’s dead-set impassivity with her own face. Again, the child’s crime is shocking but there is no moment of unmasking, rather the opposite: an inherited mask. Even beyond the Halloween franchise, the significance of Michael’s mask is brought back into the pop culture consciousness through the subversion of other killers in the same genre. In Scream, Wes Craven creates a direct relationship with Halloween while transgressing from it, parodying the slasher horror formula. This is even evident when comparing Michael and Ghostface’s masks; the two are similar in their pitch black eyes and white faces but where Michael’s is intended to evoke fear in the audience and narrative’s victims, embodying a disturbing synonymity between an everyman and dead man, Ghostface’s mirrors the screaming faces of the audience and characters - mocking their fear. Much like Jamie Lloyd, Ghostface credits a certain lineage to The Shape, but where Jamie unwittingly follows in her franchise father’s (or uncle’s) footsteps, Ghostface is the teenager trying to rebel against his forefather’s conventions. Ultimately, Michael’s mask serves as a blank page or screen to project our fears, ideals and theories onto. As much as anyone, including his own psychiatrists, would want to know why he wears a mask, there will be a range of readings that can only be individual interpretation because the only certainty is the mask is designed, as a cinematic device, to be emotionally provocative of caution and fear. Nonetheless, my own interpretation is exactly that - he wears it to primarily provoke a reaction and to witness the expression of those who witness him, knowing full well he is personifying the horror his victims suffer -- and we as an audience experience.

#META / HEADCANON.#( and i didnt even get to h2018 lmao .....................#I'VE BEEN Wanting to do this for a while and quarantine provides ample time #was just a question of attention span ! !

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