#how can we treat it? how can we prevent it? will this or that work? no? maybe?

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

Understanding that people are entitled to privacy and if they don't publicly share their diagnoses it's probably on purpose vs hearing that someone has a rare disorder and really wanting to know what it is so you can research it.

[lovinnelily]

Y'all do know you can't make Jason be NOT white without changing his whole character, right?

For other characters, yes, because their physical appearance are not that influential in their story, on how they are viewed by people, on their personality formation — you can have a black/asian/indigenous/arab/brown/latino/etc Nico and yes, the hate he gets will have a undertone of racism but at the same time nothing significant on his story, motivation or personality will need to change. This is also true for other characters: Clarisse risks repeating the "aggressive WoC" stereotype but the character itself doesn't change.

This isn't true for Jason, whose main character trait is how he is perceived by others and how he showcases himself to others based on that perception. (specially with how little effort Riordan put on him besides making him perfect-er Percy who's somehow also weaker and less important than him).

Let's not pretend a black, Arab, indigenous, Asian, Latin man, etc, in the USA would ever be treated with the universal reverence Jason gets from New Roma, you can't have the illusion of perfection and most of all, of invincibility they have about him when you see him suffering racism or xenophobia in the middle of a mission. Nothing in his life has ever gone wrong, that's his image, destined to be king, he is supposed to have no weakness on his peers eyes.

He is not trying to prove people wrong, he is trying to prove them right; he isn't worthy despite their prejudice, on the contrary, he only tried to make himself worthy to fulfill their expectations. He can't be a woman or an immigrant or have a visible disability or any other thing that strays him from a perfect ideal by western society standards, and be that same character.

[hippopotatoe]

transcribing newspapers from the 1853 cholera pandemic and it reminds me of early day covid in allt the worst ways

[flippedorbit]

do you want me to fucking go off on you? do you truly fucking want that mother?

[weaselle]

had an interaction with a cat at my mother's friend's house (we dropped by to feed her while my mom's friend was out of town) and my mother said "i was surprised how much that cat liked you, she doesn't usually let people pet her but she followed you around and let you pet her a lot"

and in explaining to her my interaction with the cat i put into words a thing i'd never put into words before, having always automatically understood what i was doing. But once i put it into words my mother said she'd never thought of that and it felt like something worth sharing here.

This cat did a typical cat thing where she sniffed my fingers i was holding out, and then acted like she wanted me to pet her, but then when i started to move to pet her, moved her head away slightly to prevent it.

I instinctively understand this interaction, and stopped trying to pet her and moved back to a neutral position and waited to see if she would re-initiate an interaction.

Because this is basically a consent test. This is how a cat can assess "how closely are you paying attention to what i'm telling you" and "how respectful of my boundaries are you".

If i am responsive to her yes/no game, moving to pet her when she indicates i can, stopping immediately when she seems to change her mind, then she knows she can trust me to understand her, and also to respect her choices. That's what i did, so then she knew she could trust me and relax around me and enjoy my company. She was actually a very friendly and social little cat, who clearly wanted to make friends with me.

But if i had insisted on trying to pet her when she seemed to change her mind instead of simply understanding that she didn't want to be pet in that moment, she would have known she couldn't trust me to understand or respect her, and she would have treated me like she has to treat 90% of the people who visit that house, evidently.

I work mostly with dogs these days, but i grew up with cats too, and am generally good with animals. Many shy animals will also do this same "sniff sniff okay touch me nope just kidding" routine, especially if they've had experiences with people that make establishing that kind of communication and trust important to them.

And in fact, a lot of animals will do some version of this kind of consent test in a whole variety of situations. When well socialized dogs do that thing where they are rough housing and then they both stop suddenly for a moment until one of them play bows or makes a little pouncing motion and then they fly back into rough housing mode, that's what they are doing, they are doing a consent check-in, like "whoah this is getting wild, are you still in? are we still playing, is this still a good time for you?"

anyway, that's why this lovely little cat followed me around asking me to pet her the whole time we were visiting that house, because i showed her that i understood her signals and respected her boundaries, which is something i see a lot of both men and women not doing when interacting with cats and dogs.

[urdtarah]

apparently this is a hot take but I think most deaths outside of natural deaths are avoidable and we should actively work to prevent avoidable deaths

[thesaltyace]

Y'all I did NOT know this about Harris, and I think it's really critical that we all listen and understand as we approach this election. Video at the end.

This creator's video describes how progressive Harris was as a prosecutor -- actively going against the grain to the point she was accused of being soft on crime. Accused of being a social worker, not a prosecutor. She calls it being smart on crime. She's pushing for systemic changes to give real pathways to reintegrate incarcerated folks back into society and prevent their past from continuing to haunt them moving forward.

"Kamala's a cop" is a catchy dismissive response usually used to shut down conversation rather than add nuance. But this kind of reform is ESSENTIAL to work towards a present and future that treats incarcerated people with value.

I fell for it in 2020 and have thought "Kamala's a cop" without further inspection since - and I'm sobered by the realization that (you guessed it!) I'm not immune to propaganda.

A better system only follows liberal democracy, because library democracy allows for exploration of better systems. If authoritarianism takes hold, it will not allow for the exploration of better systems. We will have to fight tooth and nail just to try to get back to liberal democracy, and I suspect we could not achieve it in our lifetimes.

Harris isn't perfect. But she's a hell of a lot better than many leftists have led me to believe. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good. Don't let perfection be the enemy of harm reduction.

We can either help elect Trump and usher in authoritarian fascism, or we can help defeat him and pull things back in the direction we want to go. Not liking the choices doesn't absolve you from participating and doing the most good you can with the options available.

I'll link the original video in the replies. The original video has captions if you need them.

[reasonsforhope]

As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.

Earlier this month, the future fell on Los Angeles. A long band of moisture in the sky, known as an atmospheric river, dumped 9 inches of rain on the city over three days—over half of what the city typically gets in a year. It’s the kind of extreme rainfall that’ll get ever more extreme as the planet warms.

The city’s water managers, though, were ready and waiting. Like other urban areas around the world, in recent years LA has been transforming into a “sponge city,” replacing impermeable surfaces, like concrete, with permeable ones, like dirt and plants. It has also built out “spreading grounds,” where water accumulates and soaks into the earth.

With traditional dams and all that newfangled spongy infrastructure, between February 4 and 7 the metropolis captured 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater, enough to provide water to 106,000 households for a year. For the rainy season in total, LA has accumulated 14.7 billion gallons.

Long reliant on snowmelt and river water piped in from afar, LA is on a quest to produce as much water as it can locally. “There's going to be a lot more rain and a lot less snow, which is going to alter the way we capture snowmelt and the aqueduct water,” says Art Castro, manager of watershed management at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Dams and spreading grounds are the workhorses of local stormwater capture for either flood protection or water supply.”

Centuries of urban-planning dogma dictates using gutters, sewers, and other infrastructure to funnel rainwater out of a metropolis as quickly as possible to prevent flooding. Given the increasingly catastrophic urban flooding seen around the world, though, that clearly isn’t working anymore, so now planners are finding clever ways to capture stormwater, treating it as an asset instead of a liability. “The problem of urban hydrology is caused by a thousand small cuts,” says Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. “No one driveway or roof in and of itself causes massive alteration of the hydrologic cycle. But combine millions of them in one area and it does. Maybe we can solve that problem with a thousand Band-Aids.”

Or in this case, sponges. The trick to making a city more absorbent is to add more gardens and other green spaces that allow water to percolate into underlying aquifers—porous subterranean materials that can hold water—which a city can then draw from in times of need. Engineers are also greening up medians and roadside areas to soak up the water that’d normally rush off streets, into sewers, and eventually out to sea...

To exploit all that free water falling from the sky, the LADWP has carved out big patches of brown in the concrete jungle. Stormwater is piped into these spreading grounds and accumulates in dirt basins. That allows it to slowly soak into the underlying aquifer, which acts as a sort of natural underground tank that can hold 28 billion gallons of water.

During a storm, the city is also gathering water in dams, some of which it diverts into the spreading grounds. “After the storm comes by, and it's a bright sunny day, you’ll still see water being released into a channel and diverted into the spreading grounds,” says Castro. That way, water moves from a reservoir where it’s exposed to sunlight and evaporation, into an aquifer where it’s banked safely underground.

On a smaller scale, LADWP has been experimenting with turning parks into mini spreading grounds, diverting stormwater there to soak into subterranean cisterns or chambers. It’s also deploying green spaces along roadways, which have the additional benefit of mitigating flooding in a neighborhood: The less concrete and the more dirt and plants, the more the built environment can soak up stormwater like the actual environment naturally does.

As an added benefit, deploying more of these green spaces, along with urban gardens, improves the mental health of residents. Plants here also “sweat,” cooling the area and beating back the urban heat island effect—the tendency for concrete to absorb solar energy and slowly release it at night. By reducing summer temperatures, you improve the physical health of residents. “The more trees, the more shade, the less heat island effect,” says Castro. “Sometimes when it’s 90 degrees in the middle of summer, it could get up to 110 underneath a bus stop.”

LA’s far from alone in going spongy. Pittsburgh is also deploying more rain gardens, and where they absolutely must have a hard surface—sidewalks, parking lots, etc.—they’re using special concrete bricks that allow water to seep through. And a growing number of municipalities are scrutinizing properties and charging owners fees if they have excessive impermeable surfaces like pavement, thus incentivizing the switch to permeable surfaces like plots of native plants or urban gardens for producing more food locally.

So the old way of stormwater management isn’t just increasingly dangerous and ineffective as the planet warms and storms get more intense—it stands in the way of a more beautiful, less sweltering, more sustainable urban landscape. LA, of all places, is showing the world there’s a better way.

-via Wired, February 19, 2024

[catboybiologist]

So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

[fatphobiabusters]

People say weight loss is for sure possible...but no one agrees on how to do it.

Dieting works...but there's now an "ob*sity epidemic" despite people lining the pockets of weight loss corporations more than ever.

Weight loss products work...but weight loss corporations are making the Exact. Same. Claims. about their products that they did in 1910 with the products that were sold and then discontinued over a century ago.

Humans are all meant to be thin...but there are families of fat people who stay fat no matter how much "willpower" they muster and have fat ancestors going back generations.

It's about health and not looks...but people who are losing weight due to smoking, cancer, illness, mental disorders, and other health conditions are praised for their weight loss and told to keep going.

Fat people aren't oppressed...but fat people have no positive representation, no proper access to clothing, face a wage gap, endure deadly medical neglect and abuse, have their deaths by police brutality excused with their fatness, and countless other aspects of oppression that they deal with every single day.

Fat people are all fat because they overeat...but you can point to any fat person on the sidewalk and there's an extreme likelihood that they're on their 30th diet attempt in the past 10 years while there's thin people who eat whatever they want, however much they want, and don't exercise yet never gain a single pound.

Fat people are privileged because they gorge on unnecessary food...but fat people are overwhelmingly living in poverty, are not paid the same amount of money for the same work as their thin peers, are not chosen for promotions, are turned away from jobs that an employer wants more than a "pretty face" for, are at major risk of workplace harassment, and endure oppression even beyond just that.

Fat people aren't treated badly...but people use the word "fat" as a metaphor and synonym for "ugly," "unlovable," and "unworthy," while at the same time believing "fat," the most basic term for a specific body type, is a dirty, taboo insult you should never allow to leave your lips.

Professionals agree that fatness is inherently bad...but almost any weight-related research study that people, especially weight loss corporations, use to justify demonizing fat people has the worst methodology imaginable with validity errors and logical fallacies galore as well as conflicts of interest due to how many of these studies just happen to be funded by the corporations that make millions and billions of dollars off of the demonization these studies promote.

All health conditions a fat person has are caused by their fatness...but there is not a single health condition that only fat people obtain, many fat people developed the health condition in question when they were thin or thinner, weight gain is often a symptom of said health conditions, fat people are not given the same amount or quality of healthcare as thin people, and repeated starvation attempts (also known as "yo-yo dieting") have been shown to worsen a person's health.

Fat people can't have eating disorders...but fat people are the group encouraged to partake in disordered eating by this fatphobic world the most and then are not given any support to recover.

Thin privilege doesn't exist...but thin people who see the way fat people are treated in society do their absolute damndest and take whatever drastic measures they have to in order to prevent themselves from ever becoming one of "Them."

Fit and fat are mutually exclusive...but there are fat athletes as far up as even the Olympics, and sports are intentionally made inaccessible to fat people to the point of fat children even being turned away when trying to join a sports team.

Fat people are ugly...but all we grow up ever seeing in media are thin, conventionally attractive people painted with layers of makeup next to fat characters who were intentionally designed with an ill-fitting outfit, matted hair, and all other traits that fit the "ugly" stereotype that the character designer could manage to slap onto a single person.

Fat people are big, bad bullies...but studies show that weight is the number one excuse that children use to bully their peers, outcompeting a multitude of other oppressed identities considered.

Fat women are just men and vice versa...but sometimes they're androgynous, and sometimes they're basically nonbinary, and sometimes they're just things, and sometimes they're nothing at all depending on what labels a fatphobe decides will hurt a fat person most that day.

Fat people are subhuman...but fat people deserve the same love, respect, compassion, and support that all people are born inherently deserving.

Fatphobia isn't real, but—

-Mod Worthy

[cripplecharacters]

Futuristic Settings and the Erasure of Disabilities

The common theme in a lot of futuristic, sci-fi or not, settings, is the abundance of cure tropes that are thrown in there. Disabled people either don't exist, or aren't actually disabled - they get a magical device that undoes their injury, or get a mech suit that basically does the same thing.

Often the setting is treated like an excuse that can't be rebutted in any way: “but my story is set in the future where medicine is better!”

So: is that true? Does better medicine actually mean less disabled people?

Historical Accuracy

[large text: Historical Accuracy]

In 1900, the life expectancy of a person born with Down syndrome was 9 years. Try putting yourself there and imagining that 2024 is the Future - better medicine, basically sci-fi in comparison to what they had back there. In that future, what is true?

a) There's no people with Down syndrome.

b) People with Down syndrome live to be 60 years old on average.

Answer? B. The only countries with fewer people with Down syndromes are the ones engaging in widespread eugenics, which is a topic I will not be getting into in this post, but I'm mentioning because the only places without disabled people are eugenicist.

The “better medicine” of the future didn't make Down syndrome curable, it made people with it survive longer. 50% of people born with it today will live to be over 60 years old. In the future, there will be retirees with Down syndrome. In the past, 50% of them wouldn't have made it into their teens.

Why does that matter?

[large text: Why does that matter?]

Future medicine won't make disabilities disappear. It will make them more manageable. Less deadly. Easier to survive.

If you base your knowledge and perception of disability throughout the times on sci-fi novels by able-bodied writers, you're going to hate how it actually works in real life.

Have we magically- technologically gotten rid of diabetes? No, 11% of Americans have it. 103 years ago, diabetes were lethal. There aren't fewer diabetics compared to the past. They live longer. You probably know or heard of someone who has diabetes.

You need to expand your understanding on how disability and medicine work, because “future = no disability” is genuine nonsense. It doesn't work like that, and it really frustrates me how writers dead-set on “logic” in their setting fail to see this.

Are paralyzed people walking around in various mechs, or are they using better wheelchairs than those from 100 years ago? Wheelchairs that make it easier to be independent? That help with symptoms of their disabilities by preventing pressure sores, or providing alternative methods of maneuvering?

In the future, why would there suddenly be those futuristic transplant* spines instead of wheelchairs that can be used with one's brain or eyes, for those who can't move their hands, mouth, or head? Why wouldn't there be wheelbeds for those who are currently bed-bound because they can't manage being upright in any way?

*Also, how are all of these magic disability-fixing transplants never actual transplants? Receiving a transplant basically always ends up in being immunocompromised because of the very way the body works. If you're writing about humans, this isn't going to change?

Things like sign language or wheelchairs have been used for thousands of years, they're not going away anytime soon or not-so-soon.

Future = More Disabled People?

[large text: Future = More Disabled People?]

We already discussed that there are presently common disabilities that used to be lethal a century ago or even less. If we use this fact for a futuristic setting, you suddenly have a myriad of new possibilities.

There's vastly better medicine? A lot of people deal with post-rabies syndrome because it's finally survivable, but it leaves people with the effects of the meningitis that rabies cause. There's way more quadriplegic people because the survival rates are much higher. Cancer survivors are more common because people live longer. Physical therapy for people who had prion diseases because they aren't fatal anymore but cause severe disability. Head trauma is more treatable, so there's more people with TBIs and less people dying in vehicular accidents.

The technology is super advanced? People with locked-in syndrome can operate an AAC device with their eyes, fully customize its voice to their liking, and not have to worry about battery life of their powerchair because it has sonar panels. Canes that can fold themselves with the click of a button so that they can fit in one's pocket.

There could be so many more adapted sports! Tools and technology that can adapt a house exactly to one's needs! Wheelchairs that are actually affordable! A portable pocket sized device that makes ableds behave normally around disabled people!

The point of this post isn't to completely shit on sci-fi settings, but instead to urge abled writers to think a bit more and try to be creative in the way they go about speculative fiction. Write something new! There's one billion stories about how impossible it is for disabled people to exist in the future, and it's upsetting at best to read that constantly when you're disabled. As long as there are people, there will be disabled people.

mod Sasza

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

A Big TB Announcement

Greetings from Washington D.C., where I spent the morning meeting with senators before joining a panel that included TB survivor Shaka Brown, Dr. Phil LoBue of the CDC, and Dr. Atul Gawande of USAID. Dr. Gawande announced a major new project to bring truly comprehensive tuberculosis care to regions in Ethiopia and the Philippines. Over the next four years, this project can bring over $80,000,000 in new money to fight TB in these two high-burden countries.

Our family is committing an additional $1,000,000 a year to help fund the project in the Philippines, which has the fourth highest burden of tuberculosis globally.

Here’s how it breaks down: The Department of Health in the Philippines has made TB reduction a major priority and has provided $11,000,0000 per year in matching funds to go alongside $10,000,000 contributed by USAID and an additional $1,000,000 donated by us. This $22,000,000 per year will fund everything from X-Ray machines, medications, and GeneXpert tests to training and employing a huge surge of community health workers, nurses, and doctors who are calling themselves TB Warriors. In an area that includes nearly 3,000,000 people, these TB Warriors will screen for TB, identify cases, provide curative treatment, and offer preventative therapy to close contacts of the ill. We know this Search-Treat-Prevent model is the key to ending tuberculosis, but we hope this project will be both a beacon and a blueprint to show that It’s possible to radically reduce the burden of TB in communities quickly and permanently. It will also, we believe, save many, many lives.

—

I believe we can’t end TB without these kinds of public/private partnerships. After all, that’s how we ended smallpox and radically reduced the global burden of polio. It’s also how we’ve driven down death from malaria and HIV. For too long, TB hasn’t had the kind of government or private support needed to accelerate the fight against the disease, but I really hope that’s starting to change. I’m grateful to USAID for spearheading this project, and also to the Philippine Ministry of Health for showing such commitment and prioritizing TB.

—

One reason this project is even possible: Both the cost of diagnosis (through GeneXpert tests) and the cost of treatment with bedaquiline are far lower than they were a year ago, and that is due to public pressure campaigns, many of which were organized by nerdfighteria. I’m not asking you for money (yet); Hank and I will be funding this in partnership with a few people in nerdfighteria who are making major gifts. But I am asking you to continue pressuring the corporations that profit from the world’s poorest people to lower their prices. I’ve seen some of the budgets, and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping how many more tests and pills are available because of what you’ve done as a community.

—

I don’t yet have the details on which region of the Philippines we’ll be working in, but it will be an area that includes millions of people–perhaps as many as 3 million. And it will include urban, suburban, and rural areas to see the different responses needed to provide comprehensive care in different communities. This will not (to start!) be a nationwide campaign, because even though $80,000,000 is a lot of money, it’s not enough to fund comprehensive care in a nation as large as the Philippines. But we hope that it will serve as a model–to the nation, to the region, and to the world–of what’s possible. 

—

I’m really excited (and grateful) that our community gets to have a front-row seat to see the challenges and hopefully the successes of implementing comprehensive care. Just in the planning, this project has involved so many contributors–NGOs in the Philippines, global organizations like the Partners in Health community, USAID, the national Ministry of Health in the Philippines, and regional health authorities as well. There are a lot of partners here, but they’ve been working together extremely well over the last few months to plan for this project, which will start more or less immediately thanks to their incredibly hard work.

[fakescenariosbeforesleepblog]

Indelible kiss.

König x Fem reader.

König insists he wants to keep your relationship in secret, what a surprise when someone catches a glimpse of your lipstick on his neck.

Warning: grammatical and spelling errors. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.

It was supposed both were training at the same hours, just a coincidence, no one would dare to think about something else, after all, König is your Colonel, he's so serious and professional all the time and he never showed any kind of affection or favoritism for you. He treats you in the same way he treats the rest of the team.

So, why would someone suspect you and him? No one would imagine what happens in those late hours of the night, the gym is actually empty, no one is exercising at these hours.

In fact, no one was awake, except for you and him.

- Don't leave König, stay here.

Both are in your dorm, the door is closed and locked, you prefer to prevent, he doesn't want to be caught.

König leaves every night, just in case someone goes to his dorm and doesn't find him there.

- You know I can't stay Meine Liebling...

He's laying on the bed while your body rests over his. His bare chest is warm and always smells good, you love his perfume, it is addictive, you're looking at him with pleading eyes.

- Soon or later someone will know about this, please just for tonight my love!

- Nein, mein kleiner Engel (my angel) we can't let them know, not yet.

He caressed your body with his big hands, you love to feel his hands on you.

You would like to let everybody know about what happens between you and König, but he insists he prefers to keep it in secret, he thinks it's better when no one poke up the nose, he always has the feeling that people will try to separate you from him because he's probably not good for you.

On the other hand, you think it's better and more enjoyable if everybody knows about it, they will be happy for both of you, your team is like your family, you think it is unfair to hide your relationship from them but since König refuses you've been thinking about other ways to let them know love is in the air.

You already tried, you accidentally forgot a shirt in his dorm, you also left your underwear mixed in his dirty laundry, you put your perfume in his clothes, you even gave him innocent compliments in front of the team, you stole some of his clothes and wore them around the base. You don't know if some of those ideas have worked because no one has tried to ask you.

So this time you will try something else, everybody knows you always have lipstick on, wine or cherry, those are your colours. You're sure everyone knows it.

One of the things König loves the most about you, is that too, your beautiful lips always with those pretty colours.

- Ahhh... Okay, but before you leave can I show you something?

- Of course you can, go on.

You stood up and walked to your desk, you took the lipstick and went to the bathroom, then you went back to the bed and turned on the lamp of your nightstand.

- Do you like it?

- Schatz, you look beautiful, is it new?

You nodded in silence, the way he stares at your lips causes you something hard to explain in words but the feeling between your legs and the butterflies in your stomach are proof enough of how much you enjoy this moment.

You started to plant kisses over his chest, escalating to his neck and face.

- Schatz, I love when you kiss me like this but I really have to go back.

*a kiss on his lips* - okay, go *another kiss* - sleep well baby *another kiss* - I love you...

He kissed you once more and he got out of your bed and dressed up quickly, then he left.

König always gets up early and runs to the shower, this time he was really tired, he woke up a little bit later than usual, he tried to be quick but then, he had a problem, your lipstick is hard to clean.

He tried hard, his skin was irritated.

- Scheisse (shit)

He muttered while looking at himself in the mirror of his bathroom when a familiar voice calls him out of his dorm.

- König, Man, are you ok? We're late... Can I come in?

Horangi always goes to knock at his door and both go to the common area together.

König ran to put his shirt on and unlocked the door.

- Ja, come in.

Horangi opened the door and closed it, König is pretending to be busy fixing his hair and his belt, until he remembered he doesn't have his hood on.

Horangi already noticed the absence of the hood and handed it to König

- Where's your head today colonel?

- I don't know, I got up at the wrong side of the bed.

Before he could put the hood on Horangi noticed a red spot on his friend's neck, that's not a mosquito or spider bite, it's a kiss, a red kiss, the lipstick colour looks familiar to him but he can't remember where he has seen it before.

- What the...? (He muttered)

- What?

- No, nothing, are you ready?

- Ja, let's go.

Both left the room. You were in the common area talking with Roze and other people who were there, nothing special or interesting, you were thinking about how silly you were, you planted kisses all over and forgot that König is always hiding his face and always wears long sleeve shirts.

König and Horangi appeared a few minutes later, you noticed Horangi was observing you a lot, König was giving some instructions for the day when Horangi went to your side and spoke almost in a whisper.

- I know what you did last night.

- What are you talking about?

- I saw your lipstick on König's neck.

You blushed, you really weren't expecting it could work, you looked at him as if you saw a ghost, you obviously couldn't see his face but Horangi is smiling with mischief, you didn't say a word and neither did him, the day continued normally, it was until the meal time, as soon as you appeared in the dining hall's door, all eyes were on you. You sat at the usual table with Horangi, moments later König arrived too, all eyes on him, you feel guilty you know his anxiety will increase thanks to you and your mulishness. Poor könig, he sat and instantly asked why everyone was observing him.

- What's going on?

- Nothing colonel, I think everyone wonders why you have a very familiar red lipstick on you.

You hit horangi down the table, König didn't say nothing, but you can see his eyes, he's shocked.

- Sorry Man, perhaps I mentioned it to the wrong person, now everyone knows about you and y/n.

König sighed and continued eating a piece of apple under the mask. At night you weren't expecting him, you supposed he would be angry, but then he opened your door.

You were looking for your pajama pants, you felt too guilty, you didn't want to see him angry. Then a pair of hands were placed around your waist, warm kisses were placed on your shoulder then your neck.

- Are you not angry?

- Nein, I can't be upset, it was an intelligent move, you knew someone would notice it.

- I'm sorry König, In my defense I never expected it worked.

He laughed, you love when he does it, for you It's a reminder of how happy he is when you're around.

- It was also my fault, I forgot to put my hood on.

Did he... what? You looked at him, you can't believe what he said.

- How is that possible?

- Meine Liebling, you left me exhausted last night... I admit I like the fact that now everybody knows you're mine.

You're blushing, your face looks like a red apple, he doesn't say anything else and kisses you. This man will be the death of you.

[keys-hellscape-1020]

5 times you took care of the 141st, and one time they took care of you

Happy (late) holidays everyone! I hope you enjoy this piece!

Platonic!141st x medic!reader

Warning: Canon typical violence, minor angst, hurt/comfort, medical inaccuracies, military inaccuracies, very minor gore, hospital type settings, minor illness, fainting, brief mentions of vomiting, cursing.

1st

“Need a medic stat!”

You rushed through the battle ground, attempting to make your way to the other side of it. This was made extremely difficult by the large chunks of rubble scattered about, oh and the fact they are at least a dozen people shooting at you.

“Stitch!!”

“Soap I’m on my way, apply pressure I’ll be there soon!” You panted, vaulting over some rubble and sliding to cover to prevent getting shot yourself.

The mission had gone to shit extremely quickly. You were just supposed to get the information and get out, stick together and move quickly. You all were not anticipating bombs being dropped on your heads from enemy aircrafts.

They had scattered you all quickly, as each of you attempted to avoid being hit. It seemed as that was their plan because as soon as you all were split up enemy soldiers surrounded you out of nowhere.

Price has called for an evac, but the lack of non blown up landmarks made it difficult to regroup.

You fired off a few shots into the smoke, praying they found their mark, and took off once more.

Going over and under rubble, left and right, in and out, it felt like you were never going to reach Soap.

Just as you were about to start violently cursing the gods for the situation you were in you saw Soap a few hundred yards off from you. To your surprise he looked to be in alright shape, the lump next to him however you couldn’t say the same for.

“Soap I have visual on you, what’s the situation?”

“The situation is Gaz is bloody shot!!”

Cursing under your breath you moved from your cover once more. Keeping low to the ground, more crawling than running at times, you finally made your way to Soap and Gaz.

Sliding in next to them you got to work. Looking Gaz over, you immediately started treating the biggest and most obvious problem, the bullet wound in his stomach.

Soap had tried his best to stop the bleeding, that much was clear from the soaked gauze packed into the wound, but with the need to return fire he couldn’t keep up with it.

You applied heavy pressure on it, praying that’s enough to keep him alive until he can get to a hospital.

“Price where the hell is that damn evac?!”

“3 minutes out, landing in what used to be the hospital parking lot. I’ve got Ghost with me what’s your status?”

“Me and Soap are alright, Gaz has been shot and is loosing blood fast he needs to get out of here asap!”

“We need to move!” Soap yells at you over his shoulder from where he’s returning fire at the enemy.

You act fast, harshly rubbing Gaz’s sternum to wake him up.

His eyes barely peak open, “Stitchy? What’s goin’ on?” He sounds drunk, which with how much blood he’s lost doesn’t surprise you.

“Hey, hey buddy, stay awake, your badly hurt we need to move.” You chirp, trying to keep your voice light despite the situation. “How you feelin’ bud? Can you talk to me?”

As you speak you rummage through your pocket, sighing in relief when you find what you were looking for, a stim shot and some pain relief.

Gaz had nodded off again in the brief time you weren’t speaking, and you lean in again to speak to him. “Gaz!! Come one buddy, keep your damn eyes open!”

“Stitch!” Soap calls from behind your back, the urgency in his voice can not be ignored.

“I know!” Deciding that you don’t have time to wake him up, you quickly stab the stim shot into his thigh.

That wakes up Gaz with a start. He flinches in pain, his eyes now wide open.

“Welcome back to the world buddy!” You shout at him, quickly injecting him with pain relief and tightening the sloppy bandage around his midsection one last time.

“Soap! Ready to move!” You call to him, hauling Gaz’s arm and part of his body, over your shoulder.

Soap leads the way, ducking behind rubble and returning fire when he can. You both move as quickly as you can, you would be lying if you said you weren’t struggling to keep up. Gaz was already fairly heavy, he also has all his gear on him which did not help your situation at all.

You were falling a bit behind Soap, but you kept hauling both you and Gaz towards him as fast as you could.

You were not going to let either of you die out here.

Finally you both reach the evac sight. Laying eyes on Price and Ghost you feel like you can breath again.

You run up next to where they’re positioned behind a large chunk of rubble. Laying Gaz down with his back to it you go to check his bandages again.

When you glance up to his face you notice that he’s awake. “How ya feelin’ bud?” You shout over the sound of gunfire, applying more pressure to his bleeding wound.

“Like shit.” He quips back.

You struggled to hear him over the sound of gunfire, but you were glad that he was conscious enough to talk to you and process what your saying.

Finally, fucking finally, your hear the sound of what might as well be the holy grail.

The heli lands about 20 yards away from you, cruising down to the ground, before it’s even landed Price is yelling orders.

“Stitch and Gaz move first, the rest of us will cover you from behind!”

You throw Gaz’s arm back over your shoulder and haul him onto his feet, thankfully he’s now awake enough that he can help you instead of you dragging him. Once you reach the heli you throw the top half of his body in, causing him to wince in pain.

“Sorry bud!” You shout over the noise of the chopper, pulling him the rest of the way in. You lean over him, securing him inside the chopper, then lifting up his shirt to check and make sure his bandages are still tight. Thankfully the bleeding has slowed down enough where there is minimal blood visibility through the bandage which makes you breath a sigh of relief.

You feel the heli taking off and you glance over your shoulder to make sure all your boys got onboard in one piece.

“Any other injuries I should know about?” You shout over the sound of the Heli.

“Your gonna have some if you don’t bloody sit down and secure yourself!” Price yells back at you.

You back off sitting yourself down next to Gaz. He was still hurt badly, but at least now he was as stable as you could get him.

All things said?

That was a shit show.

2nd

You hummed as you fluttered around the med bay busily. Moving from one spot to the other, carefully taking inventory with your trusty clipboard in hand.

You were truly in your element, everything was calm, orderly, and you were free to just do your job without any interruptions.

The door to the infirmary swung open, hitting the wall with a bang! In came Ghost, dragging a whining Soap behind him.

Ghost looked seriously pissed off, his eyebrows were noticeably furrowed under his balaclava and his shoulders were hunched. If you were to rely on context clues the only reason Soap was here was because of Ghost’s firm grip on his bicep.

“Can I help you?” You ask, face completely dead-pan.

Ghost doesn’t respond, just roughly pushes Soap towards you. Now that you have a better look at him you can see that his shoulder looks… wrong to say the least.

“What did you do this time?” You sigh, walking over to grab Soap by his ear.

“Owww” Soap whines “Sure! Pick on the injured person why don’t ya?”

“How do you always get injured at base but never on missions?” You taunt, pulling Soap over to the nearest available gurney.

You gesture for him to sit down on the bed, and when you turn around you notice Ghost, still standing where you left him.

“Either sit down or leave Ghost, there’s no lurking in my medical bay.” You say, grabbing what you need to treat Soap.

Returning to Soap you gently push him down on his non-injured shoulder. “Y’know if you wanted me like this you could’ve just asked.” Soap taunts with a wink, prompting you to sigh.

Thankfully he’s in a tank top or you would have to cut off his shirt, you know from personal experience with treating him that when you have to do that he makes plenty of comments.

“Alright, this is probably gonna hurt like a bitch, don’t punch me.” You say as you put Soaps arm in the proper position for realignment.

“Wouldn’t dream of it la- OW WHAT THE FUCK.”

“All done” you quip, pulling off your gloves. You look back over your shoulder to see Ghost has moved to the foot of the gurney.

“What were you two even doing?” You ask, putting your supplies away and getting different ones out.

“Fuckin” “Sparing” They say at the same time.

You should’ve know better than to ask.

3rd

You can’t believe this. You can’t believe your boys. You knew they could be stupid sometimes but this is next level!

Thankfully most of them had gotten away with minor injuries, and somehow you had gotten out without a scratch, despite not even knowing the plan before they decided to execute it.

Soap and Ghost had only bumps and bruises, somehow, considering they were in the thick of their stupid plan. Gaz had a few scrapes and a sprained ankle, but you patched him up then set him off with a crutch and a promise to go easy on it. And the captain? You don’t even know how he managed it considering he’s supposed to be the smart one, but he broke his leg.

So now you are in the med bay, essentially holding your own captain hostage (not like he could get very far if he did decide to run off).

He is not a good patient. None of your boys are. He complains about being there, says how he wants to leave and how he wishes he could do things for himself. You understand that, but the best thing for him at the moment is rest, and he seems adamant on not taking it.

“Stitch”

“If you ask me if you can leave again I’m smacking you.” You say while walking over to him.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way for me to go get food is there?” He asks, looking far to innocent for his own good. He’s planning something. You just know it.

“I’ll call one of the boys to bring you something up.” You quip, already walking away, intent on y’know, doing your job.

“Stitch” You hear him call as soon as you walk away.

“Yes sir?” You question, turning around to stare him dead in the eyes.

“How long until I get out of this hell hole?”

“Until your leg heals or you get put on leave.”

“Leave?” He sounds actually startled at that proposition, prompting you to walk closer to him.

“Just for a few months sir, until your leg heals.” You soothe. As quick as the startled look in his eyes appeared it was gone. Masked down under his cool captain facade.

“You can have a few months of uninterrupted down time with your husband. Doesn’t that sound nice?” You ask, walking over to stand next to him, setting your hand on the knee of his uninjured leg.

“Have you met yourselves? You all will get killed without me here!” He exclaims, running a hand through his beard in exasperation.

“You’re one to talk sir.” You say deadpan. “Trust me the boys will be fine. They will be better off without you for a few months than they will be if they see you constantly cooped up in here.”

“Stitch, nothing good can possibly come from me not being here!”

“Sir,” you quip as you sit on the side of his gurney, “you need to give them more credit. They’re smart, strong, soldiers, and if you order them to they’ll hold themselves together until you return.”

“You think they can’t behave unless their ordered?” Price smirks.

“What can I say, I know them to well.”

“Hard to argue with that.”

4th

You woke up to a thudding in your head.

Thud, thud, thud.

Thud, thud, knock.

Knock, knock, knock.

As you come to, your groggy self realizes that loud, obtrusive noise is not coming from within your head, but outside it. You go to answer the door, (tripping over your blankets on the floor in the process) and find Ghost standing behind it.

You realize with a start that he’s in civvies, and has replaced his balaclava with a simple black face mask. While this should’ve been expected, it still comes as a surprise to you. They look unnatural on him.

“Ghost? What are you doing here?” You ask, trying not to scream on account of it being 3 am.

He nudges you to the side, walking in so you can close the door, and it’s then that you notice that his black shirt is getting even darker with blood.

“Ghost, what the fuck.” You sigh, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards your couch. “Stay here, I’ll be right back with first aid.”

You run to the bathroom, fling open the cabinet under the sink to grab the first aid kit and run back.

“If you ran like that during missions we might have to cover you less.” Ghost muttered.

“Oh shut up, what did you even DO.” You ask, pulling up his shirt with a pad of gauze ready in your other hand to staunch the bleeding.

You find the culprit quickly, a long but shallow gash along his side. It would need stitches, but thankfully you could do that here.

“How’s it look doc?” He mumbles, barely legible.

“You’ll be fine after some stitches but how did you even do this? We’re on leave.” You question, absolutely exasperated. You all were on leave and you still couldn’t catch a break from your idiot boys.

His response is mearly to grunt and look away from you.

“Alright then, well I’ll go ahead and clean it up for you alright?” You mutter.

You go through the motions, this is something you’ve done a million times. Clean, antiseptic, stitches, bandage, done.

As your putting everything away you notice Ghost is staring at the floor, and something about him feels… off.

As you go to put the first aid kit away you nudge his foot with yours, “You feelin’ alright bud? You can stay the night if you need.”

“‘M fine” he mutters, still not making eye contact.

“Wow that was convincing.” You dead pan as you walk away from him to go put up your first aid kit.

When you return to his side you gently rest your hand on his shoulder and say, “Listen, I don’t know what happened but you can stay here as long as you need. I gave you all this address for emergencies after all.”

He eyes you, before reaching up to your hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze, “Thanks Stitch”.

“Anytime.”

5th

You are starting to believe you’ve done something to piss off the gods.

You have just gotten back from leave and already the rest of your task force is sick. It started with Soap, who had come back to base with it, except he insisted it was nothing and went about training like he normally does. Him refusing to rest like you told him to led to him getting Ghost sick, not a surprise with how much they… “hang out.”

Next was Gaz, who despite you telling him not to, was adamant about treating them. When he inevitably fell to the illness he went whining about it to Price, who despite his best efforts, still got it. You suspect if he hadn’t still been trying to get his leg back to what it was before he broke it he could’ve outran him.

And then there was you. The sole survivor.

For some reason all of them had decided to wallow in your room, something about Soap insisting it had “healing properties” because your a medic. You told him to get out. He didn’t listen.

Gaz had curled up in your bed, Price had taken the couch, Soap curled up in your arm chair, and Ghost took the rug.

You were going to do so much cleaning once you managed to get these fuckers out.

But for now, you had to be in medic mode. So you went in. Armed with a face mask, gloves, everything antiseptic you could get your hands on, you started your plan: get the sick bastards out of my room.

The first step was making them feel better, so you decided on a classic sick food; chicken noodle soup.

You pushed the door to your room open with your back, on account of you carrying a heavy tray with 4 bowls of soup.

“Hiya boys, how are you feeling?” You chirped, setting the tray down on your desk. “I brought dinner if your feeling up to it.”

Much to your amusement Soaps head immediately shot up at the promise of food. “What did ya bring?” He rasped, the poor thing had lost most of his voice when he got ill and he was only now starting to get it back.

“Chicken noodle soup, although I’m not sure the bastard who started this whole mess should get any.” You quipped, even though you were actively handing him a bowl.

“Thank ya kindly.” He mumbled as he took the bowl from you. As far as your boys went Soap was the closest to looking like his regular self. Yes he didn’t have much of a voice, and his energy was way down from normal, but he was the least pale, and obviously the one with the most appetite.

“Anybody else want any?” You asked, glancing about your room turned sick bay.

From the corner of your room you saw Price weakly raise his hand from the couch. “Geez dramatic much?” You snorted out a laugh while handing him his bowl.

“Don’t bully the ill Stitch.” Gaz huffs from your bed.

“Your in my room, I’ll bully as much as I please.” You huffed “Now do you want soup?”

You saw Gaz lift his head to look at the soup questioningly before shrugging and nodding yes.

Once you had one bowl of soup left you looked down at the dark puddle on your rug. “Ghost, dinner time.” You chirped.

“Leave me to my death.” He moaned back at you.

“Oh you’re hardly dying, here sit up and eat something you’ll feel better.” As you spoke you gently crouched down to him and started repeatedly poking him on the shoulder.

“What do you want you heathen” he muttered as he finally sat up, only to have a bowl of soup forced into his hands.

“Eat.” You said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care.”

Reluctantly Ghost pulled up his mask to his nose and began to eat his soup, with everyone fed you looked around to see if anyone was done.

Like you expected, Soap was already done and Gaz was about 2/3 of the way through his. Time for step 2, probably the hardest part: Medicine.

You walked over to your desk and looked through the bag you’d brought in with the tray. You were muttering curses under your breath when you finally found it. A bottle of NyQuil. Not only will it help their colds, it’ll also knock them out so you won’t have to deal with them! Win win! Looking over at Soap you decided he would be your first target.

Loading up a spoon with the liquid you carefully step over to Soap, trying to not set off any of his alarm bells.

“Can I take your bowl?” You ask him, making sure to have a normal tone that doesn’t give away your true intentions.

“Sure, thank ya.” He rasped handing you his bowl. Before he could fully take his hand off the bowl you whisked the bowl away and shoved the spoonful of medicine into his hand.

He stared at the spoon like it was poison, “Stitch, what IS this?” He questioned.

“Medicine.” You quipped back. “It’ll make you feel better. Maybe if you take it you can insist on training again to go infect more people.”

Soap let out a raspy groan, but despite his previous complaint he swallowed the medicine, making a comical face after tasting it, and handed the spoon back to you.

Your next, “victims” as you choose to call them, didn’t put up much of a fight.

Gaz didn’t complain once he realized you weren’t leaving him alone until he took it, and Price took it without a word. Overall, a pretty positive experience. Your next challenger however would be much more difficult.

You eye up Ghost, and decide at this point attempting to be stealthy is pointless, he’s already seen you carry out your plan, and thus you approach him with your ammo loaded spoon fearlessly.

“No.” He groans, voice muffled from how he’s laying face first in your rug.

“Ghost, it’ll make you feel better.” You try, but the mountain man simply acts as if he didn’t hear you. You start repeatedly nudging him with your foot, over and over and over again until finally he picks his head up to look at you.

You can’t see much of him because of the mask, but from what you can see his eyes are much more puffy and red than normal, and anyone could notice the subtle rasp to his voice that’s not normally there.

“You need to take the medicine.” You spoke calmly, like you were talking to a cranky toddler. “It’ll make you feel better. Plus everyone else already took theirs.”

“Well they’re weak.” He groaned, and yet he still snatched the spoon from you, shoved the medicine in his mouth, and then threw it back at you.

“Dramatic much.” You whispered to yourself, getting up to put everything away.

If there’s one thing you got from this experience it’s this:

You work with literal children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1st

You felt like shit.

Not that you plan on letting that fact be known.

You’ve been attempting to put on some blush and concealer for the last 30 minutes in an attempt to make yourself look more alive. Your only responsibility today is a meeting to discuss your next mission so while it’s technically against dress code you don’t think anyone will notice, or if they do notice you doubt they will care.

Your body however seems to be stubbornly rebelling against your master plan to seem healthy. Your attempts to stand at your desk and put on makeup keep being thwarted as your head pounds any time you stand up and your vision blurs.

Despite your bodies valiant attempts to incapacitate you, you did manage to get your makeup on, put your clothes on, and get out the door.

Once you hobbled your way into the meeting room you saw that everyone was already there, as you took much longer than expected getting ready, which led to you being late.

“Damn Stitch you look… rough.” Gaz commented with a wince.

“Shut it.” You muttered, your voice already half gone.

When you woke up this morning you knew you were in for a hell of a week. You throat hurt like hell, and your voice was nearly gone. You kept coughing and sneezing and your head hurt horribly. All the same symptoms of what your boys had.

Despite your best efforts to get them out they had ended up staying for nearly a week. Soap left after about 2 days of rest, as he had it before the chaos started, but even with their ring leader gone the rest stayed put, with little signs of recovery. Due to this, your constant cleaning in between bouts of caring for them was futile, and 2 days after they recovered, it seems the inevitable happened. You caught it.

You sat with a thud in your normal seat next to Gaz, nodding at Price. “Sorry I’m late sir.” You grunted, barely able to get the words out.

“Are you feelin’ alright?” He asked, eyes narrowed at you suspiciously.

“Never better.” You lied.

Price was still eyeing you with suspicion, but he turned to begin the meeting anyway.

Nothing much of note happened during the meeting, except the fact that Gaz kept giving you looks of increasing concern, and every time you let out a muffled cough Ghost gave you a death stare. Soap looked at you more than Price for the whole meeting, despite him getting told off numerous times.

At the end of the meeting you moved to get up to retreat to your room, but as soon as you rose your head started spinning aggressively, the world blurred into one large mass of color, and then black.

~

You woke up with a start. Sitting up and immediately backing into the nearest corner you assessed your surroundings.

You were in your room, and the lack of light coming through the window let you know it was night. You must have slept a while as it was still morning when your meeting ended. Upon feeling a weight tighten on your waist you looked down and felt your cheeks grow warm.

Gaz was curled up right next to you, his arm wrapped around your waist. He was sleeping peacefully next to you, his body curled slightly. You thought it safe to assume he was curled around you until you shot up.

Looking around the room you saw the rest of your boys spread around. Ghost was lying peacefully on your rug (honestly you found his obsession with it a little concerning), with Soap half on top of him. Price was laying on your couch with his god-awful hat on his face, presumably to block out the nonexistent light.

Your thoughts were interrupted by a bout of violent coughing. Your lungs felt like stress balls as they were squeezed under the muscles of your chest, and in one violent motion you swung yourself out of bed and rushed towards the bathroom.

As you emptied your stomach contents into the toilet bowl you felt someone wipe away the sweat on your forehead and crouch down next to you.

“That’s it, get it all out.” You heard Soap mumble next to you.

As your stomach finished emptying itself and you spat into the toilet into an attempt to get the taste out of your mouth Soap gently leaned over to wipe your mouth for you.

You sat back on your haunches with your eyes closed, breathing heavily. You creaked your eyes when you heard multiple pairs of footsteps quickly approaching the door.

Ghost stood directly behind Soap, looking at you with poorly masked concern. Next to him, with a death grip on his elbow, was Gaz, who was not even trying to mask his concern at your state. Behind both of them peered Price, and while he displayed a glare on his face, you knew him well enough to know that was his way of showing concern.

“Respectfully Stitch, what the fuck?” Soap gently said next to you.

Instead of actually responding like all of your years of training and experience are screaming at you to do, your emotions take over and you start violently sobbing.

You feel miserable. You head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton, your throat is on fire, all your limbs feel weighed down with lead, you can’t even stay awake long enough to walk to your own room and now your emotional state is such shit your violently crying in front of all of your boys.

The first one to react is Soap, who instantly tightly pulls you into a hug. The next is Gaz, who rushed over to tackle you- gently! In a hug. Price awkwardly walked over to sling an arm around you as well, and Soap turned around to grab Ghost by his ankle and drag him in.

“I-I’m sorry.” You gasped out between sobs.

In response to your statement Soap and Gaz’s arms tightened around you, pulling you impossibly closer.

Finally, Price spoke. “Alright crowding em’ isn’t gonna help anything. Soap make sure they brush their teeth then get them the fuck to bed. Ghost, grab the medicine they gave us and anything else that might help. Gaz make sure they have water and a Gatorade on their nightstand. I’m gonna run to medical and get them some anti-nausea medication.”

Hearing that your boys all scurried off to follow orders.

Soap carefully raised you up, and made sure you had steadied yourself against the counter before releasing you. He grabbed your toothbrush for you and put a generous amount of toothpaste on it. After he handed it to you and made sure you were good he started busying himself with anything he thought needed a bit of tidying around your bathroom. Which was apparently a lot.

As he worked he spoke lowly, “Gave us all quite a fright there. Thought you were hurt for a moment and rushed ya to the med bay. They told us you were just ill and had us bring ya to your room.”

You spat out your toothpaste and muttered between sniffles, “sorry.”

As you cleaned off your toothbrush and your mouth Soap approached you and pulled you in tight. “I know we annoy the hell out of you with our recklessness, but I don’t know what I would do without ya. You’re the glue that holds us all together, without ya’ we all would be dead 10 times over.”

As Soaps little speech ended someone cleared their throat behind you, prompting you to turn around.

There stood Gaz, leaning against the doorframe. “He’s right y’know.” He said softly, slowly approaching you. “We would fall apart without you. And if keeping you in good shape means tending to you while your vulnerable like you do for us so well, then we will do it happily.”

“Gaz, you all gonna make me cry again.” You sniffled, rubbing harshly at your eyes.

His eyes grew wide at that and quickly pulled you into another hug, “Please no.”

“Alright, alright. We need to get ‘em to bed. Let em’ rest and what not.” Soap said gently pulling you from Gaz.

“Right right.” And with that Gaz gently took your hand leading you towards your bed. Soap followed closely behind, keeping a hand on your shoulder the whole time, like he was scared you would fall over again (not that you can blame him).

As they settled you in Price came in through the door, carrying a bucket and a small pill in his other hand.

“Alright, this bucket is incase you get sick again.” He said, setting it down next to your nightstand. “And this pill is for your nausea.”

He handed you the pill and the glass of water Gaz had gotten for you earlier. As you took the pill Ghost finally walked over with the medicine he has taken way to long to find.

“Alright here ya go.” Ghost said, attempting to hand you the spoon once you took the pill.

You however, were apparently not sick enough to not cause problems on purpose as you leaned comically far away from the spoon.

When Ghost gave you a pointed look you simply shrugged and said “Revenge bitch.” Before grabbing the spoon and taking the medicine.

“Alright I think that’s everything.” Price started, “We’ll leave you alone now and let you rest. Come on boys.”

As they moved to leave something came over you, making you call out to them, “Wait, uh please wait. Can… can you all stay? Please?” As you spoke you curled up further into your blankets, attempting to hide yourself in them.

Soap was the first to react to your question. “Aww sure Stichey, of course we’ll stay!” He smirked, practically prancing over to you to playfully ruffle your hair.

You scoffed, already regretting your decision, and rolled over to face the wall muttering, “forget it.”

“No no no.” Gaz said, quickly walking over to you, making sure to give Soap a good smack on the back of his head on the way. “If you want us to stay we can stay. It’s the least we can do. Right?” At that last word he shot a pointed glare towards the other members of the 141st, who all made varying gestures of agreement.

With that figured out your boys all settled in. Gaz practically latched onto you, pulling you to his chest and tucking your head under his chin. Soap, feeling extremely left out, decided to snuggled into your back, wrapping his arms around your waist and nuzzling at the back of your neck. Soap waved Ghost over and with a sigh he slid his legs under everyone else’s and leaned half against Soap, half against the wall.

“Well looks like I can’t fit- what a shame,” Price began, only to have the back of his shirt grabbed by Gaz who proceeded to practically throw him over everyone onto Ghost, who promptly threw him off. He eventually settled in next to Ghost, half leaning on him, his legs fully intertwined with everyone else’s.

Once everyone was settled you felt incredibly comfortable. Your boys were all around you, and while yes, you still felt like shit, their heat and comfort more than made up for it.

The most important thing you got from this experience?

Your boys may be annoying sometimes, but there is nothing they wouldn’t do for you.

[obsidiangx]

cyberpunk at its core is about speculative dystopia. fantastical developments that should benefit society but exist in a system fundamentally designed to beat people down. alluring transhumanism imprisoned by money, class, and other axes of oppression. it's about the real world issue of new and exciting technology corrupted by the world that produces it.

armored core stands out against the common war stories in mecha. it's about gig workers risking their lives thanklessly to kill poor people just to survive and get ahead. even while the entire system around them crumbles

dorohedoro is a story about a stratified society where incredible magic that could be shared to benefit others is used in petty arguments and 'experiments' on those treated as subhuman. it's about how hierarchy creates struggle for everyone, but the blood and tears always runs down to the bottom.

i do love the basic cyberpunk aesthetic. the edgerunners kind, the blade runner kind, like ghost in the shell and gunnm. sci-fi, cybernetics, robots and cities are dear to me. but when you put on the skin of a dystopian genre without knowing what the bones look like, you make something that isn't just bad. it's insulting.

i live here. i know how it goes. the robot dogs are cops and my smartphone was obsolete when i bought it. the air quality is garbage and my health is a mess because my government treats corporations more like people than me, even though we can magically cure or prevent almost any ailment. there are more vacant houses than homeless people. it's theft to take food out of the garbage.

cyberpunk is a city full of vacant buildings and streets full of poor people. it's a raspberry pi duct taped to a cybernetic arm to intercept advertisements before they reach your brain. it's a gig economy that forces you to work overtime just to get paid enough to eat. isn't it frustrating? isn't it frustrating that we have to live like this? flying cars, body augments, virtual reality, and we still live like this.

[disabirbity]

What are some things other psychotics do to differentiate between hallucination and reality? And what are ways some of you hold off symptoms? Looking to get a nice thread for people to help each other going here, this stuff isn't posted about enough.

Ways we prevent symptoms/stop them from progressing:

Make background noise to prevent auditory hallucinations. Most of ours start by hearing something that we can't identify the cause of in the background, and our brain starts the spiral from there. So we listen to music all the time and sleep with a fan on every single night, even in the winter. We just point it away from us if we don't want it making us cold.

Blame the cat (or other pets). Any weird movement, scratching, crunching or thumping? That's just Jerry, don't worry about it. He's a silly cat that does cat things even while we're sleeping. Any noise can be blamed on pets or the wind, which stops the paranoia from setting in and making everything bad.

We also tell ourselves that if there was an actual issue like an intruder or monster, the cat would hiss or scream, and the dog would be barking or making noise. This can be applied to many pets.

Stay busy. Focus on something--art, video games, tv shows and films, craft, gardening, anything that keeps you thinking. Don't let the anxiety get to you, just stay focused on your regular life.

Laugh at it. You're hallucinating a monster in your peripheral vision? Name it Fred and tell him to pay rent. You hear weird noises? Tell them to come back with a warrant. For us, treating symptoms like they're jokes or not serious makes us less anxious and therefore makes it easier to get back to a point where we're okay.

Having a friend or a pet near you can help. We feel safer and less alone when we see another living thing near us that's safe. We don't feel as much like we're trapped in another dimension that way.

How we differentiate between reality and unreality:

Touch it. This one only works for things you're not scared of, and if you don't have tactile hallucinations. It's not foolproof! But when we're seeing things like bugs and stuff, reaching out to touch them causes them to fade away so we know they're fake.

Ask friends and other trusted people if they "heard that" or "saw anything". If they're psychosis friendly, feel free to explain and be specific. If not, be vague and keep it to simple things like "hey did you hear anything? I couldn't tell what it was", if that will be safe enough. Having people to ground you can be great.

Look at how others around you are acting. Are they running or interacting with the thing in question in any way? Do they seem to look at it or no? If no one is noticing, it's less likely to be real.

These won't work for everyone and some of these might be harmful to others, but they're helpful to us. You know best what will help you!

Please feel free to add your own! We need more discussion around psychosis that isn't "scary evil person disorder and how to deal with people who have it".